Oh, Lord...
Bryan stood perfectly still, listening. The door behind him had closed. For a moment, it seemed the world was totally silent in the stygian darkness.
Then...something. Just a rustle of movement.
And he knew, in the darkness, he was not the only stalker.
He was being stalked in turn.
He moved as silently as he could. There was a gurney before him. He touched it carefully. There was a corpse on it, cold and still.
Unmoving.
He remained cautious as he felt his way around it. Things could change. Lucky for him, they didn"t.
He found the next gurney. Again, he felt its occupant carefully. A woman, he thought. But she didn"t move.
The next table offered a very big man.
The next...was empty.
The total darkness unnerved her.
Jessica"s heart caught in her throat. She sensed movement, and she knew. Someone else was there, near her in the darkness.
Hospital personnel, she told herself, unconvincingly. There was the attendant on duty in the hallway. And, of course, with a blackout, someone from Maintenance would be down soon.
There were rolling blackouts from time to time, she reminded herself, but she knew-somehow-that this wasn"t one of them.
This one had been planned.
She moved across the room very carefully, abandoning her mop and pail. She paused at each gurney.
She found the empty one.She sensed movement again, felt a sense of someone near. Time stood still as she fought a rising wave of panic. As she listened, her skin began to crawl.
Where the h.e.l.l were the emergency lights?
It seemed like eons since the power had gone out.
Logic prevailed. It had been seconds, maybe a minute.
She was tempted to slip onto the empty gurney, hide beneath the sheet. Pretend to be among the dead.
She refrained, afraid that in the pitch dark, she would be putting herself in even greater danger.
She sensed it again. Someone near. She reached into the pocket of her smock and her fingers felt the cold cross she"d hidden there and closed around it.
Bryan"s heart sank. He had expected the worst when the darkness came so suddenly. Had known he was too late. And yet...he should have been in plenty of time. It didn"t matter. He knew he wasn"t alone in the room.
Something shifted every so slightly in the darkness just across the gurney. He reached into the lab coat and closed his fingers around the shaft of wood. He shifted his position. There was the slightest rustle in the air as he moved.
He had been heard.
The creature across from him moved.
He drew his weapon.
Purple lights suddenly came on, dim, but nearly blinding after the pitch darkness.
He barely stopped his attack in time.
She fell across the empty gurney, a cross gripped tightly in her hands.
"You!" she cried.
"You!" he returned.
Then they heard the scream from the hallway.
They both raced across the room and burst through the door that led to the desk and the attendant, Dave, who had so recently been reading his book.
Dave was still there.
Slumped down on the floor.
Bryan raced to the boy, reaching for his throat, seeking a pulse. There was one. "Hit the code b.u.t.ton!" he cried to Jessica.
She already had. An alarm was already sounding.What the h.e.l.l was Jessica doing here?
He"d nearly killed her.
No time to think about that now. He"d would talk to her later.
There were puncture marks on Dave"s neck, just as he had expected. He ripped off the lab coat and used it to put pressure against the wounds, though there was no flow of blood on his throat. Mary! She hadn"t finished her task, but she hadn"t let a drop go to waste, he thought. That meant she had awakened alone-if she"d had an experienced vampire to tutor her, Dave would be dead.
He d.a.m.ned himself a thousand times over. But something was off about this! She shouldn"t have awakened so quickly. At least this kid was still alive.
But for how long?
The boy"s pulse was growing stronger. He was young, and he had a good chance of survival, especially since help would arrive any minute. No better place to suffer severe blood loss than a hospital.
"He has to make it," he said aloud.
No reply. He looked up.
Jessica was no longer there.
He"d never planned on having to explain he wasn"t Dr. MacDonald, and he really couldn"t afford the scrutiny that would result.
He sat the boy up against the desk, opening his shirt, checking his breathing. He heard the elevator clanking. Only then did he rise and hurry down the hall. There was a fire emergency door at the end of it.
Another alarm would go off, but he would be gone.
He sprinted toward the exit, certain help had come, leaving himself just time enough to disappear before all h.e.l.l broke loose.
"Wow!" Nancy said when they returned to Jessica"s office on Royal Street.
Silently, Jeremy repeated the same sentiment.
He had been convinced, despite what he"d said that she hadn"t believed a word he and Nancy had said. Even in Transylvania, no one had taken them seriously. Detective Florenscu had all but waved a hand dismissively every time they had spoken.
Had he really known the truth? Maybe he had just thought he was safe, that the terror in his own country had ended, that he just needed to get them out and finish up the paperwork. Or maybe he had believed there was nothing he could do. He might even believe that Mary was going to survive, that evil couldn"t track her down across an ocean.
"Wow," Nancy repeated.
Jessica had adorned the windows and both the inner and outer doors with garlic. The window sills were lined with vases filled with water. Holy water, he was certain. There were cuttings in the water. More garlic, he presumed.
There were crosses everywhere. For good measure, she"d added a handsome Star of David in a frame, a small statue of Buddha and a picture of Confucius.
Everything had been arranged to look like decorations, homage to different religious teachings around the world.He even found a voodoo doll in a chair, and there were other artifacts about the room that seemed to be religious symbols he just didn"t recognize.
She wasn"t there when they arrived; no problem, since she"d given him a key. A note on her desk was weighted down with two silver chains bearing large silver crosses. They were to wear the crosses and remember not to open the doors or the windows, no matter who tried to gain entry.
They gravely put on the crosses. As they did so, Jeremy noted one last provision she had made for them.
Stakes.
"Do you feel safe?" Nancy asked.
"I feel better," he said, managing a smile.
They found a deck of cards and played war for a while, but neither one of them could manage to pay attention.
At last they figured they could at least rest. She"d provided the couch and recliner with pillows and blankets, so they drifted off as afternoon became evening and evening segued into night.
That was when Mary came.
At first Jessica didn"t leave the hospital.
She shed her disguise and circled around to the emergency room, then the main entrance, and made a meticulous search of the place, floor by floor. She was seized with a greater and greater sense of desperation as she searched; somehow, Mary had made her escape.
As she conducted her search, trying to appear as if she were looking for a friend"s room, her mind seethed.
Bryan MacAllistair had been there, wielding a stake.
Who the h.e.l.l was he? What the h.e.l.l was he?
And he had seen her, too. What was going through his mind? The same questions she was asking? She felt a deep chill run through her, something far more disturbing than anything she had known in years.
At last she gave up searching. Wherever Mary was, it wasn"t the hospital.
Outside, she dialed Sean"s number. When he answered, she gave him the news tersely. "Mary is up-and gone."
"What?" Sean said sharply.
She inhaled. "You heard me. Don"t ask questions, just believe what I"m saying and get me some help."
"Lord G.o.d," he muttered. "All right."
She winced slightly. Sunday. She could imagine the man home with his wife and children. But this was far more important than anyone"s leisure time and Maggie, through experience and more than any other woman, would understand completely.
"Jeremy and Nancy are in my office," she said. "I think she"ll sense Jeremy and go after him." "Most likely. I"ll head there right-"
"No, Sean. You"ve got the credentials to find out what"s going on at the hospital. I"ll go to my office."
"Makes sense."
"Sean, it"s all my fault."
"Jessica, none of us could have foreseen this."
"I think-" She broke off and winced. "I think she might have been targeted specifically to...taunt me."
Bryan seethed with anger, but this was no time to forget everything and lose sight of the business at hand. He roamed the streets, searching for Mary. Alone, it was an almost impossible task, no matter how good his senses were.
Mary knew the area.
Where would a quite possibly naked woman head?
A strip club on Bourbon Street.
"Jeremy."