Dead By Dusk (26 page)

“Yeah, but look,” Doug murmured. “It looks like it's irritating his skin! We'd better get it off.”

“Maybe,” Stephanie murmured.

And maybe Doug did indeed have an allergy. Once Drew had turned Doug over and Stephanie had gotten the clasp undone, he seemed to be fine, falling back into a restless sleep. The irritation on his throat seemed to disappear almost immediately.

“There, feel better?” Drew asked Stephanie. “Get going—Giovanni is here.”

At last, Stephanie agreed. She felt guilty leaving, but the others convinced her.

Outside, Giovanni was waiting for them with the resort van. He was sympathetic and charming. Despite the way he spoke, with the right words and duly respectful of the gravity of Doug's condition and the events of the day, he looked at them all—with appreciation. He was an attractive and charming young man, trying to lift their spirits as they returned.

“Lena agreed, she's bunking in with me,” Suzette, in the middle seat, told Stephanie, who was up front.

“That's good,” Stephanie said.

“Stephanie, Liz will be . . . alone?” Suzette said.

Lena elbowed her in the ribs.

“Oh, yeah, right . . . Clay?” she said, looking at Liz.

“We're very close, of course, but don't worry about me. I'm fine—really. Especially right now. I think I'm going to hang in the lobby until they open the restaurant for breakfast.”

“And you . . . well, I guess you're fine, too,” Lena said, looking at Stephanie.

“I'm fine,” she assured them, looking ahead.

Fine.

Yes, she'd be fine. Alone!

Grant was surely in his own place. And surely exhausted by now as well. In the hours that they'd been at the hospital, he had probably spent most of his time with the police!

Giovanni pulled in front of the resort. Stephanie was the last out, thanking him for having come at such a late hour.

“My pleasure,” he assured her. “But . . . Mr. Peterson . . . he went back to his place.”

“Yes?” she said.

He flushed handsomely, dark lashes sweeping his cheeks as he looked down. She realized that Giovanni—like most of the resort—was surely aware of where Grant had been sleeping.

“I thought you might want to know where he was.”

“Thank you, Giovanni. And good night.”

She started toward the main entrance. Suzette was waiting for her; Liz and Lena were just ahead. “Was the sensuous-eyed young Italian trying to make you feel the need for male companionship through the night?” Suzette asked.

Stephanie had to laugh. “I get the impression he'd like to spread love around the world. But he's always respectful. Hey, you all still be careful, okay?” she said. Then she gave them a wave, hurrying out, anxious. She felt nothing but absolute exhaustion. And she wanted desperately to be alone.

She nearly ran out back, grateful that it was so close to morning—to dawn, to the bright light of the sun. And yet, when she hurried from the rear doors of the resort down the trail to her own place, she realized it was still very dark.

Fumbling in her purse, she found her room key.

As she neared her door, she found herself thinking about Grant

What had he felt when he approached his own door—and saw a human arm there?

Or had he put it there?

Chills ripped into her, and she ran the last few steps to her door, opening it quickly. She loathed herself for having such vicious thoughts—surely, he was having his problems, but to suspect such things about a man she . . .

Loved.

That was just it! Oh, Lord, women could be such fools, letting an all-consuming passion, a hunger for the intimacy of such a sex life, interfere with logic and sense. She couldn't do that. She couldn't tell herself that just because she needed him beside her, because he made the earth and the heavens rise and explode like fireworks, that there couldn't be something wrong with him.

Very wrong.

Shaking her head, she pushed open the door. As she did so, she had a sense of a shadow, huge, bat-like, sweeping the night behind her.

She stepped in and slammed her door, and turned on every light in the place.

She ran up the stairs, turned on more lights, and washed her face. She stepped into the shower and let the water run, then froze.

A shadow seemed to have swept through her room.

She turned off the water and stood dead still.

Listening.

She waited. Nothing.

At last, as quietly as she could, she opened the glass door and groped for her towel, looking out to the bedroom.

Nothing.

She wrapped the towel around her, and tentatively stepped into the bedroom. The lights were on, as she had left them. The glass doors were locked; the draperies were still.

She exhaled, and knew she had to run downstairs—if she didn't, she'd never sleep.

Clutching her towel, she started down the stairs. Step by step.

The lights were blazing. As she had left them.

She stepped more quickly, hurrying down to the first-floor landing. She checked the hall closet, then the kitchen, and the doors that led to the beach. Everything was locked, as she had left it. And she wasn't turning the lights off. She'd have to worry about conservation at some later date.

At the foot of the stairs, she made one long, last assessment of her ground-floor area.

Lights were on, doors were locked, place was empty.

She started back up the stairs, reached the landing, and headed to her bedroom area. There, she paused, dead still, terror gripping her heart.

The draperies were breezing in, like great, puffy white ghosts, billowing.

The back door was open.

There seemed to be . . . a shadow. A shadow emerging, growing, from the corner of the room.

A shadow . . .

Quickly gone.

For suddenly, the whole of the little cottage was plunged into darkness.

Liz had waited until Suzette and Lena left the lobby, walking out arm in arm to Suzette's cottage.

She had no intention of waiting around until breakfast.

Her room was on the second floor of the main resort, facing the cottages. She hurried to it. Opening the door, she looked in. “Clay?”

There was no answer. Nor had he left her a message of any kind.

She strode across to the window. From her vantage point, she could see the area of the beach on both the left and the right, and the entries to most of the cottages.

She could see Stephanie's place, ablaze with light.

She could see Lena and Suzette, just reaching the latter's cottage. Lena was standing at the door, looking around, apparently urging Suzette to join her. Her arms were wrapped around her chest.

Lena was digging in her purse for her room key.

She surveyed the beach area the best she could.

It remained quiet.

Then, she saw it.

A sweeping black shadow, descending.

Then, Stephanie Cahill's place plunged into darkness.

Her heart slammed.

The time had come.

Turning away from the window, she raced out of her room, heedless of the door flying closed behind her.

She was desperate to make it out of the resort, and over to the cottage in time.

 

 

Stephanie stood in the total darkness, blinking and frozen, staring into the corner where she had seen the shadow.

There was a commotion at the glass doors, someone coming through, entangling in the billowing drapes.

She wore nothing but a towel, and carried no weapon, but instinct warned her of the most acute and terrible danger.

She needed something, anything!

Then, suddenly, there was more noise at the sliding glass doors and the draperies weren't just billowing, they were exploding into her room. As they did so, the complete and sudden black was eased.

Outside, the dawn was coming at last.

And now, in the pale light, she saw that her draperies had been cleanly pulled from the curtain rod. It appeared that they had turned into a massive ball on her floor.

Staring in that direction, she caught some movement with her peripheral vision. But it was nothing, just the shadow fading.

She heard grunts then, and the sound of a well-delivered punch.

Her sense of terror faded, to be replaced by one of fury. She recognized the sounds coming from the knot of her ruined draperies.

“Dammit, what the hell are you two doing?”

Walking over to the ball of entangled humanity on her floor, she tore at the drapes, then yelled at Clay Barton and tugged at Grant's hair.

“What the hell are the two of you doing?” she demanded, struggling to maintain her dignity despite the towel.

Tousled, heaving, eyes lethal as they surveyed one another, both Clay and Grant rose, circling like boxers.

Stephanie still held several strands of Grant's hair in her hand. He hadn't even noticed losing them.

“Stop it! What's going on?” she demanded.

“He was headed here,” Grant accused Clay. “And God knows what he intended.”

“Hell, no! I was after you!” Clay fired back.

“Liar!” Grant shouted, ready to lunge again.

“Wait!” Stephanie caught hold of his arm. He shook her off without notice, eyes lethally narrowed on Clay, every muscle in his body clenched and taut. Clay stood his ground, surveying Grant in return with a cool contempt.

“No!” Stephanie roared, coming between the two. “This is insane. This is my room. You've ruined my drapes, you jerks. What the hell is it between you two? Stop it, now!”

“I saw the shadow,” Clay said, staring at Grant.

“Yeah, I saw the damned shadow—you!” Grant accused him in return.

So far, neither one of them had made a jab at the other with her between them. But not a bit of the flaming anger or boiling testosterone seemed to diminish.

“Grant, I really, desperately, want you to calm down and talk to me,” Stephanie said.

“Talk, all right! I'll talk. Guess what?—I just searched the Internet. There was a Clay Barton—a fellow with this man's name and resumé, and even his looks. Seems one thing was different about him, though. He had AIDS—and he died a year ago!”

“Oh, you checked the Internet, did you?” Clay demanded in return.

At that moment, Stephanie whirled around as someone else came flying through the glass sliding doors. Liz.

She flew in, catching hold of the frame, staring at them all first, and trying to assess the situation.

“Lucien!” she cried out, racing toward him.

“Lucien!” Grant exploded. “I told you the guy was an impostor. And a murderer, I think.”

“No!” Liz protested. She had slipped an arm around the man she had called Lucien and stared at the both of them, and then at him. “Dammit, you've got to tell them the truth!”

“Yeah, I'd sure as hell like the truth!” Grant said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Wait a minute! I'm the director of the show,” Stephanie protested. “If someone has been lying to me—”

“Stephanie, this doesn't have a damned thing to do with the show, does it?” Grant demanded, staring at the two of them. “Does it—Liz? Or is that your name? It isn't, is it?”

“Jade,” she said.

Stephanie, totally puzzled, stared blankly for a moment. She pointed at the man she had known as Clay. “All right, your name is Lucien. And you're Jade. And, of course, you know one another very well, I take it.”

“We're married,” Jade explained.

“Great. He's married. Trying to pick up other women.”

“You ass! The hell I did!” Lucien responded.

“Will you two stop!” Liz exploded.

“Let's see, your real name is Lucien, you're married to this other fraud who is really named Jade, and you've been following my woman like a tick on a dog; so just what the hell is your story?”

“You ass!” Lucien repeated, standing with muscles as taut as Grant's.

“I'm not your ‘woman,' like a serf, or a piece of property!” Stephanie exclaimed to Grant.

He turned to her then, frustrated, drawing ragged hair away from his eyes. His expression clearly denoted that she was arguing semantics in the middle of chaos. “It refers to the person I love!” he said, indignant and distracted. “And is meant in no way possessive or . . . Sweet Jesus! This is not the point. What is going on?”

“You've got to tell them the truth!” Jade said to Lucien. “You should have told them the truth from the beginning.”

“Oh, indeed. I should have just said, hey, I'm a vampire, and something is going on here that's not right. Did I say ‘vampire'? Sorry, don't panic—I'm a good one these days?” he said skeptically to Liz—or Jade.

“Vampire!” Grant exploded. “Get real, and do it fast.”

“Or what?” Lucien said icily.

“Lucien!”

Lucien looked at his wife. “He's dying to take another really good jab at me. I should let him go for it.”

“Feel free to strike first,” Grant said with cold courtesy.

“Dammit! Both of you, stop!” Stephanie said, desperately trying to get control. She realized she'd reacted with sheer emotion to a few things said here tonight herself, but it was all beginning to border on the truly insane.

“You two have to listen!” Jade pleaded. Tense silence followed her words. “He . . . really is a vampire,” she said, then she held up a hand, as if she could prevent people from talking by doing so. “I came close . . . so I know what's happening here. In the real world, you can be tainted, and not turned, and survive. Only if help is immediate, as it was for Doug tonight. Once someone dies from a bite . . . then it's over. And the only way to end it is fire, the ocean . . . sea water, or a stake through the heart and decapitation.”

After her words, the silence remained. A pin could have been heard dropping.

Then Grant spoke at last. “We've got to get the police.”

He turned to exit through the open glass doors. “Stephanie, you can't stay here with him,” he called back.

“I'm in a towel!” she reminded him.

But Grant didn't go anywhere. She hadn't seen Lucien move, and she was certain that Grant hadn't, either.

But he was in front of Grant, blocking his way. “The police here will be involved,” Lucien said, his temper seeming to have abated. He sounded tired, and little more.

“There's sun coming up out here, buddy. Sure you want to be in the light?” Grant asked. “I mean, you're a vampire.”

Lucien let out a sound of irritation. “Sunlight robs vampires of some of their strength. It won't make them turn into ash or disappear,” he said.

“Look, I'm not sure if you're lethal, or merely demented,” Grant said firmly. “But one way or the other, we're going to the police.”

“Will you two just listen?” Jade pleaded again. She strode to the two men, coming between them and placing a hand on Grant's chest, forcing him to look down at her. “I'm begging you—listen.”

Grant's jaw was twisted but he looked over Jade's head, staring at Lucien. “Did you kill Maria Britto—or Gema Harris?”

“Before God, I didn't,” Lucien said.

Grant frowned, staring skeptically at Jade again. “Did he say, ‘before God'?”

“He's made his peace with his Maker,” she said simply.

Grant stared a minute, then shook his head. “I'm sorry, this is just preposterous.”

“Is it?” Jade demanded, staring at him again. “Admit it. You know that there is something really wrong here. You've been plagued by strange dreams. Your friends have experienced illnesses that can't be explained. A village girl was killed—and her own mother was willing to be judged insane in order to remove her head from her body.” Grant was silent, staring at her. “When you're out at the dig, you find that you have a stranger feeling than ever. You two . . . you two split up because you were behaving so strangely—am I wrong?”

Grant darted a glance at Stephanie, then looked back at Jade. “He's a vampire?” he said, indicating Lucien with a thrust of his jaw.

“Actually, a vampire king,” Jade murmured.

“Oh. The king,” Grant said.

“There's a very long history that you can't begin to know or understand,” Jade said.

“You're a vampire,” Grant said to Lucien. “Prove it.”

“Want me to snap your neck?” Lucien asked. “Or just bite it?”

Grant looked as if he were about to lunge at him. “Lucien!” Jade pleaded. She glared at her husband, then turned back to Grant. “There was a time when, naturally, his kind just did what they had to in order to survive. The world grew, the technological age came, and . . . anyway, a terrible dissension arose among those who wanted to survive with and protect humanity and those who wanted to live by the old rules. So now . . . the point is, he's here to protect you. Well, not just you, or even Stephanie, but to put down a really terrible evil that is alive in the world again.”

“Okay . . . wait a minute, I think this is getting way too bizarre,” Stephanie said, adding quickly, before Jade could protest, “but if you will all please go downstairs for a minute and let me get dressed, we can try—and I do mean try hard—to talk about it rationally.”

All three of them stared at her.

“Please?” she said.

Jade turned and walked to the door and looked back at the men. “Lucien, Grant?”

Grant stepped by Lucien, following Jade. Lucien did the same.

When they were gone, Stephanie just stood there.
They were insane!
she tried to tell herself. But everything here lately was insane.

Maybe it had been so since she had arrived.

She flew into motion then, hurrying into the closet, scrambling into a pair of jeans and knit shirt, finding her shoes, putting them on. She hurried down the stairs.

Jade had begun to make coffee.

To Stephanie's amazement, Grant and Clay were suddenly speaking intensely to one another, but not with hostility. Grant seemed to be very seriously listening to what Lucien had to say.

Jade flashed Stephanie a smile. It was the smile most women would give one another if their husbands had nearly come to blows over the outcome of a football game, or some other silly thing, and it had been prevented.

Lucien and Grant were seated at the dining table. Stephanie realized that they were talking about the dig.

“I believe that the earthquake caused either François de Venue or Valeria to be released,” Lucien said. “They must have been entombed when the quake struck centuries ago, but the recent shift caused them to be freed. As I said—one, or the other, or both. I felt it when it happened—and it was right after that, when I was reading
Variety
, that I saw the advertisements for comedians/improv actors who were willing to work indefinitely in Italy.”

“Reggie put the ads out,” Stephanie said, piping up. “And Reggie . . . well, she was around way before the last earthquake.”

Lucien drummed on the table, mulling her words.

“Wait a minute,” Grant said to Lucien. “You said that you felt it when it happened. What did you feel?”

“I have an extra . . . sense, I guess you'd say. I can usually feel it when there's a real rise of evil. I can usually pick out another vampire from miles away. But with this . . . I only felt the . . . rise. And a threat. A real threat.”

“So what does that mean?” Grant asked cautiously.

“It means,” Jade said, bringing the coffeepot and a handful of cups to the table, “that there's more involved than just a vampire.”

“Just a vampire,” Stephanie repeated. She accepted coffee from Jade and sat at the end of the table, shaking her head. “I'm sorry, but . . .”

Lucien turned back to Grant. “Valeria had some kind of a fantastic power. They called her a witch—nothing to do with wiccans, today or yesterday, I assure you. But a witch, as in the fact that she came from a long line of women with unearthly powers. What happened then was that François de Venue became a vampire—whether it was in Paris, fighting the Crusades, conquering native populations elsewhere, I'm not certain. The point is—he had a certain power of his own. It must have been pretty strong, because—according to history, at least—she very nearly married Conan de Burgh. Instead, she rode with François de Venue. The legends have it that she could raise the wind, bring fog and rain, and create an army of devil dogs.”