Kiss of Darkness

Jessica burst into Montresse House, terrified that everything had gone wrong, that the Master had come and called out to Mary, who was still under his thrall, and had been unable to fight back, even with Gareth's help. Jeremy and Nancy would have been useless, and against the Master, what hope could Stacey and Gareth have had?



Gareth was at the front door. He stared at her with concern, then slowly arched a brow. She knew why. She never returned to her own house in leather, lace and latex. Tonight, however, she had been in far too great a hurry to worry about a costume change.



"The others...they're all right?" she demanded.



He nodded, looking perplexed. "Of course. You were the one at the party. The Master-"



"The Master didn't show," she said briefly. With disbelief, she added, "He didn't come here?"



"Everything's fine," he assured her. "I was down here most of the night, but I just checked upstairs. Stacey and Jeremy are awake-and Mary, of course. Nancy is sleeping like a babe in arms."



Frowning, Jessica started up the stairs. She heard Gareth setting the locks again in her wake.



As she had ordered, Mary was confined to one small area, encircled by bowls of holy water, strings of garlic and crosses. She was apparently comfortable enough; they'd provided her with a pillow and blanket, and plenty of O-positive.



Stacey and Jeremy were seated across the room from her, wide awake. As soon as he saw her, Jeremy leapt to his feet.



"Jessica!" he cried with relief.



Stacey, too, jumped up. "Jessica...thank God you're here. But you look like hell. What happened? Is he...?"



Jessica shook her head. "Tonight was a setup," she said flatly. She walked in, then sank down on the bed.



Jeremy was still, staring at her. "My God," he breathed.



She had forgotten that Jeremy hadn't known that she was the dominatrix.



"You never saw the Master?" Stacey said.



"No. He never showed."



"But you're...pretty beat-up," Stacey said.



"Yes."



"All right." Stacey quickly became her efficient self. "A shower is in order. I'll tell Gareth to make you something to eat. It's nearly dawn. Nothing else is going to happen tonight-I hope. And you have to get some rest. And soon..." Her eyes moved to Mary, looking angelic inside her strange prison. "Soon Mary will sleep. Then we'll have to-" She broke off with a startled scream. The bedside phone had started to ring. "I routed all calls in here," she explained. "But who the hell would be calling now?"



"I've got it," Jessica assured her. She rolled over and picked up. "Hello?"



"Jessica? Thank God."



It was Maggie.



"Yes?"



"As soon as the sun rises, get over here."



"Maggie, what's happened?" Her heart sank. "It's the Master, isn't it? What did he do?"



"I'll tell you about it as soon as you come over."



"I'm on my way."



"No! Wait till it's light. He's still out there."



Jessica winced, tightening her fingers around the phone. "How many?"



"Two," Maggie said softly. "They were found with their throats slit."



"Where?"



Maggie hesitated, took a deep breath, then said, "The hospital. They were cops. Jessica, stay there till sunrise, do you hear me? I swear, I won't tell you anything if you don't listen to me."



"I'll see you soon, Maggie." She hung up. Stacey was staring at her. "Well, I know where he was tonight," she said softly.



"Where?"



"The hospital. He killed two cops. That's all I know so far. I've got to go."



"You have to change before you go out again," Stacey told her. "Get in the shower-quickly. It's nearly dawn."



"All right." She started toward the bathroom, then froze. She should go now. Bryan MacAllistair was out there somewhere, as well. Would he come here? Would he believe her if she told him what was going on? Worse than that...could he possibly be...?



No.



Butif he was, did he know that she...?



No.



Because hewould have killed her already if he knew.



But how long would it take him to figure it out?



As Bryan brought the girl to the hospital, he saw the police cars and commotion going on. There were already news crews prowling the perimeter. And despite the fact it wasn't quite daylight, people were beginning to appear on the street, anxious to know what had happened. With that much of a crowd, there were rumors in abundance.



He had shed the old coat that held his weapons, then hung around after he set the unconscious girl down in the emergency room to make sure an orderly found her quickly and called for a doctor.



"Drug overdose," he heard someone say wearily.



The girl was going to be all right. He could go outside and grill the lookie-loos.



"What's going on?" he asked the people around him.



"No one really knows yet," an anxious matron told him. "Someone said a couple of cops were viciously killed. Someone else said they got in a fight and killed each other."



Behind him, a girl, hugging her arms around her chest, offered, "They say they were nearly decapitated."



Bryan had a feeling there was only one way to get close to the scene. He walked around the growing crowd and found a place where a group of uniformed cops were hovering, waiting for orders.



"The whole thing is creepy. First there was that corpse that disappeared," one officer grumbled.



"Screw the corpse," another cop said bitterly. "Two of our own are dead."



There was silence for a minute.



The first cop said, "Do you believe what they're saying? That they killed each other? Santini couldn't ever stand to hurt a perp when he cuffed him. How the hell could he have gone after Clark?"



"Maybe Clark went after him," a third cop said.



A fourth chimed in then. "It's bullshit. It's all bullshit. How the hell could theyboth have their throats slit?"



That brought on a real silence. The first cop sighed. "I've got to find a john."



He had been leaning on his patrol car; now he straightened and headed toward a staff entrance to the building.



Bryan followed him inside.



The corridors were empty. Bryan followed the officer down a hall with a sign that bore a number of arrows. One pointed to "Out-patient radiation, vending machines, billing and restrooms."



He decided to let the man pee.



He waited. When the cop came out of the bathroom, Bryan caught him with a quick blow. He fell without so much as a whimper. Bryan dragged him back into the restroom.



"Sorry, buddy. I just need the uniform."



Upstairs, he found crime-scene tape blocking off the room. Pretending to ask about his assignment, he got close to the door.



They hadn't moved the bodies yet.



"You there. Harrison," a big cop called.



"Yes, sir?" he answered.



"What are you doing up here? You're supposed to be downstairs. They'll be assigning you to crowd patrol soon. The mayor is going to be giving a statement, and things might get ugly."



"Yes sir. Sorry. I was told I should report to you...Sergeant Mendez," Bryan said, reading the man's badge.



He stared at Mendez, who stared back, fingering the crucifix around his neck.



A strange look entered Mendez's eyes; he crossed himself. "You're not Harrison," he said softly.



"I'm not," he said, keeping eye contact. "But I need to see the bodies," he said.



"You-you shouldn't be impersonating a cop," Mendez said, but there was no conviction in his words, and he stepped aside to let Bryan pass.



"I want you to block the hallway," Bryan said. "Do you understand?"



"Yes," Mendez replied tonelessly, then stood firmly in the hallway.



Bryan saw that a reporter had just slipped in, and everyone was busy keeping him at bay. Good.



He moved quickly, surveyed the bed, then the bodies. He knelt beside them, checking them out thoroughly. He saw the scalpels. The blood.



And then he saw the smudge in the blood where something had been written.



He tensed, then rose quickly, slipping out past the still-dazed Mendez and the crowd holding off the reporter.



As he left the building-through the front doors this time-he saw a number of cops again and frowned. He recognized one of them.



Bobby Munro. The cop Stacey was dating.



Jessica reached Maggie's house just a few minutes after daylight. The children were still sleeping. Maggie looked as if she'd been pacing for a very long time.



"What the hell happened last night?" Jessica demanded. "Two cops dead?"



"Yes, made to look as if they'd gotten into a fight and killed each other. But no way could two guys have slit each other's throats like that."



"You saw them?" Jessica asked weakly.



"No. Sean described the scene. And it wasn't any newborn creature seeking a meal, I can assure you. The Master was there. In the hospital."



"We were conned tonight. He set it up perfectly. The would-be vampires, the real thing, the old house...But the whole thing was a ploy. It's as if..."



"It's as if it's been planned from the start," Maggie said. "He's found you. All these years, all the deception, the elaborate masquerade you set up yourself, and he's found you, anyway, and wants to show you his power, make you suffer."



"To have discovered I was in New Orleans, practicing psychology, to have found out about a conference, found out I was going, then planned the party, knowing I'd come...."



"He's had years to plan all the revenge he wanted," Maggie reminded her.



"But why bother?" Jessica murmured, but she knew the answer. Because he hated her with a passion that had outlasted centuries.



"So what happened? You were there, you staked a bunch of the bad guys...?"



"More or less," Jessica murmured.



"Did Bryan make an appearance?"



"Yes."



"When you were the dominatrix?" Maggie demanded.



"Yes."



"And he didn't try to kill you?"



"Yes."



"Oh, my God. You didn't killhim . You didn't kill a warrior, did you?" Maggie asked.



"No."



"Then...?"



"We came to an impasse."



Maggie stared at her for a long moment. "Kitchen," she said. "There's coffee on." She held her peace until they were in the kitchen, until she had poured coffee. Jessica took her cup to the table and sat in silence. Maggie joined her. "All right. Now, what the hell happened? In detail."



"I was waiting to capture the Master in his performance room. I'd...'entertained' a few vampires while I was waiting, someone was there already."



"Bryan?"



"Bryan."



"Go on."



"There was still no Master, but then the feasting began downstairs. There were screams. We both ran down, fought...them, then each other, and then...we talked."



"You just stopped fighting and youtalked? " Maggie asked incredulously.



She leaned forward intently. "Jessica, Bryan is the king's warrior."



"I just...I just can't believe that."



"What do you mean, you can't believe it? You were lovers once."



"Almost a thousand years ago," Jessica protested.



Maggie looked at her dryly. "Since you've only indulged in an affair every couple of hundred years, you should be able to recognize the one great love of your life."



Jessica stood, started to pace, then stopped, spun, set her hands on the table and stared at Maggie. "If he is..." She paused, wincing. "If hewas Ioin MacDuncan, why didn't I hear hundreds of years ago that he was alive?"



"Whoever said warriors were actually alive?" Maggie asked. "You know all about life without life."



"Existence," Jessica said. But Bryan is alive. He's no angel. He's flesh and blood and fire.Alive ."



"Maybe in a way," Maggie conceded. "I don't know. I've never known a warrior before. But then, I didn't even spend two hundred years as a vampire, and I've never heard of anyone other than myself who's been bitten, then recovered more than a century later."



Jessica sat down again, deflated. "I don't know. He knowswhat I am. He doesn't knowwho ."



"You're just going to have to tell him."



"What?"



"Look, we're in real trouble here. First Mary, now two cops have been slaughtered. That wasn't the act of a vampire doing his best just to survive. It was vicious.Staged . Just as the parties have been staged. Jessica, you're the only one, human or vampire, who managed to injure him so severely that it took him hundreds of years to heal. He hates you. He'll go to any length to torment you, to destroy you."



Jessica shook her head. "No...no. I can't believe he knows I'm here. That I'm alive. The whole reason I created the persona of Kathleen, Countess Valor, was to make him think I'd been evil, then that I was dead."



"The truth has a strange way of being discovered. Think about it. You've been living quietly for several hundred years now. You have no idea how long he's been back. I know you took every precaution, that you barricaded the crypt with crosses. But there must have been a quake...something. He-"



Maggie stopped abruptly, her eyes suddenly widening as she stared past Jessica toward the doorway.



Jessica froze, then turned slowly.



Bryan.



He hadn't knocked. And she could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn't surprised to find her there.



She stared at him unflinchingly.



Maggie rose. "I didn't hear you knock," she said, her voice regally cool.



"I didn't." He smiled knowingly. "I don't have to be asked in. I'm not avampyr . And even if I were, you've already asked me in." He stared hard at Maggie. "Just what is the story with you, Mrs. Canady? You're not a vampire, and neither is your husband, but you're both aware of their existence. And there's something about you, about this house...."



"You've just barged into my house unasked. Why don't you start by explainingyour self?"



"What is there to explain? I have but one purpose. To kill vampires," he said very softly, and his gaze fell upon Jessica. "There is one in particular for whom I've been searching for years. And years," he added dryly. "But then, you're both aware of that particular creature, aren't you?"



The two women stared at each other, barely daring to breathe. Maggie widened her eyes at Jessica, silently suggesting that she confess to everything.



Jessica still balked at the idea, her mind racing. It couldn't be. Wouldn't she have known, somehow, even after all these years? Yet hadn't she felt the familiarity, felt the sense of...



"We didn't know about the Master until I reached Transylvania. He had been...out of commission, I suppose you'd say, for hundreds of years," Jessica said.



Bryan strode over to the table and stared hard at her. "So you brought the dominatrix to life in Romania?"



"I could hardly walk in looking like Sister Golden Hair," she said, then let out a sigh. "You're so wrong about us. You have no idea how many of us fight against what we are."



"And you walked in to kill the Master?"



"Yes."



He spun on Maggie so suddenly that she jumped. "And you help Jessica with...with whatever it is she's doing? Your husband obviously knows and understands everything that is going on?"



"I understandexactly what she's going through," Maggie said. "Iwas a vampire once."



"Was?"



"I'm...not one anymore. It's a long story."



"I believe I have some time," Bryan said calmly.



Both women just stared at him.



"What's the deal with Sean?" Bryan asked.



"He's a cop, exactly what he looks like," Maggie said firmly.



"All right, so is this just a small party going on, or are there more of your kind around here-goodvampires, as you claim?" he demanded, turning to Jessica again.



"There are more," she murmured.



"You didn't kill any of your friends the other night?" he queried.



"No. And I didn't start a staking campaign just to impress you, either. It's what we do. We don't kill indiscriminately-that's apparently your cause in life. We know the difference between good and evil."



"Where are your buddies, then?"



She looked at Maggie. "Lucien and Jade are somewhere in Africa, in pursuit of a very old demon," she said.



"Lucien," he snapped. "You're one-time king?"



Jessica held her breath. He knew more than she'd realized, even that Lucien had been hailed as the king of their kind-until he had become a champion for justice, rather than a creature to be dreaded.



"Listen, Professor, I refuse to allow this grilling to go on in my house," Maggie cut in. "If we're going to answer your questions, you're going to have to answer a few of ours. We think we know what you are. A warrior. So does that make you an...angel?"



Jessica offered a very unladylike snort. "Angel?"



He cast her a sideways glance. "No. Not an angel. A warrior as you said. I exist to fight the evil in the world." He stared at Jessica.



"I am not evil."



"So how do you survive?" he asked.



"Good Lord, this is the twenty-first century," she informed him. "Haven't you ever heard of blood banks?"



"And where do you keep this blood?"



"If you're so brilliant, why didn't you search my house?"



"I checked the refrigerator," he informed her.



"Apparently you weren't brilliant enough to find the secret drawer," she said.



"So what now?" he asked softly, pulling a chair and sitting down. Jessica sat across from him, and for a long moment they just stared. "It's apparent that everyone was conned last night. The party was a setup. The Master never intended to show. I'm a little surprised his plan wasn't to find Mary and force her into joining him in killing everyone at Montresse House, but he had something even more vile in mind. Not only were those two cops in the wrong place at the wrong time, the way he killed them sent a message as to just how evil he really is."



"You know what happened at the hospital?" Maggie asked.



He nodded gravely, then returned his attention to Jessica. "I think he's playing with you, showing you what he's capable of before he comes for you."



"What if he is baiting you?" Jessica suggested. Then she waited, not breathing. If he wasn't the man she thought, he would deny it with a shrug. But there had been few men the Master had hated more in life than the king's right hand, the knight named Ioin.



He didn't deny the possibility.



Maggie, typically straightforward, said, "I know exactly who you are."



His gaze riveted to her face and his brow arched. "Do you?"



Maggie nodded. "Ioin, champion of Robert the Bruce, who escaped a sure death at the hands of Edward III only because of your heroics. Robert was devastated by the loss of one of his illegitimate children-" She broke off abruptly and managed not to look at Jessica. "Anyway, you died so he could live. You stood alone against dozens of men while the king made his escape." She inhaled deeply. "Your body was never found, though. And there was a priest who disappeared, too."



Bryan stared back at Maggie, then, to Jessica's surprise, looked down as if ashamed. "It wasn't a matter of bravery," he said simply. "I don't believe I was sane at the time."



"So it's true?" Maggie whispered.



"You..." Jessica said, trying not to give herself away. "You...you didn't die? You became...what you are after the battle?"



"Not after the battle," he said, frowning as he studied her. "Not exactly. I didn't awaken for hundreds of years. And when I awoke, Gregore, the priest, was still with me." He was quiet for a long moment. "He lived long enough for me to learn to make my way in a new world. Long enough for me to understand the evil let loose in the world by a man who had been my most loathsome enemy in life, a man who brutalized women and children not on behalf of king or country but purely from a desire to rape, mutilate and kill. That was why I existed-to find him, however long it might take." He looked at Jessica and added softly, "And to hatchet my way all others of his kind, so he could take no strength from them and evil might be utterly eradicated."



"So you have sought the Master all these years," Maggie murmured.



"I had another goal as well," Bryan murmured, clenching his fingers. "And that was to find and destroy the king's daughter. I loved her, you see. She had been a warrior herself, because villagers across our country had been victims for years, butchered and destroyed anytime an advancing army crossed their land. She defended the children, the women.... But she had been lost to the Master, tainted by his black cruelty and savagery, compounded by his pact with the Devil, if that was indeed where he gained his power. There is, you see, such a thing as an immortal soul. And I meant to find her and bring peace to what the Master had destroyed." He lifted his hands in a gesture of futility. "I'm almost completely convinced she took on the guise of an English countess who found residence at the French court of Louis XIV. And that others saw to her demise. Still, I have sometimes wondered. There is so much evil in the world, so many places for her to hide if she is still in existence."



He leaned forward. "Now, Miss Jessica Fraser. Your turn."



She blinked. "Well...I was bitten, of course," she said.



"When?"



Should she lie? Or tell the truth? The truth? No, never. Not after what he had just said.



Jessica said, "Dublin, Ireland, the 1700s."



But even as she spoke, Maggie was offering, "Savannah, 1760."



Both women broke off, staring at each other with alarm.



"Oh?" Bryan said with deceptive calm. "The truth would be quite interesting, I'm sure."



But they never got a chance to attempt another lie, or even to offer up the truth.



They all froze as they heard the front door open and close and footsteps head toward the kitchen.



Sean.



From the hall, Jessica realized, he could see only herself and Maggie. "There you are! Thank God. Jessica. I didn't dare even mention this to Maggie on the phone." He strode over to Jessica, taking her by the shoulders, his back to Bryan, whom he clearly still hadn't seen. "This is worse than what we feared. Jessica, he knows you're here. And he knows who you are. He wrote your name in blood."



"Jessica?" Maggie whispered.



"No," Sean replied. "Her true name. In the blood of his victims, he wrote her true name. Igrainia."