SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (25 page)

"No, but I bet it would be fun." He gave her an interested glance. "What about you? Ever gone on the ride?"

Dell shook her head. "I never had a horse until now. I got Lightning as a birthday present.”

“Happy birthday!"

She smiled. "Oh, it was days ago, but thanks.”

“So you're fifty-two now, huh?"

"Eighteen!"

"Sorry. Eighteen. I knew that."

Once on the trail, riding their horses, Ryan broke the silence first. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"You might think I'm out of place, doing what I did last night when you were with Lori, but . . .”

“No, go ahead."

"It's just that those kids are into some weird stuff. It wasn't any of my business, but you're new here and I was worried about you."

"You mean not everyone drinks blood?"

She looked over at him, surprised. She saw he was about to burst out in laughter. "It's not funny," she said.

He sobered. "No, it's not funny, I guess."

"It's . . . I think the blood stuff is dangerous. People could get, well, they could get really sick doing that."

"I know. I didn't partake after you left. Not that I was going to anyway."

But will you? she wanted to ask. "Ryan, that's what they do," she persisted. "It's part of who they are."

"Look, if you're worried I'll turn into a vampire, rest your mind. I've started reading Stoker's Dracula. The nightlife doesn't appeal."

She smiled to herself. He'd not get much from Stoker. "They might not want you hanging with them if they find that out."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

They had reached the little creek. Dell pulled up Lightning and got out of the saddle. "Let's let them drink," she said.

Ryan dismounted and led his horse to the sparkling water. Sunbeams glanced off its surface and threw glitters of light into the nearby stand of shadowy weeping willows. A noisy blue jay flitted from branch to branch high up, making a racket. A mama bird, no doubt, protecting her nest of eggs.

The horses snuffled and bent to the water, wetting their front hooves in the stream's edge. In the distance, the sun was beginning to set, a flaming burnt-scarlet ball radiating purple and pink against low clouds. Dell thought there couldn't be prettier sunsets anywhere else in all the world.

"Why do you really care if I get into the vampire stuff," he asked suddenly.

Taken aback, Dell stared into the running water of the creek. She didn't wish to look at him and betray herself. "It's just that I know them," she said, "and it's the danger in it, that's all."

"You wouldn't want me to get sick," he said, more softly.

She felt as if he were peeling her open the way someone shreds the skin of an orange to expose the soft center. "I wouldn't want anyone to get sick. Lori. You. Those others. I think it's just a dumb thing to be doing, that's all. It's not very responsible."

"So it's not me."

She turned to him and saw he'd moved from one side of his horse next to where she stood. "Not you, what?" Ignorance was always a good screen.

"Not me you wanted to save. I'm incidental. This ride was meant to be just a plain old warning that you'd want to give to anyone new in school, right?"

She was looking in his face, into his eyes, and she couldn't lie to him. She found she'd stopped breathing. She didn't need to breathe and in times of distress or during lapses where she daydreamed, she forgot she was supposed to be human. She took in a showy breath and let it out. She looked away from him, turned, began to rub down Lightning's coat.

"I guess so," she said, answering him finally. "I guess new kids need some warning."

"Dell, Dell, Dell."

She turned back to him.

"You can't lie, so you blow smoke instead. Why didn't you say you'd go out with me when I first asked you? Why did it take Lori and the cult thing to get you to notice me? Lori was a second choice. I don't have any interest in her world. It's you I wanted to be with, until you made it plain you didn't want it."

Tears sprang to Dell's eyes and she had to look down. She couldn't cry in front of him. He'd see her tears were made of other than salty water. "I . . . can't . . ."

"Like me? You can't like me? Am I that terrible? Do I have four eyes or six fingers on each hand? Is there a booger hanging from my nose?"

Now she laughed, and the threat of tears vanished. "I like you," she said, laughing at the face he was making and the gesture of a finger at his nose. "Stop that."

He stepped close and put his hands on her waist, suddenly serious. "We'll try one date. How bad could it be, after the Loden party? We'll see a movie, eat pizza, go to the mall, whatever you want to do this weekend."

"I like movies," she said.

"I won't even kiss you." He let her go and stepped back, his hands raised. "I promise. No funny business. I'm not one of those guys always out to score."

He made her laugh. She loved how he made her laugh. He was telling her serious things in a way that didn't scare them both.

"I don't know if you have to go that far," she said.

"Okay, I take the promise back. Maybe I'll kiss you, maybe I won't." He turned and leaped onto the bay, hauling back on the reins so it wouldn't get skittish. "It was the booger thing, wasn't it? Something about boogers gets girls every time."

They laughed and talked during the rest of their ride together. When they stabled the horses and were at Ryan's car, Dell felt good about everything. Damn what Mentor said. She wasn't going to be lonely and an outcast. She wasn't going to deny herself good times with Ryan. She didn't have to, damnit. She could handle herself. It was her life.

"Friday night, eight p.m.?" He was inside his car, the window rolled down. The way he was looking up at her, the curve of his lips, the sweep of his hair over his forehead, made her want to lean down and kiss him. But she didn't.

"Friday," she said. "Yeah."

She watched him drive away. She wanted to give Lightning a brushing, so she meant to stay a while. And the whole time she'd be thinking about Ryan. How cute he was, how funny and sweet. She wanted to think about how good she felt, better than she'd ever felt before, and how that could not be a bad thing. It was only a date. She wasn't marrying the guy.

What could Mentor say?

~*~

Mentor said nothing. He knew of Dell's interest in her young man, and he kept silent about it. At least a fourth of all vampires fell in love with humans at least once. Some of them kept the relationships until their humans died. A very few turned their lovers into immortals, in order to keep them. But most watched their humans die and grieved so deeply they rarely ever allowed themselves to fall in love that way again.

Mentor had been one of the latter. He'd loved Patrice with all of his soul. He had wrestled for months over whether he should or could make her vampire in order to save her from death. In the end he knew he had to let her go. When she closed her eyes for the last time, she whispered a thank you to him. She had lived with him for fifty years and knew the terror of his life. She did not want to be like him. She wanted instead to die peacefully in her own bed and go to her Creator, whom she believed in totally. She also believed that one day, when he was allowed to end his existence as a vampire, he would be with her again.

Mentor prayed she was right. He hadn't much faith in that future meeting, but he continued to love and miss his wife, and he resisted loving another mortal.

He had warned Dell, and that was all he could do. He could not dictate to her or force her to do something she didn't want. He feared for her, but then he feared for dozens of others like her who had decided to plunge into a love affair with a human. There was nothing he could do.

He had to shake off his regrets because he was close to Bette Kinyo's house, and he had work to do this morning. He had been too careful the last time when he'd entered her mind and tucked her memories away. This time, unfortunately, he would have to do a better job of it or else Ross would murder her. Mentor also had to erase the man's memories as well. Both of them were getting too close to the truth.

As he walked up to Bette's front door, Mentor paused and let his power probe the rooms of her home. He wanted to know where she and the man were, what they were doing. He really did not want to interrupt an intimacy. Truth be told, he didn't want to be here at all. Every time he saw Bette, he was reminded of Patrice, and he seemed to fall in love all over again. He really didn't want to have to contemplate such an event.

As he searched the rooms, he easily found Bette, showering in the bath off her upstairs bedroom. She smelled of soap and lavender shampoo. She diligently washed her trim, healthy body, humming as she did so. But he could not find Alan. He searched again, thinking he had been too interested in finding Bette and had overlooked the man's scent and presence.

No, he was right. Except for Bette, the house was empty.

Mentor frowned. Where was the man? Now what would he have to do in order to get to him? Ross would surely kill him if he spoke to anyone about what he'd seen at Ross' home. Mentor cared nothing about the man. In fact, he was secretly jealous of both his humanity and the love Bette had for him, but he did not want to see him taken from Bette. He liked her enough to be selfless.

He searched the house supernaturally for a third time, unbelieving that he could not find the man. He had to find out where he'd gone.

He was inside and waiting for her when she came down the stairs dressed for work. Her hair was still damp, falling appealingly across dark eyes that looked on him with dread. She halted on the stairs upon seeing him. "Go away," she said. "I didn't invite you in this time."

"No, you didn't. But something has to be done, Bette. You're in more danger now than ever before. Your life hangs in the balance."

She began to back up the stairs, never taking her gaze off him. "I don't know what you are, but you must leave here," she said.

"Bette, come down the stairs to me."

She paused with a foot poised above a riser behind her. She began to move mechanically down the stairs again until she reached the ground floor. Mentor found it incredibly easy to manipulate the actions of humans. They were no more than puppets under his power.

"Please," she pleaded. "Don't."

"If I'm to save your life I have to, my dear. You're a beautiful woman in the prime of your life. You're engaged in important work. You're too young to die at the hands of my colleague. I'm afraid it's the fault of your young man. He told you information he should never have found out. Neither of you will be allowed to share it."

"We're right, aren't we? You're a vampire." Her eyes were wide and terror-stricken. She began to shake with tremors so that her hands danced on the ends of her arms.

He stared into her eyes, hypnotizing her now, coming close to reach out and touch her pale arms. "I am vampire," he said. "And you must forget I told you so."

It took only seconds, but to Mentor it seemed to be a long voyage beyond time. He found himself lost in her mind's fears. He stumbled through torrents of emotions that shook him and made him fall back before moving forward again, as if against a hard gale. He found all the information that pertained to the blood bank discrepancies, the memories of what she thought of him and of Ross. He found everything that pertained to vampires and every word Alan had said to her. He made sure this time she would not be able to recall them, even if someone were to try to trigger the memories. He was like an electroshock machine, scrambling the electronic impulses of her brain in a specific area holding these memories. They vanished under his assault, the way memories go dark and die away from electroshock waves.

When he finished, Bette again collapsed from the trauma to her mind. He lifted her gently and set her down on the sofa, straightening her legs, slipping off her shoes. She had such small, delicate feet, such shapely legs. He drew back from her. She would wake in minutes and remember nothing about his visit. And nothing about what Alan had told her.

While in her mind, Mentor found the information he needed to track her lover. It seemed that the man had left her early, going before daylight, driving south to Houston. He ferreted out the man's last name, his profession, where he worked, the name and address of the old man who had sent him on a search for an immortal, and Alan's apartment location in the city.

Before leaving, Mentor stood looking down on the woman. Her face was a little more square and her eyes a little more Oriental, but she did remind him of his beloved Patrice. It was as if Patrice had come back and incarnated into this small Japanese woman—if only he could believe in reincarnation—which he couldn't. Over the years he'd walked the Earth, he'd never had any proof such a thing existed. Still . . . Bette Kinyo bore such a strong resemblance in so many ways. She awakened in him all the old memories, his old feeling of love and tenderness for a woman.

He reached down and brushed the damp hair from her high forehead. He bent from the waist and pressed his lips there, feeling her warmth, tasting the slightly tangy fresh soap scent that lingered on her skin. He whispered, "I hope never to see you again. I don't want to love you.'

And then he was gone, vanishing from the room, going in search of Alan Star, the man who would take his fantastic story about vampires back to Houston to a desperate employer eager to believe him.

Ross communicated at a distance, just as Mentor was leaving Bette's house and entering the atmosphere beyond her roof as no more than a wisp of shadow.

"Did you do it?" Ross inquired on a mental wavelength.

"Yes, yes, it's done," Mentor lied, hoping Ross would not discover the man had got away. No one could ever lie to a vampire except another of his kind, one with the power to make it stick. Mentor always tried to be truthful, but he found himself breaking all the rules with Ross.

Mentor left Bette's house and sailed south, flying high above the city like a passing breeze, relishing the feeling of freedom he always experienced when transformed from human flesh into nothing more than molecules of energy.