H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (130 page)

Now that she was illuminated, there was no
denying that the statue represented a demon of some sort.

Those in the crowd oohed and aahed, but they
should have gasped. Something freaky was going on, and I had a
feeling things were only going to get worse.

I was right.

After more introductions and more
proclamations of purifying, a drink was passed around. The same red
punch I had seen earlier—and it most certainly wasn’t Kool-Aid; at
least, not the kind sold at Wal-Mart. Others in attendance downed
it willingly. I don’t down anything other than blood and so I
pretended to take a drink but let a little dribble down my chin so
it looked like I’d had some.

A few minutes later, while those in
attendance around me seemed to be feeling the effects of a
drug...and by my estimate, ecstasy— the inner circle made their
moves.

They gathered closer to Erasmus, who was
loving the attention and the power, and he proceeded to lead the
assembly in a strange chant.

I thought I made out the words “oysters in
your laundry hamper,” but I believe the chants were Latin, a
subject I’d studied a few times in school but rarely had the chance
to speak. If you don’t practice a new language—even very old
languages—you tend to lose it.

And old Erasmus started to lose it, ranting
and gibbering, waving toward the giant stone figure. I looked
around at the crowd of mostly young and nubile women, who were
swaying and joining in like it was Beatlemania on heavy
sedatives.

It didn’t look any more harmful than your
average Catholic mass or high-school dance, so I figured maybe
tonight was nothing special after all. I relaxed a little, feeling
I wouldn’t have to blow my cover yet and swing into action.

I had a little more time to get the lay of
the land and learn about the place.

But first I had to find Parker’s sister.

Chapter Fifteen

From the photograph Parker had shown me, her
sister Lilith was sort of like a miniature Parker, fresh-faced,
girlish figure, cute as a ladybug on a daisy.

The problem was that so many of these girls
were cute, and a surprisingly large proportion of them were also
blonde. In the chaos, I couldn’t tell which ones were gleefully
going all cult-zombie and which ones were just going along with the
crowd because it was trendy.

The inner circle gathered closer around
Erasmus, and somebody somewhere started beating a tom-tom drum. Its
deep bass thudded across the night like a pulse. I pulled my robe
over my face a little, making it like a hood, and swayed into the
crowd as if I were dancing. The moans grew louder, and I realized
they’d risen to a rhythmic chant.

It still seemed kind of mild for a
supposedly killer cult. Maybe this was Brainwash 101 for initiates
like me, and we were expected to just keep our mouths shut and
learn. It looked like Erasmus was after numbers here, trying to
impress his acolytes with the sea of swaying beauties.

So I kept my mouth shut, especially since I
didn’t want to show my fangs. Yet.

Erasmus Cole stood on the platform, his
hands raised as if he were a conductor about to launch a symphony.
He gazed up into the night, where a sallow wedge of moon slid
toward Mount Shasta. I understand a little about the heavens and
physics, since I’ve been around so long, and I knew the Earth was
spinning and thereby creating the illusion of the moon’s slow
movement.

But still it looked as if the moon was
sinking into the glistening, icy top of Mount Shasta, an impending
collision of glowing forces only moments away.

“Excuse me,” I said to one young blonde girl
who looked about sixteen. From behind, I’d taken her for Parker’s
sister. I wasn’t sure I’d have time to check the robes of every
adolescent-looking female, and a couple of males were androgynous
enough that I wasn’t quite sure of the gender until I was close
enough to see their necks.

I’m a big observer of necks, and I can spot
an Adam’s apple at twenty paces. But I try to keep my distance,
because necks start looking yummy if I stare at them too long.

The chant started to sound like real words,
English words, and at first I thought it was “Ray” something, like
an ode to a sun goddess. The great stone beastess towering over
Erasmus didn’t look very sunny, though, and I was pretty sure all
of this was in tribute to her.

As the acolytes broke away from mashing with
the masses and headed for the platform, the three-syllable chant
grew louder. And I made out the words, “Raise her up. Raise her up.
Raise her up....”

My God, they’re trying to summon the
demon.

If that stone monster so much as moved a
muscle, I was grabbing Parker and we were out of there, immortal
hero or not. Rational minds tell you that demons didn’t exist, but
in the rational world, vampires didn’t exist, either. Yet here I
was. We don’t live in a rational world.

Then the acolytes were gathering around
Erasmus, and the moon was sliding closer to the peak of Mount
Shasta. There came a mild commotion from behind the stone wall and
a couple of big goons in robes half-carried a slumping, lithe
figure through the pillars.

She lifted her drowsy head and I saw
immediately that it was Parker’s sister.

I began moving to the front of the crowd,
working slowly so as not to draw attention, mumbling and moaning in
unison with the others. The cult’s acolytes had their eyes on the
young girl, and their depraved lust pushed my generally sluggish
heart rate to nine or ten beats per minute. I figured it was just
another initiation, and that Erasmus just wanted to present her to
the cult as a new member.

Every cult needed fresh blood, even ones
where the members didn’t seem to live long enough to age out.

Most disturbing was the face of Erasmus
Cole. He beamed with pride as her limp form was brought to the
platform before him. When the goons released her, she swayed and
almost collapsed, but Erasmus caught her in a gesture that might
have passed for paternal tenderness elsewhere.

Instead, he laid her on her back, her pert
breasts straining against the thin robe as she panted and gasped.
By now, I was about two or three rows of brainwashed, drugged-out
zombies away from the main event. The statue still hadn’t moved, so
I figured if there was a demon on the premises, it probably didn’t
reside in the stone monolith.

And as the crowd chanted “Raise her up,”
Erasmus pulled a gleaming object from the folds of his robe. The
moon was nearly touching the tip of Mount Shasta now, white melding
with white.

Erasmus flipped open the object in his
hand.

The wicked, silver blade gleamed in the
night.

And then I realized the chant was actually
“Razor up.” as he lifted it high into the air.

And I had a bad feeling the chant was about
to shift to “Razor down.”

Chapter Sixteen

Just as the moon settled into the notch of
Mount Shasta like an egg settling in a nest, Erasmus reached gently
down and stroked his daughter’s hair. I tensed and pushed through
the last of the crowd, reaching the front row, drawing attention to
myself because the whole place had fallen still and silent.

Erasmus played out one long blonde strand of
the girl’s hair and snipped it neatly with an easy stroke of the
blade.

The crowd drew in a collective breath, and
the circle of big wigs gathered a little closer around the altar.
The moon was now fat and settling on top of the mountain, and
Erasmus folded the razor and put it away.

My muscles relaxed, but my fangs were long
and full against the inside of my lips. When I get aroused—be it
from anger, intense curiosity, or that occasional and troublesome
other kind of bloodthirsty arousal—my teeth just go crazy and have
a mind of their own.

Luckily, I’ve learned to control my urges
over the years, though I can’t control my physiological response.
It’s like training a dog not to bark when the mailman drives up, or
a worm not to wiggle when you stick it on a fishhook. Some things
just are.

Still, I couldn’t hide my relief after
getting all worked up. Apparently this was just part of the show,
and the inner circle stood around Erasmus with placid expressions
on their faces, hardly the look of maniacs.

Now, I could see a senator being a
sociopathic madman, but I was glad the actor wasn’t a lunatic. And
I thought I saw a major-league baseball player behind Erasmus,
obviously skipping out on the second game of a late-night
doubleheader.

But now they just looked like harmless,
gullible idiots, standing around in robes while Erasmus held the
single strand of hair aloft.

“Goddess of the moon, the mountain, and the
stone, accept this symbol of change, that part of the body which
grows but also falls away, that which shines yet is dull, that
which is made from me but is also a gift to me. Accept my daughter
as your own.”

The person next to me coughed a little, and
the person directly behind her gave her a kick to the leg. This was
apparently an important moment.

“I promised you all would be welcome here,
and all can be cleansed,” Erasmus said.

He gave the hair a symbolic wiping along the
sleeve of his robe. “My daughter has made mistakes, like so many of
you young people have.” Here he slowly waved his hand to indicate
the inner circle. “Even the people we admire have had their share
of missteps. But we can all change for the better.”

Then he indicated the moon, which gave the
illusion of being fully embedded in the mountaintop. “Just as the
moon is always in motion, so must we continue on our individual
paths. Tonight, my daughter has pledged to join us, and to follow
us as we walk the road of the divine.”

He took his daughter’s hands and raised her
from her kneeling position. It was almost like they were about to
embark on the bride-daddy dance at a wedding. Erasmus’s reputation
as a vicious, demon-worshipping murderer was taking a serious hit,
and I wondered yet again if Parker was pulling a con job on me.

“Welcome, Lilith,” Erasmus said.

The crowd clapped, which was an odd reaction
considering everyone’s previous behavior, and Lilith herself even
smiled. Erasmus, who’d been so solemn and grim-faced before, now
grinned like somebody’s kindly uncle. The inner circle shook hands
and high-fived and knuckle-bumped, and a few of the people around
me began muttering a general “So, what are you doing after the cult
meeting?” kind of lines.

People in the crowd peeled back their hoods,
and I saw that although many different nationalities were
represented, Erasmus Cole clearly had a preference for young
blondes.

In a way, I was glad I didn’t have to spring
into action, but on the other hand, it meant I’d have to spend a
little more time digging.

There was also the very real possibility
that Parker had set me up somehow, hoping I’d cause trouble. I’ve
known a lot of women with daddy issues, and some weren’t above
manipulating a guy into getting back at their dad for them. Some
did it through promiscuity, others through drugs, still others by
wrecking expensive cars or making bad grades or maxing out the
credit card.

Some of the inner circle members were
removing their robes, and it looked like the formal part of the
ceremony was over. I cautiously went up on the platform, hoping to
blend in with a couple of robed acolytes who attended to clean-up
duties. Up close, the stone statue seemed even more ominous, with
chiseled features and deep, hollowed-out eyes.

I kept my hood pulled low just to be safe,
although my fangs had retracted quite a bit. I even got close
enough to Erasmus to smell an odd blend of patchouli, wax, and
sulfur, as if someone had committed arson at a shop for eclectic
hippies.

Parker’s sister, Lilith, was all smiles, and
I wondered if her drugging had been faked. I even considered the
possibility that Parker and her sister were in on the whole
Cloudland enterprise, raking in the dough and laughing all the way
to the Cayman Islands.

But Parker wanted me here for a reason, and
now that mystery seemed way more pressing than rescuing her sister,
who seemed as safe as a kitten and about as cute.

Parker, on the other hand....

Cute wouldn’t do her any good if she was
trying to double-cross me.

Chapter Seventeen

Back in the suite, I discovered that Parker
was gone.

I frowned at that. So how the hell was I
supposed to keep her and her sister alive, if she wasn’t going to
listen to me?

Good question.

I stretched out on the bed and mulled over
what I had seen that night. It wasn’t pretty. My best guess was
that this “cult” had a few layers to it. One being the recruiting
of young girls and even some young men. Who these girls were was no
mystery. I’ve seen my share of degenerates, drug addicts, and
drop-outs. The deadly D’s. Add runaways to that group, and I would
say that that about summed up the night’s attendees.

Outside the bungalow, I heard laughing. A
door slammed. Muffled giggling from behind closed doors. Yeah, my
hearing is particularly good. It’s a curse and a blessing.

Of course, the event hadn’t only been
attended by vulnerable girls and a handful of young men, had it?
Nope. There had been some very powerful people there, and many of
them had gazed from the shadows upon the nubile masses, with the
leering eyes of predators.

So there was that, too. Catering to the rich
and powerful and famous. This was more than a cult, perhaps. A
filthy retreat for those with enough money to satisfy their
hungers, whatever they might be. And young flesh was looking more
and more like the top billing.