HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (64 page)

Before leaving,
Mentor stood looking down on the woman. Her face was a little more
square and her eyes a little more Oriental, but she did remind him of
his beloved Patrice. It was as if Patrice had come back and
incarnated into this small Japanese woman—if only he could
believe in reincarnation—which he couldn't. Over the years he'd
walked the Earth, he'd never had any proof such a thing existed.
Still . . . Bette Kinyo bore such a strong resemblance in so many
ways. She awakened in him all the old memories, his old feeling of
love and tenderness for a woman.

He reached down and
brushed the damp hair from her high forehead. He bent from the waist
and pressed his lips there, feeling her warmth, tasting the slightly
tangy fresh soap scent that lingered on her skin. He whispered, "I
hope never to see you again. I don't want to love you.'

And then he was
gone, vanishing from the room, going in search of Alan Star, the man
who would take his fantastic story about vampires back to Houston to
a desperate employer eager to believe him.

Ross communicated
at a distance, just as Mentor was leaving Bette's house and entering
the atmosphere beyond her roof as no more than a wisp of shadow.

"Did you do
it?" Ross inquired on a mental wavelength.

"Yes, yes,
it's done," Mentor lied, hoping Ross would not discover the man
had got away. No one could ever lie to a vampire except another of
his kind, one with the power to make it stick. Mentor always tried to
be truthful, but he found himself breaking all the rules with Ross.

Mentor left Bette's
house and sailed south, flying high above the city like a passing
breeze, relishing the feeling of freedom he always experienced when
transformed from human flesh into nothing more than molecules of
energy.

20

Alan gnawed at
worry all the way to Houston. He had begged Bette to come with him.
He didn't want to leave her alone. She resisted. "I'm not a
child, Alan. I can take care of myself now I know what I'm dealing
with," she'd said.

Alan left before
she woke, debating whether he should wake her and try again to
convince her to accompany him. But he knew Bette well. Once her mind
was made up, there was no moving her.

He drove directly
from Dallas through the dark morning light to Charles Upton's
building in downtown Houston. It was late morning when he arrived,
and his stomach growled hungrily. The Styrofoam cup of coffee he'd
purchased at a gas station sat in his midsection like a roiling sea
of acid. He found a bottle of Tums in the car pocket and shook three
into the palm of his hand. He chewed them on the elevator ride up to
Upton's penthouse.

It wasn't the empty
stomach that caused his real discomfort. He didn't really want to
make this report to Upton. He had left the penthouse weeks before
believing he was on a wild goose chase for a demented billionaire.
And now he was returning with news that the old man was right. There
were vampires walking the land—at least that was how it looked.
He couldn't be sure. He had to make Upton understand that.

Lately it had
seemed to Alan that reality was rapidly shifting. It wasn't just the
fact he'd stumbled upon the lair of what appeared to him to be a
murderous vampire or that a spiritlike, shape-shifting being had come
to Bette and made her forget she was interested in Strand-Catel's
blood shipments. No, there were other things going on in the world
and being reported by top news agencies that completely baffled Alan.

On the car radio
he'd been listening to on the way to Houston he'd heard a report of a
UFO in the sky above a farmhouse in Alabama. The farmer had run
outside with a video camera. What he taped was being reported as
straight fact. The video apparently showed a huge circle of bright
light illuminating the farm as it passed over, and once it passed
there was deep darkness in the sky, like a black hole, blotting out
the stars behind it.

That was odd
enough. UFOs reported as if real. Were they? Could they be? If so,
what did it say about reality and life on Earth?

On the same news
broadcast was a report from China that a "Bigfoot" type
creature had been sighted. Left behind were sixteen-inch footprints
and tufts of tangled hair.

Either the world
was changing, allowing these phenomena that seemed downright bizarre,
or else humankind was going insane, maybe suffering from some sort of
mass hysteria.

Is that what
affected me? he wondered, as the elevator door opened onto Upton's
suite. Am I hysterical and about to report as truth some kind of
momentary psychosis that happened while I was outside the big ranch
windows?

Upton's very
proper, very British butler was waiting for him. Alan had called
before he left Bette's house, saying he was on his way.

"Mr. Upton is
waiting to see you, sir," he said, leading Alan through the
rooms to the massive bedroom. Upton was propped on pillows in the
bed, as he usually was, but his color was high and there was
excitement evident in his pale, watery eyes.

Upton threw back
the sheet and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He sat straight
and looked stronger than Alan had ever seen him.

"Alan! Come
in, come in. Are you hungry? You look famished. Please bring Dr. Star
some breakfast," Upton commanded his butler.

"Yes, sir."

Alan watched the
butler bow formally before leaving the room, presumably to tell the
cook to make a meal for him. His mouth watered at the thought of
bacon and eggs, and his stomach churned. He burped behind his hand.
"Sorry," he said. His mouth tasted of chalk from the
indigestion tablets. He frowned.

"Well, sit
down. Tell me the news. You found them, didn't you? You wouldn't come
here right from Dallas if you didn't have something for me."

"I do have
something for you," Alan said, taking one of the ornate French
chairs near the bedside. God, how he dreaded telling the old man
anything. He sensed something bad would happen once he did. Something
he couldn't even predict and most certainly would not like.

Upton clapped his
hands together in a prayerful attitude. "I knew it. I knew they
were out there. I've dreamed about them, you know. It's as if I'm
walking with them in my sleep. I see a big one, just monstrously
huge, bearing down on victims in a very dark wooded area where there
is a red moon. Can you imagine? It's so real I wake weeping and
shaking, scared to death. Because in the dream, or nightmare, if you
will, the monster turns on me, finds me hiding, and comes my way. But
you don't want to hear about my silly dreams. Tell me, what did you
find?"

Alan shivered from
the cold air-conditioning vent that blew frigid air down the back of
his collar. "I first interviewed the manager of a blood bank in
Dallas where there have been some odd shipments out of the city
across the state. I was deliberately lied to and misdirected."

"Yes, yes . .
."

"Then I
followed a man. It's a long story, but he was suspicious and he
seemed to have something to do with the blood bank situation. He went
outside of the city. Walking. I had to leave my car and walk, too, to
follow. It was night and pretty spooky. He went for miles and then
there was a big ranch. He went up to the house."

Upton still had his
hands pressed together tightly before his lips. His eyes glittered
and behind his hands Alan could see the rictus of his frozen smile.
He continued, "When the man I followed left, I stayed behind a
few minutes, looking through the ranch house windows. I saw . . ."

"Yes, yes!"

"Murder."

Upton's hands
lowered from his face. He gripped the covers around him. His eyes
blazed now. "What kind of murder?"

"That's what
I've come to tell you. The man inside the house didn't use a weapon."

"No?"

"He tore out
the throats of two women with his . . . teeth."

Upton sucked in a
big breath and held it.

Alan continued,
"Then he . . . he seemed to . . .”

“
He drained
them of their blood."

"Yes,"
Alan said, glad he hadn't had to say it.

"You're sure?"

"I was
standing right outside the window. I had to stumble away and throw
up, it made me so sick.”

“
He didn't
see you?"

"No."

"So what did
you do then?"

"I hurried
back to where I had my car parked. The man I'd followed had
disappeared. In fact, even as I watched him on the road he seemed to
. . . disappear. When I got back into town and found a phone, I
called the police."

"You did
what?" Upton fairly leaped from the bed. His back straightened,
his hands flew up, his immovable face showed great shock through wide
open eyes. "How could you do a thing like that?"

"But it was
murder. I saw . . ."

"If you
believe you saw a vampire who killed two people, didn't you stop to
consider that by reporting him you were letting him know he'd been
observed? Are you out of your mind?"

Alan didn't like
the direction the conversation had taken. Upton, so elated, now
appeared to be about to have heart attack. He was frantic, clawing
his way from the bed, scooting his skinny old legs around until he
could slip his feet into black velveteen house slippers. He staggered
as he stood. "You have done a terrible thing by calling the
authorities. You've let the vampire know someone was there. He'll
find you."

"Oh, I don't
think . . ."

"He'll find
you!" Upton screamed. "And if he finds you, he finds me!
What have you done?"

Alan stood,
overwhelmed by Upton's fury. When Upton advanced on him, he began to
retreat to the bedroom door. "I don't see why you're so upset.
He didn't see me, didn't even know I was there so he wouldn't know
who I was, who called the cops."

"Oh, God, you
are so naive and ignorant. Didn't you read the material I sent with
you? Don't you know what you're dealing with? I never thought you'd
do something so stupid."

"Look here,
calling me names is uncalled for. I did what you wanted."

"Yes! You
found vampires. Yes! But you ruined it by reporting them. Now either
the authorities will find out something, or the vampire you
discovered will hunt you down."

"That's
ridiculous. How would he know . . . ?”

“
He's a
vampire, Alan. Think about it. He'll know. And he'll come for you and
anyone you told. He'll come for me."

Alan thought of
Bette. He had told her first. Was there anything to what the raving
Upton was saying to him? Could he be correct? Oh, Jesus, oh, hell, he
had to get back to Dallas; he had to warn Bette.

Then it occurred to
Alan he was behaving just as crazily as Upton. Hell, he might have
been mistaken in what he'd glimpsed through the ranch-house windows.
He might have had some kind of medical condition that made him fall
into a trance or dreamlike state where he imagined the things he saw.
Was he now firmly in control of his faculties and, if so, how could
he possibly believe he'd witnessed the acts of a vampire? All his
education and training told him there couldn't possibly be such a
creature.

Upton's butler
entered carrying a tray of fragrant food. Bacon, ham, eggs, grits,
toast, orange juice, coffee. Upton said, "Put that down and help
me dress."

Alan stood by,
unsure what to do. Had he been dismissed?

"Are you . . .
are you leaving?" Alan asked.

"Of course I'm
leaving. If you're being hunted, I'll be found, too. I can't imagine
it would take the creature long to get to us. I don't want to die at
the hands of the vampire. I want to find one to help me. I have to go
away now, where you won't know where I am, so he can't trace me
through you."

Alan began to make
for the door. Upton was just as insane as he'd ever been. It had
evidently rubbed off.

"I'll call
you," Upton shouted. "I want you to go back and find me
another one, one less powerful, a young one. Do you hear me? If you
want this grant, you'll do as I tell you."

Alan felt for one
instant like turning and telling the old man to take his grant money
and stuff it where the sun didn't shine. But the impulse passed. He
said instead, without turning to face the old man, "I'll do what
I can."