HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (74 page)

A child of their
own.

Would it carry her
disease and be vampire like her one day? Would it be human like Ryan?
Oh, dear God, what had they done? Her mother had told her of a child
called a dhampir came from the union of human and vampire. She had
said sometimes such a child grew up and turned on its parent. Her
world seemed to tumble down around her ankles. They had been so
happy, two people with a secret life, living far from the city and
the humans. They worked at jobs they liked, kept the little farmhouse
secure and snug, went for rides on their horses, studied college
subjects together. They'd created a world unto themselves.

After a while they
planned to buy a few calves and begin a small herd of cattle. They
led such a serene and rich life together. It never occurred to them
that they could procreate. Why hadn't she listened to her mother?

A baby. What did it
mean? Would it even live? She had to talk to her mother about it
again, she had to contact Mentor. She needed advice. Or was it too
late?

He turned at the
sound of her puzzled voice. "What? Is something wrong?"

He saw it in her
face. She could never keep anything from him. "I don't know if
ifs wrong or not, but something's changed."

That night they
went to bed and held each other. She cried a little and he patted her
back. "What will we do?" she asked, despondent.

"We'll love
it," he said.

"But what if .
. .?”

He touched her lips
with his finger. "It'll be fine. He'll be a boy, a big strong
boy, and we'll name him Sean."

"Sean?"

"Or Tom. Or
Joshua."

She laughed and
snuggled close. "I love you so much. You're crazy as a doodlebug
and I still love you."

"That's why
it's going to be all right, Dell. This baby comes out of our love.
It's pure and good and a new creation."

"But it might
be . . ."

"It won't. He
won't."

"She might be
. . ."

"I won't have
it," he said. "He'll be like me. He'll have a way with
horses. He'll love animals and the ranch. He'll grow up and turn this
hundred acres into a thousand, build our herd to hundreds. I'll teach
him how to work on my old truck to keep it running. He'll be
respected and honorable, and he'll be ours."

"You won't
love her if she's like me?"

He leaned back to
look into her eyes. "I'll love him more!"

"Her."

They laughed and
they cried and they held onto one another in the darkness, thinking
their own individual thoughts, both afraid as they could be.

~*~

Having gained his
heart's desire, Charles Upton reveled in his new life. He had moved
his operations to Dallas to be near a supply of blood. However,
lately he'd been preying, trying it for the first time when he had
been shopping at a downtown jewelry store for a bauble for one of his
women. They flocked to him now, the women, despite his age. He was
rich, and becoming vampire had done away with all the terrible
symptoms of porphyria. His skin was smooth, his eyesight sharp, and
his mind as brilliant as it had been when he was a young man.

He had been in the
store, looking over a velvet tray of diamond bracelets when the
manager came from the back to help the clerk with Upton's purchases.
The manager was in his twenties, well-muscled, with a full head of
thick, shining brown hair. Upton felt a hunger for him suddenly. He
felt his fangs growing and determinedly retracted them before anyone
could see.

He paid for the
bracelet, a gaudy, much too expensive five-carat tennis bracelet,
tucked the box into his coat pocket and left the store. But he did
not go far. He told George to leave, take the car home. He'd be along
shortly. He had no need of the car and only used it for trips that
entailed being seen by humans.

He would not be
seen doing what he wanted to do now. It was dark, the store about to
close. He waited patiently for the employees to drift out the door
and leave. He stood at the end of the building, hiding behind the
corner, watching and scheming. When the last of the employees had
gone, Upton returned to the store and knocked gently at the glass
with his knuckles.

The manager looked
up from an accountant's book spread out on the counter and, seeing
him, smiled. He came to the door and said, "We're closed, I'm
sorry."

Upton said in his
most polite voice, "I know, I hate to bother you. I just have
one question about the guarantee on the bracelet."

The manager's smile
dissipated, but he took a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked
the door. "Come in, I'll be happy to help."

The moment he
turned his back, Upton flew through the air and knocked the camera to
smithereens from a corner of the room. Then he turned, snarling at
the shopkeeper. "Come to me," he said. "Come give
yourself."

The killing was not
swift or neat. Upton had never killed before and had no practice at
it. He made a bloody mess of the man before dropping him to the
carpeted floor and stepping back, satiated.

For a brief moment
Upton panicked. If he were caught in the store with the dead man, it
would be found out he was not human. He also had to find the video
made by the camera he'd destroyed. He hurried to a back room and
found the machine, crashing a fist through it. Back in the store, he
flung open the glass front door and ran. When he reached the next
building and found an alley, he lifted into the sky and flew to his
home.

George saw the
blood covering his face and shirt when he entered. He did not flinch.
George was paid more than any corporate executive to be discreet and
to keep his mouth shut. He said simply, "How can I help you,
sir?"

Upton waved him
away and washed in the guest bath on the first floor. Spasms coursed
through his body, causing him to tremble. These lasted for an hour
after the kill. He was as elated as he had been when he first looked
in a mirror and saw that the ravages of his disease had vanished.

This was the true
joy of being immortal and vampire. No one had told him how exquisite
warm, fresh blood could be. They had failed to instruct him in making
clean kills, assuming he would always buy their plasma bags, but he
thought that occasionally he would take a human. Maybe more than
occasionally. He felt more powerful than ever. He was indomitable.

He could be king.

The phrase slipped
into his mind and stayed. He could be king. He was already higher
than any man. If he wanted, he could rule over the vampires, take
over Ross' control, do away with Mentor, and lead the rest into the
future as they did his bidding. Why shouldn't he?

He stripped off his
clothes, throwing the boxed diamond bracelet onto the top of his
dresser. One of his women was coming over tonight. This was her gift.
She'd do anything for diamonds.

Upton stood naked
before a full-length mirror and felt both love and loathing for his
body. It was hard and strong. His teeth were his own and were white
as bone. But it was his skin, the unblemished skin, that sent him
into ecstasy. God, he had yearned for years to be free of the sores.
But his body was old, so old. He was skinny-legged and his buttocks
drooped. His face was wrinkled and he hadn't much hair left, the
remaining sprigs a shade of yellowing white.

He wondered if he
would be trapped in this old body forever. He got women because he
was rich and because he could use his power to lure them. He could
make them believe he was handsomer than he was.

Why were there so
many drawbacks to his new immortality?

As he showered, he
pondered the question of his aging form and what he might do about
it. Surely there was a solution. Look at Ross, he was a beautiful
immortal. He didn't walk around in an aging body, trapped within it.
He'd have to ask Ross what he might do about his age, find out if it
could be reversed or something.

As he dried off, he
relived the murder of the jewelry store manager, losing himself in
how wondrously exhilarating it had felt to drink the man's blood.

When the woman
arrived and George showed her to Upton's bedroom, he handed her the
box. He listened while she gushed over the beauty of the bracelet,
but all he could think about was sinking his fangs into her
beautiful, swanlike throat.

He made up his
mind. Before she was able to leave tonight after their lovemaking, he
would kill her.

~*~

He would kill
whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted to. He had a whole world full
of victims to prey upon.

No one could stop
him.

Ross brought the
problem to Mentor's attention. "I should have killed that old
bastard."

"For once I'm
inclined to agree."

Charles Upton was
totally out of hand. He had sold out his business and the twin-tower
building he owned in Houston and moved his operations to Dallas in
order to be in the midst of his kind. He was no longer ill, but
strong and growing braver and more wicked each day. "Nothing and
no one can stop me," he was heard to say often when thwarted in
business affairs. "Either get out of my way or I roll over you."

He wanted the
Strand-Catel operation, and he wanted to ease Ross out of his
position. He had not done one thing to increase Ross' power. He'd
reneged on his deal, forgetting what he owed his maker. In fact,
Upton took it upon himself to announce he was the only Predator with
the business acumen to bring all the clans together and help them
infiltrate and gain control over industry in the Southwest. Then
they'd move out to the West, the North, and the East. His plan was
national and in years to come would evolve into international.

"We don't live
in the dark anymore," Upton proclaimed to anyone who would
listen. "It's time we came out into the light and made this
world our world. For those of us who don't have the guts for it, the
Cravens, and the weak beasts—they need to be cut off from the
tree."

"Although I
agree with Upton in principles—I've been saying the same thing
for years—he's a megalomaniac," Ross said. "And I'm
here to tell you he needs putting down."

"If you hadn't
made him like us . . ."

"I know. For
the first time I trusted a mortal. It won't happen again."

Mentor said he
would take care of it, as he always did. Without spilled blood,
without rancor and riot.

"I don't know
why I keep listening to you," Ross said. "I wish you'd just
take him out and let me help you bum him."

"We won't do
that unless we have to," Mentor said.

He walked with
Mentor through Bette Kinyo's neighborhood. It was twilight, and
children were being called indoors. As the lights came on and the
cars turned into the driveways, they passed by Bette's house. "Here,
for instance," Ross said, pointing at the front door. "So
far she's kept her promise, but she's human, Mentor. She's prey to
vanity and ambition, morals and laws. I don't trust her."

"She's never
brought us harm. You must never come here without me." As they
walked by, Mentor glanced longingly at the house.

Ross flung his head
and his long hair fell back on his neck. "I don't know how we've
kept things going here the way you let everyone do as he pleases.
Upton's going crazy, just crazier every day. That woman in there and
her man, they could bring us down anytime they feel like it. And
Dell. Running off with that boy, turning her back on the rest of us,
breaking every code we ever taught her."

"You're
intolerant, Ross. It must make your life miserable to see so many
things you want to put to rights and they're all out of your reach.
Dell's doing fine. She's gone away on her own and living the life she
was meant to live."

"I don't think
she should have done it. And none of these people are out of my
reach, Mentor. You know better than that."

It was true things
had changed, but they always did. It was the only certainty, Mentor
realized. The world turned and change came and they adjusted. He had
no worries about Bette or Alan, but he did keep a mental watch on
Dell and he was in constant surveillance of Charles Upton.

Though he knew Dell
was pregnant, which presented a whole new set of problems, it was
Upton he must do something about right now. Immediately. He was one
of the most powerful Predators who had ever been made since Ross,
perhaps since Mentor himself, and that made him a great danger.
Mentor was going to have to go to him, to reason with him. If it
didn't work . . .