Page 63 of The Undead

“Well,” Adam murmured, mildly irritated. He turned the key again. There wasn’t even a dick. He frowned, took the key out of the ignition, and glanced under the dashboard. I saw his face go blank. His hand came up, pulling a nest of tangled and slashed wire.

Someone laughed, a low and vicious sound like sandpaper on skin. Sylvia’s body jerked hard against the upholstery as she tried to bury herself in it; I could feel her trembling through the frame of the car, the frenzied race of her pulse. The smell of her fear and adrenaline spilled through the night air, a mortal’s most basic, most intoxicating perfume.

“It’s him,” Sylvia whispered. Her voice was rich with tears and rage. Disbelieving, even now. “God—”

“Near as makes no difference to you,” William agreed from the darkness. I can’t believe you folks, sightseein’ at night in graveyards. You three sure are more fun than any of the others.”

“Get out of the car,” Adam told us in a colorless voice. Sylvia reached out and grabbed his arms, mutely desperate. He removed it as gently as he could and opened the driver’s side. He got out and shut it with a click, then walked around to stand next to where Sylvia still sat huddled. “We’ll have to walk, Syl. You have to try.”

“I can’t. Not with him—”

William laughed again. I felt Adam’s rage flash, and disappear, though it never showed on his face at all. He opened Sylvia’s door and extended a hand to her.

She took it and left the car, clinging to him. I got out and fell in next to Sylvia, just a little behind. We moved as a group back up to the graveyard fence. A little morning mist was rising from the lake, and it spilled over into the street in ghost-white weedy tangles. I caught myself staring at the eastern horizon. How light was it?

“We have to hurry,” Adam said, as if he knew what I was thinking. I nodded. He shifted his hold on Sylvia’s arm and turned her to face him. I could almost fed the power of his intense stare as he looked at her—as if he wanted to somehow envelop her, to surround her with his body and protect her from what he knew must come. “Syl, come on. I won’t let him take you.”

“Promise me,” she whispered. She was on the trembling edge of horror, the past’s bloody phantoms crowding forward to push her over the brink. “Dear God, Adam, please promise me you won’t let him have me. I’ll do anything, anything—”

She meant that. Anything. He mutely lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, then tugged on her hand to lead her along. We followed the cracked and broken sidewalk around the side; this side of Eternal Gardens wasn’t as well maintained as the wealthy district where I’d left my mortal past. We were heading toward the end of the cemetery, toward the sparser grass, withering bushes, and untended graves of the newer section. Sylvia walked without looking right or left, just straight ahead with fevered, intense eyes that only hinted at the distress she felt.

And William followed us, a distant harsh pressure, silent as the gliding clouds. Waiting. Adam stepped up the pace as we approached the end of the cemetery, and I realized he was heading for the bright lights of the main cross street, where there were telephones and cabs to be had.

Ahead of us, the white glow of the streetlight faded and died. Adam’s hesitation was barely noticeable, but he reached out and put Sylvia’s hand in mine.

“Hold on to her,” he said to me, too quietly for her to catch. There was something in the darkness ahead, something that gave off no heartbeat or human smell, a cold black hungering hole in the shadow with ice-white eyes and a hyena’s smile. Sylvia’s fingers trembled and burned on mine, tightened in alarm as the realized Adam had let go. I held her when Adam stepped away, and she gave a wordless cry of protest when he advanced further into the darkness.

Even with vampiric sight it was so hard to see William, so difficult to predict his moves. He came out of the shadows as if they’d bled him, a smooth liquid glide. He stopped just where the light could touch him and illuminate him enough for Sylvia’s eyes to recognize. I felt that recognition go through her like a lethal voltage, and her pulse stuttered and stumbled under the load of fear that shot through her system. She nearly fainted. It was a tribute to her strength that she stayed on her feet, stayed quiet, while Adam faced their enemy.

“You might as well give her up now,” William said in his dreamy slow voice. His smile was a black slash in the dark. “You know I’ll have her—tonight, tomorrow, next month, next year. You can’t stay with her all the time. Even all the night time?

“What do you want?” Adam demanded. His voice—and his body—hummed with tense, frustrated rage. “Do you want my apology? Do you want me to crawl to you? To kiss your goddamned feet? What do youwant?”

“We’ve had this little discussion before, boy, and you haven’t learned a thing. I don’t want nothing from you, Johnny Reb, ’cept your pain. Pain that goes on and on, forever and ever? William’s voice dropped to a new pitch, low and cold. The lack of emotion in it was as frightening as his honeyed Southern drawl. “You’ll crawl, when I’m done with you. You’ll do anything I want. You should have done it in the beginning, when you had a chance. You could have avoided all this mess, if you’d just done what was natural?

Adam didn’t say anything. William looked over at me, a smile hardening on that dead face like instant glue.

“You’re teachin’ that boy some bad habits? he murmured. “She ain’t no lady-fair to be protected. She’s food, plain and simple. The sooner you all learn that, the happier you’re gonna be.”

He moved. It happened before Adam could do more than shout a warning; no matter how quick I thought Adam was, he was nothing next to this creature, no stronger than I was in my newborn vampiric life. William tossed his body carelessly out of the way and came for us.

Game for Sylvia.

I got in the way. William’s hands fastened around my throat, a grip so tight I felt my flesh creak and give under the pressure. He jerked, straight up, and I was airborne. My grip on Sylvia’s sweat-dampened hand was broken almost instantly, but it served to drag her forward just that one step to William’s arms.

Her scream was the most horrible thing I have ever heard. It seemed to echo forever in the silence of the dead night, raw and pleading. I hit the cemetery fence hard enough to bend rust-streaked metal bars and collapsed to the ground. Stunned, but not really hurt. By the time I came to my feet, he had his arms around Sylvia, holding her tight against his chest in a parody of an embrace while her arms and legs flailed and spasmed in horrified rejection.

“No!” Adam screamed, as he got to his feet. William slipped his hands under Sylvia’s neck and tilted her face upward, to William, to the moon, a near-fatal angle. One swift upward jerk would kill her as effectively as a bullet to the heart.

“Think about it,” he warned us softly. Sylvia whimpered and stopped fighting him; she was limp against him, except for involuntary trembling. The smell of her sweat and terror overrode every other scent in the night, even the stench of pollution and old filth. She was in the last extremity of fear. Her heart pounded and struggled in her chest, the fierce struggle she couldn’t show outside. “One move, Adam, I swear you’ll watch me snap her like a stick.”

Adam stood there like a statue, but his eyes, his eyes—red, burning, spilling over a rage so strong that I could feel its force even from where I waited, frozen. William massaged Sylvia’s neck gently, stroking the veins with his long cool fingers. I saw the flash of her green eyes as she opened them in involuntary pleading, and then they closed again.

She didn’t make a sound.

“Let her go, William. I’ll do what you want,” Adam told him. The other vampire looked at him, mildly amused.

“Will you do that? You never learn. You’ll do what I want anyway, now, won’t he, pretty baby? He’ll do everything the way I want, when I want, because he just ain’t good enough to do things any other way.” William grinned, a smile punctuated by the needle-sharp-gleam of fangs. He lifted Sylvia’s wrist to his mouth and kissed it. I saw her jerk as he bit down—just a playful bite, enough to wet his fangs, not enough to sever a vein. She made a choked sound of terror. I saw it go through Adam like a knife, but he held on in spite of it. “Tell you what, Adam, why don’t I just walk the pretty lady on home. It’s awful late for her to be out, don’t you think? And walking with such bad dements. Why, it’s my civic duty to take care of her.”

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