Blood Red (18 page)

She needed enough to keep herself safe, but not too much. Information overload could be a very dangerous thing.

“Young vampires are rash, impetuous, and not very powerful. They think they're invincible, and they're not. But they
are
killers, and they kill easily, because most people are unaware of their existence. Because people tend to be trusting. Because vampires can…seduce.”

She frowned. “Deanna kept telling me there were two men. She insisted that Jonas was good and that there was someone else. Someone who was evil.”

“She might have been right.”

“But you said Jonas was a vampire.”

He hesitated. “Yes,” he finally said.

“So he's evil.”

“I don't know.”

“I don't understand.”

He lowered his head, wincing. How much could he expect her to believe?

“You know, of course, that terrible things have happened throughout history. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the worst instances of man's inhumanity to man, but it didn't make all churchmen evil. Stalin carried out a blood bath, but all Russians weren't evil. Hitler was a maniac, but that didn't make all Germans bad. Terrorists kill in the name of Allah, but most Muslims are kind and compassionate and humane, as Mohammed taught.”

She was once again staring at him as if he had lost his mind.

“What the hell are you saying?” she asked.

He lifted his hands. “That there are good vampires.”

“
Good vampires
?”

He answered very slowly and carefully. “Vampires who want to coexist with humans in peace, who have retained the essence of humanity themselves. The woman who owns this house is actually a very wise…” He paused. “And
good
vampire.”

She leapt out of bed, staring at him. He'd gone too far. Her eyes accused him of the absolute depths of madness.

“You—you know all this?” she said, her tone skeptical, her eyes enormous. And yet…he almost smiled at his own unconscious response to her. She was naked, staring at him, hair wild and beautiful, and his heart was pounding again. Of course, given what he'd just told her, she was undoubtedly thinking that she would never let him anywhere near her again.

“Lauren, there's so much…”

“I have to get to the hospital,” she said curtly.

“I'll take you. I have a car,” he told her.

Her features were tense. But she nodded, grabbing her dress, throwing it over her head. “Ten minutes. I need to shower and change. For the night.”

He wasn't sure what that meant, but she was gone. He winced, then rose and headed back for the shower himself. He quickly rinsed off and dressed.

At least she was here, at Montresse House. At least she had agreed to let him drive her to the hospital. At least…

He had touched her. Made love to her.

At least now she had an idea of the mortal danger she was facing.

He wanted to think they could have a future.

He didn't dare.

There were a number of tourists wandering the Square. That was good, Susan thought. It was almost like old times. There was a caricaturist just a few feet away, sketching a young couple who were obviously in love. A young woman in a gypsy skirt and turban had set up on the other side of the artist.

She sat quietly at her own table for a moment, closing her eyes, her hands lying on the tarot card before her. She didn't turn over the cards; she just closed her eyes and listened.

She could hear the rumble of the mule drawn carriages.

A sax playing to her left.

There was chatter.

Someone who was already a few sheets to the wind stumbled on the sidewalk and was helped by a more sober companion.

She concentrated harder.

Her full name was Susan Beauvais, and her family had been in the area for centuries. One ancestor had fled the bloody revolution that erupted in Haiti in 1791. Over the hundreds of years since, she'd accumulated all sorts different ancestors. Someone had been white. At least one had been an Indian. But it had been her mother, a Creole, who had told her about the magic that went untapped by most people throughout their lives. Reading tarot cards, palms and the crystal ball made for a decent living, but there was so much more a person could learn.

She didn't always feel comfortable with her power. Sometimes people were better off when they didn't know what lay ahead.

But there were other times when it was necessary for people to know what they were about to face. And this was such a time.

She'd sensed troubles like these before, but never so strong, so frightening.

She concentrated more fully, and at last it came to her.

A soft sound, a rustling on the wind.

Yes…she could hear it. The flapping of wings.

She looked up at the sky. Bats. There were often bats here. They rested high up in the eaves of the taller buildings.

She removed her hands from her cards, asked the artist to watch her table, then stood and hurried over to the church, looking around nervously as she went.

The great doors remained open, though they would be closed very soon.

Inside, she knelt down in the aisle and pulled the huge cross she always wore from beneath the cotton fabric of her shirt, then she held it tightly as she murmured her prayer.

Though she didn't look up, she sensed it when someone slid into the pew beside her. She shook her head. “You should not be here.”

“It's my home,” he said.

“There is a very fine line between good and evil,” she said, turning to looked up at the handsome young man in the pew. “You may get caught in the crossfire.”

“There are very bad times coming,” he said.

Susan bowed her head again. “Yes, I know.”

“I have to be here.”

“I will pray for you,” Susan said.

“You must help,” he said.

“And how can I do that?”

“You see things.”

She turned and stared at him. “It's not as if there's a movie playing in my head. I see what comes to me. If I could choose, if I could see see how to fight evil at every turn, there wouldn't be any evil. But you—you should go elsewhere.”

“I can't.”

“Many here don't trust you.”

“I intend to prove myself.”

She stared at him again. “You don't know what you're up against—on either side.”

“Then I'll learn,” he said grimly.

Susan watched him carefully as he rose to leave the church. When he had been gone for several minutes, she rose herself and found the holy water vessel. She dampened her fingers and drew the sign of the cross not just on her forehead, but on her arms, across her chest above her heart, and in several places around her throat.

Belatedly, she noticed that there was a young priest at the back of the church, and he was staring at her in perplexed silence.

“Evening, Father,” she said.

He nodded to her. Tongue-tied, maybe.

As she left, she smiled.

She returned to her table and again put her fingertips on her cards and closed her eyes. She could still hear the sound of wings beneath the laughter, beneath the carriage wheels and the clip-clop of the mules' hooves.

Should she keep her peace? Or try to contact the young woman? There was much she needed to know.

“I'd love a reading,” someone said.

She looked up.

And her blood turned cold.

It was him.

Heidi seemed annoyed to see Lauren and Mark when they got to the hospital.

Lauren was distressed to see that her friend was no longer wearing her engagement ring. But with Mark in the room, she didn't want to have a showdown with Heidi. She couldn't begin to imagine what had possessed her to forget how much she loved Barry. They'd been together since they had left college and moved to California. They'd been living together for two years. They wanted the same things, two children, another Norwegian Elkhound, one cat, and vacations spent hiking through the Redwoods.

“I'm fine here by myself, you know,” Heidi said.

Mark, not really paying attention, had walked over to Deanna's side. He touched her brow and seemed relieved, then reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced another cross on a chain.

“What are you doing?” Heidi said sharply.

“Just saying a prayer,” Mark replied, carefully slipping the chain around Deanna's neck and fumbling just a bit with the tiny clasp.

Deanna shifted restlessly in her deep sleep, then settled again.

“She doesn't want that!” Heidi snapped.

“It's okay, Heidi,” Lauren told her. “I—I bought it for her,” she lied.

“Well, that was stupid,” Heidi said crossly.

“It won't hurt anything,” Lauren said, disturbed by the strange way Heidi was acting. “

You should take that thing off her,” Heidi said.

“Why on earth?” Lauren demanded.

Heidi didn't have an answer at first. “I think her mom is part Jewish,” she said at last.

“Then we'll get her a star of David, too,” Mark said.

Heidi opened her mouth, apparently puzzled, then closed it again when she couldn't come up with anything to say.

“I think you need to get out of here for a while,” Lauren said firmly.

“I…I'm needed here,” Heidi said.

“Lauren is here now,” Mark told her.

“Right. I can stay here, and you two can go have a nice meal in the Quarter,” Lauren said.

Mark had never suggested such a thing, but surely he wouldn't want Heidi roaming around on her own. Not if everything he'd said was true.

Not if winged creatures could suddenly turn into vampires and attack just a few feet away from Bourbon Street.

“Um…sure,” Mark said, offering Heidi his most engaging smile. “I'll take you out for a bit.”

“I just feel that I should stay here,” Heidi said stubbornly.

Actually, Lauren wished she could go out with Heidi herself, maybe get an idea of what was going on with her.

But would it be safe? Even forewarned and forearmed, with her cross and the somewhat smaller water pistol she'd stashed in her purse, could she really defeat what she could barely believed existed?

“Maybe I should take Heidi out for a bit and you should stay here,” Lauren suggested.

Mark stared at her, just short of scowling.

Okay, bad idea.

He looked at Heidi. His voice was firm, his eyes meeting hers. “Heidi, let me take you to dinner.”

“Okay.”

To Lauren's amazement, Heidi rose as if she'd never disagreed. As if she thought it was the most natural thing in the world.

Mark set his hands on Lauren's shoulders. “You stay here. And be careful.”

“This is a hospital. There's a cop in the hall,” she reminded him.

“Be careful,” he repeated.

“Of course.”

What the hell could possibly happen to her in a hospital room?

“We won't be long. Come on, Heidi,” Mark said.

Lauren nodded, picking up a magazine and dragging her chair nearer to Deanna's bed. As soon as the other two left, she touched her friend's forehead. Her skin seemed to be a normal temperature. She looked good, her breathing sounded even, and when Lauren rested two fingers on her pulse, it was beating regularly.

And still she slept like a princess awaiting her true love's kiss, Lauren thought whimsically.

She rose for a minute and adjusted the television set. She flicked around between channels, aggravated as she came to one program after another that she didn't want to see, even shows she usually found entertaining.

Finally, she decided on the Cartoon Network.
Spongebob Squarepants
fit the bill for the moment.

She was half listening to the TV and flipping through the pages of one of Heidi's magazines when a nurse came in to check on Deanna. Lauren tensed, suspicious. Great. Was she going to start suspecting everybody now?

The nurse added a new bag to Deanna's IV and assured Lauren that her friend was doing very well and with luck would come to soon. All the signs were right, and her red-cell count was rising nicely.

Lauren thanked her and tried to settle back and get comfortable once the nurse was gone.. She flipped a page, bored, worried.

What had she done?

Aggressive
was actually an understatement when it came to describing her behavior earlier that night. But she couldn't be sorry. She had forgotten time and place and all the horrors that had so suddenly entered her life. He had made her feel erotic, sensual, beautiful. As if she had known him forever, as if the world was perfectly right and normal. As if….