Lauren discovered that she wasn"t hungry herself and felt a sudden urge to get back to Deanna as quickly as possible.
She rushed back upstairs.
The friendly officer was still in the room. He blushed when she caught him reading Heidi"s bridal magazine.
"Some really pretty pictures in there," he said. "My wife and I eloped to Vegas. Sometimes I think I cheated her out of a real wedding."
"How long have you been married?"
"Twenty-six years."
"I guess she was happy with what she got, then," Lauren a.s.sured him.
He smiled. A happy man. Feeling that maybe the world would be all right, Lauren took a seat at the foot of Deanna"s bed.
The officer remained with her, and she never even noticed herself dozing off, but. the next she knew, he was nudging her and telling her that the shift was changing.
She woke, blinked and realized it was twilight.
Lauren wasn"t sure if she would really have left Heidi alone at the hospital all night in her determination to find the fortune teller, but luckily she didn"t have to worry about it, because Heidi reappeared in time Lauren"s head was still reeling.
Deanna was holding her own, but Heidi"s behavior was beyond peculiar. She had returned to the hospital in a very pleasant if somewhat...fey mood. Not a word Lauren usually used, but it was one that seemed to describe the way Heidi was acting. She had mentioned avoiding several calls from Barry, and said blithely that Deanna was going to be just fine and she would be happy as a little lark to stay with her and watch television or read for the evening. When Lauren promised that she would return as soon as she could, Heidi told her not to worry.
Lauren couldn"t help but feel a little uneasy about leaving Heidi in charge, so to speak, then told herself that she was being ridiculous. There was a cop on constant duty at the door, and he was certainly capable of protecting both women if there should be any need.
After leaving the hospital, Lauren found the nicest taxi driver in the world and asked him to take her to Montresse House, because she"d decided to pick up a light jacket before hitting Jackson Square. The driver was a native of the area and sympathized with her for having a friend being in the hospital. Healso believed in the occult and told her that she should buy herself some serious mojo to protest against evil.
She thanked him while privately thinking there was no need to get carried away.
Unfortunately, as nice as he was, he wasn"t able to get her all the way to Montresse House or even to Bourbon Street. There had been an accident, and the streets were blocked off. He apologized profusely but suggested she get out a few blocks away and walk.
Lauren did, though she wasn"t sure exactly where she was. There were people around, and there were lights, and she wasn"t particularly worried. As she walked, she kept going over everything they"d done since arriving in the city.
A chill seemed to wrap itself around her suddenly, and she stopped walking. Frowning, she paused, looking around. The street was lined with old residences, with only a few storefronts here and there, and most of them were cafes that only served by day.
Magnificent houses sat behind high walls, with bushes lining the sidewalk for added privacy,, and it seemed they had all begun to rustle.
She quickened her pace.
Then she stopped.Someone had stepped out from behind a high brick wall. Someone who was tall and formed a dark silhouette against the night.
She could hear the distant sound of traffic.
Laughter.
Even music.
She stood dead still. A breeze wafted by, strangely cool. She became aware that she was alone on the street. Doors and gates were closed. She wasn"t far from Bourbon Street, but she might as well have been at the end of the world.
The silhouette wasn"t moving, exactly, or at least not in any way she could identify, yet it seemed to be coming closer to her, almost floating just inches above the sidewalk.
Then, suddenly, the dark figure became a man, just a man. Tall, mid-thirties, athletic build, dark. He wore black jeans, a black polo shirt and a casual jacket. His hair seemed to be darker than the night.
And his eyes...
They might have been black, too.
Except there seemed to be some kind of a glowing golden light in them.
She told herself to move, to quicken her pace; to hurry past the man, then realized for the first time she was standing dead still.
And he was smiling as he approached her.
She could hear the blare of a horn from somewhere, but it might as well have come from another world. It was followed by the plaintive sound of a jazz chord.
But it was so far away.
"h.e.l.lo."
Her heart seemed shudder as he spoke. She didn"t understand why she wasn"t moving. It was as if her limbs had become paralyzed. She was furious with herself. What the h.e.l.l was the matter with her?
His voice was deep and smooth. She wondered if that was part of what held her so firmly where she was. But she had been standing still, just waiting, before he had spoken.
She didn"t reply. She just stared at him, and he stared back.
"I"ve been looking for you," he said.
He"d been looking for her?
Ridiculous. She"d never seen him before. Or had she? At that moment, she knew that she had seen him before; she just couldn"t place where or when.
To her amazement, she managed to speak. "I don"t know you," she said. If she tried really hard, she thought, she could probably move.
"But I know you. And you will remember me in time."
It was the worst pick-up line she"d ever heard, she thought. "Excuse me, I have to get going," she murmured, and moved an arm.
She could move!
But when she managed a step, he was suddenly directly in front of her, even though she hadn"t seen him move. It was as if he had floated there.
She stared into his eyes. They were gold. No, they were dark. No, there was some kind of fire that seemed to glow from within them.
That was it. She really had lost her mind.
"This time," he said softly, "I have the advantage. I will not lose you again."
She opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to protest that he couldn"t lose what he didn"t have.
But the fire in his eyes was so bright....
The cross, she thought. The silver cross. If she could just produce it...
No, that would mean that she believed in vampires, and that was ridiculous.
Besides, she couldn"t move her arms again. She was held by the fire in his eyes. She willed her hand to move, pleaded with her body to function....
She found the cross with her fingers and drew it out from under her shirt.
A flash of fury seemed to tear through his eyes.
He opened his mouth.
His teeth weren"t yellowed; they weren"t horrid, rank or dripping with gore.
They weren"t teeth at all.
They were fangs.
She willed herself to back away. Because now he was coming right at her, furious at the sight of the cross. He started to reach out for her, as if he were in pain but planning to endure that pain. He was going to seize her cross and rip it from her neck.
And that was when Mark appeared.
She didn"t know where he had come from; he was just suddenly there.
She felt his arms on her shoulders, felt him shove her out of the way. He was carrying, of all things, a squirt gun.
A child"s squirt gun.
Then he lifted it and shot her attacker.
There was steam, a hiss, accompanied by a roar of fury.
The man with the burning eyes seemed to disappear in darkness and shadow, even as the sound of his voice remained.And suddenly, there on the street, so near to Bourbon and yet so far, there were suddenly scores of shadows, like moving pools of darkness.
They took on form.
And life.
Mark tossed her something.
Another squirt gun.
She stared at him, still in shock, but somehow, she reflexively caught the toy.
"Don"t let anyone get the cross. Start shooting," Mark ordered.
Shooting?
With a squirt gun?
They were crowding around her now. So many of them. They were people. They had been shadows, but now they were people.
A girl in a short skirt with a Betty Page haircut and cute freckles. A twenty-something guy in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. A man who looked like a James Bond wanna-be. A woman who was a dead ringer for the mom on Family Ties.
Someone almost pounced on Mark. He struck out with a kick that would have done Jackie Chan proud. Hi attacker went flying back and struck a wall-hard-then just picked himself up and started coming again.
Mark had whirled, and for a moment she thought he was shooting at her with the squirt gun, but he wasn"t. She heard a cry of fury, followed by that awful hissing right behind her. She turned. A black form was turning to a pool of burning dust behind her.
A girl hopped on Mark"s back. He caught her with both hands, throwing her over his shoulder to the sidewalk.
She looked like Pollyanna.
He took dead aim between her eyes with his water pistol. Shot.
She screamed.
The hissing came first.
Then there was a small burst of fire.
And she was ash.
Mark began to spin, a steady spray of water coming from his gun.
Somewhere, there was jazz music.
Somewhere, someone laughed.
A car horn blared.
The hissing continued, punctuated by screams of fury.
"Shoot!" Mark thundered. "Turn and shoot." She spun around. A man who looked like a long lost cavalier was almost on top of her. He looked so much like pictures of Charles II that shock almost caused her to hesitate.
Her finger twitched.
She pulled the trigger.
Hiss...
The man was just inches from her. He snarled and let out a cry of fury as he dissipated right in front of her, the picture of his open mouth, fangs gleaming, imprinted on her mind.
She thought that she saw fire, gleaming through a skull, as he burst into flame....
She felt something at her back. A man was there, reaching for her throat.