LEGIONS OF THE DARK (VAMPIRE NATIONS CHRONICLES) (27 page)

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."

"You'll do it, just as I said," Upton shouted again, "and then you're out of this. But right now I advise you to go underground. Get away from everyone you know and tell no one where you are. Do you hear me? No one."

The smell of the breakfast followed Alan as he crossed the living room and entered the elevator for the lobby. He hadn't even had breakfast yet, and he was already dealing with a maniac. A man shouldn't have to do that.

But on the way down in the padded silence of the elevator, he reconsidered Upton's response and his advice. He reconsidered what he'd been telling Upton about there being real vampires in the world and how he'd seen one.

It made a little sense. Not a lot, but a little. He might have stumbled on vampires or he'd run into one of the worst killers in the state of Texas. Upton's response sounded like paranoid ranting. But what if the vampire could find him? If there was a vampire. Or what if it could find Bette? He must return immediately to Dallas and take Bette with him. She wouldn't want to go anywhere or leave her house, but he'd make her. Even if there was a shred of danger, he had to do that.

Paranoid or not, they might be dealing with the supernatural. Who knew how the supernatural worked? Who knew what the UFO was that sent a circle of bright light streaming down over a farm? Who knew what left behind sixteen-inch footprints?

But, more importantly, what did any of them know about the existence and motives of vampires?

~*~

Mentor hovered high over an area just outside the city limits of Houston, Texas. He was near the presence he knew to be Alan Star, and was just zeroing in on his location when he heard an urgent mental call. It was as if a siren went off in his subconscious, wailing . . . screaming for his attention. "Mentor! I know your name. Come to me now."

He paused in his shadowy flight, filtering the voice from all the others that clamored in a cacophony of calls for aid. He found it belonged to a woman. A human woman. Now what is this about? he wondered. Not once in a century had he had communications from humans, psychics who had somehow tuned into the channel of his subconscious. It always surprised and unsettled him.

He turned toward the direction where the voice emanated. North of his location. He searched farther and found it came from Dallas. Who . . . ?

She called him again, as if speaking directly into his mind, clearly enunciating every syllable. "Mentor. Come back. Leave Alan alone. We have many things to discuss first."

Bette Kinyo. She reached him over a distance of hundreds of miles. She was indeed an enigma. A gifted enigma.

He gave Alan Star one last moment of his attention, waffled between going directly to him to wipe his mind of all memories involving Ross, but then he sighed inside and turned back North. Bette called for him. This meant she remembered him. Not only that, but she had learned his name.

It took him mere minutes to respond and move his intelligence and the energy of his being to Bette Kinyo's home. He went through the wall into the kitchen where he sensed she would be found. As before, when he'd first ever appeared to her, she had her back to him and her hands deep into a sink of bubbles.

"You called for me?"

She turned purposefully, taking a dish towel to dry her hands. Her eyes were dark and heavy with meaning as she rested her gaze on him. He stood before her in his old man body, the cold old body that sometimes he could cause to contort enough to frighten the life from a mortal. He did that now, scowling fiercely, showing the row of upper teeth and sharp incisors.

~*~

Bette had come awake on the sofa after her session with Mentor. Confused, she staggered up the stairs to the small altar in her bedroom. Falling to her knees before the statue of Buddha, she bowed her head and began to weep. She knew she had been violated in some way, but did not know how or to what extent. She prayed to the god she adored to save her sanity and restore her spirit.

For many long minutes confusion reigned. Her mind skipped about like a child on holiday. She continued to pray. She lit incense and breathed deeply, letting the scent of sandalwood help concentrate her mental processes.

I am strong, she told herself. I am a child of heaven. I will recall myself and who and what I am. I will overcome this violation and set my house in order.

After a time her mind did settle, and she was sure the master vampire had come to her home and done something with her memory. There were holes and gaps, leaving her with black images, like overdeveloped photographs. The more she tried to plumb the missing part of her mind, the more panicky she felt until she had a breakthrough and finally, finally, she saw in her mind's eye what she was not supposed to ever recall.

Vampire!

The old man. He had told her he must do it to save her life. She cursed him for the lie. For if she died, she would die knowing all, being queen of her own spirit and soul. She would not live with holes in her mind, vast black holes hiding secrets.

She began to pray to know the master vampire's name. If she could find his name, she could call to him and make him hear her. No one knew Bette had these abilities and sometimes she doubted them herself, but in any dire need she knew she could call upon an innate strength and belief that the world was knowable. In all its permutations. In all its vast multitude of dimensions. She had only to open herself and call out for the world to respond with the answers she needed.

When the vampire had first showed himself to her in the kitchen, she had been aware in a psychic way that he was not human and the visitation was supernatural. Now she went in search of the supernatural, embracing the part of her soul that understood the shadow world beneath the real world.

She first found the vampire, moving more rapidly than the wind to the south. Two hundred miles in the distance. She found him and opened her soul and sent out the distress signal that bore his name. Mentor. She had to make him understand he was not the only one who could enter and ransack another's private memory banks. She had found his name within his own being. It was how he described himself. How he had been known, she finally understood, for hundreds of years—or longer. Mentor.

While she waited for him to appear, she rose from her knees, giving thanks to Buddha for his grace, and went down the stairs slowly to her kitchen. She had not washed the dishes. They lay in jumbled disarray on the countertop—cups, saucers, plates, silverware. She ran a sinkful of hot water until steam came up to meet her nostrils. She plunged her hands in, scrubbing hard at the dishes while focusing on the real world of hot water, soap suds, the solid feel of glassware.

When she felt the old vampire at her back, she turned to face him, unafraid. If he killed her, then so be it. She'd made up her mind she must try to stop the violation he intended to do to the man she loved.

He said, "You called for me. I would like to know how you accomplished such a feat."

She said, "You are not the only creature with powers. I called because you must not do to Alan what you tried to do to me. It's evil. And I don't sense that you are as evil as you would like to appear."

"Am I not?" He waited and when she did not reply, he said, "How is it you can reach me when you're not like me? Where does your power come from?"

"Not a vampire, you mean? My power comes from the universe. I depend on my god."

"Would you call yourself an angel?"

She almost laughed. The smile played around her lips as she suppressed the laughter. "No, I'm no angel, Mentor. I'm not supernatural. I'm simply a devoted woman with my own small skills. I have found the pockets of memories you tried to eradicate. I remember the story Alan told me of the vampire who murdered two women. And I remember the problem with the blood bank—that surely has something to do with you. It's why you came in the first place."

"I don't know how you reversed my work," he said, "but this puts you into grave danger. I did what I did only to save you from a horrible fate."

His lips lowered over the teeth, and now he did not look so much fierce as defeated. "Never mind my motives. What do you think you can accomplish by overriding my work and by insisting I come to you? Aren't you afraid at all?"

"I'm not afraid," she said honestly. "I believe we have some kind of connection, you and I. Now we must have an understanding. I've called you here to make a promise. I'll stand by that promise, knowing I forfeit my life if I break it."

"Yes?"

"I won't pursue the discrepancy with the Strand Catel Blood Bank. I won't speak of the murders Alan witnessed. I won't bother you the rest of my life. But you must promise never to come to me again to tamper with my mind. You must leave me alone, forever."

"Then is it a deal? I know that if you want to, you can take my whole mind, all of it, and turn it in such a way I'll never be myself again. I know you can kill me as easily as snapping the neck of a little wounded bird. I know your power, Mentor. But if you'll go away and stay away, we will—Alan and I—stay out of your business."

He seemed to think it over. His eyes still would not meet hers. He looked everywhere in the little kitchen except into her face. She felt an overpowering urge to step forward and take him into her arms, to hug him close to assure him all would be all right. It was not the proper urge for one she thought of as an abomination, an enemy, but there it was anyway. The feeling confused her so much she shook her head a little and glanced down at her hands as if seeing them for the very first time. The small, delicate lingers, the little square white nails. She wanted to put those hands on the old man's face and stroke his cheeks in a loving way.

She suddenly turned her back on him in order not to act on the strange urges rushing through her body. She knew he was not causing her to feel this way. It did not come from outside herself, but from inside, in the core of her, and it left her baffled, and a bit afraid.

"You must keep your promises," he said.

She nodded her head, not trusting her voice.

"If you break your vows, the next one who comes to you will not be me, Bette. It will be one who will suck your very soul from your body and leave you separated from your god. Do you understand me?"