HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (54 page)

Then she remembered
his teeth and shuddered. She felt Alan's hand touch her arm, and she
stilled. She did not think she would tell him about the being's sharp
incisors. It was enough that she was asking him to believe she'd seen
anything at all. He'd totally discredit whatever she said if she
mentioned fangs. Could the old man have been a vampire? From American
movies and American culture she had been as immersed in vampire myths
as everyone else. Could she have made a mistake and only imagined the
fangs?

She began to pray
silently as she waited for Alan to come around. She looked down the
hall from beneath her eyelashes, worried that she would see a shadow
that shouldn't be there. She knew there was no protection from the
man and that he would return at his convenience. Except for her
prayers, she had no defense. Even if Alan were to stay, or if she
moved someone else into her house, the man would come back
eventually. He hadn't got what he'd come for, and in the end nothing
would deter him.

In other words, she
was doomed and there was no help for it. The tears welled in her eyes
again, and this time she let them flow unimpeded down her cheeks.

14

Mentor lay on the
rooftop of Bette Kinyo's house, listening to how she tried to explain
his appearance. He was surprised at her intuitiveness and
intelligence. She must have already studied and accepted the
supernatural in the world, or she never could have concluded the
facts about him she was now relating to the visitor. From where he
lay on the roof shingles, he could see her tiny backyard where he
could contemplate the Japanese garden there. It was meticulous, right
down to the placement of two stones in the raked gravel to indicate
rising islands, just as the rake marks indicated swirls of the sea
surrounding the land masses. She had built an inlaid stone pathway
from her back door to a teak bench beneath a slim weeping willow.
From there, she could study the garden in peace. Even the usual noise
from cars passing on the street in front of the house was muffled by
the trees.

When the man left,
Mentor would have to reenter the house and deal with Bette. Ross
would not allow her to interfere in the operation of his blood bank.
If Mentor did not do something, Ross would dispatch a killer to her
door. That would be a shame. This little woman was a shining example
of what a human could attain in one lifetime. Serenity. Security in
her inner being. The peace of knowing her place in the scheme of the
world.

Now he understood
why she did not have a husband and children in the house. She had
already moved beyond the natural urges of her gender and stepped into
another dimension of living. She needed no one in order to be whole.
She was sufficient unto herself.

Though he admired
her, he would not hesitate to meddle with her mind. Or "mingle"
with it, as he had warned her in advance. He would do his best not to
jostle or tamper with the part of her mind that had created the
wonderful garden and the pleasant home. But he must search out the
memories she possessed and eradicate the ones that had to do with
Strand-Catel. It would be a tricky procedure. Despite her fears, he
was not a demon god, and therefore he was imperfect and sometimes
made mistakes.

He paused to listen
to the two humans inside the house. The man was full of disbelief,
and even a little derision, though he was not voicing it to the
woman. Oh, and now he was thinking how delicious she was in bed and
had plans to get her there, ostensibly to allay her fears, but in
truth it was a selfish motive of a sexual nature.

Mentor sighed to
himself and turned his attention back to the empty garden glowing in
the moonlight. Sex always made him feel his age, his real and true
age. He had not mated in centuries. He had let that portion of his
humanity grow lax until, finally, it had died. He missed it—the
physical coupling, the overwhelming desire, the heat of congress, and
then ultimate relief. He could not remember now why he had been so
foolish as to let desire leak from him and vanish altogether.

He had loved a
woman once. Her memory was emblazoned on his soul as much as the fact
of his vampirism. It had been so long in the dusty past that human
women then were an altogether different kind of creature. He had
loved her more than his own life and when she'd died, for she had not
been of his kind and he could not talk himself into making her one,
he had let die his need for any other woman. He did not take a vow of
celibacy. His ardor for sex had simply cooled until it was ice,
never, he believed, to be rekindled again.

He mentally checked
on the couple inside and found them in the loft bedroom, undressing.
He might as well not wait, then. The man would probably stay the
night.

Lifting straight up
from where he lay on the roof, Mentor raised his arms and sailed
easily skyward toward the clouds. He would lose himself in them on
his way across Dallas to his own home. He would daily in the thin
air, clearing his mind of the past and the one woman he'd ever loved.
And then, when the morning came, he would return to 2234 Barbary Lane
and speak again with the intriguing Bette Kinyo.

~*~

Alan made up his
mind to watch her house the next day for the being she insisted had
come to her. Right now they lay side by side, sweat drying on their
bodies. In a moment Bette would rise to shower and afterward, he
would bathe, too. Then they would snuggle in the sheets, lying with
their arms around one another until morning. Again he wondered why he
had not asked her to marry him. It was silly how he fell in love
every time he met with her and then left again, the two of them going
separate ways.

Perhaps he could
broach the subject. "We could use a good hematologist in
Houston. They have labs there, too, you know."

All right, it
wasn't exactly a proposal, but he would have to work up to it. After
all, he'd had no practice.

She laughed a
little, her breath warm against his chest, where she lay curled like
a soft kitten. "I have my house here, Alan."

"I'll get you
another house." There. Couldn't she see what he was driving at?
He would even buy her a home, for Pete's sake. "What I'm saying
is . . .” Hell, why didn't he just say what he meant instead of
talking all around the bush like a school kid? "I just think
we're good together. I'd like you to be where I am. I'd like you to .
. ." He was screwing up. He couldn't propose worth a damn.

Bette rose up on an
elbow and looked into his face. He knew he was conflicted and that it
showed on his features. He was frowning when he meant to smile, but
damnit, couldn't she see what he was getting at?

"I don't want
to get married," she said simply. To soften the blow, she added,
"I love you, Alan. I don't sleep with anyone else but you."

"That's just
it. Neither do I. Then why don't we . . .?"

"It's too
perfect the way it is," she said, tracing a finger over his lips
to keep him quiet. "I'm happy here. I've made this my home. It's
where my parents are and my work. And you . . . Houston is where you
belong. It's your home. It's where you find the most satisfaction in
your work. Besides, we don't need to be married to be in love."

She swooped over
him and kissed his lips.

He sighed into her
mouth and pulled her on top of him, running his hands down the small
of her back to the graceful swell of her hips. "All right,"
he murmured, "if that's what you want."

One day, he told
himself, he would talk her into it. He would give up his place in
Houston, which meant nothing to him, the way her home did to her. He
would build his research clinic here, maybe, instead of in Houston.
He'd speak to Charles Upton right away, telling him his change of
plans. It was ridiculous that they only met like this once in a while
when they could be together every single night for the rest of their
lives. But he'd keep it a secret and when he made the move, then he'd
see what she had to say. He loved her little house, which to him was
as charming as a doll house, and she would have him move in. It would
all work out beautifully, she'd see.

Once they had made
love again, she pulled him from the bed by the hand and together they
showered, washing one another's bodies playfully. As they were drying
off, he said, "I didn't tell you why I came to see you."

"It's because
of my call?" She wrapped an oversized towel around her petite
body and slipped on dainty pink satin slippers.

"How do you do
that? Read my mind that way? Yes, it's about your call. I'm doing
some . . . uh . . . research for a man. He's . . . uh . . .
interested in blood supplies. I thought I'd check out what you said
about one of the banks in town sending out large shipments across the
state when there's no reason for it."

"What kind of
research are you doing? It's not exactly your field. What about your
patients?"

He shrugged,
wondering how much to tell her. Believing in spirits that showed up
in your kitchen was slightly different from hunting down vampires for
a disillusioned old man who was dying. Or maybe it wasn't?

"I have
someone filling in for me at the hospital. This other thing is
important."

"It must be
for you to leave the hospital."

"Oh, I
haven't, not for good or anything. I'm just taking some leave time
now and then. So tell me about the blood bank. Maybe you can show me
the records."

She eyed him.
"Well, maybe with your help we can figure it out. Like I said
when I called, I'm completely dumbfounded. I called the Strand-Catel
people and they gave me some nonsense about how my records must be
wrong, they don't send out shipments that way. And I know that's a
lie. I have to track every pint of blood in this state, and my
records aren't wrong. They're hiding something, Alan. I just don't
know why.”

"I'll go with
you to the lab today. Maybe I can visit the bank afterward and get
some answers."

She hugged him in
all his nakedness and smiled when she stepped back. "I'm so glad
you were at my door," she said. "For more reasons than one,
that's for sure."

~*~

Alan had spent the
morning going over Bette's records and being convinced something was
foul in Dallas. He could see how she had gone without noticing the
discrepancy for so long. Her office was inundated with reams of
printouts and faxes, stacks of government forms and file cabinets of
computer documents.

Once sure she was
right, that the Strand-Catel blood bank was shipping masses of blood
all across the Southwest, he left her office and drove to the squat
white brick building that housed the Strand-Catel complex. Inside, he
asked to speak to the manager, and was taken down a long bare hall to
a door that might have opened on a broom closet, for there was no
sign to indicate it was an office. On the other side was a small
waiting room with out-of-date and rumpled magazines, a cranberry
tweed sofa nubby from use, and a desk for a bored secretary. "He's
not in," she announced as Alan and the receptionist entered.

"I'll wait,"
Alan said, making for the sofa and wishing he'd brought a novel along
to read.

"He may be a
while," the secretary said.

"That's all
right, I'll wait." He was not to be outdone. Someone needed to
account for the blood bank's strange actions, and the manager was the
one to do it.

It took more than
two hours, but finally a man hurried through the unmarked door, a
briefcase in his hand. The secretary flicked her eyes from the man to
Alan. Alan stood, sore from sitting for so long.

"Hello,"
he said. "I'm from the Bartok Laboratories. I'd like to speak to
you if I may?"

"Of course."
The manager, Harold Kreeg, ushered him through another unmarked door
into an office nearly as messy as Bette's.

Alan found a chair
across from the desk piled with papers, and sat down. He would rather
have stood, to get the kinks out of his legs, but it would have been
impolite.

"What can I do
for you?" Kreeg asked. He placed the briefcase on top of a pile
of paper and sank into his chair. He seemed to be a harried man,
overcome with schedules and paperwork.

"We have
records showing that your blood bank has been shipping untested blood
all over the state for many years. It was only discovered by
accident, but Bartok Laboratories has a mandate to test blood
supplies before shipping and they're wondering what's going on here."
He paused and then added, "It would be unfortunate if the
federal authorities had to be called in to straighten this out."

Kreeg blanched all
the way from his receding hairline to his chin. He leaned forward and
placed his arms on his desk, knotting his hands together. "I'm
sorry, who did you say you were?"