Vampire Blood (10 page)

“See a little more of him if you can. He’s pretty lost without Mom. Try talking to him. Maybe you can get through to him. I can’t.”

Joey surveyed his domain, and Jenny knew exactly what he was thinking.

He didn’t want to end up like their parents either.

“I’ll go see him tomorrow, promise. I’ve got some money set aside and perhaps he’ll let me help him a little. For once.”

Jenny acknowledged her brother’s words, and slid off the stool. “Talking about Dad, I need to call him.” This was when she could have used a cell phone, but, like a lot of other things she would have loved to have, it wasn’t in her budget. Truth was, her budget didn’t allow for much above the necessities. Oh, well. She’d been poor before, and it hadn’t killed her. She’d adapt. From her purse on the counter, she collected a handful of coins. She walked over to the corner pay phone and dropped them into the appropriate slots.

Joey waited until she reclaimed her stool. “He all right?”

“Seems so. I woke him up, he claimed.” Jenny truly smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. “He was a real grouch. Told me to hang up and leave him alone, so I did. Said me he’d see me in the morning.”

Joey snickered. “Sounds like his normal cranky self. You didn’t tell him about Mom, did ya?”

Jenny shook her head. “No, and I won’t, either. It’d hurt him, and there’s nothing he can do about it, anyway.”

“I suppose.” He paused.

“How are
you
doing? You look like hell. What else is wrong?”

“It’s August the eighteenth.” Jenny’s face crumpled.

“Oh. Sammy’s birthday.” Joey sucked in his breath, using his old nickname for his niece. He didn’t do any of the things Jenny had expected. He only laid a large warm hand over hers and squeezed.

“I know you wish you could see her today,” Joey sympathized. “Why don’t you call her?” He rummaged around in one of the pockets of his apron, and prying her hand open, dumped a pile of silver coins into it. “My treat.”

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “Thanks, Joey, I will.” She got up and headed for the phones again.

When she came back, grinning, she told him what Samantha had said, and how glad she’d been to hear from her. Caught him up on what her daughter had been up to lately. Thinking of going to a nearby community college for art classes soon as the baby was a little older. How happy she seemed to be.

“You had supper yet?” Joey asked a few minutes later.

“No.” Jenny was fiddling absentmindedly with a strand of her hair, still thinking about her daughter and their conversation.

“What do you want? I’ll make you anything your heart desires. Free, too. On the house.”

“How about a cool million, all in big bills?” she teased him.

“Sure. If you give me half. I’ve always wanted to take a world cruise. See Europe, Africa, or go on safari and bag myself a tiger or two,” he played along.

Jenny laughed.

“How about a double cheeseburger with everything on it, onion rings and a large chocolate malt?”

“You got it. It’ll be ready in a jiff,” Joey promised and headed for the kitchen. His limp, from an old childhood bike accident, was more pronounced than usual. It always flared up worse when he was tired or worried.

Seeing her haggard sunburned face reflected in the mirror behind the counter, she slipped into the restroom and slapped cool water over it, combed her hair and retied it into a neat ponytail.

When she returned to her stool, her food was waiting for her. She was hungry and had gulped down most of it before Joey reappeared.

She remained for a while longer, talking with him about how the Albers’ house was coming, about other trivial things and then said good night.

“Hot date, huh?” he kidded.

“Sure,” she yawned. “I’m heading home for a hot date with a cool tub of water and a soft bed. I’m bushed. See you tomorrow morning for breakfast. Bye.”

“Bye.” He waved as she headed out the door into the warm night.

The full moon was hovering above the distant trees; she inhaled deeply of the tangy salt air coming from the Atlantic Ocean a few miles away. The smell of fish, seaweed and salt were strong tonight.

When her daughter, Samantha, had been a small child, she’d loved to walk the beach barefoot at night, chasing outgoing waves. Samantha’s childish laughter wafted on the night air, elusive and taunting, making Jenny lonelier than ever.

As Jenny passed the theater, she noted tiny slivers of escaping light shining through the cracks of the doors. Someone had already dismantled the nailed-up boards that had sealed off the entrance. She hadn’t noticed that before. Vandals? Her heart sped up for an instant.

Oh, that’s right, she remembered, the theater’s been bought.

The new owner must be inside looking over his acquisition.

Gosh, she’d love to see the old place again.

Voices were coming from inside somewhere.

Stealthily, peeking between the cracks, she shifted her weight and accidently bumped into the door; it seemed to glide open by itself. Startled, she jerked back, but not before she’d been seen.

“Spying on us, eh?” a man’s husky voice bellowed, shattering the night’s peace.

Jenny stood very still. To be caught eavesdropping at her age was embarrassing. Perhaps she should keep going, ignore the voice? She wanted to just slink away to her car when the woman appeared at the half-open door not more than two feet away and gestured at her to come in.

The woman looked to be about forty-five or fifty; it was difficult to tell because her appearance was so classically striking.

A muted light from somewhere behind framed her, haloing her delicate figure and waist length flowing silvery white hair. Her eyes glinted coal black in a breathtaking, but extremely pale face. Jenny got the impression of an apparition, a dream. Someone not real.

Until she smiled and spoke.

“Well, a visitor,” the woman’s voice slithered like silk, with a strange but appealing accent. German or Hungarian possibly.

“Child, you don’t have to stand out there in the dark and ogle us. Come on in. It’s time we started meeting our future patrons. Our neighbors.”

“Sorry,” Jenny stammered like a jittery, caught thief. “I was passing by. I saw a light.” She paused, unsure. “This place has been closed for so long.”

“Ah, you thought, perhaps, that we were burglars, right?” A stocky man had come up silently behind the woman. He laid his hands featherlike on her shoulders, protectively, possessively. He wasn’t much taller than she, with a full head of dark, curly black hair and a charming smile. It was the same husky voice she’d heard before behind the door.

“You’re the new owners?” was all Jenny could think of mumbling.

“Yes. We are.”

“Sorry, then. I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll just be going on my way.” Jenny turned and was leaving when the man opened the door wider.

“No, wait,” he exclaimed. “It’s really all right, you know. Nice to see how cautious our new neighbors are. You don’t have to run off. We were looking over the place. Making notes of what we have to do to make it habitable again. I’m Terry Michelson, and this is my wife, Annie.” He smiled and his teeth shone like pearls.

“The rest of the family is ... out. There are five of us. My wife, me and three ... children,” he drawled. “Buying this theater, it’s sort of a family operation, you might say.”

There was a strange, musty smell about them. Must be the unaired, dusty theater behind them, Jenny thought.

Their eyes gleamed like faraway stars and made her slightly light-headed. Feral eyes.

She couldn’t fathom why, but she was suddenly uncomfortable, but it passed as quickly as it had come.

“I’m Jenny Lacey. My brother’s Joey Lacey.” She motioned her head to her right. “He owns Joey’s Place— next door?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve met him. Nice young man. You’re his sister?” the man, Terry, declared, openly pleased. Jenny had the distinct feeling that they were hungry for friends. It dripped in their voices and their overly pleasing manner. She could feel their eyes almost devouring her.

A blurry figure appeared behind the couple in the open doorway. At first Jenny could barely make out her features in the shadows.

“Well, one of the locals come to check us out, hey?” As the person turned her head just so in the faint light, Jenny got a good look at her and her patronizing smile. A young, frail girl with long blond hair, a heart-shaped face, a crooked smile ... just like Samantha’s. Even the same velvety voice. It was uncanny.

The jolt of seeing the girl, who reminded her so much of her own daughter, put Jenny off balance.

“This is our daughter, Irene. Irene, this is Jenny Lacey, sister to Joey Lacey who runs the restaurant next door, whom I told you about.”

“Hello there, Jenny Lacey.” She had a mature voice tinged with sarcastic amusement; definitely not a girl’s voice, though the face was a petulant child’s.

“We shouldn’t be talking like this through a half-open door, Jenny.” The man laughed. “I can’t even see you. Why don’t you come on in and meet us properly? Come on in; we won’t bite.” He held a hand out, took hers, and started to pull her in.

A ghostly giggle floated up from somewhere inside the theater, and for a fleeting second, Jenny experienced a prickle of fear.

She shook it off, mad at herself for acting like such a ninny.

What was the matter with her anyway? They only wanted to meet her. New in town, they just wanted to make friends.

After all, they did own the town’s only theater. It wouldn’t hurt her to make their acquaintance, now would it? They weren’t going to attack her, for heaven’s sake. A family?

She could use a few friends herself.

Still, there was something peculiar about them.

Jenny’s curiosity got the better of her, though, and she stepped inside the old theater.

“You’re right. This is better.” Jenny smiled winningly at them as her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside.

Annie was even more beautiful up close, but dressed a little funny, perhaps. A floor-length evening dress in ninety-degree weather? Though, Jenny had to admit, it was cooler in the theater than outside.

Up close, the man, Terry, had intelligent laughter in his mesmerizing blue eyes, a square jaw, and a gold earring in his right ear. He was also dressed strangely.

The young girl hung back, away from her, as if unsure, and Jenny was amazed at how much the girl really looked like her daughter. Even her gestures were similar. Jenny had to tear her amazed eyes away, or she would have made a fool of herself.

She knew it wasn’t her daughter once she’d gotten a good look at her, but for a moment, it had thrown her.

Jenny gawked around her at the lobby. “It’s candlelight,” she gasped, discovering that the source of the weak light was several tall candles illuminating the lobby. It gave the room an eerie softness with its plush red velvet carpeting, fairyland like plaster nymphs and gleaming dolphin statues.

The marble drinking fountains, standing guard at the bottom of the ornate staircase leading to the top floor balconies, were as she remembered. All of it was just as she remembered. Lovely.

“Haven’t got the electricity working yet. That’s why there are candles.”

She gazed up, awed by the unreal beauty of the candlelight sparkling off the elaborate chandeliers and the etched mirrors lining the lobby, her eyes wide. A dozen blurry, shadowy Jennys stared back at her, weaving, like pasty ghosts.

She walked over and rubbed her hand along the staircase’s ornamental hand railings laced with plasterwork, and the rose, turquoise, silvery green, gold and silver paint glinted back at her their faded dusty hues in a breathtakingly wild tapestry.

Jenny wandered about, sliding her hand reverently along the edge of a statue and then on the banister up to the balcony; she coughed, covering her mouth. Dust cloaked everything like a blanket.

“Magnificent still, though, isn’t it?” the man who’d called himself Terry asked. He gazed affectionately around them.

“Time hasn’t changed the Grand’s beauty, just aged it. The old place has held up quite well, don’t you think? Is it as you remember it, Jenny?”

Jenny turned to face him and smiled dreamily. “Yes, it is.” There was a magic here that seemed to lull all her senses. She loved this beautiful place, never wanted to leave it. It had her under its spell again, and she could see by their eyes that the ones who’d purchased the theater were under the same spell.

“It needs a good scrubbing. Every inch of it,” Jenny announced thoughtfully. “Definitely a fresh coat of paint here and there. Replace some of the tiles over there around the counters.” She checked, moving close to the walls, probing at the cracks with her fingers.

“Needs some plasterwork up in that far right corner.” She pointed. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.” She wanted so badly to go in and see what the auditorium looked like and how the velvet-backed chairs had fared over the years. The balcony. The large screen. She didn’t have the nerve to ask.

When she looked back, her eyes met the young girl’s, and Jenny frowned slightly.