They Thirst (42 page)

A couple of dogs, caught in the backwash of the headlights, were running on either side like royal escorts.

She shivered, wondering what dogs were doing way up here, and accelerated to leave them behind. In another few minutes she turned a corner, and there was the massive hulk of the Kronsteen castle. There were candles in some of the windows, shining with different colors. She had to admit that if the place was not quite attractive, then at least it was mysteriously appealing.

She drove through the open gate, parked her car in the driveway, and walked up the stone stairs to the front door. She was wearing a sleek, black dress and a silver necklace with diamond stars clustered around a gleaming half-moon, and she knew she looked stunning. She was going to knock the prince's socks—or whatever they called them in Hungary—off tonight. She knocked on the front door and waited.

It opened almost immediately, and standing there was a young Chicano girl in a long, white gown.

"Hi," Paige said. "I'm Miss LaSanda, and Prince Vulkan expects me."

The girl nodded and motioned for her to enter.

She stepped across the threshold. The door was closed behind her. She followed the servant girl—
her makeup is atrocious,
Paige thought—under a chandelier studded with gleaming candles. Paige glanced up at it, realizing that it was where the cops had found Orlon Kronsteen's headless body. It was as cold as a refrigerator inside the place, and above her head Paige could hear the whine and moan of conflicting winds across the high ceilings. They moved down a long hallway lit by more candles, then up a curved, stone stairway that had no banister. On the second floor the servant girl motioned Paige through a rough-hewn door into a huge room with two roaring fireplaces on either side of a highly polished, gleaming black dining table. More candles guttered from a chandelier overhead and the two silver candelabra set equidistantly on the table. There was only one place setting, at the head of the table, with a silver dish and gleaming silverware. A crystal decanter half-filled with red wine and a single goblet were set beside the dish, both catching golden light from the fireplaces.

"Where's Prince Vulkan?" Paige asked the servant girl as she sat down.

The girl poured a glass of wine for Paige but didn't answer. Then, without a word, she moved like a wraith to the door and vanished.

What's this guy going to do?
Paige wondered.
Make a grand entrance or something?
She sipped the wine and asked herself what the hell she was doing there; then she looked up, startled. She thought she'd seen a face way down at the other side of the room, floating in the shadows that had gathered at the limits of the firelight. Now it was gone, but she was left with the distinct impression of white flesh, white hair, and . . . red eyes. Now there was nothing there at all. She looked away quickly and thought she heard footsteps echoing off stone in the distance, not walking but . . . scurrying. Voices seemed to be whispering all around her, and she was almost certain she heard a cold chuckle.

Maybe,
she thought,
just maybe I ought to call this whole thing off. Maybe I ought to get my little ass out of here right now because there's something definitely screwy about this whole thing.

She drank down another swallow of the wine and started to rise from her chair.

And that was when the hand came down very gently on her shoulder.

Paige gasped and turned her head. She was staring into a pair of green cat eyes set in a pallid, high-cheekboned face.

"Miss LaSanda," he said and slightly bowed his head. "I'm Prince Vulkan."

"Prince . . . Vulkan?" she said in a whisper.

"That's right. I'm sorry you had to wait. There were some things I had to take care of before I could come." He walked around from behind her and stood beside the table, staring down at her with a piercing, intense gaze.

"You? You're the prince?" She almost laughed, but the shock was too great. All her Omar Sharif fantasies were shredded like so much rotten tapestry. She looked at him wide-eyed, thinking that his flesh might well have been sculpted from white marble. "You're . . . you're just a boy!" she finally managed to say.

He smiled slightly, his eyes sparkling with firelight. "Am I?"

"I was expecting someone older . . . in his forties at least!"

"Were you?" He nodded. "Forty years old? I'm sorry I disappoint you."

Paige saw the yellow streaks in his hair and stared at them.
What sort of kid was this anyway?
His face looked like a seventeen-year-old's, but there was something in his voice, his manner, his eyes that seemed much, much older. "Is Mr. Falco your guardian?" she asked.

"Falco is . . .
was
. . . in my employ. I saw fit to terminate his services last night."

"Oh. But what about your parents? Surely you didn't come all the way from Hungary without
somebody!"

"I'm not a child, Miss LaSanda," he said, his lower lip curling. "I'm not! I can take care of myself!"

"Well, sure. I just thought, you know . . ."

Vulkan leaned over the table toward her, and she found herself inwardly cringing. "You're disappointed,' aren't you? You wanted me to be older. You wanted me to be handsome and wealthy, didn't you?"

"No, not at all. I'm just . . . surprised." She tore her gaze away from his with an effort that made her neck muscles thrum like bad guitar chords. She was afraid to look at him again, but "when she looked into his eyes, she felt there was a cauldron bubbling at the center of her brain. "Listen, Your Royalty or Your Highness or whatever, I think this has all been a big mistake. I really shouldn't be here. It's late, and I have some work to do at home, so . . ." She started to rise.

"You'll stay where you are," he whispered.

Instantly her back was rigid against the chair, her hands gripped tightly around the arms of her chair. She felt as if a seat belt had suddenly been drawn tight around her stomach. She gasped for breath.

"There," he said. "I don't want to hear anything else about your leaving. I've got too much on my mind tonight to worry about you, Miss LaSanda, so please sit quite still. I've been planning to entertain you for some time, and I don't want you spoiling the evening. Drink your wine."

She shook her head and gasped, "No . . ."

"Drink it," he said, his eyes boring through her skull.

Her hand went out, obediently grasped the crystal goblet, and tilted it to her lips, then returned the glass to the table. Her eyes were shining with fear, and a pulse ticked at her right temple. The prince picked up the glass, swirled the wine dregs around for a silent moment, then sniffed it and slid it back to her. He smiled. "You're a very attractive woman, Miss LaSanda Very attractive indeed. I'm sure you have many suitors. Don't you?" When she didn't reply, he leaned forward and touched her throbbing pulse with a cold finger. Then he brought the finger back and passed it under his nose a couple of times. "Very attractive," he whispered.

"Please," she said, her jaw muscles aching with the effort, "let me go home. I don't . . . I don't care who you are. Just . . . let me . . . go . . ."

"That would spoil everything. You want to stay here with me. Don't you?" His eyes widened slightly.

Her head nodded involuntarily, like a marionette's.

"Good." He regarded her for a moment in silence, then walked across 'he room to one of the fireplaces where he made a gesture of warming his hands. "I'm cold," he said softly. "I've been cold now for several nights, and I can't stand it any longer. But you wouldn't understand that, would you? When you're cold, you simply turn up the heat. You don't know pain, Miss LaSanda, that pain that roars through the body like a blizzard." He looked over his shoulder at her. "I'm glad you're here tonight. I needed somebody to be with me, to talk to. Sometimes I get lonely for people . . ."

The woman's mouth worked, but no sound came out. Two tears trickled down her cheeks, leaving twin mascara trails. 

Vulkan stared into the fire. "It was only a matter of time before you found out. My checks are worthless. My bank account in Switzerland has been closed for a long time. I didn't know how much you knew about me. So it was much simpler, you see, to bring you here. To me."

"I don't . . . I don't know . . . anything . . . about you . . ." she whispered.

"Ah, but there are things you might have found out." He turned back to her, rubbing his palms together. "You might have called the police. You might have hurt me before it had even started."

"Started? What. . . ?"

"Everything!"
he exclaimed, making a sweeping gesture with his arms. "The
future!"

Paige heard the door open. Vulkan glanced up. "Here's your meal," he said. "It's a true Hungarian beef
gyulash.
I had it made just for you." A girl in a white gown brought in a silver bowl brimming with a thick-looking broth in which bits of potatoes, beef, and carrots floated. She set it down in the plate before Paige and left the room. Paige stared at it but didn't move. "I want you to eat it," Vulkan said quietly.

Paige's arms were still pinned to the chair, and tears were dripping from the point of her chin. "Eat your meal," Vulkan said as if he were speaking to a small child. Her right hand whipped out, grasped a large spoon, dipped it into the bowl and brought it to her lips. Her mouth jerked open. The spoon returned to the bowl. Then again. "Swallow it or you'll choke," he warned her. "That's a good girl." He stood over her and watched. "There are so many things I want to know about this land called California," he said eagerly. "You can help me. You can tell me everything. Like . . . who are these?" He touched the T-shirt he wore, printed with a picture of the Beach Boys. "Are they religious figures, like the movie stars? I have to know about the music I've heard playing. What instruments are those? Lutes? Harps? The world changes so fast. The years pass like days to me, the days-like minutes. It becomes more crowded and complex. Every time I leave my refuge, I find myself in a different world . . ." He squinted suddenly, hearing something (MASTER!!) but he tried to force it away. Waves of need crashed through him as he stood in the hot presence of Paige LaSanda. But there it was again (MASTER HELP ME!), urgent and compelling. He touched his forehead, eyes rolling back, and tried to focus on where that thought had come from. And then . . .

. . . he could see the detectives in that large, rectangular building with all the windows, bringing his servant Roach into a room where they were going to ask him questions. Roach sat at a table, and one of the detectives —a black man—switched on a tape recorder. "All right, Benefield," the black man said. "We're going to ask you a few more questions."

"Questions? (MASTER HELP ME!) When can I go home?"

"Remember the photographs I showed you this afternoon?" the black man said. "The four bad girls?"

"I remember them," Roach said.

"Good." The detective opened a folder and looked through some papers. Then he shivered and glanced up at a larger man who sat across the room. "Does it feel cold in here to you, Farris?"

"Yeah, kind of," the one called Farris said. "A little chilly."

"Chilly, my ass! Feels like a north wind blew in!" He shivered again and then returned to the folder. "What were you going to do to Vicki Harris after you knocked her out with that stuff, Benefield?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Let me read you something from your rap sheet. Do you remember a young woman named Gilly Langford from August of '76?"

"No. (MASTER HELP ME!)"

"That's odd because she knew you when she picked you out of a lineup in an attempted rape case. She said you tried to strangle her, and she had the bruises on her throat to prove it. Then there was a little girl, Janis Chessler, eight years old. November 1977. Do you remember her?"

Roach closed his eyes tightly, clenching his hands into fists. (SAVE ME MASTER! THEY'RE GOING TO TRY TO MAKE ME TELL!)

"Do you remember Dr. Carl Friedman, Benefield?" the black man asked. "He was the State Mental Health Board psychologist assigned to your case after your molestation sentence was suspended. We've been in contact with him. Shall I tell you what he says about you?"

"Lies," Roach. "Everybody lies about me."

"He says you're what's called a paranoid-schizophrenic," the black man said. "That things get mixed up in your head sometimes and you lose track of past events. He says you complain of severe headaches and you have abrupt mood changes. Dr. Friedman says you show hostility to women. Are those lies, Benefield?"

"Yes . .

"I'll ask you again. What were you going to do to Vicki Harris?"

Roach trembled and whispered, "He . . . doesn't want me to tell . . ."

"He? Who are you talking about?"

"The Master." There were beads of sweat on his face. "He says I'm not supposed to . . ."

Prince Vulkan broke mental contact with Roach and looked over at Paige LaSanda. Her spoon was scraping the bottom of the silver bowl; her chin dripped with beef
gyulash,
and it had splattered down onto her dress. The woman's eyes were glazed, brimming with tears and totally insane.