Companions Of The Night Part 10

He was thinner than he'd been at the time the picture was taken, his hairline farther back, but there was never any doubt in her mind who it was He was drinking from a mug and reading a book, though he looked up every few seconds, glancing alt around nervously. He spotted Kerry as soon as she started toward him, and she saw his gaze flick around the room as he tried to decide who best to approach for help.

She held her hands out-fronts, then backs-to dem- onstrate she carried no weapons, and she gestured behind her, which was meant to draw his attention to the fact that she was alone.

Marsala looked tense, but at least he didn't bolt.

"I'm all alone," Kerry said as soon as she was within range and could say it softly, so as not to attract attention. "Please, can we talk? Here is fine." He didn't look like she'd expected.

Somehow she'd thought he'd have a twitch, or some manic gleam in his eye, something that would mark him as a man with inner demons Someone fanatic enough to run over anyone who got in his way and steal people's fathers and little boys from their homes Kerry sat down, placing her hands on the table where he could see them. "Where are my father and brother?" she asked."I don't know." For a second she thought he was going f70 to deny knowing what she was talking about, but then he added, "Home by now, I guess. Or still in the hospital. Or maybe the police have them. I let them go, you know"

She'd seen they weren't home and she wasn't sure whether to believe the other possibilities, but any note of hope was good to hear anyway "I'm not a vampire," she said- She could see the thought Swrr, you're not travel through his brain. "Any test," she a.s.sured him, "anything you can think of, 111 do it."

He sat looking at her- "You were with them."

"Yes" There was certainly no use denying it "Regina and Ethan. 1 never met them before Thursday night. I didn't know what they were."

"They killed my friends-Phil and George, Ken, Danny, and Marcia"

"1 know," she said That sounded worse than it was- "I mean, I didn't know until after"

"I was watching," Marsala said, and for an awful moment she thought he meant he'd seen his friends die- "I saw him drive up with you, introduce you to her." And she realized he must have been somewhere near Ethan's house. "I saw him clean the blood out of the car, and then I saw them drive you home Like a d.a.m.ned escort service."

"It was his blood," Kerry said, not sure how Marsala was interpreting what he'd seen Did he think Ethan had fed on her in her father's car, making her a vampire that very night, or that it was Marsala's friends' blood and that she had helped kill them? "ftbaw's blood. His own. Your friends were going to kill him- I came into it in the middle of things. I didn't understand 1 thought they were crazy and they were going to kill some poor innocent guy""He's no innocent," Marsala said.

"I know that now" Kerry nodded for emphasis. She i7t couldn't bring herself to say any of the things Ethan had suggested She just said, "I do know it"

"Did they drink your blood?" He reached to push the loose strands of hair away from her neck but stopped, perhaps thinking touching her was inappropriate, or maybe realizing the marks would have gone away by now in any case She swept the hair clear anyway "No," she said firmly "She drank Joey's blood"

There was no answer for that "I watched him change into one of them "

Kerry wasn't sure she'd heard that right "You watched . ">"

"It took a while Four, five months from the time he first met her"

"No," Kerry said, but before she could explain that it only took seconds, he continued, "At first we didn't know There were all those rehearsals, twice a week, then three times, every night by the last two weeks Ridiculous schedule for a school production, like the play was more important than the school- work But then it was finally over Except that it wasn't over 'I'm going out.' he said Every night Just like that 'I'm going out' He led us to believe it was one of the girls from the play, but then Patty, my wife, and I found out it was that Regina woman, the director 'She's older than / am,' Patty said He didn't care She'd bitten him by then "

"I'm not sure what you're saying," Kerry admitted"She encouraged him to lie to us She taught him to smoke marijuana, and she provided him with liquor even though he was underage He'd never done any of those things before His marks He'd been a straight-A student in high school, dean's list every semester But suddenly he was failing and taking incompletcs Dropped his old friends, dropped his old *73.

interests Stayed up all night, partying, didn't want to get up in the morning Talked back to his mother, sa.s.sed me. We had no idea then, but it was the vampire's bite He was changing into one of them right before our very eyes, and we didn't know it Then I started following her Then I saw."

Kerry shook her head That's not-"

Marsala pointed a finger at her "I didn't know how to stop it" He nodded slowly "I do now"

He'd stopped it with Regina "Professor Marsala," Kerry said She didn't dare say, Your son was growing up and be made bad decisions, or That's called rebellion, not vampirism. His story was an awful mishmash combining truth and speculation and, she supposed, a fathers gnef and guilt She said, "It isn't like that Either someone's a vampire or not, it doesn't take months "

That what one of them told you""

She nodded "Do you believe everything they tell you?"

"No," she said "Of course not But-"

"Don't believe anything," Marsala said "I don't know what they promised him But then, when they'd strung him out long enough, when they were done laughing at him, they killed him The police thought it was a car accident"She remembered Ethan saying that he and Regina had arranged the deaths of Marsala's friends to look like part of a straggle between opposing drug factions Of course they wouldn't discard drained bodies carelessly The vampires couldn't afford to have people speculating in that direction And as Ethan had admitted, unexplained disappearances raised too many questions Marsala was nodding, as though to encourage her to be- lieve "He'd been dnnking Car hit a tree But I knew That 173.

woman was evil. She turned our son against us I started tracking her, and I found out what she was, then I kept on tracking her because I knew there couldn't be just one 'Wail long enough and she'll lead us to more.' I said Even Patty didn't believe me She couldn't race it and she ran away But I knew The sunlight proved me right"

An image of what had been left of Regina flashed through her mind Although she wasn't aware of it. it must have shown on her face, for Marsala said, "You saw her? You saw what the sunlight did? Don't feel sorry for her Do you know why sunlight destroys them?"

Kerry shook her head "Because Cod won't permit such evil to exist under the sun"

Kerry bit her lip to keep from asking why, then, Cod would permit such evil to exist under the moon "You"-Marsala pointed at her again-"you're an in- between case Like Joey Seduced by the glamor of evil"

The word seduced made her cheeks grow warm, which he no doubt saw He nodded, and she was sure he thought it was worsethan it was "Fight them," he said "I know they've got their claws in you, but fight them "

"They do not have their claws in me," Kerry protested, "and at least they don't go around ramming school buses and kidnapping innocent people"

"I don't think you know half of what they do," Marsala said Which was probably true "How old is your young- looking friend? Fifty years? A hundred? Two hundred? Mul- tiply that times three hundred sixty-five nights a year, and call me cold blooded"

t74 They don't kill every night"

"Something else they told you?"

Ethan hadn't killed last night, she thought Or, at least, she was fairly certain he hadn't On the other hand, the night .before, he and Regina had killed four And tonight he was planning on killing at least one She ran her hand through her hair "I don't want to argue,"

she said "I didn't come here to defend them. But I'm not one of them And I'm not one-of-them-in-training. I want some a.s.surance that you haven't hurt my dad and my brother If you can give me that, I'll tell you where Ethan is, and how you can get him "

Marsala sat back and looked at her as though evaluating "Vampires don't lie?" he asked "I never said that I just-"

"Do you lie?"

Kerry worked hard to look him right in the eyes "No"

"Then you told your father exactly what happened Thurs-day night"

Kerry looked away "I He didn't ask, and I didn't volunteer the information"

"Which is not the same as lying?" Marsala said There was no good answer to that 'Then let me ask you this," Marsala continued "How did your friend know who 1 was?"

"He recognized your picture in the paper"

"If he saw the paper"-Marsala gave a grim smile-"how is it you didn't know your father and your brother are safe?"

"What?"

175.

"You didn't ask, and he didn't volunteer the informa- tion?"

"I don't understand what you're getting at."

"They were in the car," Marsala said. "In the trunk If they're not home now, the police must have them in protec- tive custody"

"You-" Kerry made a conscious effort to lower her voice "You rammed into a school bus with my father and brother in the trunk of the car? You could have killed them. They could have suffocated-"

"I admit I wasn't thinking straight," Marsala said- "1 went to your house to get you When I found you weren't home from school yet, I forced your family to get into the car, with no clear plan in mind. When I saw the bus ... It was stupid, I admit- I didn't think of those other children on the bus I only thought of you, becoming what 1 had seen Joey becom-ing, feeding on people's blood, killing people, night after night after night for centuries I didn't stop to think-about your family in the back or about your innocent cla.s.smates But my point is, unlike the vampires, I didn't hurt anyone- The people on the school bus survived, and your family survived" Marsala waggled his finger at her "And your friend didn't tell you that. He figured he could use you better if you didn't know"

"He didn't know," Kerry started, then she changed that to "I don't know. You might have them buried in a shallow grave in your backyard, for all 1 know."

Marsala turned around in his seat and called out to the student cashier, "Max!"

"Yo," Max said, not quite diverting his attention from his game- 176.

"Do you still have that newspaper? The one with the picture you thought looked like me?"

Max rapidly hit a few more b.u.t.tons before reaching under the counter He tossed the newspaper, and it almost made it to their table Marsala leaned over and picked it up, then folded it back to the front page There was her school picture, and the diagram of the accident scene, and the composite drawing of Marsala The professor tapped his finger on a paragraph in the first column ". . Stephen and lan Nowicki," the article said, "found tied and gagged in the trunk of the car, shaken but unharmed." The- following paragraphs described how a man wearing a ski mask and armed with a gun had forced his way into their house, demanding to know where sixteen- year-old Kerry Nowicki was Told she was still at school, he'd tied them and gagged them Then, after searching the house, he trashed the living room, after which he forced them into the trunk of their own carThe article said that Stephen Nowicki felt the car swerve and hit something repeatedly, but at some point during the crash into the bus or the fire hydrant, he banged his head on the car's tire iron and lost conscious- ness During the time the police and ambulance were at the scene, only four-year-old lan Nowicki was conscious, and he had been warned by the intruder not to make a sound, "or else" So he dutifully remained quiet By the time his father regained consciousness, the car had apparently been im- pounded by the police because no one heard his cries for help. The two weren't discovered until police investigating the bus incident opened the trunk at about nine o'clock in the evening.

i77 Kerry looked up from the newspaper and met Marsala's triumphant smile. "He knew," she whispered.

"Apparently he didn't think it was important enough to mention," Marsala said.

Kerry couldn't think of how often they'd skirted the sub- ject of her family this evening Ethan knew how frightened she was for them Over and over he'd had the chance to say, They're all right. Marsala doesn't havt them. Relief and a sense of betrayal balanced so precariously she didn't know whether to laugh out loud or cry.

"They're treacherous," Marsala said. "You can't trust them They don't think Uke we do- They don't even consider them- selves human They're like aliens; they're like vile and vicious animals " Marsala reached out and covered her hand with his- It was warm and slightly rough, as though chapped from the weather or from honest work "Will you really help me stop him from killing other people's sons and daughters?" he asked.

"Or are you here to defend him?"

"He knew," Kerry repeated. "1 held my little brother's toy bear and cried, thinking he and my father might both be dead. And Ethan didn't say anything. I cried in front of him, and he didn't say anything."She looked into Marsala's face, the face of a man who'd lost his son and-in a different way-his wife to vampires.

A man who'd been unable for three years to convince anyone of the terrible truth only he knew, and who'd fought back in the only way he could "He wanted me to trick you," she said, "to convince you that I was helping you, but to bring you back to his house, where he planned to kill you "

"Good," Marsala said "Good?"

178.

He had a quirky smile that reminded her of the picture she'd seen of his son, Joe. "I don't mean good that he plans to kill me, I mean {food that you told me- We've had enough lies told to us, I think, you and me So I'll tell you the truth, Kerry Nowicki No matter how good a little helper you've been to this vampire, he can't afford to let you live You have to decide who's going to die: him-or you and me."

t79

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

KERRY TOLD MARSALA everything she'd learned about Ethan Some of it he didn't believe, and she couldn't tell if that was because he thought she was lying or because he thought Ethan had lied to her By the end she wasn't sure how much of it she herself believed "Do you know how he plans to kill me^" Marsala asked "No," Kerry said "But you do accept that he plans to?"

"He admitted it" Kerry squirmed because by saying so,she admitted that she had knowingly plotted to kill the man she now was facing Marsala didn't point that out Instead he said, "Pull your chair around closer"

*80.

Kerry glanced around to sec if somebody appeared to be listening The young couple in the back looked cheerier- they were sharing an order of trench fries-but other than that everybody in the room looked the same as when she'd entered She moved her chair closer to Marsala anyway He reached into the inner pocket of his Jacket "Don't get jumpy," he warned And, by that, she knew He didn't pull the gun out of his pocket; he was just showing her "I don't suppose," he said, not sounding very hopeful, "you've ever used one?"

Kerry shook her head "What good's a gun going to be against a vampire anyway?"

"Fired from close enough, this'll slow him down "

Kerry remembered the laundry, remembered Sidowski holding his revolver up to Ethan's head and saying much the same thing She forced the image from her mind "They heal fast, but not that fast Besides, this has silver bullets"

"Isn't that for werewolves?" Kerry asked, eager to stop thinking, to lose herself in the details By the disgusted look on Marsala's face, she guessed that whoever had sold him the gun and ammunition must have said something similar"Vampires can't stand the touch of silver," Marsala said "Same as garlic Not as bad as sunlight, but it'll be an extra kick"

Kick, she thought Kerry wondered if that was just another superst.i.tion, like that vampires' images aren't reflected in mirrors, which she had seen wasn't true Ethan hadn't mentioned anything about (81.

silver, but, then again, if it was true, Kerry supposed he wouldn't have if it was true, maybe it would serve to kill him more quickly, painlessly.

Marsala said, "1 want you to take this and hide it. See if you've got a pocket big enough Otherwise you can stick it in the waistband ot your jeans."

"I'm not sticking a gun down my pants," Kerry whispered at him.

"It's got a safety," Marsala said- "Check your pockets "

They weren't her pockets It was Ethan's jacket, which seemed terribly unfair There was an inner pocket. "I can't,"

she said "I could never shoot anybody"

"Not even knowing what he is?" Marsala asked. "Not even knowing he's killed uncountable others, and intends to kill you, and may well decide that your family has seen too much and kill them, too?"

Kerry withered under this onslaught. "I don't know," she admitted. "But even if I wanted to, I'm sure I'd never be able to hit him 1 have terrible aim when it comes to-"

Marsala had taken the gun out of his pocket and washolding it under the table 'Take the d.a.m.n gun before some- body sees it," he interrupted "All I'm asking is for you to hold it"

Kerry took the gun The dark metal was cold, and it was heavier than she would have thought. She gingerly stuck it into her pocket.

"Here's an extra clip" Marsala handed over the extra bul- lets "Put it into the outside pocket, same side."

"Why?" Kerry asked "Same side so that it's easy to find. Outside pocket so that f82 when you pull out the gun, you don't pull out the clip at the same time and drop it"

Not only did it make sense, it almost sounded as though he knew her "In case you do need to use it"-Kerry shook her head, but he kept on talking-"you need to slide back the safety by the trigger. Stop shaking your head and listen- It can't hurt to know "

He was right. Kerry stopped shaking her head The safety," he repeated, "is by the trigger You push it back with your thumb. iJyou fire, it'll recoil-it'll kick back So be prepared for that The empty sh.e.l.l will drop out auto- matically and the next bullet will be ready to fire You don't need to release the safety again, but you need to let go of the trigger, then pull it back for the second shot. Do you understand?"

"More or less," Kerry said miserably "Do you understand?" Marsala insisted.ii/ ii Yes.

"The clip holds nine bullets We're not even going to talk about reloading."

Good, Kerry thought, but she knew not to say it- Marsala put his hand over hers again. She didn't like it.

but pulling away seemed too unfriendly a gesture "I know this is difficult for you," he said. "But if he manages to take me by surprise, he'd be a fool not to search me for weapons. And one thing this vampire isn't is a fool"