SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (77 page)

Yet when he surveyed his art, actually fondling the frames and running his fingers across the beautifully applied layers of paint, he was closer to the man he had been before becoming Predator than at any other time. He remembered the taste of food and the abatement of thirst. He remembered his mother and his father, who had died as mortals, still loving him despite knowing what kind of creature he had become. He remembered the world had not been built by the vampire, but by the efforts of man, and all that he took for granted in his pleasure flowed from man, not vampire.

He forgave himself.

If it were not for his love of art, whether paintings, sculpture, murals in great chapels, or architecture that had stood for a thousand years, he knew he would be irredeemably lost.

What a great creature he might be one day if he could incorporate his passion into his daily actions. He would never be as compassionate as Mentor—who could? But he might be able to hang onto that portion of his human self that held him back from the dark fall and that would be more than enough.

As he thought these things and basked in the glow of Sereny's attention to his prize possessions, he was slow to note her mood had changed.

He said, "What's wrong?" She was as prickly as a cactus, the aura around her body having changed from soothing blue to sooty black.

She turned completely around, her back to the painting they had been studying, and pointed to the rear of the house. "Someone's coming."

He could have slapped himself for letting down his guard. He knew Upton's plans included trying to get to him and to Mentor. He'd let that slip from mind only for minutes and if it hadn't been for Sereny, even now he wouldn't know what was happening around him.

He tuned into the house as if it were a box lying in his hand. He searched every room, every nook and cranny but found no one. He then projected his intelligence to the land surrounding his home. He picked up a faint transmission of a Predator unknown to him.

"I heard two of them," Sereny said, moving through the large open room to the hall that transversed the house and led to the back patio.

"Two?" Ross followed on her heels, trying to pick up the second Predator. He couldn't. "Two?"

She had stepped outside and stared toward the setting sun in the distance. "Two who leaked their thoughts," she said. "They're with hundreds. Upton will kill them for that transgression."

"Upton's brought his entire army?" Ross was flabbergasted. He prided himself on how alert he was. He could pick up another vampire within miles, yet he could only detect one Predator while Sereny spoke of hundreds. Upton and Balthazar had trained all of them in the art of cloaking their minds, but it had been Sereny who found them out.

"Yes." She turned to him and he saw flames in her eyes. It was an illusion. Her thoughts made him see the future coming for him. Flames. Death. Annihilation.

They didn't have to speak again. They didn't have time. He took her hand and they both began to shimmer, their matter changing to energy as it spun them away from danger.

As her essence mingled with his own, Ross let go of his identity, and together they formed a new energy that burst into light and then vanished. They moved as one from the ranch house and across the low, burnt-orange sky. He took her to Mentor's within seconds, holding each and every molecule of her close so he wouldn't lose her. She was an incredible woman and a very powerful Predator. He needed her. He hadn't known he would ever need anyone, but now, his being entangled with hers, the truth became clear to him.

When they reappeared in Mentor's house, they saw he sat on the sofa, his arm around Bette Kinyo. Mentor looked up and, reading Ross' face, he said, "They came for you."

Bette opened sleepy eyes. She flinched upon seeing the two Predators standing so close they could reach out and take her by the neck. A gasp escaped her, and she scooted closer into Mentor's embrace.

"They're not here to hurt you." Mentor removed his arm and stood.

"Can we talk around her?" Sereny asked, gesturing to Bette.

"Yes." Mentor came near. "She knows about us." Sereny hesitated before saying, "All of them came. Every Predator Upton has."

Ross began to pace the room. "They'd cloaked themselves. All but two." He glanced at Sereny. No point in admitting to Mentor he hadn't been the one to detect them—that without the woman he'd be ash now. "We were lucky there were at least two with weak minds."

"I think it's time to call up our own army," Mentor said. "You have them ready, right? We can't have an all-out war. It'll attract mortals. We'll have to use subterfuge and hunt the enemy down one by one."

Ross agreed for once. He and Mentor often clashed over leadership and what actions should be taken, but this time he knew the old vampire was right. It was one thing to gather hundreds of Predators to attack him on an isolated piece of land, but if he and Mentor called up hundreds more there wasn't a place on Earth they could battle without someone knowing. Even if they went into the wastelands of the desert areas of West Texas, someone would see them, someone would know. Also, it wasn't Upton's style to fight a face-to-face battle. He would never agree to leave the city for a more secluded place.

Within minutes the house swarmed with their closest advocates. Dolan came, sheepish and guilty that he'd not saved the Cravens. Ross saw how he avoided Mentor's eyes. A few minutes later Dell arrived, the boy Predator with her, trembling at the experience of moving through space at such supernormal speed. "Malachi's coming," she announced. They all knew the dhampir couldn't astral travel the way they could. His noisy motorcycle could be heard a short time later as he drove into Mentor's driveway. He came through the door, breathless and flushed. There was excitement on his face, but no fear. Ross was impressed. He'd had little to do with the dhampir, but he'd heard of his mighty power in thwarting Balthazar's assassins. Dell had trained him well.

This small cadre had been on the same side for twenty years. They all felt they were Mentor's soldiers, except for Ross himself, who felt himself an equal. Nevertheless, he was thankful they'd all shown up. Together they could rouse the band of Predators Ross usually controlled alone. They must work together or risk Upton's sneak attacks on each of them individually.

"Should I leave?"

It was the woman Mentor had watched over for two decades. Ross suspected he loved her, but he didn't expect he'd ever let him know that. Loving a mortal, the way Dell did, caused problems for everyone. None of them approved of these alliances, though of course Mentor could do as he pleased. There was no one to oppose him.

"No," Mentor said. "It's safer here. It's too late anyway. Two of Upton's followers are outside the door."

At the same instant all of the vampires in the room knew it was so. They had cloaked their minds when called to Mentor's home. They hadn't wanted Upton to know all of them were together and easily attacked. But the two outside the door had come on their own, hoping to find Mentor alone. If they killed him, Upton would make them captains. Upton would give them power above all others.

Mentor read these intimate thoughts of the two Predators as he moved toward the door. "Come in if you dare," he called.

The lurkers outside slipped away into the twilight, muttering oaths. Mentor turned back to the assemblage. "They're gone, but not for long. They'll tell Upton we're all here. We have to leave soon. Let me tell you what we must do."

~*~

It was three days of hell on Earth. Unnoticed by the human population in the city, Predator stalked Predator. Bodies piled up, and Mentor had dozens working as burial parties, moving the dead away from the city into the surrounding countryside. Sometimes Mentor sensed Detective Teal at the crime scenes. Each time he went to him and walked him away, throwing confusion into his mind. The man was a regular pest. He showed up when least expected, standing over a body, making notes in a little notebook, or reaching for his cell phone at his hip. If Mentor had had the time, he could have done something permanent to Teal's mind to keep him out of the way, but as it was, he was lucky to reach him in time to stop him from interfering.

The war grew until each side rose with victory and fell again, usually within mere hours, Upton's Predators sometimes taking Mentor's troops unaware and narrowing their control. They left the dead where they fell, so that Mentor's people had to take their own dead companions to bury before too many humans saw the headless bodies. It was up to Mentor to go to the witnesses and steal their memories, hiding them beneath layers of more mundane memories in the depths of their minds. Still, strange news began to appear on the television and radio news. The newspaper ran articles about three bodies in the morgue with unidentifiable wounds. Humans speculated on wild dogs, perhaps rabid, invading the city. They began to lock their doors and empty the streets at night.

Mentor worked tirelessly, day and night. He, too, hunted the enemy and put them to death. It was a relentless battle. None of them stayed in one place long enough to be found. But to hunt Upton's Predators, they had to frequent every alley and abandoned building in the city. Every time Upton tried gathering his forces together, Mentor's Predators attacked, scattering them. They couldn't find them with mental telepathy, so it was a war of attrition. It was slow and dreadful, a deep-night hunt where Mentor put aside all his hard won compassion and allowed the predator in him full reign.

He hated to admit how alive it made him feel. He hadn't killed that many of his own kind before. He had no idea the hunt itself and the resultant death might make him want to roar like a lion. The game of hide and seek raised his tension so that he was a tightly wound wire. Yet it was nothing compared to the feeling of power he enjoyed when he actually confronted another Predator, one who had betrayed his nation to follow Upton. He felt no compunction to talk them out of their negative path or save them from themselves. All he wanted to do was kill in the most ghastly and bloody manner he could manage.

After his first hunt where he'd killed three of the enemy, he returned to his home to see about Bette. She looked on his face and shuddered. His vampire nature was a fearsome thing that caused her to quake and move away. He tried to control it, tried to get back to himself when he came to her, but his blood was too high. He'd taken blood with each new kill and it gave him a feeling of majesty. Predators did not have the same blood as a living being, but it was blood just the same. Along with each vampire victim he drained came that vampire's vitality until his whole body was suffused with strength and fire.

Usually a being who had abstained from murder and taking the blood of a victim, the war had given him a taste of what it had been like when he'd first turned vampire. At his very core, he was a killer. He might keep it under control for years, but he could never divest himself of the urge. He liked killing Upton's followers. He enjoyed sending them into the darkness from which there was no escape.

Bette could see that reflected on his face, and he wasn't able to disguise it.

"What have you done?" she asked that first time.

"I'm trying to save people like you from a grim future.”

“That's a high-minded goal, but that's not what I see. I see a killer still high from taking life."

"What would you have us do?"

"I don't know." She wrung her hands in agitation. "I wish . . ."

"Go ahead, wish me away. Wish me dead and all the others like me. Maybe God will hear you and come out of His silence. That's what I wish. For God to end this charade I call my life after death." His bitterness was deep and abiding, but not truly aimed at Bette. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't make excuses for what I am anymore. What you see is the real Mentor."

"It's not the one I knew."

"Then you deluded yourself, didn't you? If I take blood without killing, I atone for all the murder I've had to do. But when I have to kill, I do love it. If I were a tiger you wouldn't judge me. If I were a lion fighting to the death with another lion, you wouldn't look on the victorious face of the conqueror and say he had done wrong."

"But you are not a tiger, Mentor. You are not a lion."

"No. I'm a vampire. And I'm fighting as much for you and mankind as I am for myself. Remember that."

The discussion left him feeling angry and depressed. He left the house to her and went out into the darkness to stalk another renegade. His wife had never admonished him for his nature. He had been more of a killer then than now. He had gone far and wide to take human victims so suspicion would never fall on him living as a man with a wife, but Beatrice knew when he came home suffused with blood. She knew what he had done. If she judged him, she kept it to herself.

He hadn't wanted Bette to see him this way, but he had known one day she might. Death wasn't as close to man in her modern world of medicine and doctors and heroic lifesaving measures. In his time with his wife, death was everywhere. Plagues, disease, floods, fires, and wars ravished the country as well as the city. Society experienced whole generations of cleansing where families and communities all died together. Life was shorter and more precarious. It was the rare man who lived to be forty and half the women died during their childbearing years.

Bette couldn't understand the death of her husband, and now she didn't try to understand the seriousness of his undertaking. Did she have no idea of how the world she knew would change if vampires like Upton ruled?

It was Mentor's ultimate imperative to stop him. If he could only find him, he would tear him into a million pieces. Every drop of blood he drank from Upton's followers fell on Upton's head. He was responsible for hundreds of deaths and all for what? Revenge, he could understand, but he knew Upton wanted much more than that. He always had.

Chapter 9

Upton saw his force dwindling night after night. There were more Predators working for Mentor than they could combat. Though Upton had trained his troops to cloak themselves and to hide well, one by one they were found and destroyed. He pulled them together to present a united force, but each time he did, they were attacked so viciously, they had to flee to survive. He tried to tell himself they were simply careless, but he knew better. He hadn't really trained them long enough. They slipped and the cloak fell away, and then they were hunted down and killed.