Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (33 page)

The
surface
blood
only
whetted the creature’s appetite.
It
wanted hot blood, blood heated by pumpi
ng organs
. I
t opened its mouth and fastened its razor-edged teeth into Paul’s neck
directly over the jugular vein, tearing and gnawing. Joshua charged forward and leaped onto the creature’s back, pounding with his fists as Paul’s
scream
reve
rberated over the clearing and down to the river
.

Tamara fell to her knees and began
to
chant.
Her face
poured sweat. Her eyes reddened and leaked blood as she begged God and the Loa of the Rada,
the sweet spirits of the Light, to send the invader back
to the worlds
where it
belonged
. R
unning with sweat, she felt
the Rada
battling with the blood d
rinker, child from the outer reaches of the planes of darkness.

Feeling the attack,
the creature
dropped Paul’s body to the ground
.
Joshua slipped
from its back and ran
to his brother, clawing and pulling at the binding rope. The invader turned to Tamara and her relentless chants. A
bruptly,
a monstrous bolt of lightning split
the air
. The
B
lood
D
rinker disappeared.

Tamara collapsed.
Joshua
gathered Paul into his arms and
stared into the open blue eyes.

“Paul!
Paul, talk to me!
Please, please,
please
talk to me!”
He raised his hand and slapped Paul’s check, he shook his shoulders furiously.
He
moved h
is hand down to the
ravaged flesh scored by the
inches-long fangs of the Blood Drinker
.
He raised his ha
n
d slowly and moaned.
No blood.
He touched the open wounds on Paul’s chest.
No blood.
N
o blood in his brother’s body.
Not even a trace.

He raised his head and stared at Cain, still crouched frozen on the ground.

Cain stared back but he did
n’t really see anything but
the Blood Drinker, the monster, the visitor from the furthest plane
s
of darkness.

Joshua
cradled Paul’s body and rocked him back and forth
while silent
tears r
an
down his cheeks.
The
n
he
spoke, not loudly, but very clearly,
the spaces
measur
ed
between each word.

“I’m going to kill you, Cain.
No matter where you run.”

Cain’s eyes shifted.
The he
stood.
And abruptly, he
broke and
ran into the woods.

“
No matter where you run
!
” Joshua shouted after him.
The words echoed after Cain, who ran
harder than he’d run as he
departed the Louisiana cane fields.
He ran and ran and kept on running.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

Tamara’s moans of returning consciousness filtered
into Joshua’s private descent
in
to Hell.
He glanced over and saw her twitch. He looked down at his brother.
There was nothing he could do for Paul.
He’d killed him.
God knows, that was enough.
He gently laid Paul’s long form on the ground, taking special care not to jar his head, and moved over to his aunt.

“Tamara?”
He lifted her head a
n
d gently stroked her cheek.

Tamara stirred again
and opened her eyes.

“It’s gone,” she said.
Not a
question.
Otherwise, neither of them would be here.
The creature’s appetite was insatiable.

“Yes.”

“We got to get him back.
My house be best.
D
e
root cellar.”

Joshua stared.
His aunt was crazy.
That was all there was to it.
She
’d
dabbled in spells and potions and incantations her entire life and this final confrontation with – It –
just
sent her right ‘round the bend.

“No,” he said.
“We takin’ him home.
Papa
might
be dead already
,
you know Mama’s half out of her mind.
But however bad it is to know, it’s worse to wonder.
We takin’ him home.”

Tamara laughed shortly
and pushed herself up to a sitting position.

“Boy,
I done tol’ you, I ain’t got time to argue
wid
you tonight!
Yo’ brother ain’t dead.
Not ‘xactly.
Where be Cain?”

“He ran off into the woods.
I told him I was goin’
to
kill him, no matter where he ran.
I mean it.
Doan know how and
doan
know where, but—”

“An’ you will,” his aunt assured him.
“You and Paul.
Together.
You will.”

Joshua’s frayed nerve endings snapped.

“
S
top saying that
!” he shouted.
“
P
aul is dead
!
There is
no blood
in his body!
Y
ou do not live without blood!
”

Tama
ra
pulled the boy into her arms, rocking him as he sobbed, just as he
’
d rocked back and forth with Paul.

“Son
.
Much as you
seen tonight, you
doan
trust me?”

“No
. You talkin’
foolishness.
My brother’s dead
.
I killed him.”

“Blood
D
rinkers
doan
kill, son.
Not ‘xactly.
D
ere
do be
dose
whu
t say
dey
give eternal life.”

Joshua raised his head.
“Blood
D
rinkers?
Is that what that thing—”

“Well, I
doan
know ‘xactly what its
name act
ually is.
Whut I knows is
dat
dis world
, son, it be ringed with
world
s on
world
s.”
Tamara’s voice was low, soothing, speaking almost the words her sister had spoken to Paul a mere day before.

“’Dey shift,
dey
overlap
. Some of ‘em
be real dark, full of evil and danger
. S
ome of ‘em,
dey
be real bright and beautiful.
An’ sometimes, folks whut
doan
know whu
t
dey
doin’,
dey
can make things happ’n whut wasn’t never ‘sposed to happ’n.
An’ things can cross over from ‘dem other
world
s
to
dis
one.”

Joshua shuddered.
“Bad things.
Real bad things.
”

“Well, now,
dat
all depends.
Sho’,
dat
Blood
Drinker be a real bad thing here.
But it ain’t bad in and of itself.
It made to live in a certain
world
, and in
dat
world
, it have its own purpose.
Over here, well,
weren’t meant to be over here
.
But it weren’t
de
thing’s fault.
It be
de
fault of
de
one whu
t called it.
Humans, son,
dey
be some of
de
only creatures in all ‘dese
world
s whu
t can choose whether
dey
be good or evil.
An’ some
folks, de ones whu
t has mo’ power
den others, what
dey
choose, it
upset
de
balance.”

“Like you and Cain?” he asked.

She nodded.
“Like
me and Cain.”

“Couldn’t you have turned the Blood
Drinker on Cain?”

“Wish I could have, son.
Dat’s
de
human in me.
I want Cain to hurt, jest lik’ you do.
But I was askin’ de’ Light for help and when you serve
de
Light, you gots to think about the good of all folks.
You start trying’ to use
dat
power
for dark things, like revenge,
den you turn
de
good to evil an’ it blow up in yo’ face lik’ a firecracker.
Know what would’a happened had I tried to turn it on Cain?”

Joshua shook his head.

“Well, I woulda been thinkin’ ‘bout me.
‘Bout
yo
’
Mama, who I love mo’
den any other person still livin’ on
dis
earth.
‘Bout Paul an’ ‘
bout you
.
Jest met y’all but I
been lovin’
you both
for years
, boy.
You best bel
i
e
ve it.
An’
revenge.
An’ to keep dat
thing here to get Cain, well,
if I’d waited too much longer t
o try and send it back, I might
a not been able to.
An’ it would
a been loose, son.
Loose in
dis
town.
An’
dat
would
a been my fault.
You see whut I’m sayin’?”

“Have there been others?”

“Blood
Drinkers?”

Josh nodded.

“Yeah.
Sometime de
doors ‘tween
de
world
s,
dey
crack all by
dere
lonesomes and things slip back and forth.
Doan hap
pen often, an’ when it do, seem
like somethin
’, some balance,
doan
let
de
doors stay open long.
An’ when
dey
close, all
de
things
dat
slipped through get sucked back where
dey
‘sposed to be.
But
dere
’s been Blood
Drinkers through be
fore.
An’ dey’ve left behind folk like
Paul.”

Joshua’
s eyes widened.
Paul’s collection of penny-dreadfuls from London. The monsters. Werewoves, ghouls and ghosts. And—

“No,” Joshua whispered.
“No.
Please no.”

“You see,
doan
you, son?”

“He isn’t.
Those stories aren’t real, they’re just stories, they’re
not real
!
”

“Son, most stories start from somewhere.”

“And
the stories—the
vampire
stories—they
come from the Blood
Drinkers?”