Dead By Dusk

Jade had begun to make coffee.



To Stephanie's amazement, Grant and Clay were suddenly speaking intensely to one another, but not with hostility. Grant seemed to be very seriously listening to what Lucien had to say.



Jade flashed Stephanie a smile. It was the smile most women would give one another if their husbands had nearly come to blows over the outcome of a football game, or some other silly thing, and it had been prevented.



Lucien and Grant were seated at the dining table. Stephanie realized that they were talking about the dig.



"I believe that the earthquake caused either François de Venue or Valeria to be released," Lucien said.



"They must have been entombed when the quake struck centuries ago, but the recent shift caused them to be freed. As I said—one, or the other, or both. I felt it when it happened—and it was right after that, when I was reading Variety, that I saw the advertisements for comedians/improv actors who were willing to work indefinitely in Italy."



"Reggie put the ads out," Stephanie said, piping up. "And Reggie… well, she was around way before the last earthquake."



Lucien drummed on the table, mulling her words.



"Wait a minute," Grant said to Lucien. "You said that you felt it when it happened. What did you feel?"



"I have an extra… sense, I guess you'd say. I can usually feel it when there's a real rise of evil. I can usually pick out another vampire from miles away. But with this… I only felt the… rise. And a threat. A real threat."



"So what does that mean?" Grant asked cautiously.



"It means," Jade said, bringing the coffeepot and a handful of cups to the table, "that there's more involved than just a vampire."



"Just a vampire," Stephanie repeated. She accepted coffee from Jade and sat at the end of the table, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but…"



Lucien turned back to Grant. "Valeria had some kind of a fantastic power. They called her a witch—nothing to do with wiccans, today or yesterday, I assure you. But a witch, as in the fact that she came from a long line of women with unearthly powers. What happened then was that François de Venue became a vampire—whether it was in Paris, fighting the Crusades, conquering native populations elsewhere, I'm not certain. The point is—he had a certain power of his own. It must have been pretty strong, because—according to history, at least—she very nearly married Conan de Burgh. Instead, she rode with François de Venue. The legends have it that she could raise the wind, bring fog and rain, and create an army of devil dogs."



"What are devil dogs?" Stephanie heard herself ask. She gave herself a shake. She was listening to this.



She shouldn't.



But the two seemed to be speaking as if this were all so par for the course!



And despite herself…



She couldn't forget the way Grant had been.



She couldn't forget her own dreams.



And mostly…



She couldn't forget how she had felt, finding herself on a precipice, not at all sure how or why she had gotten there.



She had been stirring sugar into her coffee. She realized that her hands were shaking. She set down her cup.



"Devil dogs, or demon dogs," Jade mused, looking at Lucien.



He looked at her and Grant. She realized that Lucien's eyes were really red and gold. She had always noted his eyes. Always noted a way about him, the smooth, easy, animal agility with which he moved.



She had always recognized something different about him.



She checked herself—she was believing all of this.



And yet… with everything else…



Why not?



She found herself staring at Grant, who was looking back at her. She realized that, after his initial disdain, he was listening.



Maybe he was too willing to believe. He had a hardened look about his jaw. As if…



Almost as if he were feeling vindicated, and more powerful, now that he might have a direction in which to go. A sense of warmth snaked along her spine. Whatever she had said or done, no matter how confused things had been, she realized, he'd always been willing to fight for her. No matter how she'd rejected him, he'd come back.



She forced her eyes back to Lucien and Jade.



"Do you know what they were talking about—devil dogs?" she asked.



Jade deferred to Lucien. He shook his head. "Not werewolves," he murmured.



"Werewolves," Grant said flatly. "They exist?"



"Yes," Lucien said. "As a matter of fact—before you make a joke—one of my best friends and closest associates is a werewolf."



Stephanie glanced at Grant. He looked back.



Okay, maybe this is all insane, his look seemed to say.



"I believe that the demon dogs are something that the witch—or sorceress—Valeria is able to raise. But where she gets them, or what they are, exactly, I don't know," Lucien said. "Jade has been studying all the old texts she can get her hands on to find out more about them, but…"



Grant shook his head suddenly. "Okay, let's say that François de Venue was released from whatever tomb or prison the earth had held him in. He killed Maria Britto, and Gema. Let's say he even played with Lena, and probably Suzette. If he's a vampire, with all this power—and certainly, Maria's body was torn to shreds—why hasn't he just gone crazy? Why didn't he kill Lena outright? Or Suzette? And if the police came after him, assumably, he could make quick work of the police."



"I'm not sure he's to that point yet," Jade said.



"If he's been buried for centuries, he needed to slake his hunger first, regain his strength," Lucien said.



"I'm willing to bet that, eventually, they'll find out that some missing persons were killed around here.



Bodies will turn up. In the old days, there were rules—a vampire had to destroy his, or her, kills, and only create three new beings of his kind per century."



Again, Stephanie and Grant exchanged glances.



This time, Lucien sighed impatiently. "All right, I know that this is a lot for the two of you to take in. And that, of course, is why I didn't just come to you from the very beginning and try to say all this—you would have been completely determined to have me locked up."



"If you're really a vampire," Grant said, "couldn't you have just hypnotized us into some kind of submission? Or is that just myth, too?"



"No. I could have done all manner of things," Lucien said evenly. "I didn't."



Stephanie gasped suddenly. This couldn't be real. The man couldn't be a vampire.



And yet…



"Your arm!" she exclaimed to Lucien. "It was blistered horribly, but…"



"I have incredible powers of recuperation," he told her.



"So that was just from the seawater that was splashed on you when we dragged the little boy out of the water?" she said.



"Actually, everyone managed to get quite a bit of it on me," he said dryly. He looked at Grant. "You know my weakness. I hope you don't share it."



"We're still talking," Grant said.



"All right, so this vampire needs to gain strength," Stephanie said.



"I think there's more to it than that," Lucien told her.



"Like what?" Grant asked.



"He has a plan," Lucien said.



Stephanie shook her head. "Like what?"



"I don't know that yet. If he were just working with the growing powers of one of my own kind, I would know," Lucien said, and his frustration was very real. "But Valeria… whatever her sorcery, it's different, and very powerful. Because of her, he is somehow able to shield himself—just as she shields herself. If she has been awakened as well—which seems to be evident—she is very dangerous. Historically, reviews on her are mixed. Some people believe that François had a hold over her, and that she only used her power for evil—to kill and ravage—because François could hurt her—somehow. Then there are others who believed that she was simply evil incarnate herself. The truth, we don't know."



"What do you know?" Grant asked.



Lucien glanced at Jade, then sat back, drumming his fingers on the table again. He looked at Grant. "I know that you're involved."



"I'm not a vampire dug up out of the ground!" Grant protested strongly. "You can check on my background, all the way back to nursery school!"



"I never suggested that you were François. But I know it—and you know it. You're involved. Admit it.



You felt you had to come here. And you really didn't know that Stephanie would be here."



Grant was silent, staring at him.



"Steph—you came because of the job. But if you look deep inside, you'll know that every word we're saying is true. You were being summoned. You can't deny it. And if you deny it to me, you still can't lie to yourself. When we found you on the cliff, you had no idea what you were doing, where you were going—or why. Right?"



She, too, just stared at him in silence.



"What do we do?" she asked carefully after a minute.



"First, I need some help. I can't keep slipping in and out of places, trying to get crosses around people's necks," Lucien said. "And dammit—where's yours?" he asked Stephanie.



She started. "You made that old man give me a cross?"



He shook his head. "He knows," he said softly. "A lot of these people know. They are actually smarter here than in many a place, because they haven't been so attuned to machinery, technology, and modern culture that they've forgotten there can be more than meets the eye."



"So… the people here just know… that there are vampires among them?" Stephanie said.



Grant inhaled suddenly and looked at Lucien. "This person, or creature—François. He did kill Gema—but he didn't destroy her immediately. She died, and became a vampire. And he let her go after Drew and Doug, and somehow, she failed with Drew, but she got to Doug… and he would have died, except that Drew found him and they got enough blood into him fast enough. But the arm on my doorstep—it was Gema's arm. Right?"