SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (37 page)

Charles nearly raised his voice again in rage, demanding a regular American pack of playing cards. The monks could surely send for a deck at some nearby village, if they wanted. They might be in the wilds of Thailand, the monastery hidden in the jungle at the base of mountains, but they could reach into the modern world for their needs any time they liked. What was he supposed to do with tarot cards so ancient they might crumble to dust if he shuffled them?

Then, just as he was about to return to the door and yell, the cards grew warm in his hands. He looked down and, fanning the cards out, saw the figures on the cards begin to shift slightly, taking on more vibrant colors. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, thinking he was imagining things or maybe the dim light in the cell was playing tricks on his vision. Still the figures moved, some of them presenting their backs to him, some bending to fetch an item from the ground or a table, others backing up from their position on the card face so they appeared to be farther distant, as if walking off into another dimension.

Charles sat down on the stone bench that served as his bed. What did he have here? What sort of magic had the monk innocently placed into his hands . . . and how might he use it to release himself from the monastery prison?

He had gotten down onto the floor and spread out his long, skinny legs. Between them on the rough stone he began to place the cards, turning them over one by one and lining them up in columns of eight. The figures had ceased their movement as he did this, but as soon as they were all laid out in a grid, the shimmering began again, the figures moving about as if alive.

"Who are you?" he whispered, leaning over to watch the figure. "Where are you?"

He knew the question he should be asking. What can you do for me? But he would come to that if he could ever find a way to communicate with the cards.

Even as twilight descended and night rushed on, long after the bells had been silenced and into the late darkness, Charles leaned over the magical cards, running his fingers over them. His brow furrowed as he quested for understanding. What were they trying to tell him? What gave them life and what dimension were they locked in?

He forgot the usual hunger that sometimes drove him to claw at the stone walls and beg for relief. He forgot the betrayal that brought him to this horrid place where he was chained; watched over, and sentenced for life. Time did not exist, the hours speeding past unnoticed. Charles didn't sleep until he passed out, falling right where he sat, legs spread-eagled, the cards between them, his head lying on the stones.

~*~

At the ringing of the morning bells, Charles woke and remembered the cards. His tossing and turning in his sleep had scattered them about. Reaching to gather them, he sensed something happening in the corner of his cell. He saw a mist seeping through the stones there, rising in a gray cloud that elongated within seconds to touch the floor. From the mist twirled tiny electrical storms of twinkling lights that came together even as he watched, mouth agape. The mist formed into a human form and finally into a female.

Before him stood a tall slim woman with wild long hair covering her shoulders. She wore an ankle-length brown dress with tattered wisps of beige lace at the high throat and wrists. She appeared to be a woman transplanted from Victorian times.

"Where did you get the cards?" she asked.

"Who are you?"

"Madeline. I occupy the cell next to you."

He had heard the monks call her name over the months, admonishing her for a volatile temper. He had never seen or spoken to her, however, and did not know she could migrate through walls.

"How did you do that?" He rose to his feet, a few of the cards still held in his hands while the others lay about him on the floor.

"Never mind. Answer my question first. Where did you get the cards? I only have paper and pen. No one has ever offered me cards."

Her voice was quiet and controlled, very unlike how it sounded when she was in a rage and the monks stood in the hall threatening to bind and gag her if she didn't shut up.

"I asked for them so I could play solitaire. Joseph brought them yesterday."

"Yes, I heard him," she said. "May I see the cards?" She floated to him and bent to retrieve a card from the floor. Suddenly Charles knew he must stop her. He couldn't risk her seeing how the figures came to life. He snatched the card from her hand before she was able to do more than glance at it.

"No, you may not," he said. "They're mine."

"Unfriendly cuss, aren't you?" A hint of a smile turned up her lips. "I've thought of visiting you before, but now I see it was a mistake. I should have stayed away."

Her form shimmered and retreated. Charles, feeling an urgent sense of abandonment, stepped forward with his hand outstretched to stop her, and said, "No, wait! Don't go."

The shimmering ceased and she was solid again. "Why did Mentor bring you here?"

Charles lowered his head so she could not see the hatred he felt. He knew it disfigured his face. "He was scared of me." He lifted his gaze. "Why did he bring you here?"

"I lost my mind."

Charles found her honesty startling. "Are you still mad?" he asked.

"Not as much as I was a hundred years ago."

"You've been here a hundred years?" The very thought of spending a hundred years in this dreary place made his heart constrict, as if a knife had been plunged through it.

"A hundred and eight years, actually," she said. "But that's old news and boring besides. Do you never answer questions put to you?"

He'd forgotten what she'd asked. The thought of a century imprisoned behind these walls had completely filled his mind with despair.

"Why did Mentor bring you?" She repeated the question for him as if she knew his confusion.

"I told you, he was scared of me and how much power I might one day have over him."

"That's ridiculous." Madeline leaned now against the wall and stared at the small barred window where morning light filtered into the cell. "Mentor is not afraid of anyone."

"You know of Ross?" Charles asked.

"The Predator who controls the blood in the southwestern area of the United States?"

"The very same. He wanted my companies and my tremendous wealth. He and Mentor decided I'd be better off out of the way."

"Poppycock."

"What?"

"You lie." She turned from the window and began to shimmer out of existence. "Everything you say is a lie. I don't even care about your cards. I shouldn't have visited."

"Wait, stop going away like that."

"Why should I? I hate few things more than a liar."

"All right, then! Mentor knew I was planning to take over operations. I was going to get Ross to help me. Or I thought I was . . ."

She solidified again, turning her face to him. He could see her intelligent eyes questioning the veracity of his words. He would tell her the truth, by glory. He had been alone so long without seeing anyone but the damned wordless monks. He hadn't held a real conversation with another being in over three years. Her appearance was thrilling to him.

"Go on," she said. "You have my attention."

"I don't know exactly how Mentor did it, but he knew what I had thought secret. I was working with Ross, letting him use my resources to expand the blood bank and start more of them—one in Oklahoma, another in Arizona. When he controlled the blood, he controlled the Predators who worked 'under him, and they controlled the Naturals and Cravens with their deliveries. Once I had Ross on my side, I was going to convince him he needed to kill Mentor. Incinerate him. He doesn't like him much anyway. They're always fighting."

"While I've been here, Mentor and Ross have re-created their uneasy alliance in America. I know how they are," she said. "Before the Colonial days in that country, they were aligned in the French countryside, bringing together the clans who wandered in separate sects, living in hovels, mainly, preying on travelers along the roads. It's fair to say the two of them argued and fought for a couple of centuries before they ever laid eyes on you."

He didn't care how long they'd worked together. Wasn't she listening to him? Then he understood what she was getting at. He'd been fighting a long-standing, if ill-tempered, alliance. "Then my plan to push the wedge between them even deeper might never have worked, but I didn't know that." Charles sat down on the stone bed, the knowledge he'd been rash and ignorant causing him to feel tired. He continued slowly, looking up at Madeline. "I had money. Lots of money. A disgraceful amount of money and companies and holdings, some would say. Once I had Mentor out of the way, I was going to get rid of Ross and take over everything."

"And why would you do that, if you'd managed it—besides being a greedy little new vampire?" she asked.

He felt scolded, but realized he deserved her contempt. He might have been sixty-eight when he'd become vampire, but in terms of age he was a babe compared to his enemies. "Because I think the way things are run is stupid."

"You mean how the Predators allow the Cravens to live?" She seemed genuinely perplexed, as if he were a Chinese puzzle she could not decipher.

"Yes."

"And how the Naturals walk among men?"

"Yes." He knew he would not insult her, for it was obvious to him she was Predator, the same as he. He could sense her warrior spirit. She had never taken blood except from living beings before imprisonment.

"So you would make changes." She seemed intrigued with his plan.

"I would definitely make changes," he said, encouraged. "I would destroy the Cravens wherever I found the mangy things. They're useless, a drain on our blood supplies. I'd have the Predators rise up and rule the world, as they should. I'd stop the supplies of blood to the Naturals. They could prey, the way their nature dictates, or they could starve for all I care. We've been human., It's not that great."

"Isn't it?"

It was the first time since he'd begun his confession to Madeline that he sensed she'd been leading him on. She was mocking him now.

"You miss being human?" He was sincerely curious.

"I miss the human who loved me," she said, fading from the cell. "They say it's why I'm mad."

"Why are you leaving?" He felt desperate to keep her. "I told the truth. That's what you want, isn't it? The truth?"

"Your truth is cold as the grave and just as sordid. It makes sense only to you. It is an ugly truth you want to make reality. You may keep that truth to yourself."

"But I don't understand . . ."

"No, I guess you wouldn't."

Then she was gone, disappearing right before him. He knew vampires could change themselves into animals, though he had no idea how, but he did not know they could become mist and invade the minute spaces between ancient stacked stone. He had wanted her to tell him how to do it. He could escape if she'd only told him.

"Madeline?" he called, rushing to the cell door and pressing his face against the little barred window there. "Madeline!"

Joseph came down the dark, sooty corridor lit with kerosene wall lanterns even during the day as no light pierced the space between the cells. Joseph frowned and said to him, "Stop that yelling. Madeline does not speak to inmates."

Unlike many of the other monks, who went about with their shaven heads uncovered, Joseph wore a cowl of orange cloth that matched his robe. He peered now from beneath it, his eyes like flat red coals.

Charles almost told him he was a fool. Madeline had left her cell and come into his. She knew things he must learn. She did not like his truth, but she did indeed speak to him.

Once Joseph was confident he had stopped calling into the corridor, he went away again, his robe swishing along the cobblestone floor. Charles moved from the door to the cards on the floor. He picked them up, caressing their strange warmth. Smiling to himself, he sat again on the stone bench. What did he need with mad Madeline's secrets when he had a better one of his own?

He simply had to make out what the cards were telling him, that was all. It might be magic much stronger than Madeline possessed. It might be something that would set him free.

Chapter 2

Della Cambian Major had been a vampire nearly four years and her son, Malachi, born from a union with a human, was not quite three. Having moved from the suburban neighborhood in Dallas where she'd lived all her life with her family, she had begun a new existence with her husband, Ryan. They now lived in a small Texas country town best known for potluck community dinners and old cowboys and ranchers spending their waning years sipping black coffee at the one little convenience store. Here Dell's secret was easily concealed, as people kept to themselves and were especially cautious with newcomers to the vicinity. Dell loved the privacy afforded her so easily, so naturally, but she often felt isolated and lonely. Were it not for Malachi's company during the day while Ryan worked on a nearby ranch, Dell was not sure she could have remained on the two-hundred-acre ranch they called home.

She had her studies, which were coming to an end, via Internet classes offered by a highly-regarded Texas university. She would soon have a degree in library science and might one day run a great library where she could research the world's knowledge and come to terms with her vampiric condition. She had already been reading whatever literature and nonfiction she could find that might give her a clue about her clan—its reason for being, its destiny. And in another year Malachi would begin preschool, which would allow her even more freedom to study, but until then her days were predictable and quiet, much too quiet. Some days she thought she lived in a world muffled by cotton.

In the mornings she worked at the local library as a clerk and at noon she picked Malachi up from day care and spent the afternoons in his company. At night she turned to her studies, preparing homework and reading assignments.

Today she was teaching her son something she'd learned in a book about hunters. She'd stumbled across the little volume at the library and found herself immersed for a couple of hours in the age-old rituals of hunting.