HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (75 page)

"It won't,"
Ross said, reading Mentor's thoughts. "He has to be put down."

"All you ever
want to do is kill."

Ross stepped close
to a hedge growing at sidewalk's edge, reached down quickly, and came
up with a silky, long-haired white cat. It spit and clawed at him,
instinctively knowing it had been trapped and now was prey. “I
don't kill for fun," Ross said, slipping one hand around the
cat's head to break its neck. "Just for the blood of it."

Mentor reached out
and held Ross' wrist. "Let it go. You're just testing me. It's
tiresome."

Ross looked him in
the eye and loosened his fist. The cat fell to its feet and scampered
away like a flash of silver in the darkness. "You're no fun at
all. You're the prissiest Predator who was ever made."

Mentor laughed, his
laughter booming out from deep in his chest, and it made him feel
almost human. "Prissy, am I?" He laughed more, laughed so
hard it brought a smile to Ross' full, red lips.

"And not only
that, but you're old and incredibly wrinkled and look like a sack of
bones. When are you going to drop that suit of flesh and get one that
won't scare birds from the trees?"

When Mentor left
him, Ross headed into a violent Fort Worth barrio where gangs drew
blood every night of the week. He would prey there, taking some young
buck and draining him dry before dropping him into a dumpster or a
ditch. "I hate that stuff we call blood in the blood bank,"
he said, leaving Mentor. "It's colored water compared to the
real thing. You ought to try it again sometime. Maybe you wouldn't
act so grouchy."

Mentor shook his
head and went on his way into the heart of Dallas, moving slowly
toward Charles Upton. Work to do, always there was work to do.

~*~

George answered the
door. He bowed his head and led Mentor inside to wait in a
comfortable room overflowing with rich gilt, ornate cornices, a
hammered tin ceiling, and a dead fireplace filled with a vase of
lilacs. Where Charles had found lilacs Mentor could not fathom. They
must have been trucked in from some northern clime where the heat did
not kill them.

"Hello, and
how are you?" Charles asked, bustling into the room like a man
half his age. "I don't have much time, I have a phone call
coming in a few minutes."

"We have to
talk, Charles. Forget the business." He noticed a faint smear of
blood on the old man's cheek. He wondered about it, but dared not
probe the other vampire's mind just yet.

"We have
nothing to talk about. You do your job, and I'll do mine. Now if
you'll excuse me . . ." He turned to leave, dismissing Mentor.

"Come back
here." Mentor did not raise his voice, but his command could not
be disobeyed when he sent it with the power of his mind.

Charles turned
slowly. "I don't like you coming here," he said. "I
didn't like you with me when I died, and I haven't liked you any
better since. You shouldn't even be allowed to call yourself vampire.
All you want to do is help people. It's a weakness I really despise."

"You and
several others," Mentor said, thinking of Ross. At least Ross
could be made to listen to reason—either with talk or with
battle—but he feared Upton could not.

"All right,
all right, what do you want? You're wasting my time."

"What do you
plan to do, Upton? Take over the world? And what's that blood doing
on your face? Have you been killing?"

Upon squinted his
eyes. All his sores had healed, strength returned to his muscles, and
even his face had relaxed, though his lips had long since forgotten
how to smile with genuine feeling. He stalked closer, his fists
balled at his sides. "I kill when I want to. You can't stop me.
I'll take over the world if I want, too. Do you hear me, Mentor? When
it's time and when everything is in place, I will indeed rule this
world. It may take me years, decades, even a century, but it will be
mine. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what you feared in the
dark dream when I was made, when I embraced the Predator's life? That
one day I would rule over even you?"

"I don't think
that will ever happen."

"Won't it?"
Upton turned on his heel, but before he reached the doorway Mentor
was at his side. He had him by the arm, staying him.

"Upton, I
tried to talk to you. I've tried to understand the agony you suffered
in your human form and believed you could get over it now that you
have a second chance. But you nurse the past, don't you? You blame
the universe. You blame God."

"God!"
Upton spat out the word. "Never speak to me of a god. One who
let me shrivel up and break out in sores. One who lets children get
run over, molested, and mauled and mutilated. One who lets the world
suffer floods and fires and winds and pestilence. What God?"

Mentor sighed. He
dropped his hand from Upton's arm. "I'm sorry, Charles, that you
feel that way. You have to come with me now."

"With you? I'm
not going anywhere with you. I'm not spending another minute on you."

Mentor moved as
fast as light, wrapping his arms around the old man, holding him to
his chest, his face in Upton's, so that his words would not be
mistaken. "We're going away, Upton. To a place where you'll be
safe and the world will be safe from you."

"I will not.
Let me go."

George ran down the
hall and stopped at the doorway, where the two men were locked
together. "Mr. Upton?"

Mentor turned his
head and looked at George. "Stay here as long as you wish. Say
good-bye to Mr. Upton. This time it's forever. If you ever speak of
this, I'll come for you."

"George, get
him off me!"

"Let's go,
Upton. It's time to go."

Mentor whisked his
charge from the house, through the door that he opened by the force
of his mind. Once outside, he took Upton with him straight up through
the Dallas night sky. They sped faster than any machine man had ever
devised until they were high above the Earth, watching it turn. The
last time Mentor had done this had been with Dell. It was at least a
year ago on another summer night in the endless stream of summer
nights that were to come.

Upton turned and
twisted, bit and spat and cried. Mentor hung onto him. They sailed
down, down, dropping with dizzying speed toward Thailand. Toward the
only safe place for Charles Upton, the vampire who possessed no
control, no soul, no feeling for the human race from whence he'd been
born.

The monks wrestled
Upton into chains. Mentor knew he would one day realize his power and
try to leave, but he'd not get far.

"I'll get you
for this," Upton shouted. "You can't do this to me."

"We have to do
it, Charles."

"I'll . . .
I'll stop killing, is that what you want? I only did it twice!"

"That's only
part of it. And you'll never stop killing. What I want is for you to
be a creature who understands consequences. And either you do and
don't care, or you don't possess the capacity to understand. You must
stay here until we find out if you'll ever change. The only other
alternative is to kill you."

"If you leave
me here, I'll make you pay, Mentor. I swear it."

Mentor paused at
the prison cell door and stared at the old man. He shuddered inside.
He had tapped Upton's mind and knew he not only meant it, but he
would work every single second of his existence to make it true.

"You can try,"
Mentor said finally. "But I would advise against that route.
Stay here and listen to the monks, Charles. Learn from them. Maybe
one day you can be free." Even as he said it, Mentor knew he was
wrong. Upton could never be free.

Upton spat at his
captors as they padlocked his chains to the damp, smelly wall. "I
will never speak to these mothers of monsters again," he
shouted, twisting away from them. "I'll kill them the first
chance I get.”

Mentor thought he
would never get that chance.

Walking down the
corridor, he glanced in on Madeline and took her abuse before leaving
her to her papers and her writing. In the chapel, while red candles
burned and the subtle scent of incense wafted through the air, Mentor
knelt on the hard stone floor and hung his head. There was no
evidence of a crucifix or any other religious artifact in the
monastery, but Mentor knew it didn't matter. Prayers had been said
here for hundreds of years. Maybe the God Upton didn't believe in
would hear Mentor's pleas.

Being vampire was
no easier than being human. It was harder. It was always a
hard-fought battle between evil desire and higher morality, no matter
what type of vampire you became, Natural, Craven, or Predator.

Do you hear me?
Mentor cried out silently. Have you ever heard any of us and have you
any mercy for us in the end?

After his
meditation, Mentor rose and left the monastery. In his mind he could
hear Upton calling after him, threatening, weeping, begging. He would
probably have to remain in his cell until the end of time. Mentor did
not believe Predators such as he ever reformed. He was a human born
bad, with evil in his heart, and there it remained. While Madeline
grieved through a thousand years, Upton would plan and scheme, rant
and rave. Let him. If he ever devised an escape, they would all track
him down and set him on fire, scattering his being to the wind.

~*~

Ross sat in the
office waiting for the acting president of Upton Enterprises. David
would do as he said. He had no choice.

Ross did not bother
to rise when David entered the room. He immediately took over his
mind, leading him to sit in a chair opposite. He put suggestions and
commands into the other man's brain so that he would do as
instructed, the way someone would who has been successfully
hypnotized. Mentor called it mesmerizing. Ross just called it
control.

I will supply a
body, he said telepathically, from people I have in a Houston
hospital. They will contact you when it's ready. There will be a
closed casket funeral for Charles Upton. You will arrange the funeral
and return to take over the company. Your press release will say what
the death certificate says: Upton died of his disease. From that day
forward, you will report to me only. I am your boss, your master. All
profits will be put into my account in Switzerland. You will run
things for me, handle all daily affairs, and you will never question
either your former employer's death or my command. Do you understand?

David nodded
mechanically.

"That's fine,
then," Ross said, standing and speaking aloud. "Tomorrow
you will send out word Charles Upton is dead. He is dead. You
understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Ross patted the man
on the back and left the office. Upton Towers in Houston would have
been dwarfed by the new building they'd bought in Dallas. It rose in
gold glass from the center of the Dallas financial district, towering
over lesser buildings. And it was all his with Upton out of the way.
Sometimes Mentor did him great favors without even realizing it.

Ross smiled and
punched the elevator button for the lobby. He hoped Upton was
enjoying his sojourn in prison. He never should have betrayed a
business partner that way. It had been his undoing.

~*~

Charles leaned
against the cold stone in his cell concentrating on moving his mind
beyond the monastery's walls. He could not reach either Ross or
Mentor, but after several attempts, he was able to connect with
David.

He tried to
converse with him, but it was as if he were roaming a vacant bank
vault. Finally, he settled for reading the memories in David's mind.
When he got to a recent memory involving Ross, Upton halted, biting
down on his tongue until it bled into his mouth.

He was going to be
reported dead. No one would look for him. They were going to supply a
body, a death certificate, and tell the press the wealthy financier
had been killed by his disease. No one would ever question it since
it was public knowledge he had suffered from a terminal illness.

Upton struggled
against his chains, screaming out vocally. A monk passed his cell,
paused, looked in, and moved on.

Upton tried to
reach David's mind again, succeeded after much effort, and searched
his memory for all the details.

Ross was taking
over.