Dead By Dusk

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 hell 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 hell 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 God knows what he intended."



"Hell, 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 hell is it between you two? Stop it, now!"



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



"Yeah, I saw the damned 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 glass sliding doors.



Liz.



She flew in, catching hold of the frame, staring at them all first, and trying to assess 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 hell 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 damned 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 ass! The hell 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 hell is your story?"



"You ass!" 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."



He turned to exit through the open glass doors. "Stephanie, you can't stay here with him," he called back.



"I'm in a towel!" she reminded him.



But Grant didn't go anywhere. She hadn't seen Lucien move, and she was certain that Grant hadn't, either.



But he was in front of Grant, blocking his way. "The police here will be involved," Lucien said, his temper seeming to have abated. He sounded tired, and little more.



"There's sun coming up out here, buddy. Sure you want to be in the light?" Grant asked. "I mean, you're a vampire."



Lucien let out a sound of irritation. "Sunlight robs vampires of some of their strength. It won't make them turn into ash or disappear," he said.



"Look, I'm not sure if you're lethal, or merely demented," Grant said firmly. "But one way or the other, we're going to the police."



"Will you two just listen?" Jade pleaded again. She strode to the two men, coming between them and placing a hand on Grant's chest, forcing him to look down at her. "I'm begging you—listen."



Grant's jaw was twisted but he looked over Jade's head, staring at Lucien. "Did you kill Maria Britto—or Gema Harris?"



"Before God, I didn't," Lucien said.



Grant frowned, staring skeptically at Jade again. "Did he say, 'before God'?"



"He's made his peace with his Maker," she said simply.



Grant stared a minute, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, this is just preposterous."



"Is it?" Jade demanded, staring at him again. "Admit it. You know that there is something really wrong here. You've been plagued by strange dreams. Your friends have experienced illnesses that can't be explained. A village girl was killed—and her own mother was willing to be judged insane in order to remove her head from her body." Grant was silent, staring at her. "When you're out at the dig, you find that you have a stranger feeling than ever. You two… you two split up because you were behaving so strangely—am I wrong?"



Grant darted a glance at Stephanie, then looked back at Jade. "He's a vampire?" he said, indicating Lucien with a thrust of his jaw.



"Actually, a vampire king," Jade murmured.



"Oh. The king," Grant said.



"There's a very long history that you can't begin to know or understand," Jade said.



"You're a vampire," Grant said to Lucien. "Prove it."



"Want me to snap your neck?" Lucien asked. "Or just bite it?"



Grant looked as if he were about to lunge at him. "Lucien!" Jade pleaded. She glared at her husband, then turned back to Grant. "There was a time when, naturally, his kind just did what they had to in order to survive. The world grew, the technological age came, and… anyway, a terrible dissension arose among those who wanted to survive with and protect humanity and those who wanted to live by the old rules. So now… the point is, he's here to protect you. Well, not just you, or even Stephanie, but to put down a really terrible evil that is alive in the world again."



"Okay… wait a minute, I think this is getting way too bizarre," Stephanie said, adding quickly, before Jade could protest, "but if you will all please go downstairs for a minute and let me get dressed, we can try—and I do mean try hard—to talk about it rationally."



All three of them stared at her.



"Please?" she said.



Jade turned and walked to the door and looked back at the men. "Lucien, Grant?"



Grant stepped by Lucien, following Jade. Lucien did the same.



When they were gone, Stephanie just stood there. They were insane! she tried to tell herself. But everything here lately was insane.



Maybe it had been so since she had arrived.



She flew into motion then, hurrying into the closet, scrambling into a pair of jeans and knit shirt, finding her shoes, putting them on. She hurried down the stairs.