SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (95 page)

She halted at the end of the hall before a small abstract by the living Yaquii Indian artist, Martinez. It depicted a group of people in colorful flowing togas, the faces blank oval circles, devoid of features. Some sat, some stood, and most looked out of the frame into a limitless vista.

That is who they would be, she and Jeremy. Vampires without faces. Without souls. Wandering the earth taking life from it without regret or apology. They would never look behind them into the past. They would look forward, always forward, mother and child forever together.

Chapter 10

Malachi found himself in the dream world, but it was not as before. No longer was he trapped inside the darkened house where Charles Upton and Jacques made their home. It was another house, with a completely different feel to it. He hadn’t any evidence, but it seemed to him this house was not thousands of miles distant across the globe. It was much closer to home. Had they taken residence in Texas? In Dallas or Houston? There was a dry feeling in the air, dry and dusty. All of Texas had been in a two-decade drought. Rain didn’t fall in Dallas anymore. It didn’t fall north or west of Madisonville, Texas. Most of the state was turning into a wasteland. It was the reason his father’s land was worth so much and his cattle in such demand. Other parts of Texas couldn’t grow grass for grazing.

The house he was in now…what kind of house was this, he wondered? Dark and dreary. Void of furniture. Bare floors, broken windows, peeling wallpaper and paint. But why? The other house had been comfortable, full of beautiful objects, a shining and clean place. This was…hardly habitable. Why?

The Frenchman glanced his direction and pressed his lips into a straight line as he frowned.

He can see me, Malachi thought, standing perfectly still. What kind of man can see me when even a vampire as great as Charles Upton cannot?

Jacques turned slowly away as if dismissing the watcher. What he said next was a shock to Malachi.

“He’s here again.”

Upton had been perusing a sheaf of papers which he now placed carefully into an attache case at his feet. He turned his attention to the Frenchman. “He’ll know.”

Jacques shook his head and made a darting look behind him at the intruder. “Not if you’re careful how you speak.”

“Tell him this time I won’t spare his life.”

Jacques smiled slightly. “I don’t need to tell him. He can hear you.”

Upton looked toward the back of the room behind Jacques. He squinted then shook his head in anger. “I can’t detect him. You’re sure he’s here?”

“Positively sure.”

Malachi trembled in apprehension. He could not come and go as he had done for so many months. The Frenchman always knew when he appeared now. He wondered if he could talk to him. If the man would hear him.

“What do you want?” he asked softly, believing he might be only talking to himself. It was the first time he’d ever said a word in their presence in the dream world.

Jacques twirled and stared at him. “He spoke to me!”

Upton rose from the table and came to the Frenchman’s side. “Show me where he is.”

Jacques pointed.

Upton walked up to Malachi and stopped mere inches away, but Malachi could tell from his gaze that he saw nothing.

“What did he say?” Upton demanded.

“He asked what we wanted.”

“I want you,” Upton said to the air, jabbing at it with a pointed index finger. “I want you and your parents and everyone you love. I want Mentor and Ross and every follower they own. I want you all dead.”

Malachi felt himself dissolving at the purity of the hatred directed toward him. He shimmered and the room grew foggy and dense until finally there was nothing but darkness.

He woke and sat up in bed. He drew a deep breath. Mentor. He called to him telepathically. Mentor, they’re here
.

He would sleep no more this night. He rose from bed and found his slippers. He padded quietly from the bedroom and through the house to the kitchen where he turned on the light. He made coffee, standing at the counter while it dripped. He sat at the kitchen table drinking it.

Mentor would come soon. He’d know what Malachi meant with his cryptic message. He had tried his best to find out the enemy’s whereabouts and until now he hadn’t any clue. He only knew their abode had changed dramatically and it was close by. How close, he didn’t know.

Mentor appeared before Malachi had finished his first cup of coffee. “Where?” he asked.

Malachi lifted a weary gaze to the oldest vampire in the North American vampire nations. “I wish I could tell you. It’s like before. I can’t get to a window or a door, I can’t get outside of the room where they are. But I know some way they’re closer than before. Much closer.”

“In this country?”

“In this state. I’d place a bet on it.”

Mentor took a chair and joined Malachi at the table. Sunlight streaked the eastern sky and lightened the kitchen windows.

“You’re the only one able to get in touch with them,” Mentor said. “They’re cloaked to the rest of us. I can’t find them.”

“Even the human with Upton?”

“Even him.”

“That’s because he’s not…he’s not right. He isn’t a vampire, but he’s not a normal man either. He’s the only one who knows I’m around when I travel to them. He can see me. He can hear me.”

“You spoke to him?”

“I asked what they wanted. I didn’t know if he would be able to hear me or not. But he did. He didn’t answer me, though. He told Upton what I said, then Upton ranted and raved about killing me this time.”

“The human is indeed unusual. That must be why Upton has him along as a companion. He means to use him against us. We have to be very vigilant.”

Malachi was determined to speak of his fears. “They’ve changed residences. The other house was for living in. The one they’re in now is some old empty house people left long ago. They’re hiding in it and I know it’s near us. If there’s another Predator war, my family’s vulnerable.”

Mentor nodded in agreement. “Humans always are.”

“Should I send them away?”

“That’s up to you.” Mentor stood as if to go.

“Would you?”

Mentor paused. He, too, loved and protected a human. Would he send Bette away? Could he? His life was a desert without her. His heart clenched in his chest at the thought of being alone.

“I don’t know,” he said finally.

“Me either,” Malachi said.

Once Mentor was gone, Malachi poured more coffee and sat again at the kitchen table while the sun dawned and filled the room with light.

If only he could discover Upton’s whereabouts! Why couldn’t he find them? Why was he locked into place, as if an invisible bond connected him fast to the two men?

Oh God, he didn’t know what to do. He had to explain these things to Danielle and warn her she might have to flee their home at a moment’s notice. Without him. She’d have to take Eli and run. Not to her parents home, either. She’d have to leave the whole area and disappear.

He had plans to implement. Money to free up and have on hand in case she needed it. Packed bags for his wife and son. A full tank of gas in the hybrid hydrogen-gasoline car.

And he wouldn’t want to know where she was headed when she left. If he knew, Upton might glean the information from him.

When Danielle woke and wandered into the kitchen, her face worried that he was up before her, he gestured that she sit down with him.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“We have plans to make, Danielle.”

“Sounds ominous.”

Malachi swallowed coffee and thought how his wife knew him and his moods so well. Things were ominous all right. War sat on their doorstep. A war in the vampire nations.

Chapter 11

Upton had brought his hundreds of Predators with him to Irving, a bedroom community of Dallas, Texas. Just beyond the many housing developments and apartment complexes lay flat treeless land not nearly as rich as land further east and not quite as arid as land further west.

Upton scouted these barren spaces and found an abandoned compound miles from town. The buildings were ramshackle, without running water or electricity, but they would do as hiding places for a short time. Many of the Predators, like Upton, were used to luxury and pleasant surroundings, but he had told them if they sacrificed now, the rewards would be sweeter.

Not one of his followers grumbled. He had promised them power, action, and a chance to be part of a ruling faction that would first control the state of Texas, then the Southwest corridor, and finally the American nation. Once they’d enlisted all the Predators left after the war to their side, they could advance to other continents. Until…until, Upton thought with satisfaction, they finally controlled the world.

Jacques wandered the compound easing the mood among the vampires. They respected this human who had become the right hand man to their leader. He walked among them without fear. They had never detected fear from him during all the time he’d interacted with them.

Most of the rogue vampires admired and liked him. That he had not yet become one of them was a mystery, but they expected he would sooner or later.

“We’re waiting to move,” Jacques told the Predators as he moved from shack to house to dilapidated barn, greeting the several groups.

“How are we to feed?” one of the Predators questioned. “We’ll starve here.”

“Abductions.”

“What?”

Jacques grinned. “Go into the night to the city and abduct what you need. Take them from their beds, from their homes, and bring them here.”

“There’ll be corpses!”

“We’ll handle that problem when we come to it,” Jacques said, moving on through the crowd to visit the next house in the compound.

As the first day waned for the Predators in their new homes, Jacques made the rounds and finally returned to Upton.

“How are they?” Upton asked.

“Restless, but they’ll settle in.”

Upton sat on an overturned twenty-gallon plastic paint bucket, his skeletal hands resting on his knees. At his feet stood the attaché case with the information about his conglomerate, Upton Enterprises. The profitable business it had taken him all his life to create only to see it lost to Ross. He would get it back, by God. Get it back and use it to reward his minions.

Daylight had faded and twilight crept through the broken windows to leave jagged shadows lengthening across the littered floor. He had been busy all day.

“Do you think Malachi knew where we are?”

“He didn’t know. He might have noted we were in different surroundings, that’s all.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Jacques cocked his head to the side quizzically. “I don’t know. I’m just sure.”

“You are the most enigmatic man I’ve ever known.”

Jacques smiled and rested a hand on Upton’s shoulder. “And you are the strangest supernatural I’ve ever known.”

The shadows sucked in the last remaining light of day and threw the room into deep night.

“I’m hungry,” Upton said suddenly.

Jacques went to a cooler and a picnic basket stashed in the corner. Stooping, he withdrew a loaf of crusty French bread and a bottle of California red wine. “Join me?” he asked, laughing.

Upton stood, an elegant man in a fine suit, his height dwarfing the human. He was not amused. “I’ll be back later,” he said, going for the opening where the door hung like a gallows’ victim from its broken hinges.

Jacques’ chuckle followed Upton as he left the house, never looking back as he rose into the dark sky.

Chapter 12

Jacques sat on a blanket on the floor, his back against the wall. He sipped a glass of wine and wrote in his journal by the light of a kerosene lantern.

We are almost to the point of engagement. Upton explained about his last attempt and failure. He assures me this time he will win. I don’t know if I care one way or the other. Win, lose, it’s all a great experiment and I am the witness. At first Upton thought to send me into the offices of Upton Enterprises in Dallas, insinuate myself into the company as an employee to spy. Later he changed his mind, saying he didn’t want to take the time. I didn’t mention that his rush to action might have been his downfall before and could signal it again. But who am I to dictate to a vampire?

I sit here in a house falling down—a house in the worst condition I’ve ever encountered. I’m not used to sitting on the floor and eating my meals from a cooler. This Texas is a wild country. So wide and empty once we left the city. Tonight I can hear sounds outside the house that must be those of creeping animals. I don’t know what they are, but they lurk around the corners and growl low in the throat. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was the vampires prowling for my blood.

No. It must be wild things. The vampires stay clear of me. They fear Upton’s wrath if they touch me. They know they need me yet.

Even though Upton has detailed to me his history and why he pursues this Texas band of vampires, it makes little sense to me. I am along for the ride, as they say, a spectator at strange event. Despite the fact a demon came to me in Cannes to predict I will have something to do with leading vampires myself, I have no ambition or plans to do so. Demons, by nature, are liars. It’s true he took a chunk of my flesh as payment, but he could have still been lying to me. They like nothing better than to confuse and betray humans.

Tonight, just as Upton left the house to find a victim, I saw a shadow solidify and become a monster. If I knew why these beings come to me, I’d stop them. They don’t frighten me, but their appearances put a wrinkle into my day; they upset the order and contentment of my mind. This monster was taller than I and obese, fat rolling over fat on his naked torso, neck thick as a post. His face was stupid and blubbery, with a wide, flat nose and slack lips. He stared at me dumbly from watery blue eyes set too close together. “What do you want?” I asked.

“When you die, I’ll be the one waiting for you,” he said.

“Why should I care,” I asked. “I’ll be dead.”

“Dead only to this world. Not too dead to know me.”