HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (66 page)

She glanced over to
the food shops and shook her head. Lately, just the smell of real
food put her off. She did not want to go near those places, but would
suffer it if he was hungry. "No, thanks, but you eat something
if you want."

"I'm all
right."

They browsed in a
bookstore, and he bought her a bookmark imprinted with angels. "Here,
to mark your place," he said, handing it to her once they were
out of the store.

"Thanks!"
She slipped it into her purse, secretly happy that she would possess
something he'd given her, a talisman.

As they strolled
the mall some more, window shopping, commenting on clothing, she
asked if he were going to college.

"A and M,"
he said.

"Aggie bound!"
She grinned at him. She had thought that was where she would go, too.
She had applied long before the change. If she were going to live for
more than one lifetime, she would need education. A lot of it.
Perhaps she would be a perpetual student, come right down to it. It
might be the only way she would stay current during all the decades
of whatever society she inhabited. "I'm going there, too,"
she said. "I was admitted just last week.'

"What major?"
he asked.

"English
literature, at least to begin with. I guess I'll just go for a
liberal arts program. I really love libraries, you know? Quiet,
clean, so peaceful."

"Good choice.
I'll be in veterinary medicine."

"Wow. I hear
you have to be on a list for years to get into that. The waiting list
is supposed to be impossible."

"I think my
parents signed me up when I was in diapers."

She laughed. "So
you like animals a lot, huh?"

"Better than
people, sometimes. They don't talk back, they don't get jealous, and
they don't drive sport utility vehicles."

"What's wrong
with sport utility vehicles?"

"They can't do
what a pickup truck can in an open field. They're really for looks,
most of them."

"I guess that
means you like trucks. That's kind of typical Texan, isn't it?"
she asked, teasing him.

"What's wrong
with that?"

"Nothing, I
guess, as long as the truck has a sticker on the bumper that says
you're an NRA member."

"Aw, c'mon."
He smiled. "I'm refinishing an old truck I keep on my
grandfather's ranch. It's a 1952 Ford and ugly as sin, but when I get
through, it'll take you wherever you want to go.'

"What color
will you paint it?"

"I don't know
yet. Right now it's gray and rust. Maybe you can help me out with the
color when I get ready to paint it."

"Fuchsia's
nice."

"Oh, man."

She laughed
happily. "Lime, then. Lime's good."

They talked about
college and how they were both happy about going off to school, what
they wanted to do when they had degrees, where they might want to
live one day. The whole time Dell found herself full of excitement to
think they'd be on the same campus.

At show time, they
entered the mall theater lobby and he stood in line to buy them
popcorn and cold drinks. She just couldn't tell him she wanted
nothing without arousing his suspicion. She was learning quickly how
to fake the eating of food and drinking of liquids. Sometimes she
disposed of things when no one was looking by using her burgeoning
skill at sleight of hand. Sometimes she just pretended to sip on a
straw until she could set aside the drink. No one ever really watched
another person consuming food or drink. It wasn't very difficult to
trick the limited vision of a mortal.

He was so sweet to
her, she thought, watching him as he paid for the goodies. Not
anything like some of the other boys in her school. He wasn't full of
ego, wasn't acting like a Romeo out to get whatever he could. He was
polite to her, and so honest, his face showing every emotion that
crossed his mind.

In the darkened
theater seats, she placed her drink in a cup holder and let it sweat.
Once in a while she took a handful of popcorn, bringing it to her
mouth, then carefully dropping it to the floor. She smiled into the
darkness when he slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her a
little closer to him.

She knew it was
crazy, but she really wanted to go a little nuts and kiss him full on
the mouth when he wasn't expecting it. She stopped herself, knowing
it might throw him a little. She would let him make his own moves, in
his own time, but she wished that he would hurry. She could hardly
concentrate on the movie for thinking of how good his arm felt around
her shoulder, how great it was to have his hand brush the edge of her
arm.

Her mother had told
her just the night before how her emotions would be larger than
before, her appetites greater. They had been discussing the night she
left the house and rode Lightning too hard. They advanced from horse
riding to the discussion of relationships. She was warned about
feeling rage she would have to control, anger that might spiral out
of hand, and all sorts of overwhelming desires she would have to
contend with.

"It's as if
you've matured by fifteen or twenty years," her mother said.
"You'll want to do things . . . well, things you haven't done
yet."

If she could have,
Dell would have blushed. Her mother had never openly talked about
sexual things before. She knew she was talking about virginity and
having sex, and she had assumed, correctly, that her daughter had not
yet had intercourse. Assumed, or she'd read her mind.

"I have to ask
something, Mom."

"Anything,
sweetheart."

"Can I become
pregnant? I guess I can, since you did even before you changed, but I
need to know these things and how they work. How they'll work for
me."

"Yes, you can
have a baby. Your body works just as it did before. If you feed,
you'll remain healthy. So you can conceive and have children, but . .
."

"But I
shouldn't mess around with mortals, I know, Mentor told me."

"It's just
that . . ." Her mother seemed at a loss for words. She finally
said, "It's just that if you conceive with a human male, the
child will be . . . different."

"Will it
live?"

"Oh, yes,
absolutely it will live. The fetus of a vampire mother is always
strong and vigorous. But if the father is a mortal, it won't be
vampire. But . . . it won't be human either."

"I don't
understand. That makes no sense to me.”

“
We have a
word for it. The child of a mixed union is called a dhampir."

"What does it
mean?"

"Human, with
supernatural abilities, but not with the need for blood that we have.
Truly alive, truly mortal, but with more strength, better vision,
keener hearing, enhanced stamina, quickness, and some other abilities
I just don't know about. I don't know any dhampirs. Some of the
Predators do away with them."

"They kill
them?"

"Oh, yes.
They're a little dangerous to keep around."

"But what's
wrong with being a . . . a super-advanced human? It's the best of
both species, isn't it? Why haven't we all mated that way?"

"Because
there's a drawback."

"Oh."

"The
mixed-blood child sometimes grows into a . . . a . . . killer."

"A killer?"

"A hunter. A
killer of vampires."

"But why?"

"Because it
knows both worlds, it's a product of both, it feels and knows
everything we know and feel. The mixed child comes to despise the
parent who is the immortal, and often tries to destroy him. Or her."

"Jesus. Is
that why Mentor warned me about having a mortal boyfriend?"

"I'm sure
that's part of it. He left the rest to me. The other part, as you
know, is the finite life of humans. The pain of separation when death
takes them from us is awful. The aging they undergo, while you stay
the same age, at least to the visible eye. It's a terrible thing,
Dell, a horrible agony if you love someone. I wouldn't want you to
have to go through it. That's why I'm telling you everything I know
about it, and I'm asking you to be careful in your choices."

So here she was,
sitting in a darkened theater with just the person her mother told
her to shy away from, and she wanted to kiss him, and she wanted to
hold him, and she wanted . . .

She stopped her
train of thought and directed it to the screen. She could control
herself. She knew she could. She had to. She simply couldn't ravish
Ryan like a succubus, no matter if it produced a child or not. She
couldn't live in a wanton manner, taking whatever her desires
dictated, taking chances on unforeseen outcomes. She had not lost her
virginity before now for these same reasons.

On the other hand,
she'd never felt this serious about anyone before either.

I knew it wouldn't
be easy, she thought, reaching to her shoulder to take his hand.
Feeling his warm flesh beneath her cool fingers, she wondered if it
would be impossible to keep her distance. The hormones, or whatever
it was that caused her to want to find a mate, seemed to be operating
at full throttle. At this point, the urge to love someone and have
him love her back was stronger by far than the ever present hunger
for blood. Because he was human, she wanted him for her lover. No,
she thought, that wasn't right. She wanted him because he was Ryan.
And because she was vampire, she knew she should never have him.

~*~

Ryan came away from
kissing Dell with something in his brain sparking like moths striking
against a hot light bulb. He thought: Wow! He said, "Uh . . ."
and then she flung her hands around his neck and kissed him again. He
nearly fell right over a precipice of reason into a valley of deep
desire.

They sat in his car
in front of her house. Outside a night bird called in a tree at the
edge of her yard. He was only going to kiss her gently, a good-bye
and thank-you kiss, but it had turned into something hot and
unworldly. He felt zany and bedazzled, as if he were in a fairy tale
and was bowled over with a spell.

When she released
him, he sat back panting, feeling startled and aroused.

"I don't think
I've ever been kissed like that before," he said.

She remained
silent, but she touched his cheek with her fingertips before letting
herself out of the car. He watched her run up to her front door.

He put the car into
drive and drove slowly away. Sweat had broken out on his brow and he
now wiped it away. "Whew," he said, reaching for the air
conditioner control to see if it was working.

His mind was made
up. Lori was a kisser, all right, but compared to Dell she was a rank
amateur. Dell made him forget where he was and what the hell he was
doing. He didn't think something like that could happen and was so
amazed he nearly ran a stoplight before noticing the light was red
and slamming on the brakes. He got home in a shaky state and let
himself into a dark house. His parents were already in bed asleep. It
was a good thing, he thought, since if they could see his face they'd
know something had happened. He knew of no way to explain it. A kiss
that knocked him for a loop. A kiss that seemed to sear into him and
seal him tight to her.

I think I'm losing
my mind, he thought, going for the kitchen and a glass of milk.

He wondered if
she'd go out with him the next weekend. And the next. And every
weekend of his life

“
You’re
a crazy person,” he muttered, putting the empty milk glass in
the sink. “Ryan, you’ve just flipped out, man.”

On the way to his
room he realized it was true what he'd told himself. He'd flipped
out. He was way over the moon. Dell Cambian was a magician, and, just
like the song said, she'd put a spell on him.

22

Alan drove directly
to Bette's house, so worried that he drove too fast and was stopped
for speeding just inside Dallas city limits. Frustrated with the
delay of signing for the ticket, he arrived at Bette's house frazzled
as a half-dead mouse who had been toyed with for hours by a
particularly energetic cat.