Vampire - Dead By Dusk Part 14

The two of them left, Clay saying they should go through the restaurant and get her something to eat so she could bolster her strength. Lena demurred, but then agreed.Disturbed, and not at all sure why, Stephanie called to Doug.

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor. Clay is walking Lena back to her room, but will you go, too? She really doesn't seem to be well at all. Just make sure that everything is all right."

"Whatever you say," Doug said. "Hey, now there's a change for you. Suzette is the one who should be down this morning."

"Oh? We were at the local cafe, an old place that opened... well, centuries ago, I guess. And we had a lot of local wine. But here we are-Drew, Suzette, and myself-hale and hearty."

"I thought Clay Barton was joining you as well," Stephanie said.

Doug lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "Yeah, we thought he was coming, too. He never showed up. Anyway, I'll go after them, just make sure they're both all right."

"Thanks."

Stephanie watched him go. She glanced at her watch. It was barely eleven; Grant wouldn't be there until one. She'd been fitted; Lena's costume had been left behind, Clay's was already set for alterations as well. They'd worked hard for long hours yesterday, and the rehearsals would go much smoother once Grant showed up.

"Hey, boss lady!" Drew called to her. "I think our costumer is leaving. So what's up next?"

"The beach," Stephanie said.

"What?" Suzette demanded, coming toward her.

"The beach. We'll break today. I don't think any of us made it in to breakfast. It's eleven now-we'll meet here again at one.

Until then... get some lunch, get some sun, or run around the local shops."

"Really?" Suzette said.

Drew nudged her with an elbow. "Hey, yeah, really! I'm hitting the streets. You can come with me if you want. We can wait for Drew and Clay. Two hours of daylight. We need to move fast. Then we can grab food that we can carry-"

"You know, there actually is no McDonald's here," Suzette said.

"Okay, okay, we sit down, we eat, we run. We dash back to our places, jump into suits, and lie on the sand. Stephanie, are you with us?"

She shook her head. "I'm grabbing bread, cheese, meat, a few bottles of water, and heading straight for the sand."

"Bread and wine and thee. Maybe we should do the same?" he suggested to Suzette.

"I don't care what we do, but make up your mind. Our minutes are a-wasting!" Suzette said, grinning at Stephanie.

Stephanie started toward the rear of the cafe.

"Hey, your bungalow is that way!" Drew told her.

"I'm just going to check with Arturo, see if he can't get the local doctor to look in on Lena. Then I'll be out there, okay?" "Sound decision," Drew said gravely. "We'll just grab Doug and Clay, and be with you in the wink of an eye!"

What hadn't seemed at all painstaking or tedious to Grant before now seemed like utmost misery.

He didn't want to give up his work on the dig because of a far-fetched belief that something strange was going on. Something he didn't understand, couldn't figure out, and might be a total fabrication of his imagination. While he dusted bones-with a smaller brush than ever before, now that the forensic anthropologists had arrived-he tried to decide just what it was that disturbed him so deeply. He tried to tell himself that he was in a mid-life crisis, but if so, it was a sad thing, since he was only thirty-three. But it wasn't, and he knew it, and what bothered him more than anything was that he was pretty sure his own bizarre behavior had begun right about the time that the site here had originally been discovered.

All right-maybe, somewhere, he had read about all the activity in the region in the centuries in which the Crusades had taken place. Maybe he'd even heard the legends about the place, and so, in his subconscious, with his love of the ancient, he had come up with some correlation that was so deeply imbedded in his mind that he couldn't tell reality from fantasy.

Man, that was a load of bull!

He paused in his work. He was alone at his particular site, but right around the bend of the cliff, he could hear Carlo Ponti droning on along with some of the new people who had arrived; they were disinterring one of the skeletons, and the work there was being performed by the experts, and only the experts.

Today, he was working on his hands and knees on the very fine task of preparing the next fellow to be lifted and taken to the museum in Naples. This fellow had patches of naturally mummified skin remaining, and many fragments of clothing. Though he certainly hadn't been dressed in the full armor of a knight, he'd owned some kind of metal-and-wood s.h.i.+eld, and though in pieces, there were lots of fragments to be delicately worked around. Yet, as he knelt on the ground, taking extreme care as he had been taught, his eyes wandered, and he frowned.

Just beneath the yellow stretch of plastic cord that designated the work area, there appeared to be a mound of dirt. Grant didn't remember the earth rising in that strange fas.h.i.+on before.

He sat back and stared at it.

A cold sensation swept his neck.

He dropped his work brush and came to his feet. Striding over to the area, he knelt down again.

The cold continued.

He began to dig, with his hands alone.

There was something there.

There was someone there.

Dirt, foliage, and tiny pebbles flew.

He stopped, his breath caught in his throat. The dirt filled his lungs, and he started to cough. He had come upon another body.

Only, this one wasn't centuries old.

The scent of death struck him, and he choked again, then fought down a swift rise of nausea.Indeed, it was the smell of death.

And he'd not discovered a beached dolphin.

He sank back on his legs, exhausted, overwhelmed by a sense of sadness and despair. Then, after a moment, he managed to rise.

Sweaty, covered in dirt, he walked around to where Carlo Ponti worked.

"You found something else!" Carlo exclaimed.

"I'm afraid so."

"Afraid?"

"Yes, afraid. I think I've found the missing girl. Maria Britto."

Arturo a.s.sured Stephanie that he would get a doctor for Lena. "There is a local man, of course. Doctor Antinella. I will make sure that he sees Lena this afternoon. How odd, though! None of our staff or guests has shown the least sign of a flu."

"Well, she definitely has something," Stephanie a.s.sured him. "Anyway, I'm heading to the sand for a while."

"The sand?"

"The beach. We're going to take a little break."

"Lovely, lovely!" Arturo applauded.

"Think we could take some bread and cheese out there, something like that?" Stephanie asked.

"But of course!" Arturo a.s.sured her happily. "I will have it sent."

Stephanie thanked him and returned to her own cottage.

This morning, it looked bright and beautiful. It was amazing what one good night's sleep could do. Usually, she hated taking sleep aids of any kind. They usually left her tired in the morning, or groggy. Apparently, she had simply needed me deep sleep, because she didn't feel groggy at all. Just pleased that the world seemed so... normal.

She changed into a bathing suit, grabbed her towel, lotion, and a book. When she went out back, there were a few sunbathers stretched out on towels or resort lawn chairs, and a woman with two young children was watching them as they frolicked in the surf.

She stretched out her own towel, but the water was inviting. She wondered if it would be warm, and decided to find out.

Hurrying to the sh.o.r.e, she felt the water trickle over her feet and was delighted.

She plunged in, swimming out, thinking that the salt water was absolutely wonderful. It felt especially delicious, since even at the best of times, the lake water in Illinois was chilly. She floated for several minutes, swam again, enjoying the feel of using her muscles, then headed back into sh.o.r.e.

She paused, a bit out, and saw that the others had arrived. Suzette was fetching in a risque bikini, Doug and Drew were in shorts, and Clay was there, but he was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved, tailored s.h.i.+rt. He didn't look like he was going swimming.She swam to the shallow, and stood in water that was about two feet deep and started walking out.

She had just stepped from the water when she heard screaming. Turning quickly to the sound, she was horrified to see one of the two chubby-cheeked children who had been playing in the shallows was too far out, and struggling in stronger waves. She started to run to the water, plunged in, and headed out.

It had seemed a calm day with easy waves, but the water could always be deceptive. The child was being quickly washed southward and away from sh.o.r.e. The woman who had been with him was still screaming.

Stephanie swam as hard and as fast as she could. Though it couldn't have been long, it seemed like forever. Finally, her fingers contacted a little leg. She caught the child across the chest in a lifesaving hold and made for the sh.o.r.e.

As she neared it, hands reached out. Doug had come into the shallows and was reaching for the child. Though he was small, Stephanie quickly gave up her little burden. She was panting.

She rested a moment, then came somewhat awkwardly to her feet and walked against the water to reach the sand.

The boy was down on a towel. Doug had come to her a.s.sistance, but it was Clay manipulating the boy to clear his lungs and throat, and giving him mouth-to-mouth. Just as she reached his side, the little boy rocketed out a geyser of water and began to cough and sputter. The woman stepped in then, sweeping him up, patting him on the back. She was crying and laughing at the same time, speaking in rapid Italian. She kept trying to hug and kiss Clay and Doug while holding the child. Stephanie watched, feeling a little underappreciated, but yet, delighted that the little one seemed fine, and had suffered no serious consequences. The little boy started to cry, clinging to his mother. Doug kept saying in English that everything was fine, and that he'd done nothing, and Clay was saying something to her in Italian.

She saw Stephanie then and rushed over to her, hugging, smas.h.i.+ng the child between them, and thanking her effusively again.

Stephanie felt ashamed.

The noise had alerted Arturo. He came out with extra towels, and, after a great deal of excitement, he, the woman, and both children left the beach area.

"Well, there's some excitement for you!" Suzette said, standing near their towels. "Maybe that means we're just supposed to work through the days, no matter what."

"Ah-or it meant that we were supposed to be right where we were! Hey, good for you, Steph! You are the woman of the moment."

She shrugged. "I was closest."

"And good thing you were. Clay can't swim."

Amused, Stephanie looked at him with surprise. "You-can't swim?"

"I loathe the water," he admitted.

"Imagine-Mr. Macho, Muscles, and facial-features-to-grace-a-Grecian-coin, can't swim!" Drew said, finding it somewhat amusing-and, apparently, pleasing.

She laughed as well, looking at Clay. "Everyone has different talents. But, hey, good place to be working then-right on the beach!"

"I don't mind looking at the water," Clay said. "Well, congratulations-you did do great."

"Doug helped, and hey, you did the CPR.""Well, you know, what the heck, we are an ensemble," Clay said with a shrug.

"Arturo brought us out a special sparkling wine. I accepted it graciously, but was going to save it for later, since we have the afternoon ahead of us," Suzette said. "The food came out before your glorious rescue-don't go getting the idea that Arturo paused to extol the wine in the middle of a trauma! Anyway, after that, I say we pop the cork on the stuff!"

"Sure," Stephanie agreed. "How loaded can we all get on one bottle? We can have a pot of coffee brought in to our rehearsals."

She noticed that Clay had a wet towel on his arm. "Hey!" she told him. "Let me take that-you're dressed, and you'll wind up soaked."

"It's all right. I'm already soaked," he said.

She reached for the towel impatiently. "I'll take it!"

Apparently, he hadn't expected her to grab at the towel. She took it easily.

Her eyes widened.

His arm looked horrible. As if he had just been badly burned. She gasped aloud. "Your arm! What on earth-"

"What? I didn't see anything wrong with him," Suzette said.

"Look! You've got blisters-" Stephanie said.

"It's nothing!" Clay snapped out the words, then gritted his teeth. "Honestly... a reaction to the sun and salt. It's all right. It will be fine tomorrow."

"You need to see a doctor!" Stephanie protested.

"I'm telling you, it's just a reaction. Honestly, please don't worry. Listen, I'm not hanging around to picnic anyway. Don't worry about me. I'll put some lotion on it-and I'll change to a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt. It will be fine, really. Hey, good picnic, guys. I'll see you at one!"

With a wave, he left them, long strides taking him quickly away, toward his bungalow.

"Wow, poor guy!" Drew said.

"Yeah, but..." Doug began.