Vampire - Kiss Of Darkness Part 29

"Maybe Clark went after him," a third cop said.

A fourth chimed in then. "It's bulls.h.i.t. It's all bulls.h.i.t. How the h.e.l.l could they both have their throats slit?"

That brought on a real silence. The first cop sighed. "I've got to find a john."

He had been leaning on his patrol car; now he straightened and headed toward a staff entrance to the building.Bryan followed him inside.

The corridors were empty. Bryan followed the officer down a hall with a sign that bore a number of arrows. One pointed to "Out- patient radiation, vending machines, billing and restrooms."

He decided to let the man pee.

He waited. When the cop came out of the bathroom, Bryan caught him with a quick blow. He fell without so much as a whimper.

Bryan dragged him back into the restroom.

"Sorry, buddy. I just need the uniform."

Upstairs, he found crime-scene tape blocking off the room. Pretending to ask about his a.s.signment, he got close to the door.

They hadn't moved the bodies yet.

"You there. Harrison," a big cop called.

"Yes, sir?" he answered.

"What are you doing up here? You're supposed to be downstairs. They'll be a.s.signing you to crowd patrol soon. The mayor is going to be giving a statement, and things might get ugly."

"Yes sir. Sorry. I was told I should report to you...Sergeant Mendez," Bryan said, reading the man's badge.

He stared at Mendez, who stared back, fingering the crucifix around his neck.

A strange look entered Mendez's eyes; he crossed himself. "You're not Harrison," he said softly.

"I'm not," he said, keeping eye contact. "But I need to see the bodies," he said.

"You-you shouldn't be impersonating a cop," Mendez said, but there was no conviction in his words, and he stepped aside to let Bryan pa.s.s.

"I want you to block the hallway," Bryan said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Mendez replied tonelessly, then stood firmly in the hallway.

Bryan saw that a reporter had just slipped in, and everyone was busy keeping him at bay. Good.

He moved quickly, surveyed the bed, then the bodies. He knelt beside them, checking them out thoroughly. He saw the scalpels.

The blood.

And then he saw the smudge in the blood where something had been written.

He tensed, then rose quickly, slipping out past the still-dazed Mendez and the crowd holding off the reporter.

As he left the building-through the front doors this time-he saw a number of cops again and frowned. He recognized one of them.

Bobby Munro. The cop Stacey was dating.

Jessica reached Maggie's house just a few minutes after daylight. The children were still sleeping. Maggie looked as if she'd been pacing for a very long time.

"What the h.e.l.l happened last night?" Jessica demanded. "Two cops dead?"

"Yes, made to look as if they'd gotten into a fight and killed each other. But no way could two guys have slit each other's throats like that."

"You saw them?" Jessica asked weakly.

"No. Sean described the scene. And it wasn't any newborn creature seeking a meal, I can a.s.sure you. The Master was there. In the hospital."

"We were conned tonight. He set it up perfectly. The would-be vampires, the real thing, the old house...But the whole thing was a ploy. It's as if..."

"It's as if it's been planned from the start," Maggie said. "He's found you. All these years, all the deception, the elaborate masquerade you set up yourself, and he's found you, anyway, and wants to show you his power, make you suffer."

"To have discovered I was in New Orleans, practicing psychology, to have found out about a conference, found out I was going, then planned the party, knowing I'd come...."

"He's had years to plan all the revenge he wanted," Maggie reminded her.

"But why bother?" Jessica murmured, but she knew the answer. Because he hated her with a pa.s.sion that had outlasted centuries.

"So what happened? You were there, you staked a bunch of the bad guys...?"

"More or less," Jessica murmured.

"Did Bryan make an appearance?"

"Yes."

"When you were the dominatrix?" Maggie demanded.

"Yes."

"And he didn't try to kill you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my G.o.d. You didn't kill him. You didn't kill a warrior, did you?" Maggie asked.

"No."

"Then...?"

"We came to an impa.s.se."

Maggie stared at her for a long moment. "Kitchen," she said. "There's coffee on." She held her peace until they were in the kitchen, until she had poured coffee. Jessica took her cup to the table and sat in silence. Maggie joined her. "All right. Now, what the h.e.l.l happened? In detail."

"I was waiting to capture the Master in his performance room. I'd...'entertained' a few vampires while I was waiting, someone was there already." "Bryan?"

"Bryan."

"Go on."

"There was still no Master, but then the feasting began downstairs. There were screams. We both ran down, fought...them, then each other, and then...we talked."

"You just stopped fighting and you talked?" Maggie asked incredulously.

She leaned forward intently. "Jessica, Bryan is the king's warrior."

"I just...I just can't believe that."

"What do you mean, you can't believe it? You were lovers once."

"Almost a thousand years ago," Jessica protested.

Maggie looked at her dryly. "Since you've only indulged in an affair every couple of hundred years, you should be able to recognize the one great love of your life."

Jessica stood, started to pace, then stopped, spun, set her hands on the table and stared at Maggie. "If he is..." She paused, wincing. "If he was Ioin MacDuncan, why didn't I hear hundreds of years ago that he was alive?"

"Whoever said warriors were actually alive?" Maggie asked. "You know all about life without life."

"Existence," Jessica said. But Bryan is alive. He's no angel. He's flesh and blood and fire. Alive."

"Maybe in a way," Maggie conceded. "I don't know. I've never known a warrior before. But then, I didn't even spend two hundred years as a vampire, and I've never heard of anyone other than myself who's been bitten, then recovered more than a century later."

Jessica sat down again, deflated. "I don't know. He knows what I am. He doesn't know who."

"You're just going to have to tell him."

"What?"

"Look, we're in real trouble here. First Mary, now two cops have been slaughtered. That wasn't the act of a vampire doing his best just to survive. It was vicious. Staged. Just as the parties have been staged. Jessica, you're the only one, human or vampire, who managed to injure him so severely that it took him hundreds of years to heal. He hates you. He'll go to any length to torment you, to destroy you."

Jessica shook her head. "No...no. I can't believe he knows I'm here. That I'm alive. The whole reason I created the persona of Kathleen, Countess Valor, was to make him think I'd been evil, then that I was dead."

"The truth has a strange way of being discovered. Think about it. You've been living quietly for several hundred years now. You have no idea how long he's been back. I know you took every precaution, that you barricaded the crypt with crosses. But there must have been a quake...something. He-"

Maggie stopped abruptly, her eyes suddenly widening as she stared past Jessica toward the doorway.

Jessica froze, then turned slowly.Bryan.

He hadn't knocked. And she could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn't surprised to find her there.

She stared at him unflinchingly.

Maggie rose. "I didn't hear you knock," she said, her voice regally cool.

"I didn't." He smiled knowingly. "I don't have to be asked in. I'm not a vampyr. And even if I were, you've already asked me in."

He stared hard at Maggie. "Just what is the story with you, Mrs. Canady? You're not a vampire, and neither is your husband, but you're both aware of their existence. And there's something about you, about this house...."

"You've just barged into my house unasked. Why don't you start by explaining yourself?"

"What is there to explain? I have but one purpose. To kill vampires," he said very softly, and his gaze fell upon Jessica. "There is one in particular for whom I've been searching for years. And years," he added dryly. "But then, you're both aware of that particular creature, aren't you?"

The two women stared at each other, barely daring to breathe. Maggie widened her eyes at Jessica, silently suggesting that she confess to everything.

Jessica still balked at the idea, her mind racing. It couldn't be. Wouldn't she have known, somehow, even after all these years?

Yet hadn't she felt the familiarity, felt the sense of...

"We didn't know about the Master until I reached Transylvania. He had been...out of commission, I suppose you'd say, for hundreds of years," Jessica said.

Bryan strode over to the table and stared hard at her. "So you brought the dominatrix to life in Romania?"

"I could hardly walk in looking like Sister Golden Hair," she said, then let out a sigh. "You're so wrong about us. You have no idea how many of us fight against what we are."

"And you walked in to kill the Master?"

"Yes."

He spun on Maggie so suddenly that she jumped. "And you help Jessica with...with whatever it is she's doing? Your husband obviously knows and understands everything that is going on?"

"I understand exactly what she's going through," Maggie said. "I was a vampire once."

"Was?"

"I'm...not one anymore. It's a long story."

"I believe I have some time," Bryan said calmly.

Both women just stared at him.

"What's the deal with Sean?" Bryan asked.

"He's a cop, exactly what he looks like," Maggie said firmly.

"All right, so is this just a small party going on, or are there more of your kind around here-good vampires, as you claim?" he demanded, turning to Jessica again."There are more," she murmured.

"You didn't kill any of your friends the other night?" he queried.

"No. And I didn't start a staking campaign just to impress you, either. It's what we do. We don't kill indiscriminately-that's apparently your cause in life. We know the difference between good and evil."