Vampire - Dead By Dusk Part 23

Then she shrugged, answering herself. "Hey, they say that half of what you feel is in your mind, and people do travel the world to go to shrines, so who am I to comment? Besides, it's a beautiful cross.""It is, isn't it?" Lena mused. She grinned at Suzette. "I even had a dream about someone trying to get me to take it off-can you imagine?"

"How have your dreams been, Steph?" Suzette asked.

Lena answered for her. "I don't think Steph has been dreaming lately. I think she's been dealing with the real thing."

"You and Grant are back?" Suzette said, and she sounded pleased.

"We're not actually back. We have a lot of... issues."

"I'd find a way around those issues!" Lena advised her. "He's so capable, and authoritative, and he's in the theater, and even if he weren't built like brick and s.e.xy as all h.e.l.l, in our line of work, sometimes you just have to go for heteros.e.xual."

"Well, that's true," Suzette mused. "Seems to me, though, that too often, the kind of guy you'd like to be with, even marry, comes and goes too quickly. I actually love the theater because of my gay friends. They stay your friends."

"That's true," Lena mused. "But they don't do much for your s.e.x life. Then again, since we seem to be so self-sufficient with dreams..."

Suzette started to laugh. "Look at Stephanie! I think the real thing has to be much better than a dream. And yet..." Her voice trailed as she flushed again.

"Yet what?" Stephanie asked her.

"It was so real!"

"There were some awfully good-looking servicemen around last night," Lena said.

"I know!" Suzette moaned. "And we were just on such a high... tonight, we have to stick around in the bar and flirt with a few!"

They ate early again. That night, the restaurant was filled, and now people knew and recognized them, so they came to the table in a constant flow, telling them how much they had enjoyed the show, and how they were looking forward to the evening.

Grant left the table before the others to check the set, and Stephanie followed soon after, feeling somewhat guilty. Since she'd wound up as part of the cast, and he'd been there, she'd left him to attend to the details that were really her responsibility.

But he didn't seem to mind. He didn't even want to hear her thank him that night. He seemed oddly distracted. She decided for the time to leave him alone.

The show went up. The second night was even more fun, with their audience aware that they'd be partic.i.p.ating.

Yet, in the middle of it, Stephanie was startled when she was in the eaves with Suzette and she whispered to her, "You're not going to believe who I saw out there tonight!"

"Who?" Stephanie whispered back.

"Gema!"

"Gema-back here?"

"Look, she's in the rear, near the door to the resort lobby.""I never met her," Stephanie reminded Suzette.

"I'll bet she's sorry she walked off!" Suzette said. "And please, Stephanie, if she comes begging, do not give her her job back.

She left us high and dry."

"Try to show her to me when we're back out there," Stephanie said.

Suzette nodded. But when they had a chance to speak again, Suzette said, "I didn't see her again. Well, I'll just bet that she'll come around. This show is going to wind up in newspapers across the globe, if we keep doing this well. She doesn't deserve to be any part of our success!"

That night, when the show ended, the cast determined to mill with the men and women who had come, and who had headed back into the bar to enjoy the remnants of their last evening. Stephanie mulled that it might not be a bad thing for her to do as well.

But when she told Grant what she was thinking, he had other plans.

"You go ahead. I... I have to do something else."

"What?" she asked him.

"There's a wake for Maria tonight. The viewing goes on to eleven. Since I'm the one who found the body... well, I feel I should pay my respects," he told her.

Stephanie felt slightly ashamed. The shows had been so magnificently received that she had pushed the local tragedy out of her mind.

"I'm coming with you," she told him.

"You don't have to," he said.

"I want to. Just let me get out of this makeup."

"All right," he said. "But we have to hurry. The funeral home is just up the street, but it's also getting really late."

She scrubbed her face and didn't bother with reapplying street makeup. Grant ran back with her to her cottage to find something appropriate to wear. She chose a simple black dress. In the States she might not have been so concerned about color or tradition, but here, where old values were so important, she wanted to be in proper attire.

As they walked the distance, uphill, she glanced at her watch, hoping she hadn't made them so late that the wake would be over, but they still had a few minutes.

When they arrived, she felt the ma.s.sive difference of emotions between being at the resort, and coming here, where the real heart of the community lay.

The funeral home was crowded. She saw a lot of the local people she had noticed in the cafe sipping espresso, having dinner, or just coming in to be social. Both of the police officers were there.

And Maria's mother.

She was on her knees before the coffin.

To Stephanie's amazement, the coffin was open. And to her greater amazement, the girl looked beautiful. Absolutely stunning.

There were no marks on her flesh. Her face was reposed; it almost looked as if a gentle smile teased her lips."They must have the world's best morticians here," Grant murmured lightly.

As they stood back respectfully, Maria's mother began to cry. She touched her daughter's face, and a keening wail came from her lips.

The policeman, Merc, went to her, drawing her away from the coffin.

"Let's say a little prayer," Grant murmured.

They walked forward together and went to their knees on the little pew in front of the girl. They bowed their heads, closed their eyes.

Stephanie knew she should be asking G.o.d to welcome the soul of the deceased. She opened her eyes. A gasp formed in her throat.

Maria was looking at her.

Stephanie blinked.

The girl was as she had been, eyes closed. They were sewn closed, of course. She was dead, embalmed.

Grant nudged her. He hadn't seen what Stephanie had seen. Or imagined, she told herself ruefully. It had to have been a trick of her mind because Maria looked so very beautiful, and not at all dead.

They rose, walking to the side of the coffin. Grant nodded to people in acknowledgement, and she thought they must be scientists or other volunteers from the dig.

Carlo Ponti was there. He walked over and shook Grant's hand, and kissed Stephanie on the cheek. "It was good of you to come," he said.

They didn't get a chance to reply.

Maria's mother let out a terrible wail, a cry of anguish that brought agony to every heart there.

But then, she broke free from Merc and went running to the coffin. Her purse fell as she drew something from it.

It was a huge knife.

Before anyone could stop her, she pulled her daughter's hair, drawing her head up.

And she proceeded to saw away at Maria's neck, madly attempting to sever the head from the shoulders.

Chapter 10.

Stephanie had never seen anything more horrible in her life.

Lucretia Britto didn't just slice at her daughter's throat; she hacked at it viciously.

Previous Top NextNeither had Stephanie ever imagined what it took to remove a head from a body. The fevered energy and effort the woman displayed was insane. And at first, everyone there was apparently so shocked that they didn't move. There they were in the funeral home, soft, soothing music playing, and everyone just staring as the woman worked with maniacal verve to cut off her daughter's head.

At last, three men raced to the coffin.

By then, sweat had popped out all over Lucretia's face, and the oddest thing was that she was covered in blood. Stephanie didn't know a great deal about embalming, but she had always believed that the blood was removed from the veins and fluid put in.

What spouted from Maria Britto was definitely blood. That, or the town used the most macabre crimson embalming fluid known to man.

Everyone had been silent, staring, stupefied; then it seemed that everyone in the place was talking. Lucretia, dripping red, was hysterical, screaming as the men drew her away. The priest rushed up to the coffin, praying, tossing holy water upon the now nearly decapitated deceased, and the men in attendance all seemed to be fighting with one another.

The priest called out sharply; he walked to the two men trying to restrain Lucretia, and spoke very gently. She slumped suddenly into the arms of those who held her. Then, she began to sob softly.

Stephanie felt that she was at a total loss. She felt terribly awkward as well, as if she had intervened in something extremely personal, another person's terrible grief. She knew sorrow for the girl, and a tremendous sympathy for the woman maddened by her pain, yet there was nothing she could do.

Apparently, Grant was feeling the same.

He touched her arm gently. They didn't need to speak. They turned, and as the chaos continued around them, they slipped down the aisle to exit the viewing room. At the back of the room, they saw Carlo, watching, listening, shaking his head.

"Most unusual," he muttered.

"We feel we're in the way, like intruders," Grant said to him.

Carlo nodded. "Yes, even I feel this way. When a mother loses a daughter... she is beside herself, superst.i.tious, and there is anger between the doctors, the mortician, and the police-she was not embalmed properly, which is against the law, and yet, their concern was for Lucretia, the living, and no one imagined that she might do such a bizarre thing... yet how unusual."

Stephanie wondered to just what Carlo referred since the entire scene had been, and still was, unusual to say the least.

"The blood spurted," he said. "No heart to pump it, and it spurted. This entire situation just becomes more and more tragic." He gave them a sad smile. "It was very good of you to come. Please think of us as people who love too deeply, not as lunatics."

"Carlo! Please, we've seen the anguish," Grant said softly. "Goodnight."

"Si, si. Buonasera," Carlo murmured. "Tomorrow, then, Grant."

"Yes, of course."

Carlo smiled at Stephanie. "Miss Cahill, you should come out with Grant. Despite all this, there is a deep historical significance to the area."

"I'd like to come out and see the site," Stephanie said.He nodded.

The voices near the coffin were rising shrilly once again.

"Excuse me, perhaps I can help with a calm voice of reason. Though I believe Dr. Antinella is going to help Lucretia most... I see that he is preparing a sedative for the woman."

"Yes, yes, please go," Grant murmured.

He took Stephanie's hand, and they walked out.

His grip was strong, supportive. "You're still shaking," he told Stephanie, once they were out into the night air. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I'm still dumbfounded," she admitted.

"I could tell some of what was going on, even before Carlo explained," he murmured.

Stephanie gazed at him. He shrugged. "I'm beginning to understand a great deal of Italian. And then, of course, there is the obvious. I think that the doctor, the coroner, and the mortician determined that they wouldn't slice Maria up any worse than...

than she was. Apparently, they knew from certain signs on the body that death had been caused by animals, and so... why cause Lucretia more grief when they felt they could prepare her properly for her burial? There's a deep tradition here, you know. Laws about the disposal of the dead belong to larger, more tightly packed societies. They don't worry about the water being tainted, or some of the other problems that ensued in other places from burials in which the bodies weren't properly prepared or retained. So... anyway, the police are furious about that. And Lucretia... she's insisting to everyone that her daughter was the victim of demons, or some otherworldly creature, and that the only way she will lie at peace is if her head is severed."

Stephanie shivered. "She did look... alive," she murmured. A memory of the trick of light that had caused the girl's eyes to appear open filled her mind. Uncanny. Weird. Terrifying.

The night was balmy, but the air suddenly seemed cold. There was a mild breeze, but it seemed to be whistling. She realized that she was afraid. Very afraid. And she should have felt some sense of security with Grant at her side, and yet...

It too often seemed that he was part of the bizarre events occurring and the frightening dreams and suspicions that teased at her reason and logic!