Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (59 page)

He stared at Justin’s neck. His mouth gaped open and the points of his gleaming incisors glinted in the firelight. Cain had never been fussy about his sex partner, seven years in that
Louisiana
prison camp had taken care of that. A hole was a hole. Anyway, this type of orgasm was an asexual act. The gender of his partner didn’t matter.

His furious tone modulated to a soft caress.

“But den, I did promise, didn’t I?”

* * *

“Dennis.”

Paul grabbed the back of the boy’s neck, stopping his forehead from making further contact with the padding of the steering wheel.

Dennis shuddered at the sudden touch, his body jerking. He snapped his neck to the right and stared at Paul. In his wild, wide eyes, Paul caught the memory of Sadie’s eyes, immediately before her retreat into the dark of catatonia.

“Dennis, it’s me. It’s all right.”

Paul spoke softly, wondering why in the name of God humans always assured each other everything was all right when it was clear things were going to hell in a hand basket.

“Listen, Dennis, we don’t have much time. You’ve got to get a grip on yourself.”

“You—you disappeared! That voice, it came out of nowhere and then you just—and now you’re back and—”

“Dennis! Listen, we have to move. I can’t find him by myself. You’d better let me drive.”

Paul reached for the door handle. Wouldn’t do to dematerialize again, Dennis would go berserk. Besides, he was pretty shook himself after surging forward out of control and almost spreading himself into eternity forever. He hadn’t known that could happen but then he’d never cast out in such a state of desperation with no certain destination in mind.

He thanked God for the nights he and Ria had ridden the back roads while she laughed and scolded and called him names for grinding the gears of her prized Mustang classic.

He came around to the driver’s side and opened the door. Dennis collected himself enough to scramble over the console into the passenger seat.

Paul sat down and inspected the diagram on the gearshift.

“Why bother to drive? You sure don’t need a car to travel.”

“I can’t hit an exact spot if I don’t know exactly where I’m going. And I don’t have time for trial and error.”

He cranked up and shifted, not smoothly. The gears protested. The grind sounded as though Paul wasn’t real familiar with manual transmissions.

“You know how to drive a stick?”

“Yes. I learned how to drive on the Mustang.”

Dennis didn’t register the significance of that statement at first. Then he did.

“Ria’s Mustang? You mean, that’s the car you learned to drive on, not just learned to drive a stick?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus,” Dennis muttered. But then someone who could appear and disappear at will wouldn’t have a lot of need for cars.

“This is a new car,” he said. “Its gears are a lot closer together than the Mustang’s, don’t have much play.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember.”

Paul pulled back onto the highway and increased his speed, shifting up without further incident. He risked a glance at Dennis. The boy’s face was white and pinched. He still stared fixedly forward but he’d managed to have a conversation about the car’s controls. Paul supposed that showed a continued grip on reality.

“Shift again.”

“What?”

“The Mustang’s a three speed. This one’s a five. Shift.”

Paul complied as Dennis spoke again.

“That voice is the same one I heard this summer. That night.”

“I know.”

“It—he—you called him something.”

“Cain.”

“He called you ‘white man’
.
” Dennis supplied the emphasis. “Like it was a dirty word, worse than motherfucker. And he called you something else, too. ‘White doctor.’ ‘Do-gooder Devlin.’”

“Yes.”

“Your name’s Paul Everett. You’re a writer.”

“No.”

“Then what the hell are you? Who are you, really? Who is he?”

On-coming headlights approached. Paul’s foot moved over the floorboard as though searching for something. Of course. The dimmer switch. He’d only driven the Mustang.

“Pull the blinker handle toward you,” Dennis said. “Don’t flick it up or down, just pull it toward you. Cars haven’t had the dimmer on the floorboard in years.”

Paul complied and the lights dimmed.

“Ah,” he said. “Much more efficient. I wonder if I could talk Ria into a new car.” His tone was light. Anything to break the boy’s single-minded pursuit for explanation. He didn’t know how much more Dennis could handle.

“Answer me!
Please, please
, answer me!”

Paul searched for words and in the end, found nothing better than the ones used to introduce him to this world of endless dark.

“Dennis, this world as we know it, it’s ringed with worlds on worlds. And some of them are bright and beautiful and some of them are nightmares beyond imagination. And sometimes, people of great power can cross the boundaries between the worlds. And that power, by itself, it’s neither good nor evil. The people who possess it are. And if that person is evil, they can break the barriers and things cross over into this world that weren’t meant to be here.”

“And Cain, he’s from one of the dark worlds?”

“No. He’s part of this world but he possessed great power, the power to break the barriers. One night, he broke through them and something crossed over. Something that—changed me.”

“Into what?”

“Dennis, there really isn’t a word that exactly describes me. There’s a word that comes close but it’ll scare you if I use it.”

“There was a stake,” Dennis said. “I told you. A stake stuck in his rib cage, just resting there between his ribs. It was a skeleton, man, just a skeleton, had to have been there for years and years and years.”

“Since 1888.”

“How the hell do you know?”

Paul hesitated. “My brother put it there,” he said.

“1888!?”

“Dennis—”

Dennis was beyond listening. His words tumbled out in partial sentences, struggling to make logic out of the most illogical things he’d ever heard.

“And when Justin pulled it out, it was just like in the old Bela Lugosi films, the old silent movies, the ones they show at the Pizza Parlor on Friday nights when the vampire—Cain’s a vampire?”

“Not originally. Just extraordinarily powerful. Powerful enough to break the barrier between the worlds.”

“Then what happened? You said he let something loose. Whatever it was changed him into a vampire?”

“No,” Paul said shortly. “It changed me.”

Dennis inhaled deeply and bunched his muscles tightly. The smell of sudden terror filled the car.

“
Oh, shit
,” he moaned.

“Dennis, this isn’t an old Bela Lugosi movie. Some of the old legends are right about some things, but they’re mostly wrong. What I am, in and of itself, isn’t good or evil, just like the power that can crash through worlds isn’t by itself good or evil. It can be either. It depends on what you do with it.”

The car flew silently down the dark highway, nearing the little town of
Gray
. Paul was a vampire but he was one of the good guys?

“Slow down,” Dennis warned. “You’re almost on top of the city limits.”

Paul lifted his foot off the accelerator and lightly tapped the brakes.

“Are you all right?” he asked. How lame, those words. Misused and overused and totally inadequate for most situations.

“I think I’m gettin’ there,” Dennis said. He sat straight and peered ahead. The old two story stores lining Gray’s oldest main street threw alternating shadows through the car windows. “After this light, there’s another one, right past the railroad crossing. Cross the tracks and turn left. Puts us on Highway 129 to Eatonton.”

Paul complied.

“Okay.” Dennis sat back. “We’re clear. You can speed up.”

The powerful engine of the sports car sent it surging forward as Paul shifted up.

Dennis bit his lip before he asked his next question.

“So if the thing changed you and not Cain, what made him a vampire?”

“I did. The next night. No human would’ve stood a chance against him.”

“And then your brother hid him in the cave where we found him and drove the stake through his heart.”

“Yes.”

“Paul, he said he was doing to Ria just what you did to him. That night. That he wasn’t leaving anything out. What did you do to him? Before?”

Paul’s lips tightened and he pressed the accelerator harder. The car surged forward.

Dennis sank back in his seat.

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Johnny’d gotten a late start but he didn’t have any sudden voice roaring into his car and scaring him shitless. As fast as he was driving, he’d be dead if he encountered a deer taking a stroll across the highway. He wasn’t much worried about that right now. When he passed Gray and headed on toward Eatonton, he’d have to worry about it but he was by God making as much time as he could until then. He pulled into the parking lot of the barbecue place outside of Gray, parked, and fumed.

Damn it, where was Dr. Knight? He cranked back up and threw the car into reverse, narrowly avoiding ramming the Ford Explorer pulling up behind him. Charlie Knight got out, slammed the door viciously, and stalked up to Johnny’s window.

“Boy, I
told
you to wait on me!” Dr. Knight was furious. “Don’t you listen?”

“You were taking so long.”

“Get your ass in my car!”

Dr. Knight stalked back to the Explorer. Johnny, chastised but unrepentant, got in the passenger side.

Dr. Knight didn’t speak as he pulled back onto
Gray Highway
and sped toward the city limits. He still didn’t speak when he turned left slightly past the railroad tracks and increased speed.

“Dr. Knight—”

“Shut up,” he ordered shortly. “I have to concentrate. Easy to miss in the dark.”

“What?”

“This,” Dr. Knight said, slowing abruptly and swinging right with a bone-shattering bounce onto a dirt road forking off from the highway. He reached down and engaged the Explorer’s four-wheel drive.

“What the fuck?”

“Loggin’ roads. Going as the crow flies. Cuts off miles. Drives Don Billings crazy. He never has figured out how I get to the lake so damn fast.”

The Explorer bounced and rattled. Johnny double-checked his seat belt.

“Jesus!” He exclaimed. That bounce damn near sent his head into the roof. He grabbed onto the armrest for further insurance.

“That’s right, son, you better hang on. Ain’t never taken it this fast and never plan to again. So hold on.”

* * *

Cain caught himself again. Barely. The scent of the fool’s blood almost got him, but he needed the boy right now. The white doctor wouldn’t be watching his back, he’d be focused on his woman. This fool was necessary back up for the rear.

Cain threw the boy down and Justin crouched into a ball on the sofa. He wanted the power, the eternal life promised by Cain but his close inspection of Cain’s incisors brought home to him one important aspect of the transformation he hadn’t really considered. He’d die in the process. Maybe he should reconsider the pros and cons.

Cain resumed his pacing and then stopped, standing stock still in the middle of the rug.

Of course. He’d spoken to the white man by psychic transmission, purely by the power of thought. He hadn’t left a trail for him to follow, no scent, no actual voice echoes.

Shit. But of course, there was a good side to everything. His years-old nemesis was probably casting out, over and over, looking for a trail that wasn’t there. Cain spread his arms and cast out himself. Then almost instantaneously he reappeared. The walls shook under his roar. He’d been practicing his new powers for only six months, still learning their expanse and limitations.

And he’d just realized something Paul had known and worked around for many, many years. He had to know exactly where he was going to get there.

“Goddamn it! I doan got his trail, neither! I can’t find him! Motherfucker!!”

He raged through the room. He stopped in front of Ria’s body and kicked. The crack of snapping bone was loud as her rib cage splintered. Even in her unconscious state, she moaned. Behind him, Justin moved slowly, attempting to slip off the couch and slink out of the room. Slink out of the house, actually, and as soon as possible. Tonight he’d seen Cain in a different light. Time to reconsider the benefits of his continued association with the man. Definitely.