Dark Corner (34 page)

Nia ran across the street and helped David stand.

"Oh, my God," she said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm all right, a little shaken up," he said. "But I think my
mind is blown."

King was still barking, though less vehemently.

"Can you please let him out?" he said. "He's going nuts
in there."

Nia opened the door. King bounded outside and leapt
onto David so enthusiastically that David almost fell down.

"Easy, boy." He stroked the dog's head. "I'm okay."

"We have to talk about what happened," Nia said. "That
was unbelievable."

"Yeah, and it gives us a bunch more questions, too"

David reached down to rub King's neck, but the dog wandered away from David's side and roved across the grass,
sniffing.

"Don't run off, King," David said.

The dog poked his snout into the grass and retrieved an
object. Holding it between his teeth, he brought it to David.

It was the Bible.

In the house, David and Nia locked every door. They shut
and locked every window, too.

If a vampire or a canine minion was going to get them, it
would have to break in, David thought.

He was rattled by the vampire's thwarted assault, but he
was determined to hold up. They had too much work ahead
of them for him to lose his nerve.

They kept Franklin's gun on the dinette table. King sat
near the kitchen doorway, his dark eyes unusually vigilant.

After Nia brewed a pot of strong coffee, they sat at the
table and pieced together their ideas about the vampires in
Mason's Corner.

"I think William Hunter is the man who's in these draw ings," David said. He had revisited the lineage of Hunter
men traced on the inside cover of the Bible, then begun to
page through the illustrations. "William lived through the
early and mid-eighteen hundreds, around the time that Diallo
apparently attacked a plantation that William lived on." He
put his finger on the drawing that showed William and some
other men battling a horde of savages-vampires, presumably-on the plantation.

"Yes" Nia cupped her coffee mug, as if for warmth.

David flipped to another page. "But William and a few of
these guys somehow escaped, met up with some Indians,
and tracked the vampires to the cave, where they were probably asleep during the day. The vampires' monster dogs
guarded the cave. The guys had to kill those suckers before
they could get inside."

"And I bet it wasn't easy," Nia said. "That might explain
why the number of good guys drops from seven to four.
Three of them either didn't survive fighting the mutts, or ran
away, I guess"

"I think you're right. Then, inside the cave, our heroes
attacked the vampires with guns, arrows, and fire," David
said. "It doesn't look like they stopped the big guy, Diallo.
He still came after them"

"Until someone probably set off some dynamite and
brought down the walls," Nia said. "Sealed up that joker in
there"

"And that was the end of it," David said. "But my ancestor,
William, was never the same after that. He became this fearless freedom fighter. I remember hearing the stories about
him roaming throughout the South, helping slaves escape to
the North. Then, like Franklin told us, he had a hand in the
insurrection at Edward Mason's plantation."

"Yep," Nia said. "Right alongside with my relative, and
the ancestors of a good number of people who live in town
today."

David closed the Bible. He sipped the coffee, his stomach fluttering with excitement. Everything was beginning to fall
into place.

"Now," he said. "Vampires are supposed to be immortal.
Diallo scribbled a message on the wall about rising again to
slay his enemies, then he dug himself a grave, and went to
sleep. In the movies, vampires can sleep for a long time for
years, really."

"So Diallo slept until his son, Kyle, came to town and dug
him up," Nia said. She suddenly put down her mug. "Damn.
I know why people have been disappearing."

"Why?" he said. He sensed that he knew the reason, too.

"Diallo has been asleep for, what, a hundred and fifty
plus years?" Nia said. "He needs to be revitalized, to have
his strength restored. He's been drinking the blood of the
people who have dropped out of sight."

"You've got to be right. Kyle is hunting people-food
for Diallo. Kyle and those demon dogs"

"I'm afraid to think about how many people he's taken"
Nia lowered her head. "I really doubt they're alive."

"Unfortunately, you're probably right. But I'm willing to
bet that Kyle took the victims to the Mason place. Diallo has
to be there"

"Where else?" She laughed bitterly. "But as bad as things
have been, we haven't seen the worst of this yet. When
Diallo is healthy and starts walking around, all hell is going
to break loose. I can feel it. Those drawings are like a warning of what we've got ahead of us"

"True" David tapped his lip. "But there's an x-factor in
the mix."

"The big black bird we saw outside," she said. "The bats."

"Someone is protecting us. Kyle shouted at the raven,
`You can't stop me.' Then the bats attacked him and the dogs.
Someone wants to keep us alive. But who, and why? I've got
no idea."

"Whoever it is, they can't really be a bird," Nia said. "You
think?"

"Nia, at this point, nothing would surprise me. Shoot, I
wouldn't be surprised if King opened his mouth and started
singing like James Brown"

The dog turned in their direction, ears perked.

"I'm grateful to whomever helped us," David said, "but
I'm afraid to trust that they'll bail us out again. We don't
know this person's agenda. For all we know, they might only
be keeping us from harm until Diallo finds us"

"He's going to be so pissed when he finds out who you
are," Nia said. "The ancestor of the man who penned him up
in the cave. That scares me, David."

David reached across the table and grasped her hands in
his.

"It scares me, too," he said. "But we've got to stay strong,
figure out how we can win this thing once and for all. My ancestor's legacy has fallen to me, Nia. But, God knows, I have
no idea what to do. I'm flying by the seat of my pants"

"Let's call Chief Jackson, for starters," she said. She went
to the wall phone and punched in the number that was
scrawled on the phone's console. "Hello, this is Nia James.
May I speak to Chief Jackson, please? He's not available?
Can you page him? It's urgent"

Nia shook her head sadly. She hung up.

"He's not around," she said, "and he can't be reached"

"Then we'll try him first thing tomorrow morning."

"What do we do tonight?" she asked.

"Stay inside, then go on-line and research vampires, I
guess. And most important of all: stay alive."

Diallo was in the basement, watching television, when
Kyle returned.

His father sat upright in bed, pillows plumped behind his
back, viewing a history documentary. As part of Kyle's plan
to aid Diallo's adjustment to modern life, he had provided an
extensive library of films, books, and audio tapes for his fa ther to study. By candlelight, Diallo would watch videos,
read, and listen to cassettes from dusk until sunrise, breaking
only to feed. Diallo pursued his studies with the same single-minded focus with which he fed on live prey.

He learned rapidly, too. In little more than a week, he displayed a knowledge of contemporary society, politics, and
culture that astonished Kyle. His father had frequently engaged him in challenging, thought-provoking conversations.

This will be one of the more challenging discussions, Kyle
thought, as he went to the bed.

Diallo lifted the remote control and muted the television
volume. "What happened, my son?"

In a low, halting voice, Kyle explained the debacle that
had occurred when he encountered the young man, David
Hunter.

"Lisha is protecting this man," Diallo said. "Do not be
ashamed. There was nothing you could have done. Her
power is too great."

"But why would she care about a human? She attacked
me to protect a man!"

Diallo folded his hands behind his head. Kyle had expected his father to be enraged, but he appeared amusedpleased, even.

"This incident proves our suspicious are true, my son.
David Hunter is a direct descendent of the man who imprisoned me. Lisha is wise. She understands how the hand of
Destiny loves to repeat its moves. She knows that to fulfill
her wishes, she should work with Destiny, not against it."

"I don't understand"

"Your mother wants to destroy me," Diallo said in a flat
voice. "My existence is a threat to her. She worries, as she
always has, that my acts of vengeance will call attention to
our kind and risk shattering the safe shell of anonymity in
which she lives. She cares only about self-preservation."

"But why keep this man safe? What makes him so valuable?"

"Do you still not understand? It is the man's lineage that
makes him so crucial to the success of her mission to rid the
earth of me. Lisha believes that he will respond to the call of
duty, to attempt to destroy me-as his forefather attempted.
Ordinary men can be stirred to great courage when their
family's legacy is at stake. I know, for I was once such a man
myself."

Kyle absorbed his father's words, reluctantly admitting
that he was right. It was painful to think that Mother could
be so selfish in preserving her own safety. She had said that
she loved both him and Diallo, but how could you love someone and then participate in bringing about their demise? It
was mad.

"Lisha is a masterful strategist," Diallo said. "But she is
not omnipotent. My strength is building, and I will attain
more power than she realizes. Enough to defeat her attempts
to intervene with my destiny." Diallo's eyes burned. The candle flames in the chamber danced, as if blown by a wind.

Kyle clenched his hands into fists.

"Tell me what to do, Father," he said.

In response, Diallo raised his hand.

Across the basement, the storm doors flew open with a
crash.

Outdoors, the dogs had gathered around the doorway. A
young woman stood in their midst-the same human Kyle
had let escape the other night. But she was no longer an ordinary woman. She wore a ragged hospital gown stained
with mud and blood. Stringy hair was matted against her
face, and dried blood stained her chin. Her eyes were full of
hunger, inhuman need.

"She is one of the valduwe," Diallo said softly. "The first
one we've created. I summoned her to us ""

Her bare feet frosted with dirt, the woman floated down
the stone steps and into the cellar. She approached Kyle.

Kyle had seen a valduwe only once, decades ago, and he
marveled at his father's creation.

"I'm hungry," the female said in a raspy voice. She watched
Kyle expectantly.

Kyle looked at his father, confused.

"She will obey you, as she obeys me," Diallo said. "Take
her and the dogs. Invade the town and multiply our numbers.
It is time to build our army."

David and Nia spent the rest of the evening in the office,
surfing the Internet for information about vampires: specifically, how to kill them.

The house was silent. The only noises were the hum of
the air conditioner, and the occasional snuffling of the wind
at the windows. David had relaxed a little, but he kept the
gun at his side.

As they researched, he questioned the value of their findings. Every resource they found explained how vampires were
destroyed in fiction. They found nothing that described
how a bonafide bloodsucker could be defeated. And why
would they? No one really believed the monsters were real.

"There's nothing new here," he finally told Nia, after
they'd spent over two hours at the computer. She sat beside
him near the desk, a notepad and pen in her lap.

"Protect yourself with a crucifix, garlic, and holy water,"
Nia said, running down her list. "Drive a wooden stake into
their hearts, chop off their heads, burn their bodies to ashes.
Drag them into the sunlight-"

"Sunlight doesn't kill them," David said. "Kyle's been
walking around during the day, though he covers his
skin."

"Right," she said. "He sure as hell didn't burst into flames,
the way the vampires in the movies do "" She closed her notebook. "You're right, there's nothing new. We might as well
watch reruns of Buffy. It would be more fun"

"I doubt religious symbols will hurt them, either." David
picked up the old Bible. "Kyle was carrying this, remember? According to folklore, holding something like a Bible
should've scorched his hands"

"Oh, I forgot about that. You're right."

"So we're back to square one. Guns. Fire, too, I think.
Fire would have to hurt them"

"I agree," she said. "We have to talk to the chief first thing
tomorrow morning. We need to get him on our side so we
can let everyone in town know what's happening, get people
to be careful and protect themselves."

"I only hope he believes us" David yawned. His watch
read twelve-thirty. He was wiped out.

"Someone's getting sleepy." Nia stretched her arms above
her head. "I could turn in myself."

"Are you staying here? I don't want you going outdoors
and driving home tonight."

"I'm staying, I only need to call Mama to check on her."

He propped himself up on the crutches and moved away
from the computer to prepare for bed. Brushing his teeth
while leaning on one leg was a challenge. Changing into
boxer shorts and a T-shirt was another trying task.

How am I going to do anything with a twisted ankle? he
thought. I'm useless.

Nia dressed in one of David's Atlanta Falcons T-shirts, the
bottom of the shirt ending just above her knees.

"Mama's fine," she said. "Princess is there to keep her
company, so I think she'll be okay. She doesn't like me staying over here, though"