Vampire - Dead By Dusk Part 35

She ran up the stairs, turned on more lights, and washed her face. She stepped into the shower and let the water run, then froze.

A shadow seemed to have swept through her room.

She turned off the water and stood dead still.

Listening.

She waited. Nothing.

At last, as quietly as she could, she opened the gla.s.s door and groped for her towel, looking out to the bedroom.

Nothing.

She wrapped the towel around her, and tentatively stepped into the bedroom. The lights were on, as she had left them. The gla.s.s doors were locked; the draperies were still.

She exhaled, and knew she had to run downstairs-if she didn't, she'd never sleep.

Clutching her towel, she started down the stairs. Step by step.

The lights were blazing. As she had left them.

She stepped more quickly, hurrying down to the first-floor landing. She checked the hall closet, then the kitchen, and the doors that led to the beach. Everything was locked, as she had left it. And she wasn't turning the lights off. She'd have to worry about conservation at some later date.

At the foot of the stairs, she made one long, last a.s.sessment of her ground-floor area.

Lights were on, doors were locked, place was empty.

She started back up the stairs, reached the landing, and headed to her bedroom area. There, she paused, dead still, terror gripping her heart.

The draperies were breezing in, like great, puffy white ghosts, billowing.

The back door was open.

There seemed to be... a shadow. A shadow emerging, growing, from the corner of the room.

A shadow... Quickly gone.

For suddenly, the whole of the little cottage was plunged into darkness.

Chapter 14.

Liz had waited until Suzette and Lena left the lobby, walking out arm in arm to Suzette's cottage.

She had no intention of waiting around until breakfast.

Her room was on the second floor of the main resort, facing the cottages. She hurried to it. Opening the door, she looked in.

"Clay?"

There was no answer. Nor had he left her a message of any kind.

She strode across to the window. From her vantage point, she could see the area of the beach on both the left and the right, and the entries to most of the cottages.

She could see Stephanie's place, ablaze with light.

She could see Lena and Suzette, just reaching the latter's cottage. Lena was standing at the door, looking around, apparently urging Suzette to join her. Her arms were wrapped around her chest.

Lena was digging in her purse for her room key.

She surveyed the beach area the best she could.

It remained quiet.

Then, she saw it.

A sweeping black shadow, descending.

Then, Stephanie Cahill's place plunged into darkness.

Her heart slammed.

The time had come.

Turning away from the window, she raced out of her room, heedless of the door flying closed behind her.

She was desperate to make it out of the resort, and over to the cottage in time.

Stephanie stood in the total darkness, blinking and frozen, staring into the corner where she had seen the shadow.

There was a commotion at the gla.s.s doors, someone coming through, entangling in the billowing drapes.

Previous Top NextShe wore nothing but a towel, and carried no weapon, but instinct warned her of the most acute and terrible danger.

She needed something, anything!

Then, suddenly, there was more noise at the sliding gla.s.s doors and the draperies weren't just billowing, they were exploding into her room. As they did so, the complete and sudden black was eased.

Outside, the dawn was coming at last.

And now, in the pale light, she saw that her draperies had been cleanly pulled from the curtain rod. It appeared that they had turned into a ma.s.sive ball on her floor.

Staring in that direction, she caught some movement with her peripheral vision. But it was nothing, just the shadow fading.

She heard grunts then, and the sound of a well-delivered punch.

Her sense of terror faded, to be replaced by one of fury. She recognized the sounds coming from the knot of her ruined draperies.

"Dammit, what the h.e.l.l are you two doing?"

Walking over to the ball of entangled humanity on her floor, she tore at the drapes, then yelled at Clay Barton and tugged at Grant's hair.

"What the h.e.l.l are the two of you doing?" she demanded, struggling to maintain her dignity despite the towel.

Tousled, heaving, eyes lethal as they surveyed one another, both Clay and Grant rose, circling like boxers.

Stephanie still held several strands of Grant's hair in her hand. He hadn't even noticed losing them.

"Stop it! What's going on?" she demanded.

"He was headed here," Grant accused Clay. "And G.o.d knows what he intended."

"h.e.l.l, no! I was after you!" Clay fired back.

"Liar!" Grant shouted, ready to lunge again.

"Wait!" Stephanie caught hold of his arm. He shook her off without notice, eyes lethally narrowed on Clay, every muscle in his body clenched and taut. Clay stood his ground, surveying Grant in return with a cool contempt.

"No!" Stephanie roared, coming between the two. "This is insane. This is my room. You've ruined my drapes, you jerks. What the h.e.l.l is it between you two? Stop it, now!"

"I saw the shadow," Clay said, staring at Grant.

"Yeah, I saw the d.a.m.ned shadow-you!" Grant accused him in return.

So far, neither one of them had made a jab at the other with her between them. But not a bit of the flaming anger or boiling testosterone seemed to diminish.

"Grant, I really, desperately, want you to calm down and talk to me," Stephanie said.

"Talk, all right! I'll talk. Guess what?-I just searched the Internet. There was a Clay Barton-a fellow with this man's name and resume, and even his looks. Seems one thing was different about him, though. He had AIDS-and he died a year ago!"

"Oh, you checked the Internet, did you?" Clay demanded in return.

At that moment, Stephanie whirled around as someone else came flying through the gla.s.s sliding doors. Liz.

She flew in, catching hold of the frame, staring at them all first, and trying to a.s.sess the situation.

"Lucien!" she cried out, racing toward him.

"Lucien!" Grant exploded. "I told you the guy was an impostor. And a murderer, I think."

"No!" Liz protested. She had slipped an arm around the man she had called Lucien and stared at the both of them, and then at him. "Dammit, you've got to tell them the truth!"

"Yeah, I'd sure as h.e.l.l like the truth!" Grant said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Wait a minute! I'm the director of the show," Stephanie protested. "If someone has been lying to me-"

"Stephanie, this doesn't have a d.a.m.ned thing to do with the show, does it?" Grant demanded, staring at the two of them. "Does it-Liz? Or is that your name? It isn't, is it?"

"Jade," she said.

Stephanie, totally puzzled, stared blankly for a moment. She pointed at the man she had known as Clay. "All right, your name is Lucien. And you're Jade. And, of course, you know one another very well, I take it."

"We're married," Jade explained.

"Great. He's married. Trying to pick up other women."

"You a.s.s! The h.e.l.l I did!" Lucien responded.

"Will you two stop!" Liz exploded.

"Let's see, your real name is Lucien, you're married to this other fraud who is really named Jade, and you've been following my woman like a tick on a dog; so just what the h.e.l.l is your story?"

"You a.s.s!" Lucien repeated, standing with muscles as taut as Grant's.

"I'm not your 'woman,' like a serf, or a piece of property!" Stephanie exclaimed to Grant.

He turned to her then, frustrated, drawing ragged hair away from his eyes. His expression clearly denoted that she was arguing semantics in the middle of chaos. "It refers to the person I love!" he said; indignant and distracted. "And is meant in no way possessive or... Sweet Jesus! This is not the point. What is going on?"

"You've got to tell them the truth!" Jade said to Lucien. "You should have told them the truth from the beginning."

"Oh, indeed. I should have just said, hey, I'm a vampire, and something is going on here that's not right. Did I say 'vampire'?

Sorry, don't panic-I'm a good one these days?" he said skeptically to Liz-or Jade.

"Vampire!" Grant exploded. "Get real, and do it fast."

"Or what?" Lucien said icily."Lucien!"

Lucien looked at his wife. "He's dying to take another really good jab at me. I should let him go for it."

"Feel free to strike first," Grant said with cold courtesy.

"Dammit! Both of you, stop!" Stephanie said, desperately trying to get control. She realized she'd reacted with sheer emotion to a few things said here tonight herself, but it was all beginning to border on the truly insane.

"You two have to listen!" Jade pleaded. Tense silence followed her words. "He... really is a vampire," she said, then she held up a hand, as if she could prevent people from talking by doing so. "I came close... so I know what's happening here. In the real world, you can be tainted, and not turned, and survive. Only if help is immediate, as it was for Doug tonight. Once someone dies from a bite... then it's over. And the only way to end it is fire, the ocean... sea water, or a stake through the heart and decapitation."

After her words, the silence remained. A pin could have been heard dropping.

Then Grant spoke at last. "We've got to get the police."