In the Dark (10 page)

We got out and
stayed low, slinking towards my house through the neighbor’s
yards, keeping close to walls, fences, bushes. I started breathing
halfway there. At least it wasn’t raining. When we got up close
to my house, Sebastian made a “wait here” gesture by
putting his hand in my face. I stuck my tongue out, which seemed to
confuse him, but I stayed put.

He snuck up on
the house like a cat stalking a bird: one careful, hidden inch at a
time. It must have taken him ten minutes to cross my backyard. I
stayed as still as I could the whole time, positive that flicking my
eyes would give me away.

What if one of
them was here? What if she had seen the car after all and expected
us? What if she was creeping up behind me right now while Sebastian
checked out an empty house?

I tried not to
look behind me, tried to tell myself if I turned my head it would be
a bigger give-away than staying still. I turned around.

No one was
there.

“Ian.”

I jumped and bit
my lip so hard I got blood, and a little scream still squeaked out.
Sebastian stood behind me, eyes flashing with laughter.

“Don’t
do that!” I hissed at him, and sat down. My legs had started
trembling too hard to stay squatting.

“My
apologies.” He sounded absolutely sincere – except for
those laughing eyes. I glared at my boots.

“The house
appears safe to me,” he said. “I saw no footprints aside
from those made last night and no other forced entrances or exits.
All of the ground floor rooms seem clear. There are rooms in the
basement, I take it?”

“Bedrooms.
Mine and Kent’s.”

He nodded. “Be
quiet when we go inside.”

I met his eyes,
dark now, and puckered my eyebrows. “Now?”

He nodded. He
thought there might be someone in there, and he wanted to go in and
see. Sounded like insanity to me, but I figured a hardened killer was
probably at least semi-insane. I got up on shaky legs, took one deep
breath and let it out.

“All
right,” I said.

He turned and
led me across the yard to the broken window the woman had used to get
in last night. It led into the dining room. Outside the window, he
pointed to himself, then me – him first, then I follow. I
nodded. He grabbed the sill and hoisted himself through with barely a
whisper of fabric, all in one smooth motion. Like a liquid shadow.

I saw him bob
back up from his landing, then hauled myself up and through. I was
not as graceful. Broken glass crunched and fell inside, hitting the
floor with a musical tinkling sound. My boot hooked on the frame as I
slid through, so when I tried to put my legs under me, the one stayed
up in the window. I fell straight to the floor.

Thud.

One foot still
hooked on the window frame, lying on a now-bruised hip, I cringed.
Sebastian didn’t even look at me, which surprised me. I
expected a glare. Instead he watched the door, head to one side,
listening. I unhooked my foot and got off the floor as quietly as I
could. Sebastian put his finger to his lips, head still cocked.

Well, duh.

We stayed still
like that for a long, long time. Longer than I would have. Did he
hear something I couldn’t? I tried to listen with him, turning
my head to get a better angle. Nothing.

My knees creaked
from holding still so long. I tried to remember the sounds the house
always made, listened for them. I heard the clock in the kitchen
ticking if I really listened hard. Gypsy ran up the stairs from the
basement, a soft patter-patter accompanied by the tinkling of the
bell on her collar. I shook my head.

Sebastian
finally lost his listening pose. He turned around to give me a once
over. “Hurt?” he said in a near-whisper.

I shook my head.
Just my pride. “I didn’t hear anything,” I said.
“Why did you listen so long?”

He waved a hand
at Gypsy as she trotted into the room. “I heard movement below.
I thought it was your cat, but I wanted to be sure.”

“You heard
her all the way downstairs?”

He nodded and
turned to leave the room. I gathered Gypsy up in my arms and
followed. She purred, rubbing her head against my chin. “How
could you hear her all the way down in our rooms?”

He headed for
the front door. “How much did Kent tell you about us?”

I stopped
petting Gypsy. “Why?”

He checked the
front door, running his fingers along the outside edge, examining the
doorknob. I didn’t know what he was looking for, so I stayed
out of the way.

“Tell me
what you know of your new condition.” His voice was still low,
but closer to a normal speaking level. He turned his attention to the
windows.

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

I bit my lip.
Death hadn’t been much different from life, really. Except for
the blood.

“I know
we’re dead. No pulse, no breathing, no body heat or body odor.
We absorb blood through our stomachs the way a frog absorbs water
through its skin, so that’s why you can still get blood from
your wrist or your neck even though you don’t have a heartbeat.
We can’t faint or blush. I know my hair will grow back in one
night if I cut it off.” I fingered my nose ring; just a little
silver hoop. I would have the hole forever, Kent said, because I got
it before the change. My belly-button ring though – that
piercing had healed in one day, and if I took it out the hole would
grow shut that fast. “I knew I could heal cuts and scrapes and
bruises while I slept, but I didn’t know I could heal deafness
or anything serious in one night. And I know all that stuff about
crosses and garlic and holy water isn’t real.”

“The old
legends do have some basis in truth,” Sebastian corrected me.
“For example, a human who eats a strong food, such as garlic,
will carry that taste in their blood. I imagine that might repel some
of our kind, although I know some who enjoy it.”

The thought of a
vampire stalking humans who’d just eaten Italian grossed me out
a little, but I nodded. I’d tasted different things in blood
before – mostly different drugs or alcohol. I had actually
guessed something like what Sebastian just said. Folk lore didn’t
come from nowhere, after all.

Sebastian moved
from one window to another.

“Finding
anything?” I asked.

“The door
is trapped.”

That stopped me
in my tracks. I turned to the door. It seemed fine to me. “How?”

“Plastic
explosive connected to a trip-wire in the key hole. From the
outside.”

I stared at it.
How could he tell what was on the outside? “Good thing I didn’t
have my keys,” I said. I meant it to lighten the situation, but
it came out shocked.

“Yes.”

Gypsy mewed. I
let her hop down.

“What else
do you know?” Sebastian asked, moving on to the next window.

I kept watching
the door like it might rip off its hinges and get me. “Wait,
how could the door be trapped? I thought you said there weren’t
any footprints other than the ones we made last night?”

“It must
have been done before you came back here.”

Before . . .
?

“Very good
thing I didn’t have my keys,” I said weakly.

“Yes.”

I get home,
slide the key in, boom.
Oh, boy.

“She’s
really out to kill me.” My voice sounded faint. I started
breathing again.

“That has
been established.”

Easy for him to
say. I stood in my living room, staring at my trapped door.

“What else
do you know?” Sebastian said from the kitchen.

I turned to the
kitchen doorway. “What?”

“What else
did Kent tell you about us,” he repeated.

I followed him
into the kitchen to get away from the trapped door. Gypsy followed,
her bell tinkling, meowing happily. “Not a whole lot,” I
said. “Eating. He showed me how . . . how to get blood. Nothing
else, really. Why?”

“These
windows seem fine.” He stood up to face me. His eyes were flat
and bright; about to tell me something important. I braced myself.

“Kent did
not tell you everything there is to know about vampires.”

My brace almost
worked – I sort of expected that. I still wilted.

“Like
being able to hear Gypsy in the basement,” I guessed out loud.
“I should have been able to hear her, too, shouldn’t I?”

Sebastian’s
eyes flashed something I hadn’t seen in them before –
approval?

“As you
get older, you will eventually be able to, yes.” He left the
kitchen and kept going with his inspection in the living room. I
followed. All the junk lying around on the floor was still where I’d
left it. I stared at it, glad at least those two hadn’t taken
or broken anything so far – glad the door trick hadn’t
worked.

“So what
else should I know about us?” I asked Sebastian.

He was feeling
around the windows in the living room now. I hoped he didn’t
find anything else meant to end me.

“A great
deal.”

He seemed more
intent on examining the house than talking to me. I pouted at his
back.

“Like
what?” I asked.

“More than
I could explain in an hour or two.”

That much? I
wilted some more.

“Can you
at least give it a try?” I asked.

Sebastian
shrugged and stood up from the window. “If you like.”

I followed him
down the hall and into my studio. “I climbed in that window
last night,” I told him as he headed for it. “I doubt
it’s rigged.”

“So do I,”
he agreed, and checked it anyway. I winced.

“So that
stuff about us? Like what?” I asked, hoping for a distraction.

Sebastian left
my studio and headed for Kent’s. I trailed him. Stepping into
Kent’s studio made me flinch. His guitars, his piano, his amps
and mics . . . knowing he wouldn’t ever use them again.

“There are
things every vampire has an innate ability to do, once it develops,”
Sebastian started, poking around the window. “Each of your
senses will gradually grow sharper. Broken limbs or injuries can be
ignored, if you have the will. Your strength and speed will
eventually go far beyond human limits.”

He examined some
of Kent’s equipment, then left the room. I trailed him,
digesting information. That must be how he’d lost his hearing
last night. He could just hear so much better than me that thunder
could deafen him. Ouch.

“And this
stuff just happens – like puberty?”

Sebastian
paused, considering. “It is more like an infant learning to
walk or talk,” he said, “but yes.”

I made a face at
the infant reference, but he had my interest. Vampires did have nifty
see-in-the-dark powers.

“There are
also things a vampire can inherit from their parent,” Sebastian
went on. “Abilities not every vampire will have, even things
not every vampire will have heard of. Learning to use those unique
abilities is more like puberty.”

“Such as?”
I asked with a sinking feeling. The way he talked about parents and
what vampires would and wouldn’t have heard of made it sound
like there were a lot of them out there.

“I can
only tell you what I have heard of or encountered myself. There are
likely to be more. It may even be possible you can do something I
have not yet seen.”

“Duly
noted,” I muttered.

Sebastian headed
for the basement door. I took a quick look around the upstairs to
make sure nothing was out of place. It all seemed fine. Sebastian
stood waiting for me on the basement stairs. I shrugged and followed
him down.

“I myself
can command mortals to do as I say,” he said. “I have
encountered vampires who could disappear at will, others who could
fly. One I knew could manipulate shadows as he pleased, and still
another who had not seen it first hand claimed he had heard of one
who could change into a bat.”

I laughed.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me, and I bit it back. The bat thing
sounded crazy to me, but how was I supposed to know?

He stopped at
the bottom of the stairs. “Which room is yours?” He held
a hand out to the two doors on either side of the hall. I pointed and
he went in.

“Is that
kind of thing . . . pretty common?” I asked.

“Which?”
he asked from my room. I leaned in the doorway and watched him poke
around.

“Any of
them.”

He shrugged,
kneeling to peer under the bed. “Most vampires have one or two
tricks they have inherited from their parent. I would not say any of
them is common or uncommon.”

Inherited from
their parent. I wondered what kinds of things Kent could do. What I
could do.

I shook my head.
“Weird.”

“Is it?”

I looked away.
“It is to me.”

He continued
checking my room.

Change into a
bat? Manipulate shadows? None of this had come up before Kent turned
me. I doubted it would have made me decide differently, but still, it
would have been nice to know – “hey, by the way, we can
do some creepy stuff, wanna see?”

I sighed.

Sebastian
finished with my room and moved on to Kent’s. It didn’t
take him long to clear that room, too.

“If there
is anything you would like to take with you, I suggest you get it
now,” he said, stepping out into the hallway. “The house
does not appear to have been tampered with aside from the front door,
but I would not advise returning until we have stopped this.”

“Yeah,”
I said, and wandered into my room. I wouldn’t mind having some
of my own clothes. Maybe a sketch pad. My cat. I grabbed a travel bag
and started filling it up. Sebastian stood at attention, waiting
patiently.

“Hey,
about that door – ?” I said, hoisting the bag over my
shoulder. “Can you fix that?”

“If you
like.”

I nodded. “I
don’t like the idea of having my door rigged to do anything
it’s not supposed to do.” I grabbed my set of keys and my
half-dead cell phone from the dresser top. “Especially blow up.
Besides, I do want to come home through the front door eventually.”