Out of the Night (29 page)

Mac walked over and looked inside the case where he saw a most unusual sword. The pommel appeared to be silver-plated, and engraved on the side was a man's head with eyes of embedded rubies and fangs protruding from an open mouth. It looked suspiciously like a vampire. The hilt of the sword curved outward and back, acting as a hand guard, and the blade, forty-some-odd inches by Mac's estimate, gleamed under the display lamp.

"This, gentlemen, is a sword that has been in my family for many generations." The admiral pulled a key chain from his pocket, selected a key, and opened the locked case. He lifted the sword out lovingly, but when he went to offer it to Mac for a better look, the blade slipped and he winced, drawing back his hand and dropping the blade.

With lightning-fast speed, Mac grabbed it, not letting it hit the ground, then turned to the admiral, who cradled his injured hand as blood pooled in his palm from the cut in the padding beneath his thumb.

"Damn," he muttered. "I must be getting clumsy in my old age."

Mac stared at the blood, mesmerized by it. When he finally looked up, he found the admiral watching him closely and suddenly felt as if he were being tested. Irritated, he looked over at Dirk and found his friend also staring at the blood. As if feeling his gaze, Dirk looked up and their eyes met.

"What's going on, Admiral?" Mac demanded. "You're not that old or clumsy, but you're a little transparent. That was no accident, so what's up?" Suspicion furrowed his brow. "Lanie told you we were vampires, is that it? And you wanted to see how we'd react to the sight of blood?"

Rather than look embarrassed, Admiral Winslow smiled. "Something like that."

"Maybe we should get a rag or something," Dirk suggested, "before you bleed all over the rug here."

The admiral didn't move but studied each man in turn with the same keen, assessing look Mac had seen many times before during his SEAL years. It was a look he knew well—and respected.

"For generations, my family has guarded a secret so sacred that we never speak of it aloud. It has been passed down from father to son in a secret ritual. Now, when I die, since I never married or had children, it is at risk of being lost forever—unless I choose a successor." He glanced at each of them and smiled. "I had thought it would be impossible to find someone worthy of this responsibility, but now, it seems, I've found two such individuals."

"Admiral, maybe you'd better sit down. I think you might have lost more blood than you realize," Mac suggested.

"Do you trust me?"

The question took Mac by surprise and looking into the admiral's eyes, he knew the older man didn't want an automatic response. He wanted honesty, and so Mac took a moment to think about it. Across from him, he knew
Dirk was asking himself the same question. Did they trust him?

Finally, he nodded. "Yes."

"With your life?" the admiral pressed, sounding very serious.

"With my life," Mac responded, equally serious.

The older man looked at Dirk for his response, and there was no hesitation. "With my life," Dirk replied.

"Then trust me now," the admiral replied. "Kneel before me."

Mac exchanged another look with Dirk, but they both did as instructed. The admiral stood before them, his eyes shining bright with an emotion Mac couldn't identify.

"I give this gift freely that you may understand," he intoned, raising his cut hand above them. "Open your mouths." As Mac watched in stunned disbelief, the admiral tilted his hand and allowed blood to run into his mouth. Unsure what to do, Mac held it there, refusing to swallow. The admiral turned to Dirk and did the same thing.

"What is freely given must be freely accepted. You have only faith and trust to guide your decision. To accept, all you have to do is swallow my blood." Up to this point, Mac thought the admiral sounded like he was reciting passages from a ritual. Now his tone changed. "There's no shame in spitting out the blood. I only ask that you spit it out in the trash can by the desk, rather than on my rug. Blood is rather difficult to get out."

It was the moment of truth, Mac realized. Everything in him longed to spit out the blood, reject the monster within, yet he hadn't lied to the admiral. His was not a blind trust; it was one carefully weighed and measured.

Would he walk into the pits of hell for this man? An image of Lanie appeared before him, and he was shocked to realize when it came to people for whom he'd lay down his life, she now was first in his thoughts.

Distracted by the discovery, a trickle of blood slipped down his throat. Rather than find the taste repulsive, he found it quite palatable.

He felt a growing warmth in his hand and looked down at the sword he still clutched. The heat seemed to be coming from the pommel. He gripped it tightly and vowed to himself that if his trust was misplaced, then his last act would be one of vengeance.

He swallowed the blood.

Immediately Mac felt the blood coursing through his body and it infused him with a vibrant energy. His senses grew sharper, and the lethargy that had weighed him down for the last several nights disappeared. The sword in his hand pulsed, and he looked down to see the ruby eyes of the face glowing brightly.

He heard Dirk's quick intake of breath and turned to see a bemused expression that, he thought, mirrored his own. When he glanced up, Mac saw the admiral smiling broadly. He gestured to the sword and then to Dirk, so Mac passed the weapon to his friend, who held it reverently. If possible, the rubies shone more brightly.

"I imagine you both have several questions," the admiral finally said. "Let me wash away this blood, and then we'll talk."

Mac and Dirk rose to their feet as he walked out of the study, and for several seconds they simply stood there. Mac thought he might be in a state of shock, because something significant had occurred here, but he had no clue what it was.

"This can't be good," Dirk muttered. "But what a rush."

Mac couldn't have agreed more. Trying to give himself time to collect his thoughts, he walked around the study, examining the other weapons. When the admiral finally joined them again, both men turned to him expectantly. He reached for the sword, taking it from Dirk's hand. The rubies in the pommel faded to a dull red.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" He stroked the gleaming blade with a loving touch, then turned and smiled at each of them. "How do you feel?"

"Depressingly good," Mac replied truthfully. "Before now, I hadn't thought of myself as a vampire."

The admiral laughed. "You're not a vampire—either of you."

"But we drank your blood," Dirk replied.

"Only because I asked you to—freely given and freely accepted. A true vampire doesn't ask. He—or she—takes by force because they need the blood to survive. You do not."

Mac and Dirk exchanged looks. "Why do I get the feeling that you know more about all this vampire stuff than you're letting on?" Mac asked.

"You're right. I've not been completely forthcoming, but please understand, until this afternoon, I didn't realize the full situation or the extent of your involvement."

"Lanie."

The admiral nodded. "But you mustn't be upset with her, Mac. She was worried about you both, and it was right for her to come to me. Vampires and chupacabras have been around for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years.
Usually, we're able to keep them under control, but every now and then, a situation arises that must be dealt with."

"Who's
we
?" Mac asked.

"My family. We are responsible for finding the changelings—and for the sword." He raised the weapon higher, drawing their attention to it. "The inscription here on the blade is written in an ancient language that has been all but lost over the ages. Loosely translated, it reads:
When the sword finds the slayer, death on winged horse shall fly. Let justice prevail
." He opened the hand around the hilt so they could see the emblem on the side. "You saw the rubies glow when you held the sword? It hasn't done that in almost a hundred years. That was the last time the sword was held by a true slayer."

"Slayer of what?" Mac was pretty sure he didn't want to hear the answer.

"Vampires."

He rolled his eyes. "Please. You're telling me that
you're
a vampire slayer."

"No. I'm merely the Keeper of the Sword. Only changelings can be slayers."

"Do you know how crazy this sounds?" Dirk asked.

"I would imagine not as crazy as it would have
before
you knew vampires existed."

Mac had to give the admiral credit for that one. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but who are these changelings you keep talking about?"

The admiral smiled and gave them each a pointed look.

Dirk shook his head. "Oh, no. You can't be serious. What is a changeling, anyway?"

"Half vampire and half human."

Mac felt a chill run down his spine. "I thought you said we weren't vampires."

"You're not. You're half vampire. The chupacabra, when it attacked you, injected you with enough venom to convert you. You've noticed the changes in yourselves."

"So what are you suggesting? That we go around looking for Burton and other vampires, with swords strapped around our waists?" Dirk asked, incredulous. "No offense, but are you crazy?"

The admiral merely cocked an eyebrow, as much as saying yes. Dirk swore.

None of it made sense to Mac, but there was one part of what had just happened that bothered him the most. "If we're not really vampires, why did you ask us to drink blood?"

"Blood that is freely given and freely received has the power to energize and heal the changeling. The key is life. Blood is essential to life. Unlike the vampire, who was human and then died before turning, a changeling doesn't die. Therefore, they are creatures of life, not of death. Because blood is a gift of life, the changeling who drinks it is imbued with the life force."

As far as surreal explanations went, it was consistent with all the others he'd heard, and Mac shelved it away for later consumption. "What if we'd been real vampires?"

The admiral's expression turned carefully blank. "As Keepers, my family has, for centuries, taken an herb that only we grow. We call it
la fleur de vivre
. It absorbs quickly into the bloodstream and lasts for twenty-four hours. It's the only thing we've found to be effective against vampires."

Mac didn't like the way the admiral avoided giving a direct answer to his question, so he asked it again. "What if we'd been real vampires and swallowed your blood?"

"Then you'd be dead—permanently dead."