He heard her voice. She was there in his dream. Her smile sweet, a little lost.
"Jeremy..."
He opened his eyes. The sound was coming from the window.
Don"t go, an inner voice warned him, but he couldn"t help himself. And anyway, this was just a dream, right? Not really happening. All he had left of her was a dream.
He glanced over at Nancy. She was sound asleep. He was sure he was asleep, as imagining that he was only hearing the girl who had meant so much to him in life.
He rose and headed for the window. It was framed in garlic, guarded by holy water. But there were no bars, and when he opened the drapes, he could see her.
They were on the second floor of a nineteenth-century building, but Mary appeared to be standing, floating in the air, just beyond the pane.
"Mary!" His heart caught in his throat. She looked so pure and perfect, naked as the day she was born, but somehow innocent, nonetheless.
"Jeremy, I need you. I always need you, don"t I? Help me, Jeremy. I"m so cold, so desperate. So hungry."
"Oh, Mary..."
"You have to let me in. You have to get rid of all that stuff blocking me, and you have to let me in."
"Mary, I can"t let you in. Don"t you know? You"re a vampire now." "I"m cold, Jeremy. I"m hungry. I"m so hungry that it"s agony. Please, Jeremy."
The sound of her voice tore at his heart. He couldn"t bear to see her in pain.
And it was only a dream.
In a dream it wouldn"t matter if he opened the window. Removed all that stuff Jessica had put there to humor him, to ease his fear.
In a dream, he could let her in. Hold her as he had always longed to do...
"Jeremy..."
Her voice seemed to reach inside him. Wrap around his very soul. How could he bear to witness such agony?
He reached for the window....
10.
S ean Canady stood by the uniformed officer at the door, George Mendez, looking in on the young man who had been attacked in the morgue.
So far, David hadn"t woken up, so he hadn"t been able to tell anyone anything. But he was stabilizing, and he appeared to be in better shape than Mary had been.
"Don"t leave him; not for a minute," Sean ordered his officer.
"No, sir."
"Not even to take a leak, I mean it. I"ve got Howlett down the hallway. Call him if you need a break."
"Yes, sir," George Mendez promised. He was new to the force and a quietly practicing Catholic. Sean had chosen him for exactly that reason. He"d seemed to take it in stride, no questions asked, when Sean had hung a crucifix around David"s neck.
In fact, he"d seen Mendez fingering the large silver cross he wore himself, usually beneath his uniform.
"Sir?" Mendez asked.
"Yeah?"
"Did they make a mistake? Was the girl alive?"
"Mendez, right now, we don"t know what went down. A body is missing, and a young man has suffered serious blood loss. For all I know, it could be a sick fraternity prank. Anyway, until we know more, we say nothing. Howlett will be keeping away the press and the just plain curious. But I want one of you with this young man at all times. I"ve informed the staff that not even the doctors are to draw a curtain against you, got it? If he needs a bedpan, you"re still right here."
"Yes, sir. I won"t let you down, sir."
Sean nodded and started down the hall. Howlett stopped him. "The press is outside," he warned.
"Thanks."
Sean straightened his spine and headed out to meet the enemy.
Praying that she had made an impression on Jeremy and Nancy earlier, and that she wasn"t too late if she hadn"t, Jessica raced to her office.
She banged on the door. "Jeremy, let me in."
She waited, somehow sensing that he was in terrible danger. She winced as she stood there, fearful his good heart would be his downfall.
She fumbled for her key, finally got it into the lock, then rushed through the door and ran to the inner office.
As she burst in, Jeremy, who had been facing the window, turned at last. He blinked, staring at her stupidly.
"I was...sleeping," he said, sounding confused.
Jessica went to him and grabbed him by the shoulders trying to shake him into awareness.
"You can never-never-let her in."
"But...it was Mary."
Nancy began to stir at last. "I thought I heard banging. It was so strange. I thought I heard-"
She broke off, staring from Jeremy to Jessica.
Jeremy continued to face Jessica, his features drawn and taut, his eyes filled with sorrow.
"It was Mary," he repeated.
Jessica lowered her lashes, shaking her head. Then she looked up at him.
"I know," she said softly.
Going from strip club to strip club was probably not something that most men would consider an onerous task, but the tension gripping Bryan was so tight that he couldn"t even summon a pretense of normal courtesy.
No, he didn"t want a lap dance.
No, it wasn"t the price.
No, he wasn"t gay.
It was just that there was only one woman who interested him, and comparing her to anyone else was like comparing the elegance of silk, the electricity of a lightning storm, to raw linen and a pale dawn. Last night...
But right now, he had to find Mary. He wondered if he was wasting his time.
Then, at last, he found her.
It was one of the tawdrier places, off the beaten track. The bouncers were big, but flabby. The shine was worn off the poles, the runway carpets threadbare. The girls looked to be older than the usual and, like the bouncers, less than perfectly fit.Until Mary made her appearance.
She"d picked up some kind of apparel-if it could be called that-backstage. Bryan gritted his teeth, wondering how she"d acquired it, but he had a feeling she hadn"t made any further attacks. There were no private dressing rooms in this establishment.
No, she was waiting to take a customer into one of the little curtained alcoves.
She strutted down the runway as if she"d been born to it. She had the naughty schoolgirl look that was such a come-on to some men. She had a smile that was a sheer tease, full of forbidden promises.
She posed, teased, tempted. She practically had s.e.x with the pole.
Money was flying; men were roaring. She began to offer her services for lap dances. One man offered a thousand dollars. Hoots and jeers filled the air.
Mary a.s.sessed the double-chinned businessman, and a smile of disdain touched her lips before she wetted them with her tongue.
"Why not?" she whispered, and beckoned to him, starting backstage.
The man nearly tripped over himself running after her. Discreetly, Bryan followed.
There was darkness. A very strange darkness. Not like ebony, not like a blackout. Officer Mendez couldn"t have said exactly when he began to notice it, because it was subtle. It was as if a shadow had descended. Not a real shadow, nothing with a shape or definable edges, just a strange, new sense and feel of darkness.
And then cold.
Officer Mendez knew his duty. Pure terror began to rip through him, but he had vowed he wouldn"t leave, and he wouldn"t. He fought his fear and approached the young man on the bed. He touched the boy"s crucifix, then noticed that the pillow was oddly damp.
Holy water? Had the lieutenant actually sprinkled the young man"s pillow with holy water?
Please, yes.
Mendez curled his fingers around the silver cross that protected his own throat. He began to pray aloud. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."
It felt as if he were being strangled. As if the shadow had taken on a physical form and was attacking him, reaching for him....
"I will fear no evil," he continued.
He closed his eyes for a minute, afraid he was about to lose it completely and go tearing out of the room.
He thought he heard laughter, it was gone as quickly as it had come. With it went the shadow, the sensation of cold. Gone as if it had never been.
He had broken out into a cold sweat, and he was shaking, but now he began to breathe more easily.
Then it came again. The laughter. He placed his hands over his ears, never thinking for a second to reach for his firearm. He knew it would be useless.
"I will fear no evil." Again the laughter drifted away.
This time it stayed gone.
Mendez sank into the visitor"s chair at the foot of the bed and looked around nervously. Nothing appeared to have changed. He thanked G.o.d he hadn"t given in to his fear, thanked G.o.d he hadn"t run screaming down the hall.
He sank to his knees and humbly begged G.o.d never to be given this a.s.signment again. He was newly married, with a baby on the way. He had to live.
He stayed on his knees as the night progressed, wondering if he dared try to explain to Detective Canady that there had been a shadow in the room.
And that he was afraid it would come back.
The curtain drew closed behind the businessman. Bryan took a quick look around; there were other curtains, providing privacy for whatever went on in the alcoves. There was nothing he could do. She had to be stopped.
He wrenched aside the curtain just in time to see the overeager fat man kneeling on the floor, blubbering like a two-year-old. His eyes were wide, his toupee askew.
Mary stood over him, telling him to shut up and bare his throat, and though he shook and gasped for breath, he didn"t have the will to deny her. He was like a bleeding diver in a chummed sea, watching the approach of a great white, knowing he was about to be bitten in half. He could see his life-and his death-all at once.
Mary hissed as the drapery opened and stared at Bryan. For a moment he could see the sudden sharp growth of her canines, could see what the fat man could see, the promise of death, as surely as if the fangs belonged to a deadly asp.
He drew out a vial of holy water, thrice blessed, and doused her.
She screamed. A terrible scream, like a banshee crying out, and there was the terrible smell of burning flesh.
The fat man cried out, ducking.
Mary doubled over.
Bryan moved, ready to deliver the coup de grace. But the fat man suddenly screamed again, leaping to his feet.
And in those seconds Mary found the will to survive. She whirled with the speed of light and burst away from the alcove and the curtain. Someone screamed in her path, and people went flying, landing hard against the runway, where a nearly naked woman was doing a come-on with a bull whip.