SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (52 page)

"God, I don't know what to say. I . . . I didn't know." Then they joined the family in Malachi's yard and Eddie went to embrace his sister, Malachi's mother.

Later, Malachi questioned his grandparents and great-grandparents. Did they know about the silver wolf from his dreams? Yes, certainly, and they were on alert, always, for any message from his mother. His great -uncles and -aunts, his cousins, all of them knew, all of them had kept a quiet vigilance.

He felt greatly loved, but also in some way violated. He had thought his worries his own. Maybe his whole life was an open book and nothing belonged to him, no secret or privacy. He felt invaded, even if for good reason. He must speak to his mother when the celebration ended and the family scattered for their homes. Had this all been necessary? Was the threat so real she had to divulge it to everyone?

That night he and his parents talked. Since graduation he had been at loose ends, and they left him alone. They went to their jobs, they didn't bug him about making a decision. They let him do what he did best—drift.

But now they talked openly, and he learned many things. How worried his mother had been all his life. How she had called Mentor and found out the dream walker's name—Balthazar. Her reasons for telling the family had been out of love and concern. She was sorry it felt like an intrusion to him. "I had to do it," she said. "Malachi? Don't you see? We're part of a clan. As dhampir, you're one of us." She glanced at her husband and smiled a little "At least half, anyway," she amended. "We can't let something happen to you. We had to be ready. I had to know I could count on help if I needed it."

In the end they weren't. Not ready at all, any of them. Perhaps Balthazar had taught his assassin to cloak himself so he could not be detected until too late. Perhaps Malachi's family sensed trouble and thought it another dream plaguing him. Whatever left him open that day for assault, it came as a total surprise, just as Balthazar wanted it.

The day was in August, a very hot and bleached white cloud-hazy Texas afternoon that sapped the energy and left everyone drained and lethargic. It hadn't rained in two months. The grass in the fields had turned brown, and the cattle had to be given extra hay in bales in order to survive. They clustered beneath the sparse shade of trees, rubbing their flanks together, their tails swinging to swat away green-backed flies.

Malachi still hadn't decided where to go to school or what subject to pursue there. He was home on the ranch alone, studying a college course catalog and trying to decide what direction he would take at Sam Houston University that fall. He might as well go to Sam Houston. It wasn't a great university or widely known, but it was close by and it wouldn't change his life very much if he went there.

Unlike his parents, who had always known where their interests lay, he had trouble centering on a major field of study. He knew he didn't want to stay at home and take Internet classes like his parents had done. He also didn't want to move to Bryan-College Station, Texas, and go to A & M. Huntsville's Sam Houston was good enough for him, he thought, it was absolutely fine. Besides, his mother worked there in the university library. She'd be near if they ever needed one another.

And he'd still be close to Danielle, who he couldn't imagine not seeing regularly. She had already enrolled at Sam Houston State and had urged him to join her. They might even share an apartment, help one another study, and split expenses. She was a thrifty girl and would have to work her way through college. It was too late for him to apply for scholarships. Together they could work it out. And wasn't it time he told his parents about her, she had asked him with a crooked smile. Would they be so disappointed?

He had wrapped her in his arms and denied he was keeping her from his parents for any nefarious reason. They would love her, just as he did, he swore. How could they not?

He thought of Danielle now and then as he read and reread the course descriptions in the catalog, his head resting on sofa pillows, sneakered feet propped on the sofa arm. The air-conditioning buzzed in his ear, relaxing him so that he dozed a little, the catalog slipping from his legs to the floor with little noise. He held Danielle against him, their bodies intertwined on crisp, white sheets. He slipped his hand over the swell of her buttocks and pulled her closer. His lips sought hers and . . .

Suddenly he was wide awake and tensing. He came up from the sofa, swinging his long legs to the floor. He kicked the catalog out of the way. He had sensed a presence approaching the house. He turned his head and stared in front of him, getting that hundred-yard stare his parents recognized as a state of mind where he had disengaged from the world and was in touch with something or someone at a distance.

He knew the person approaching was not human. Predator, then. And not a Predator Malachi knew. Not Mentor or Ross, not the Predator-like Eddie. Not any of the Predators who delivered his mother's blood and took her money.

Malachi rose from the sofa. He walked softly to the door and opened it. Waiting. It wasn't a delivery. This wasn't the day for it. It was no one he knew. A stranger, then.

A sense of alarm rushed through him, leaving him jangled and breathing unsteadily.

His mother was at work at the library and his father at his small veterinary clinic in a town twelve miles distant. Malachi wished all of a sudden he had one of his parents beside him. He hardly knew fear, except in his dreams. Possessing many of his mother's vampire talents made him immune to most ordinary accidents or bodily harm, relieving him of normal anxieties that plagued other people. Yet, now, as he stood at the door staring across the ranchland, he felt a palpable fear creep up the back of his neck and over his head like a large hand enclosing his cranium with icy fingers.

The fear kept coming at him like an arrow aimed at a bull's-eye. He recognized danger all around, like a force field holding him at its center.

He saw no one, but knew he did not have to see an enemy to know he was near. Mentally, he scanned the land around the farmhouse, searching for any hint of where the Predator might be hiding. He went through the house to the back door and looked out from there, nervously expecting the intruder from any quarter.

Seeing nothing out of place, he was about to send a telepathic message to his mother when he knew the Predator had entered the house and stood at his back. He whirled, his hands tightening into fists. He felt his adrenaline surge until his heart thudded with resounding thunder loud as a hammer pounding an iron rail.

Before him stood a Predator of about his height and size. He was dressed in soiled slacks, a torn and dirty gray jacket, and a faded plaid shirt open at the throat. He would be taken for a homeless man on the street. His wrinkled face was layered in grime and his eyes were red-veined. He opened razor-thin lips and said, "I was told you need to be sent to the devil."

Malachi thought he should try to first engage the vampire in conversation. His first instinct had been to attack, but all his life his teaching had been against violent action as first recourse.

"Why would you want to kill me?"

"Because you're the dhampir."

"I'm not the only one. I've heard there are others like me, maybe as many as a hundred scattered across the globe."

"I was sent to you."

"But how can you be so sure?" This rebuttal gave Malachi time to send out the alarm to his mother. His father was strong, but mortal. His mother was the only ally who could battle another of her kind.

"I'm sure." It was as if the vampire was a robot, his speech simple and delivered in a dull monotone. In his eyes Malachi saw the hunger and knew the beast hadn't supped in a very long time. He'd come on his mission on the brink of starvation. It gave him stronger motivation to kill and to drink the blood of an enemy. Never was a vampire's blood taken unless he was dead, that's what his mother had told him. One vampire did not feed from another, unless there was combat and hatred involved.

"Who sent you? At least tell me that before you take my life," Malachi said.

"The silver one. The Wolf."

So his dreams were precognitive. The time had come. The wolf in the dream was carrying out his threat in the real world. He hadn't believed Malachi had no plans to hunt down Predators. He must be mad.

Malachi saw the deadly resolve in the vampire's eyes a moment before his muscles bunched and he moved. Malachi sped away, walking backward up the door to the ceiling, down the wall behind the vampire and then through the door and rooms of the house.

He was caught before he reached the front door. Clawed hands took him by the shoulders and threw him across the room where he Struck the mantel, knocking photographs and candlesticks to the floor. A sharp pain shot down Malachi's back.

He was up in an instant, slightly stunned, but feeling his strength growing. As a small child he had pretended he was Superman. He climbed walls, leaped from any high furniture he could find, and ran through the house so quickly mortal eyes could not detect him. Holding down his exuberance had been a chore for his parents, who were always afraid he would hurt himself.

Now he felt stronger than the fictional Superman might ever have been. Playing at being a superhero as a child hadn't been as impertinent as it had seemed at the time. Feeling immutable and untouchable gave him an iron will to win over the insanely hungry vampire following on his heels.

Suddenly Malachi laughed, throwing back his head and holding out his hands, palms up, from his sides. This reaction would throw off the vampire, confuse and weaken him. Malachi knew the beast was an underling. A ragged, starved thing sent out to test him. If he got lucky, the vampire might bring him down and sink his fangs in Malachi's throat after murdering him, but unless he was able to throw off the stupor Malachi sensed clouded his mind, his strength would betray him.

The vampire attacked again, rushing in and grabbing for Malachi's throat to pin him to the mantel. Malachi stepped aside again, turned and caught the other around the throat with his arm. He took hold of his wrist with his other hand and began to haul back, lifting the vampire off his feet and throwing him to the floor. Malachi could feel his strength as if it were steel wire running from his shoulders down into his arms and hands. His heart beat so hard he expected the vampire could feel it against his back before he was thrown down. Malachi straddled the prone beast and reached out his hands for the throat.

"Oh, Jesus." It was his mother at the door. Then she was next to him as he pinned down the snarling vampire. Malachi had his knee on the beast's chest, his hands wrapped around his throat. Dell commanded, "Let him up."

Malachi glanced at her. He had never seen such fury on his mother's face. He protested, "But . . ."

"Let him go!"

Malachi drew back, his hands falling from the vampire's throat. He stood next to his mother, watching as the vampire rose slowly to his feet. His eyes bulged, and his lips were pulled back from his teeth. He spoke in a rage-choked voice. "Get out of my way, woman."

Dell did not bother to respond. She flew at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing her face toward his throat. His head bent to the side as he howled, struggling to free himself.

Malachi's heart stopped in his chest in fear. He didn't know what to do, how to help. If he got near the two of them, he was afraid he'd get in his mother's way.

The vampire began to spin, trying to throw off the woman biting at his neck. His scream rose louder and louder, the sound ricocheting all around the walls.

Malachi heard his mother's command in his mind. Get the machete.

Of course! She wasn't going to be able to kill him with her attack. He'd be weakened if she could manage to take some of his blood, but he wouldn't die.

Malachi hurried to the mud closet by the back door where they kept their boots and slickers. They also kept a machete there to use on rattlers and moccasins during the spring when the lethal snakes crawled out from beneath the porch.

He came toward the spinning couple, the machete raised, still unsure what he should do. He couldn't just hack his way into the melee, for fear he'd strike his mother.

A small pale arm reached out and plucked the big knife from his hand. Malachi stepped back, feeling impotent and afraid. Mom, he thought, Mom, be careful.

The spinning ceased and now blood spurted from over Dell's shoulder. She drew back, hacking at the monster, her arm and the machete blurring with dizzying speed. Wounds opened on the vampire, his flesh rending with each flash of the machete. Flaps of muscle hung from his shoulders and arms. Swinging with a sudden arc of her arm, his mother separated the terrified vampire's head from his body, and he fell to the floor.

Malachi turned away, unable to look at the body twitching and jerking in death, blood pumping from the headless torso.

He felt his mothers' hand on his forearm. He couldn't look at her. He knew she was covered with blood. Her eyes would be wild from battle. She would not look human. Instead, she would look too much like the beast she'd murdered.

"Malachi?"

"I have to go out," he said, pulling away from her and making for the door. The carnage in their living room sickened him. He had been more than willing to throttle the life out of the intruder, but he didn't know if he had the will to hack a person to death. "I just can't look at it," he said, his back to her.

Once outside he drew in a cleansing breath and began to tremble. He wondered if the dead thing in his house was just the first victim. He thought there would be more vampires coming. They wanted to kill him, but he didn't know why. What had he ever done to call this upon himself? He wasn't even vampire and there were others like him, dhampirs as they were called, so why was he singled out for death and no one else? The dream world told him he was the one prophesied. He didn't know how that could be or why. He was just a peaceful guy who wanted to go to college, if he really had to, and marry Danielle, and have a ranch and a family like his father. He only wanted to live a normal life and forget his vampire heritage.