Blood Will Tell (40 page)

“I didn't kill Carrie!” Dan asserted.

“Of course not. You don't have the nerve to kill anyone. I killed her. But you would have been indicted for the crime if that had proved the best way to manipulate you. You showed me a better way. If loving Brandy stopped you from touching her, then the way to get you to bond her to you was some transcendent form of love, such as she could never know with mortal man. How could you deny her that?"

Chills ran through Brandy as she lay helpless on the altar. It couldn't be—she had felt the perfect bond between them, had known love beyond anything possible with a mortal. Mere mortals never read each other's minds—

“That is simply a function of vampirism,” Callahan answered her thought. “It aids their ability to please a sexual partner, of course—I'm sure Dan is quite a competent lover, but after all, you had no basis for comparison. You were a virgin."

Brandy clamped her teeth over the demand to know how Callahan knew such a thing, but he read the thought. “I know all about you, through Dan. He had no idea what he transmitted to me. What you had with Dan is nothing to what you will have with me, Brandy."

“I don't love you. I won't love you."

“You will, when I turn you. Then, bound by your own Craving, you will weaken your former lover even more by assuaging it with his blood, and rejoice as I Harvest him so that we may depart for our new life."

“No,” she protested, but it was mere stubbornness. She had no strength, no will left, nothing but disillusion, despair, and the determination to fight to the bitter end.

Callahan set an incense burner to the right of Brandy's head. A bitterly spicy fragrance wafted through the room. The judge began to recite in what might be Latin—prayers, incantations, Brandy couldn't tell.

As a good police officer, she ought to be planning how to get out of here. Nothing held her, no handcuffs, no straps, yet she could not move off that wooden altar.

Callahan chanted something in another language as he drew symbols on Brandy's forehead, cheeks, and hands with scented oil. Then he dotted oil on her eyelids and ears, and pushed aside the décolletage of her gown to draw something over her heart.

Dan struggled. The handcuffs cut into his wrists. Brandy smelled his blood, familiar, not the vile smell of Callahan's. It aroused her Craving—

Her Craving?

Callahan put an oily finger to Brandy's lips. She could not even hold her mouth shut against him! And try as she might, she could not bite the invading hand. He painted a symbol on her tongue, then dipped the finger into the oil again and traced paths on the roof of her mouth.

She knew what those paths meant, had explored them in Dan's mouth to both their pleasure.

This was not biologically possible. Incantations and scented oil could not make fangs grow!

The finger was withdrawn. Brandy was left with the cloying, unpleasant taste and texture of the oil.

Callahan loomed over her, chanting louder. When he stopped, Brandy felt Dan's attention focus at the sudden silence.

The Numen opened his mouth. Fangs unfolded and his eyes dilated just as they did in a vampire. “Now,” he said, “I make you mine."

There was intense physical pleasure as fangs slid into her throat and the flow began, ecstatic, transcendent. Her mind fought with her body, not wanting that pleasure from Callahan, only from Dan. She could not move—

Try as she might, Brandy could not scream.

But Dan could.

Chapter Eighteen—Harvest

Dan howled like a wounded animal, the perfect expression of Brandy's own frustration and despair. She wanted to join him, scream, cry, and most of all push away the creature draining her blood!

The indescribable pleasure went on and on—the way she always wanted it to do with Dan, and he would never allow. Brandy's will drained with her blood, and she sank first into nameless bliss, then unconsciousness.

* * * *

She woke to overpowering hunger.

It was dark. She sat up, her body leaden, weak. Sliding off the altar, she kicked aside the husk of something empty of the life she needed.

There were two potential sources of satisfaction nearby. A pleasant ache suffused her palate. Instinctively, she opened her mouth, wide as for the widest yawn. Fangs unfolded, fitting perfectly against the backs of her upper teeth, extending over the lower ones, pinching her lower lip if she tried to close her mouth completely.

A single candle flame illuminated the room, yet she could see every corner. The soft thud of heartbeats and the susurrus of breathing pounded in her ears, while a world of scents competed for attention.

But the overpowering sensation was a need for life. She turned toward the stronger of the two sources she could now see, hear, smell—and longed to taste!

He came to her, yet denied her his brighter, stronger flame. She was directed toward the weaker source—a more appealing one once she was near. The scents of fear, anger, and despair stung sharply in her nostrils.

Noise. Two syllables of sound, meaningless.

The bloodscent was familiar, welcoming—hers!

At first he drew back, making sounds she ignored. The scent of life was hot in the back of her throat. Her mouth sought blood running bright and fresh below soft skin. She tasted salty-sweet moisture, savored it on her tongue as his throat moved.

Only the fresh, hot blood and the tang of fear had meaning. She plunged her fangs into his throat and sweetness flowed into her mouth.

No pleasure she had ever known matched the blissful flow of strength and warmth. She gloried in his resistance, wresting strength against his will, feeding on his despair.

It wasn't pain. Her prey's agony was mental, emotional, feeding her mind as his blood fed her body.

The texture changed. The challenge, the denial, disappeared. He gave—gentle welcome flowed on a wave of selfless love.

Brandy.

The empty syllables found meaning. They formed her name.

—Dan?

Concern and relief flowed to her with his love. Take, Sweetheart. Go on—take all I have. Live!

She drew upon that blessed gift, knowing only the sweetness he gave her so willingly.

Yes, Brandy—drain it all. Take me with you, my love. One day you will remember.

Remember? Remember what?

With a sharp shock, Brandy knew who she was, where she was, what was happening—

Callahan pulled her back. Dan cried out as her fangs ripped his throat. The Numen held Brandy away from her prey and took a perfunctory swipe at the wound with his tongue. Dan's bleeding stopped.

Brandy doubled over in pain at the interruption of her feeding—but it lasted only a moment. Her fangs retracted. The sensory overload dimmed to a tolerable level, although she could still see clearly. She had actually been more than satisfied, she realized. Dan had wanted her to—

“Yes,” said Callahan, “he wanted you to kill him, so I could not Harvest him."

“Dan, no!” Brandy exclaimed.

Callahan stared at her. “You still care for him."

“I love him,” she replied. “That's why you want to kill him. But Dan—you would have let me kill you?"

“What's the use? It would be an empty victory. If he needs computer skills, he can find another specialist, turn him into a vampire, and Harvest him."

“That's right,” said Callahan. “I didn't get as much from Doc Sanford as I would have after a century or two, but I gained some useful knowledge of forensic medicine."

“You don't have to kill Dan,” said Brandy.

“Ah, but I do,” was all the Numen said—and neither of them had to ask why.

Dan and Brandy knew, without having to articulate it, that Callahan had expected Brandy to be completely in his power. Instead, she loved Dan and loathed Callahan more than ever.

Their perfect match might be a myth, but the love between them was not.

Their only chance now was for Dan to Harvest the Numen, and become one himself. Did he know enough? He had read part of the book silently—Brandy didn't know if he had found the technique, or only the idea.

Even if he had the knowledge, did he have the strength?

Brandy doubted Dan would be standing if not handcuffed to the pipe. Her newly-acquired night vision showed that he was pale, even his lips drained, with only unhealthy spots of red in his cheeks. The wounds Brandy had put in his throat remained raw and sore. His eyes were sunk into bruised circles. Despite his extended fangs, he did not look dangerous. He looked helpless.

Oh, Dan, I'm so sorry!

Callahan laughed. “You gave him an easy death, Brandy. They fight the Harvest—how can they help it? I take not just their life force, but also their memories, their very souls! But Dan has no strength left to resist. It will be brief."

“Please, don't kill him,” said Brandy. “I'll come with you if you don't kill him!"

She couldn't tell whether she hid the thought that she would find a way to come back to Dan, for what Callahan answered was, “Oh, you will come with me, Brandy, and willingly. Once I contain Dan's essence, you will love me as you do him."

“No!” she exclaimed, remembering that she had a vampire's strength. With that and her police training—

Callahan dealt a blow to her left cheek that made her ears ring and knocked her, dazed, toward the door.

Yesterday such a blow would have meant a concussion, a broken cheekbone—maybe even a broken neck. Tonight the pain was as great—perhaps even greater, as she could not escape into unconsciousness—but her recovery was swift.

The misery subsided with the throb of her heartbeat, and she picked herself up from beside the box in front of the door. Box? Her bruised brain took a moment to process the information that books and scrolls, and some of the bottles and jars, had been packed while she was unconscious.

But she had no time to worry about what Callahan planned to take with him.

Callahan and Dan locked eyes. Brandy felt Dan's resistance as the Numen began the Harvest.

It was as if Dan's own ideas were suddenly shut off to him, and although he knew they were there he couldn't follow his own train of thought—the way memories get blocked when you can't remember someone's name, or the answer to an exam question on a topic you know perfectly well.

But instead of a specific piece of information, the mental block walled Dan off from all he knew, from his own name to how to create a web page! Brandy felt him panic as his mind was shut off. That must be what amnesia victims feel.

But if she could feel—

Dan—connect through me!

His mind reached gratefully to hers, to her knowledge of him, of the two of them together—

Callahan loomed between them.

Dan hung from the pipe, Callahan stood before him, and Brandy sat on the floor near the door. No one moved, yet battle raged for control of Dan's mind.

Callahan expanded his influence to hold Brandy off—but when his concentration wavered, Dan was able to integrate himself.

The Numen turned to Brandy, this time physically. He dragged her to her feet and fixed her eyes with his.

Callahan was centuries old and very powerful. Brandy's will gave before his strength—until Dan was there again, in her mind, supporting her—.

Together, he told her. Use my Craving.

Although she herself was replete, Dan's bottomless hunger gnawed voraciously. Brandy felt the ache in the roof of her mouth.

She let herself be directed through Dan's knowledge. Her fangs extended—she fastened them in Callahan's throat!

Callahan roared and tried to break the thread connecting him to Brandy, but a brighter, stronger one connected her to Dan. He fed her the power to maintain her hold. In a flash she knew what she had to do—what Dan had tried to get her to do to him.

It hadn't been a suicidal death wish; he had tried to make her Harvest him, hoping that with their combined strength and knowledge she could escape.

Even the aborted attempt had given her the strength to defy the Numen. He couldn't control her because of what she had received from Dan—not his blood, but his essence.

But—she didn't want Callahan's craving for power, his ruthless disregard for life.

Search for good in him, Dan instructed, guiding her toward a bright spark of determination, loyalty, righteous stubbornness—

Doc Sanford.

The essence of the old man, so recently Harvested, was as yet unintegrated. Brandy grasped gratefully at the clean strength, somehow sharing with Dan those characteristics, that knowledge—

Medical knowledge!

In massive sensory overload, years of training and experience flooded over and through them—and with it despair, frustration, anger, the passions of a lifetime of battling Callahan without ever knowing what he really was.

Death.

One by one, everyone he loved died.

Heartache, grief, despair.

Callahan threw negatives at them, trying to disengage, but together they held on, accepting the aches of old age, the frustration at the lack of accomplishment, and the obsessive belief that somehow Lee Joseph Callahan was at the heart of all his troubles.

Which he was.

Callahan set out to destroy the family who had been his friends. The Sanfords were resistant to his influence; he had to manipulate them in other ways. The carrot had worked for generations; only when he made the mistake of marrying Cindy Lou Sanford did he have to use the stick.

She had married him for love—but he had lost that love because he could not return it. When she saw through the facade, he disgraced her before the community, ruined her reputation lest she ruin his.

It was a masterly plan, given that he could not influence her. He could, however, choose a man exotic enough to attract a country girl's attention, and cause him to fall in love with her. Love begot love, and with carefully calculated emotional abuse he practically forced Cindy Lou into Carl Mishinski's arms. Then the exposure, the “justifiable homicide,” the raising of the bastard child as his own, increasing Callahan's moral standing in the community while undermining Cindy Lou's.

Stubborn Cindy Lou. She had actually tried to patch up their marriage, spent endless hours in church, tried to drag him to counseling. In the end he made her a vampire—and when she understood her husband's true evil she fought him in the only way left—she killed herself. Damn stubborn Sanfords!