Page 50 of The Undead

He bared his teeth. His canines came down, razor-sharp and glistening, and I felt the fear spill over me in freezing waves. It wasn’t his teeth that frightened me. It was his eyes, his bland, empty, colorless eyes.

“You can do better than that, can’t you?” he murmured. “’Too easy, boy. Ask Johnny-Reb Adam and his Injun who I am. They know. Maybe you know too.”

I didn’t, and dear God I hoped I never did. He watched me another second, savoring my fear. He kept his fingers on my face, and exerted the slightest pressure. I felt the bone—stronger than human bone, now—bend. Behind him, the swing creaked to a slow protesting stop and was still.

“One more thing,” he said in that soft, drawling, deadly voice. “Be sure and ask Mistuh Adam who killed his pretty Julie. Ask him that. And listen to his answer, ’cause I’m gonna want to hear you tell me.”

His shove came out of nowhere, knocking me violently backward and against the rough bark of the oak tree. I fought for balance in blind terror, certain that I would see those eyes inches from mine, those teeth—

But there was nothing there when I straightened, nothing but silence. The swing creaked, faintly, but only the breeze sat in its cracked wooden seat now. Empty.

My panic stretched and snapped, releasing me from my frozen state; I turned and ran. That was no safety at all, I knew; he could run faster than me, with his disjointed spider’s strides. I couldn’t hear anything, but Iknewthat he was behind me, a step behind, eyes wide and empty even of hunger. I’d never known anything with such certainty before. He ran at my heels, and he could have reached out and trailed his cold fingers across the back of my neck without even a stretch—

I slowed and stopped, turned slowly to look behind me. It wasn’t bravery. It was fatalistic terror, sheer and paralyzing. And it surrounded him like a smothering fog. He stood four inches away from me, eyes as brilliant as polished mirrors. I shuddered when he bared his teeth, but I couldn’t have moved, any more than I could have fought back. For the barest moment, something showed in his eyes, something naked and terrible under the emptiness. He reached out and took my hand, and laced his fingers with mine. And very carefully, squeezed.

Smiling, he let me go.

Without another word, he turned his back on me and walked away, a slow leisurely stroll as mocking as his Louisiana drawl. I watched him until he was out of sight around the corner, and only one thing came to my blank, shaken mind.

God help us.

Chapter Eleven

The Mirrors

Sylvia wouldn’t cry. In some way, that was worse than hysterical tears, because her face was ashen underneath that rich copper skin, her eyes dulled, her whole body racked with convulsive chills. She wrapped a thick oatmeal-colored afghan closer around her body and fought for composure, but it was a losing battle. I didn’t, for my part, feel much better. I couldn’t get the image of the park phantom out of my head; the vivid waiting shine of his eyes … every time I blinked, I saw them reflected on the dark curtain of my lids, staring.

“He was waiting for me,” Adam said, a slow soft whisper. He was standing motionless at the window, not looking out, just staring blankly at the patterns of moonlit leaves on the curtains. He didn’t look shaken. He looked withdrawn. “He knew just where to wait.”

Neither Sylvia nor I said anything. Adam’s rage exploded without warning, and he drove his hand against the window frame hard enough to shake the floor under my feet. When his hand fell back to his side, it left a perfect hand-shaped pattern in the compressed wood, decorated with fresh splinters at the edges. Adam’s temper passed as suddenly as it had come, leaving him empty; he stared in silence at the damage he’d done, then turned and walked over to sit down. He was within touching distance of Sylvia, but he didn’t try to touch her, just folded his hands up in angles under his chin. There was something alien and oddly familiar about the way he moved, the disjointed grace. It was a pale echo of what Pd seen from the creature in the park. My whole body prickled with the close approach of something I didn’t want to realize.

“I killed him,” Sylvia murmured, and her fingers paled in the folds’ of the afghan as she tugged at it again. A human, living man would have gone to her and put his arms around her, sensing her distress; Adam just sat in silence. It wouldn’t comfort her, I realized, to fed his cold skin against her just now. “God damn him, he’s dead, he’s dead, I watched him bum!”

Adam looked away, deliberately removing himself from the whirlpool of her pain. Sylvia stood up, a shaky effort that made my muscles tighten in sympathy, and walked over to the blue-tiled bar. She poured herself a very tall drink, something amber and potent enough that I smelled it across the room; her trembling fingers made the glass chime against the lip of the bottle and then rattle on the tile as she tried to set it down. She picked the glass up and downed it in great, shaking gulps. When it was empty, she set it down with another rattle and poured again.

“He has to be dead,” she repeated. She didn’t say it like she believed it, though. Adam bent his head and rubbed at his neck, a human gesture of weariness that looked oddly out of place on him.

“Maybe he is. Maybe it wasn’t William that Michael saw,” Adam answered colorlessly. Sylvia slammed her hand down on the tile, hard, spilling drops of whiskey over the edge of her glass and in a little spray to the carpet. Adam avoided looking at her. Whatever was pushing them apart, it was very real, very painful; it wove its way into my gut and burned. I wanted to leave, but tonight had already taught me that there were worse things waiting outside.

Worse—yes, and he stood like an invisible ghost between the three of us, circling around us, driving us together like cattle. I could feel his presence. It showed in the tension of Adam’s shoulders, in Sylvia’s trembling, in my own gut-deep fear.

“You don’t really believe that,” Sylvia said flatly. “It was William. Right? Or do you really think your buddies in the fucking conclave have that sick a sense of humor?”

Adam slowly nodded, a gesture of defeat, not acknowledgment. She pulled in a deep breath and a deep drink of booze almost simultaneously.

“Are you telling me he could get up after being reduced to ashes and still come after us? Are you telling me that, Adam? He isn’t fucking indestructible, is he?” Her voice shook with desperation. She wanted to be comforted; she was human, she needed it. Adam didn’t notice, or couldn’t. He stared off at the shifting patterns on the curtains with a blank, quiet, intense face.

“No, I’m not telling you that. But I don’t know what to tell you.”

It wasn’t what she needed. Sylvia hung her head and wrapped her arms around her breasts in a convulsive shiver. I waited, but neither one of them continued.

“Look,” I finally said, and they both stiffened. “I know I’m an outsider, and this is private, but I need to know what’s going on. This guy knows who I am, you know. I’d like to have some idea who he is. Please.”

Adam traded a look with his lover, eyebrows raised in silent communication. She shrugged and drained the last of her whiskey, then went to perch on the arm of his chair. Adam’s hand went unconsciously around her waist, pulling her close; she noticed it no more than he did, but I saw both of their muscles relax.

“He’s a vampire,” Adam began simply. “The oldest vampire I know, mainly because he’s managed to kill all contenders for the title. Whatever he was in life, he’s become something totally alien now—alien to what we are as well as what we were. He’s a hunter. And he hunts us.

“I came to his attention about fifty years ago. In that time he’s destroyed most of what I love, and almost destroyed me, but he hasn’t won. Not yet.” Adam’s hand lifted and traced the pattern of Sylvia’s braided hair. The affectionate gesture was automatic, though; the look in his eyes was tormented and far away. “He isn’t after my death quite yet, you see. He’s taking me apart first, by torturing and killing those I love. Only then will he let me surrender, and die. Only then. Do you understand?”

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