SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (72 page)

She licked dry lips and said, "Who do you live to honor?"

Puzzled, Mentor tried, but could not understand what she was asking.

She said again, "Mentor, who do you live to honor? I lived my life in a way it would honor my grandmother. She was a good woman. She never caused harm. She was giving and loving and open. But now I will live to honor my husband."

Mentor understood. Was there someone he tried to emulate? Was there a life he admired so much he tried to live in a way to honor it?

"Bad people live for no one," Bette said. "They have no ancestors or loved ones who can influence them. Like the one who came in the night and took Alan."

Mentor looked back over his long life and realized for the first time that he had also lived to honor someone. He had never thought of it that way, but it was true. His decisions and actions over many decades reflected the sensibility of a Predator he admired. He drifted back in memory to the beginning of his life as a vampire. Early on, he had been summoned to a meeting with what he came to know as one of the oldest living vampires on Earth.

The great Predator called himself Vohra and lived on the Nile River at the edge of the Egyptian desert. Mentor had been wandering the East, trying to find reasons for his condition. None of his family had been afflicted, so at that time he didn't know the disease was usually genetic and ran through whole generations. He also searched for others like him for companionship. Loneliness weighed heavily, causing him to turn inward to such a degree that he felt like a stranger on the planet.

He was like no one else, he believed. He was an abomination.

He would never find someone who understood him.

One night a vampire came to his room where he was staying in a small Egyptian hotel and told him Vohra had asked to see him. Knowing of no reason why he shouldn't go despite the fact he didn't know the vampire who had extended the invitation, Mentor dressed in white linen slacks and shirt, brushed his hair, and followed the servant vampire away from the city and down to the Nile. They were so far from the city the twinkling lanterns from it glowed like a rising sun on the horizon.

Vohra possessed the body of a young man hardly out of his teens, but his eyes belonged to someone incredibly old. He looked to be of Egyptian heritage, with a fine noble nose and full lips. His profile was similar to that of the pharaoh Tutankhamen. He was dressed as a traditional Egyptian, in a white robe tied with scarlet at the waist and leather slippers on his feet. He sat on the sand, the Nile flowing before him. He did not turn his head to acknowledge Mentor.

"I'm glad you've come," Vohra said in a pleasant, cultured voice. He knew many languages and this time spoke in English. "Please sit beside me."

Mentor sat down, hugging his knees and staring out at the wide Nile River. He waited. He thought it would be discourteous to come out and ask this Predator what he wanted of him. He'd tell him soon enough.

"Let me tell you of Bucchus, the divine bull of ancient Egypt," Vohra said.

"All right." Mentor loved to be instructed, and hoped the story would tell him something about the vampires.

"To prepare Bucchus for burial, juniper oil was flushed into his innards and then his entrails were washed and teased out with long instruments. He was anointed all over with sacred salts and more oils and set aside so his flesh would dry. Months later six priests carefully wrapped him in lengths of the finest woven cloth. He was buried in Memphis, Egypt's former capital. One day he will be unearthed by archaeologists and modern man will wonder at such loving devotion given to an animal by the pharaohs."

"That's . . . interesting," Mentor said, noting how Vohra seemed to know the future. And if he knew of Bucchus, he must know of the past, too, since according to him the bull hadn't yet been unearthed. The thought startled Mentor. He said, "You were around when they buried the bull in Memphis?"

"Oh, yes, and before that."

When he said no more, Mentor asked, "How long have you been vampire?"

"Since the beginning."

"When was that?" Mentor had to know. He was excited to think he was speaking with someone who might know all about their history.

"During the time of the dawn of man. At that time I was known by another name, of course. I have been called by many names."

Oh, my God, Mentor thought, exhilarated and a little afraid. He couldn't even imagine how old Vohra might be. "Vampires have existed since man first walked upright?"

The Predator nodded. Mentor believed him. There was no reason to lie. Vohra was what he was looking for in his travels. He needed knowledge and understanding. Maybe the ancient Predator had heard of his need and that's why he sent for him.

"The Egyptians honored the divine bull by mummifying him and sending him into the Beyond surrounded by jewels and companion animals and many vessels holding grain and wheat. They had worshiped him."

"Like Baal in the Hebrew Bible," Mentor said.

"A little. Yes, a little like that. Who will you worship?" Vohra asked. He turned his head now and stared straight into Mentor's eyes.

"I . . . I don't know. Must I worship someone or some thing?"

Vohra faced the river again. "That is your purpose. To find who or what you worship and then you'll know what you should do with the gift of life eternal."

Mentor wondered if Vohra meant he was the one who should be worshiped. It might be easy to do if Vohra had really lived as an immortal for so many thousands of years.

Just as he had the thought, Vohra broke the silence. "I don't want your worship. Living longer than you brings more understanding, therefore more peace, but long life doesn't make me a god. You would do as well to worship Bucchus as to worship me."

Mentor thought he talked in riddles, and he could not grasp what advice he was being given. Who, then, should he worship? What should he worship? And then he knew the answers to his questions with a flash of insight. His quest was to find the thing he could devote his life to. He would live hundreds of years or more. Vohra had lived thousands. So might he. He couldn't live if he never found good reasons to go on. He must love someone or something enough to make living worthwhile. He must honor or worship something greater than himself.

Vohra nodded now as if he agreed. The servant who had led him to the river came again and tapped Mentor on the shoulder. He was to leave. His audience was over.

But it was not his last. For many years Mentor stayed close to Vohra in the Egyptian desert lands, listening when Vohra felt like teaching him something, and remaining quietly out of the way when Vohra had nothing to say.

Before Mentor left to go out on his own again, he took with him a vast knowledge of the vampire's history. He hadn't yet found what he should worship, but at least he knew it was his duty to discover it.

Since those years, he had tried to live to honor Vohra. Until now, when Bette asked him, he hadn't known. Vohra was the wisest and most peaceful being he'd ever known. He was a neutral being, neither good nor evil, having lived so long he'd passed those artificial boundaries. Even now he knew the ancient one lived secretly in Cairo, passing for an Egyptian gentleman. Leaders of the vampire sects in every country made regular pilgrimages to see Vohra, to listen to his counsel.

"One day, I'll tell you about the person I live to honor," Mentor said, taking Bette's hands and helping her to stand. "But now you have things to do, and I have to leave. There are terrible things going on outside these walls, and I have to try to stop them."

He kissed her on the cheek and walked into the hallway before he vanished. The last thing he heard was Bette's strangled sob as she broke down into tears once more.

~*~

Dell stood around the hospital bed with her mother and her father. The only mortals in the private hospital room were the patient, Aunt Celia, and, standing at the foot of the bed, Celia's daughter, Carolyn. Celia lay in bed, her chest swaddled in bandages. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her body not fully recovered yet from the operation. The cancer had not spread, thank goodness, Dell thought, but it had taken most of one of Celia's breasts. The good parts left they took with the bad, for insurance.

When Malachi had been just a boy, he'd pointed to his great-aunt and informed her of a growth. Celia had taken him seriously and gone to a doctor for confirmation. It was true. She'd had a small tumor in the same breast she'd now lost years later. They'd taken out the earlier tumor and today, more than fifteen years later, it had returned. This time the breast had to be sacrificed.

Celia opened her eyes, and the first person she saw was Dell. She reached out her good arm, the one not bound to her side. Dell held her hand as tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped them away quickly before a nurse appeared. Blood tears would bring a doctor running, and none of them could have that.

"The doctor says he got it all, Aunt Celia."

Celia smiled a little. "I knew they would. I'm going to be all right."

She was using what strength she had to reassure her niece. That touched Dell more than anything.

Celia's daughter, Carolyn, stepped around the side of the bed and bent to kiss her mother on the cheek. "Mama, I love you."

Carolyn hadn't yet gotten the disease that would have turned her into a vampire. She and Celia were the rare family members who had escaped porphyria's deadly mutation. Dell moved aside to let Carolyn nearer the bed. She saw her own mother gesture toward the hallway and said, "We'll be back in a minute, Carolyn."

Standing outside of the room with her parents, Dell's face showed the worry she felt. Not about Aunt Celia. She believed her aunt would gain back her strength and be going home soon. No, it was what was happening in the city. Though Dell lived far enough away from Dallas that it had taken Ryan an hour to drive them to the hospital, she knew about the sirens that wailed across Dallas throughout the night. She knew about the dozens of fires. She knew of the deaths.

"Have you heard from Malachi?" Dell's father asked.

"Not in days. But I think he's coming home." Dell had reached out with her mental ability, connecting with her son, and had found he was heading east across Texas, the little boy at his side.

"He needs to be with you," Dell's mother said. She hadn't aged a day and neither had her husband. They didn't bother to wear the artfully applied makeup they now wore every day in their normal lives in the city. Soon her parents would retire from their jobs and move away from their home to start a new life elsewhere. They'd been in one place, one house, for all of Dell's life—thirty-seven years. It was time.

"I know. There are hundreds of renegades here," Dell said, meaning Dallas. They'd swooped down on the city and set fire to every building they could find that harbored Cravens. It was rumored they meant to disrupt the delivery lines that supplied Naturals like Dell and her parents with the blood that sustained them.

"What's going to happen, Dad?" Dell asked. She saw past her parents down the hall. The elevator door was opening and Ryan had stepped out. She hadn't told him yet of the seriousness of the renegade situation.

Dell's father turned to look at his approaching son-in-law before answering in a low voice. "It's going to get bad, Dell. No one knows how bad. Ross is trying to keep his Predators calm, but there's a lot of fear."

"I heard about some murders on the radio on the way here to the hospital," Dell said. "They called them 'animal attacks.'"

As Ryan approached, she smiled at him. His presence always restored her. She put an arm around his waist.

"The renegades are leaving them where they take them," Dell's father said. "The police haven't put the murders all together yet, the precincts haven't shared their information, but it won't be long. They're going to know the human deaths can't be the work of just one serial killer or something. They're not going to know what to make of it."

"You should come stay with us," Dell said.

"Yes," Ryan agreed. "We have plenty of room."

"No, we'll stay in case we can help do something. We might be needed in Dallas."

That worry Dell had tried to wipe from her face when she'd seen her husband returned. If her parents didn't get their blood delivered by Ross' Predators, how were they to live? How were any of the Naturals to live?

After saying good-bye to Aunt Celia, Dell and Ryan drove out of the city toward the ranch. Ryan had been unusually quiet. Finally he spoke, his worry as deep as his wife's. "Why is this happening? You need to tell me."

"They say it's the Predator called Charles Upton. Remember him? The Houston billionaire that doctor brought to us when I was finishing high school? He was kept prisoner for years. That's why we never heard of him again. But when he escaped, he brought together a small army of disgruntled Predators. He had the help of another Predator who called himself Balthazar. Balthazar . . ."

"I know. He was the one who sent the assassins for Malachi."

She nodded. "Now Upton's trying to hurt Mentor and Ross, who put him in prison. He wants his revenge."

"He wants to turn Dallas into a hunting ground?" Ryan knew the implications of Naturals thrown on their own to find sustenance. All relationships with humans would take on serious complications. When hungry, a vampire of whatever kind would have no choice but to hunt his own food. Many of them would not feed on wildlife. Many of them would track down and kill humans.

"I think he wants more than that. Much more. I think he's just starting in Dallas because of Mentor," Dell said. "You're saying this could spread? Fires and deaths?" Dell imagined it all in her mind. First the largest cities in Texas, all lines of blood supplies breaking down and going undelivered. Every Craven found and burned to ash. Then the surrounding states would be attacked, the war rippling out from the center of the country to all its borders, north and south, east and west. Finally, if Upton was successful and he wasn't stopped, the whole world of vampires might look at the United States and decide chaos should reign everywhere.