SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (46 page)

Balthazar would be such a leader, his thoughts of war very close to those of Charles Upton. Balthazar, however, hadn't been heard from in decades until he showed up in little Malachi's dreams. It hadn't really been a dream, but a dimension created by Balthazar from a distance, invading the child's mind and speaking with him as if there in person.

The difference between Balthazar and Charles, though, might not be in their aims, but their resources. Balthazar hadn't had much luck in gathering together an army. Upton, set free and given sufficient time, could command a much greater army because of his higher intelligence and resolution.

Mentor had lived long enough to know which vampires to fear and which to merely watch. He had also seen how humankind could cause warring periods of history and knew the long-term ramifications on both land and commerce. It took decades for order to resume and the populace to recover. A vampire war would portend even larger destruction. Bombs, warheads, snipers, and attack helicopters were nothing to what a large number of supernatural beings could do.

Men might do these things, but if Mentor could help it, a vampire would not. Certainly Charles Upton would not get free and begin that destruction because of damnable cards accidentally given him.

Mentor sat listening with his preternatural hearing to all the sounds in the monastery. He heard the sounds of the jungle that surrounded it, and farther away still, the sounds of nearby villages where life went on without a hint midnight creatures lived so close they could reach out and pluck any man or woman or child from life at a moment's notice.

Twilight came and the bells rang, calling the monks to prayer. Mentor slipped from the chapel to allow them privacy. He walked a path through the jungle, hoping the night would hurry and Upton would tire soon of playing with the cards.

He was hungry, but kept that hunger dampened as best he could. Failing, he spied a chattering monkey in a tree.

It was dark gray with lighter gray splashed across its wide chest. Its animation resulted from the excitement over a stranger passing through its territory. Mentor's mind fell back and his need drove him as he mindlessly climbed the branches in a wink and reached out, his hand clamping around the small monkey's neck. He bent his head to the snarling animal's velvety throat and sank his fangs in, taking life as quickly as he could. He sat on the limb, the dead monkey in his hands, and suddenly his eyes blurred and he dropped the little body to the ground. He climbed down slowly, his heart dark as outer space.

He picked up the monkey, holding it in his hands, the arms, legs, and head hanging down in limp death. Mentor could still feel the warmth of the skin through the fur. He looked away, infuriated. He didn't want to do these things. He wished to God that he wasn't driven to killing this way. In Dallas he took his sustenance from the blood bags he got from Ross' operation. Charitable humans willingly gave the blood. It was paid for and put into refrigerators for shipment. Mentor did not have to take animals this way when in the city. And he hadn't murdered a man in ages.

But in Thailand or when he was on some trip out of the country for other business, he sometimes found himself turning to the animal world to sustain him. Each time, as now, he hated himself with a hate so bright it was like the interior of a minor sun.

He dropped the monkey into the brush along the path and turned back. He was no longer hungry, but he was no longer content either. The monkey's blood roiled inside him, infusing his organs, giving them life. It also suffused him with unhappy guilt he was not going to outrun by merely returning to the monastery's shelter.

He broke off a large leaf as he passed by a bush and crushed it in his fist, his fingernails digging into his palm. I am vampire, he thought.

I am unholy and commit murder against living things.

I am doomed, always doomed, there is no escape.

~*~

Midnight came and went as Mentor waited for Upton to release his hold on the cards and sleep. Around three in the morning, Upton finally keeled over like a mechanical doll that had wound down.

Mentor appeared in the cell and saw the cards spread in a large rectangle across the floor before the sleeping Upton. With a wave of his hands around the surface of the stone flooring, Mentor gathered the cards into a deck and tucked them into the breast pocket of his jacket. He left the cell as silently as he had come, moving rapidly down the corridor into the monastery and out into the compound. In mere minutes he had left Thailand and had returned to his modest home in Dallas.

There he sat down to examine the deck of cards. At first he thought Madeline had been duped or her mind was so confused with her madness that she'd misinterpreted what she saw. These are just old tarot cards, Mentor thought, relaxing. But as he shuffled and fanned the deck, the cards grew warm in his hands and he paused, startled. Inanimate objects did not possess a way to generate heat, he knew. In some way the cards truly were supernatural. He leaned forward to the coffee table and spread them out, face up. The side table lamp was still lit, having been left that way by his houseguest, Dolan.

Peering closely, Mentor saw the magic begin. The figures on the old cards began to waver and finally to actually move about the face of each card as if there was a separate world, a completely different dimension of reality within each individual card.

So this is what intrigued Charles so, Mentor thought, watching the cards carefully. Madeline was right, after all.

Suddenly a bolt of understanding rushed through his mind as if the cards had sent the lightning across the space between them. Mentor looked at each card in turn, placing them in the same sort of rectangle he'd seen in Upton's cell. He ran his fingers over each one, as if blind and reading Braille. Just as a book opens and the pages reveal knowledge through printed words, the cards began to reveal their own esoteric knowledge through figural scenes.

A war will come between vampire clans, they whispered to Mentor's mind.

The imprisoned one will free himself and lead it.

There will be much destruction in the vampire nations; death meted out without mercy, and blood running in rivers.

Your life hangs in the balance.

Mentor's mind was freed, going blank for just a moment and then returning him to himself. He sat back, mouth agape and eyes wide. The card figures had stopped moving now. The cards lay immobile, just pieces of old cardboard and artist renderings in paint.

Mentor rubbed his brow and hung his head. He sighed heavily. He had no doubt about the veracity of the cards' prediction. The cards had shown him scenes of Upton standing before an army of Predators somewhere deep inside the Earth in tremendous vaulted caves. He had heard Upton's persuasive voice, his words powerful and inflammatory. He had seen Predators preying on the helpless Cravens, killing with fire and with polished steel. He had seen blood, the Life Giver, taken away and spilled on open ground.

"My God," Mentor whispered.

He knew, though, that the cards were not an item that could be used to free Upton from captivity. They foretold the future for the one who possessed them just as they had done for the original owner. That and no more.

Furious with the prediction, having hoped the clans would never decide such a fate for one another, Mentor grabbed the scattered cards, swooping them into his hands with the same speed he'd used in the monastery. He crushed the deck in his hands as he stood and approached the dead fireplace. There he stooped and drew back the metal mesh curtain. He placed the deck on the grate and reached for a box of matches lying on the hearth.

You'll tell no more tales, he thought, striking a match and setting fire to the edges of several of the cards he pulled loose from the deck. Once they were aflame, he stood and stepped back. He watched until all the cards caught and were consumed to ash.

He sensed someone at his back and turned to face Dolan. "It's early in the season for a fire, isn't it?"

"I had to get rid of something," Mentor said. "I'll tell you about it later."

Dolan didn't respond, but stood quietly, hands at his sides.

"Have you been lonely here?" Mentor asked. "I haven't been gone too long, have I?" It seemed to him he'd been away from home for days, when in reality he knew it was not more than a few hours.

"I'm all right," Dolan said. "I still have no idea how I can be of any use to you, though."

It came to Mentor how Dolan could help. An inspiration. "Have you ever been to Thailand?"

"No. I know it's odd, but I've always stayed in this country. I think I was too depressed to think anything would be better anywhere else. Isn't Thailand where we have one of our prisons?"

"Yes, in a monastery I found abandoned many years ago. I need you to go there. I want you to stand by and watch someone for me. His name is Charles Upton, an American businessman."

"I've heard of him. He runs a big company down in Houston, doesn't he? A multimillionaire?"

"He used to. His operations were moved to Dallas. He's vampire . . . Predator. Made by Ross."

Dolan let out a low whistle. Few of them were changed to vampire by being infected and given the blood of another. The made ones were usually superior and became clan leaders, sons and daughters, as it were, the inheritors of ancient blood.

"Why do you need me to watch him? Can't you do that from a distance? And what about the monks? Don't they do that?"

"They do, but sometimes they make mistakes," Mentor said, thinking of Joseph giving the cards to Upton. "And I do monitor Upton from the distance, but I worry one day, just at the moment I'm enthralled by the Predator-Maker in the death dream, one day when I'm trying to guide someone through it—my concentration focused in death—that's the exact time Upton may find a way to escape. I'll never know it and won't be able to prevent it."

Mentor glanced at the heap of ashes in the grate before saying, "He may be a threat to all of us one day if he gets free. He doesn't know his powers or how to use them, but when he finds out, someone needs to tell me. I want you to be there to do that. I can't go there and devote myself to him, Ross can't go, and you'll be doing me a great favor."

"Of course, I'll do it. I need to be of service."

"Fine. That's what I wanted to hear. You see? There is a need for you, Dolan; you're vital to me. But be warned. Charles Upton is no fool. As a man, he was devious, vindictive, and vicious. As a vampire, he has grown cold and deadly, his nature only intensifying. You must not let him see you or even sense you nearby. Ask the monks to give you a room far from him and just keep me posted." He wasn't sure Dolan would be that much of a help, but it would keep the old vampire busy and give Mentor a break before he had to train him for some other job. Besides, he really did need someone besides the monks to keep an eye on Upton. Cravens were especially telepathic, spending most of their long lives turned inward and alone. Dolan could monitor Upton easily enough without sending any signal he was doing it.

Before the sun rose and Dolan had to hurry again to the safety of the basement, they went over Dolan's duties and the seriousness of his post at the monastery. They arranged for his departure, Mentor taking up the phone and calling an airline to reserve a ticket for Dolan. As a Craven, Dolan possessed weaknesses and limited powers, except for telepathy. He could not transmigrate the way Mentor did so easily and hadn't even a clue how it was done. He would travel conventionally, aboard an airline, and be at his destination by the next night. He would interact with humans and must be coached to pass among them without comment. Mentor would provide him with papers, with a passport and money. Dolan was excited at being granted such a momentous task.

Just before he left Mentor's living room where dark night gave way to the gray dawn of morning, he thanked Mentor for trusting him.

Mentor waved away the thanks. "Just do this job right, and then we'll see about training you for other responsibilities. I can't tell you how long this might take, however. Be prepared to stay at the monastery a while."

"I have time," Dolan said, smiling.

When Dolan left, Mentor sat back and let his head rest against the sofa. He wasn't going to have time to do something about Dolan's sensitivity to the sun. The Craven would have to outfit himself to protect his skin.

Mentor dozed and woke with the sun full in the sky, light streaming through the windows to warm his home. He immediately looked to the fireplace to assure himself the cards were gone. He was startled to see that the ashes had vanished. He rose to investigate, glancing at the coffee table only to see the cards stacked there, whole and untouched.

He should have known. Cards that could come alive and portend the future could also preserve themselves as long as they wished, just as a vampire could. He found the tattered velvet and wrapped the cards in them, then turned one way and then the other, thinking where he might put them away. No one should consult these cards, that's all he knew. Not even himself, ever again. They would never foretell good fortune. They were a divination method for chaos.

He finally put them into a steel box where he kept mementos from his life with his wife. He locked it with a padlock and replaced the box beneath the loose floorboard in the kitchen under the table there.

He might not be able to destroy the cards, but at least they were no longer in Upton's possession.

Chapter 6

When Malachi had been fed and dressed for dropping off at the day care center, Dell rushed around to find the keys to the old Toyota she drove. She found them beneath a heap of bulk mail on the hall table. "Hurry, Malachi, we're late."

She had her hand to the center of his small back, pushing him just a little toward the front door. He often dawdled and today wasn't the day for it.

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, unmovable. "What are you doing?" she asked. "We have to go."

"Aunt Celia is on her way. And Carolyn."