SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (73 page)

Let humanity beware.

Dell said very little of this to her husband. She didn't want to project the problem they had in Dallas out into the world for him. If it never happened, the worry would have been for nothing. If it did happen . . . well, she couldn't think of that. They had to stop Upton. Here. Now.

"Dell?"

She had been staring out the passenger window at the passing scenery, her mind elsewhere. She glanced at Ryan.

"Will you have to leave the ranch? If Mentor calls you? Will you have to go?"

She reached over and placed her hand on his neck, her fingers softly massaging the muscles there. She wouldn't lie to him.

"I'll have to. If they need me, I won't refuse them."

For the rest of the trip home Ryan drove in silence. At the end of the summer they were going to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. After so many years together, their love had woven them into a couple who accepted the silences that came when they shared their worries. She was more human because of Ryan. He had expanded his perceptions of the world, realizing it contained more mystery than most mortals ever admitted. The two of them were bound by love and parenthood.

He had aged, closing in on forty with such grace she hardly noticed the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes or the weathering of his skin. Together they had strived to educate themselves so they could contribute to society. Together they had lived a peaceful, isolated existence, depending on one another for everything while they raised their beloved son.

The uprising in Dallas threw their lives out of balance, disrupting the peaceful flow. Things were changing for the first time in twenty years, and Dell knew it might be a change that lasted forever if Upton had his way. She couldn't even foresee what she and her mortal husband might have to face in the future if life didn't return to normal for them.

"Whatever happens, I'll be there for you," Ryan said, as if this time he was the one capable of reading minds.

She gave him a tentative smile though her heart ached. He was the most vulnerable person in her life. Malachi possessed so many of her supernatural abilities that he could protect himself. But Ryan was as frail and fragile as a roadside bluebonnet under a scorching Texas sun. Without the shade of her devotion and care, he had no real protection at all.

6

With the sun high overhead, Charles Upton wore dark sunglasses that kept anyone from seeing his eyes. He had caught a glimpse of himself in a passing shop window the night before when the city was on fire. Although at that moment he believed he had let his face return to that of the young Thai man whose body he'd stolen, he was stopped in his tracks. He neared the shop window, staring with surprise into his own eyes. They were no longer human. Perhaps he'd changed into jaguar so often his human features were being obscured bit by bit. His eyes were not Thai, even though the rest of his features clearly were. His eyes, however, were slanted into the flesh of his face, too long and too narrow to fit the sockets. His eyebrows had disappeared so that the bony protuberances looked naked and abnormally large in proportion to his face. The pupils were vertical and of an amber color never seen in a human being.

He looked out of jaguar eyes. He closed them, the long lids lowering slowly. He tried to rearrange the molecules of his body. Maybe he could force the cat to retreat again.

He opened his eyes to stare into the store window. Cat eyes stared back.

So it was true. He couldn't change himself back anymore. It would make life more difficult as he tried to pass through the cities of man. He'd have to wear the dark glasses and never take them off when he hoped to walk among men without them knowing his real nature.

This was disturbing to him, as he loved tricking men into thinking he was just like them. Yet sunglasses were a good replacement and provided enough camouflage. He thought one day he would simply let the jaguar out and keep it as his true face. He would be like an Egyptian cat god, half human, half feline. Besides, men would fear him even more if he didn't look like them. They'd know beyond any doubt that he was the genuine article—a supernatural being far superior to any of them.

He was on his way to a meeting with Mentor. This was not the time to waste any regret on the shape of his face. His intent wasn't to kill Mentor during this private meeting, or to get himself killed, but he still had to be alert. Mentor had taken him prisoner once before. Upton didn't think he could do it again, not alone, but he couldn't trust him for a moment, regardless.

It was Upton who had called for the meeting. Mentor should know they would never surrender. If Mentor called thousands to his aid, Upton wanted to assure him it wouldn't matter. His Predators would simply fade into the background. They wouldn't go away. And they wouldn't be foolish enough to take their numbers into the open against a vast army.

As Upton went up the steps to Mentor's home, the door opened and for the first time in years Upton laid eyes on his nemesis. Mentor still resided in the old body he'd had when Upton had been taken to the Thai monastery. The body did not appear older but inside it had to be slowly crumbling toward decay. Upton wanted to sneer, thinking of the monk Joseph who had loved his body too much to part with it.

Upton kept on his sunglasses until he was inside the house. As he entered the small living area, he removed them. Mentor turned to face him and when he did, he hesitated before speaking. His gaze fastened on Upton's cat-like eyes.

"Your molecular structure is changing," he said finally.

Upton sat down on a sofa near a dead fireplace. He held the sunglasses dangling between his knees. "So what's your point?" he asked with all the sarcasm he could muster.

"My point is you won't be able to control how you look much longer. The jaguar will mix with the human until you'll be permanently grotesque."

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Mentor, let's dispense with the criticism. If I cared to look like you, I wouldn't have chosen the jaguar."

"You're right. That's not my concern. Turn yourself into a South American vampire bat if you want to."

Upton hissed noisily, his lips raising to reveal the fangs. "You know what I want, and it's not to become a bat."

"You're responsible for killing hundreds of vampires overnight. This has to stop."

"Why did I know you'd say that? As for the Cravens who died last night—they didn't have the right to call themselves vampire. Why any of you let them survive is a mystery to me."

"I told you . . ."

Upton exploded from his position on the sofa, rising to his feet to tower over Mentor. His young Thai body was much larger than the one housing Mentor. "I know what you told me! But you're insane. You and Ross and all the rest of them who let the Cravens live. They should have been murdered the day they became vampire. You're weak, Mentor. You're all weaklings who over centuries of time have convinced yourselves that you're moral and compassionate. Who said a vampire has any duty to be either? Who told you this is as it should be?"

Mentor stared at the floor. He did not look up. He said, "I can see you'll never be taught anything."

"By you? I should think not!"

"Then you'll die," Mentor said, raising his head to stare into the Predator's eyes. "Like Balthazar."

The name was like a punch to Upton's solar plexus. He sank onto the sofa, growling below his breath without realizing he was doing it. He hadn't been in contact with Balthazar. He expected him to come with Sereny once they had control of the city. Balthazar hadn't seen any reason to come until then, explaining it was best and less confusing if just one of them led the hundreds of Predators. Upton was happy to command on his own. It was what he planned to do in the end anyway.

"What do you mean, like Balthazar?"

Mentor now raised his gaze. "He's dead, Charles. Ross went to the island. Balthazar was burned. What's going to happen when his troops find out? Can you get them to follow you then? I think they'll desert you. They'll know we're too strong for them and they're outnumbered. They'll move away from you to grieve for their fallen leader."

Upton was speechless. This blow wasn't expected. He thought he'd armed himself against any surprise Mentor might try to spring on him. He'd never have imagined they'd already reached Balthazar and disposed of him so easily.

Suspicion crept into his mind. "What if I don't believe you?"

"Check for yourself. I have no reason to lie about it."

Upton could have tried to mentally reach Balthazar, but he knew now it was no use. Mentor wasn't lying. Balthazar was dead.

Upton straightened his shoulders. "I don't care if he's dead. I was going to kill him anyway. The Predators will follow me. I'm their leader now."

"And if they don't? Do you think you can take over this city, much less the region, without them?"

Fury rose inside Upton until it came to a crescendo in his brain. He wasn't about to stop the transformation of his face into jaguar. In seconds he was the wild hungry cat whose single imperative was to bring the prey to its knees.

Even as his face changed, Mentor came to his feet. In his eyes glared murder.

"You don't want to test me here and now," Mentor said in a menacing voice.

"I'll bide my time until you're mine," Upton said, edging toward the door. He shook himself, changing his features back to human. He slipped on the sunglasses. If he'd been sure he could have taken Mentor, he would have pounced. But he couldn't take stupid chances and risk the future. In caution waited victory. He would only attack Mentor, or Ross for that matter, when he had other Predators at his side. He wasn't absolutely convinced he could win alone. He must do nothing without certainty of the outcome.

"If you persist in this uprising, most of your Predators are going to die," Mentor warned. "And you're going to pay for going after the woman and then killing her husband."

Upton went out the door and never turned back or responded. It wasn't his business to give the enemy satisfaction. It was humbling enough he'd backed down from a one-on-one pitched battle. But he'd touched Mentor with the mortal's death, that's for sure. He laughed to himself as he remembered the man's death stare, surprise and horror frozen on his face as his blood pumped out. Though he hadn't taken the woman, he'd hurt her, oh, he'd hurt her quite deeply. And through her, Mentor.

That's what mattered.

Even as Upton moved away from the house, he called mentally to his army, dismissing all thought of the mortal's death and Mentor's warning. His Predators were scattered in hiding all over the city. In order to reach them, Mentor and Ross would have had to visit three hundred different lairs.

Upton sent an urgent message directly to his captains. He didn't fear Mentor or Ross intercepting his message when they went directly from his intelligence to the targets he intended to reach. It would have been like trying to catch a butterfly on the wing. He wanted his captains to gather the army to meet with him at a ranch on the outskirts of Dallas by sundown. It was where Ross lived. First they'd all descend on the vampire leader, burning him along with his extravagant home.

Then they would finish burning and tearing down the blood banks that supplied the Naturals and surviving Cravens all over the southwestern part of the state. Already they had attacked the Strand-Catel and taken away all the blood supplied there. Ross was in a frenzy to make up for the loss.

With Ross dead and the routines performed by his clan disrupted, the whole city would fall into Upton's hands. Dallas was only the beginning. Within months he believed he could give over Texas to Predators determined to live as reigning vampires.

In a year, he'd control the middle of the nation, and in five years, the whole country would be quivering in the palm of his hand.

In less than a century he thought the vampires would control the world as they always should have. And what was a century to an immortal? A day before the sun set, no more.

~*~

Mentor watched Upton leave, the sunglasses that covered his inhuman eyes incapable of disguising the ferretlike, sloped forehead with the smooth brow and widow's peak of slick hair that seemed to be creeping down toward his face.

He was crazed, of course. Charles Upton had been verging on lunacy even as an industrialist intent on squashing his competitors no matter the cost or how long it took. It was how he acquired so much of his fortune during one lifetime. He had learned to be ruthless and it had served him well. But now his madness was beyond anything Mentor had seen from a Predator in two hundred years. None of them had ever had the audacity to think he could rule over everyone, the way Upton wished to do. The clans in the cities were ruled over by individual leaders. Upton would have to make war against each clan, ripping at the fabric of their organizations.

Mentor turned back into his house and went to the sofa to sit quietly, consoled by the fact he didn't really believe Upton could be triumphant. It was true the Predators were always restless. Until the birth of the New World and Ross' institution of the blood banks, Predators led a more nomadic life, but even then they felt responsibility toward their own kind. They made sure the Cravens and the Naturals got the blood they needed. It was a close fraternity, with brother vampire helping brother, the strongest watching out for the weak. There were fewer of them then and they depended on one another in crisis. Whole societies had been formed across Europe, Asia, and South America, setting up supply lines to service their kind. A Craven or a Natural would have died for a Predator, and vice versa.

Vohra had told Mentor each new birth of a vampire soul who chose the weaker paths put demands on the strong, but it had been that way from the first. It had never been something they thought about or discussed, as if there was an alternative. Predators, possibly the least human of them all, still came from woman. They still understood the suffering of death, and the reasons one might chose to be other than Predator. They had all been beneath the glow of the red moon and wrestled with their souls.