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She felt the wet grass against her ankles. Felt the coolness of the air, which wasn’t the natural coolness of the breeze. Something more.
Some part of the darting, changing, shifting shadows.
With each step, she felt a greater dread. She knew that the house lay just before her. That she was walking toward it, though she longed to run away.
A silent plea escaped her.
Help me, please, come, help me . . .
She knew now, knew far too much. Knew what lay in the shadows, stretching before her. Knew to whom she cried for help.
But he was in jail. He had gone to jail to keep them from incarcerating her grandfather. She had realized, so late, that they hadn’t just known each other. They had formed a bond. They had saved one another’s lives. They had taught one another, they had learned to live through one another.
He had let them take him, so that they would not hurt Jacques. He had said that it would be all right, that he would be all right. . .
But he wasn’t here!
And she was walking. . .
Walking alone . . .
A strange birdcall sounded in the night. Not a birdcall at all. It was the breeze picking up. Growing stronger, colder, louder.
Her name came to her on the breeze.
Tara . . . Tara . . . Tara . . .
Darkness descended deeper . . . deeper . . . deeper . . .
There were footsteps behind her. Furtive. Stealthy. She walked, she stopped, she turned. And there was nothing, no one, just the fleeting shadows.
Cold, she shivered. She gripped the stake she carried fiercely in both hands, so fiercely that her fingers were knotting and cramping. It was harder and harder to walk, to make herself go forward. There was darkness ahead, and then light, and then shadow wings falling over the illumination, and laughter, and her name . . .
Close, she was so close to the house.
She heard whisking sounds that chilled her, for it felt as if the shadows were real, real and cold, and they passed by her and touched her, an evil, menacing caress, calling to her, taunting her, teasing her.
Her dream, her nightmare, oh, God, she was living it. . .
She nearly stopped, ready to drop to the earth, throw her hands over her head, and do nothing but scream and pray for the light.
But Ann was in there.
And so she kept following the footsteps . . .
Of her dream.
She reached the house. Ivy hung around it, nearly obscuring the facade. But a fire burned within. A fire that soared in the hearth, ripping and tearing against the walls, and creating a new realm of shape and form and shadow.
As she neared it. . .
The door opened.
The breeze whispered her name again.
Tara, Tara, Tara . . . come in . . .
We’ve been waiting. Waiting for you.
CHAPTER 19
The house was as she had seen it. Exquisite ancient furniture. Paintings on the walls. Paintings of depraved scenes and acts, executions, bloodshed, orgies. . . paintings in vivid colors, paintings with fires that seemed as real as that which burned in the hearth.
She looked around her carefully, for the strange noises and brushes of air seemed to sweep by her and touch her with an ever greater frequency. She knew that she had to go down the hallway.
Saw it.
Saw the dark, and saw the light.
And the first door that she knew she must open.
Her hand trembled upon the doorknob. The feel of her own flesh against cold metal was real. But everything in the dream had always been real as well. And still she knew that this was different, and for a moment, she stood trembling, seized with an absolute panic. She hadn’t believed any of it . . . and here she was, alone, facing fears beyond comprehension, and it was ridiculous that she was here. Ridiculous that such creatures could exist, that there could be vampires . . . and werewolves, and that she was desperately praying that one of the two would arrive quickly, because it seemed that it was all true, and she was horribly afraid that she wasn’t up to the task.
Jacques seemed to have faith. She was the one to inherit the strain of the Alliance. And what did that give her? A determination to die foolishly?
If she ran now, they would only come after her. Even if she escaped, she would fail, and her cousin would die.
Or worse.
She forced her fingers to twist the knob. The sound of the door creaking open was hideously loud, ripping and tearing her nerves.
She stepped back quickly, certain that something would spring at her, that the body parts would be waiting to form together, to come after her. But when she opened the door, she at first saw nothing.
Then, from beside the bed, a woman rose.
Young. Not Louisa. Tara had never seen her before.
She was naked. She looked at Tara as if it were the most natural thing in the world that someone had walked in on her. She stretched, lifted her long hair to let it fall back again upon her shoulders. Then she looked at Tara, smiling salaciously. “Hello . . . shall we play? I love to play, love to play . . . ” One sultry step after another, she came toward Tara. Tara stared at her, tense, afraid, wondering if she was a prisoner, poor, pathetic, needing an escape, or if. . .
When she was almost upon Tara, the girl opened her mouth. An eerie hissing sound escaped from her.
She had fangs. . . the size of a saber-toothed tiger’s, or so it seemed. Tara prayed desperately that she wouldn’t falter.
She slammed the stake into the girl’s chest, bit her lip, nearly doubled over. She forced herself to take the sword into her hands. She had to look away to deliver the first blow.
It didn’t sever the head.
She had to take another whack, and as she did so, she heard herself protesting. “No, no, no!” was coming from her own lips. A slow keening. And then . . . the head rolled away.
She stared at her own handiwork, shaking once again. There was very little blood. She hadn’t known what to expect That the body would become a pile of ash, and disappear in a sudden breeze? It did not.
It lay on the ground in its mangled pieces.
Even as she stood there, staring, she felt the tension, the cramping in her fingers, for she still held Jacques’ war sword. She swallowed hard, bent down, and pulled the stake from the girl’s torso. She had to tug hard upon it. It came free with a sickening sound.
Tara, Tara, Tara . . .
She heard her name being called again. The tone was soft, sultry, amused. She knew then that she had accomplished very little. The girl was just a piece of a shield. A foot soldier, not at all valued by the real enemy; totally expendable.
She stepped back into the hall carefully, trying to see in every direction. She couldn’t allow her panic to take hold.
She looked down the length of the hall, wishing that she dared call out her cousin’s name. She couldn’t, she needed to move quietly, though she was certain that Louisa and her consort—whatever his real name was— were well aware that she was here.
As she moved along the hallway, looking ahead, she became aware of a creeping sensation at the back of her neck. She paused, turning. At first she saw nothing.
The chill continued over her. Deep dread seemed to freeze her in place. Slowly, she looked up.
Flat against the ceiling was a man. He had curly dark hair, appeared young, and grinned down at her impishly.
“Hello, there. ”
Even as she stared up at him, he fell from the arched ceiling, like a spider dropping down upon its prey.
She fumbled with frozen fingers for her stake. She managed to lift the point just as he came down upon her. The impetus brought them both to the ground. Caught on the wood, his face was just inches from her throat as he suddenly began to snarl and snap. She struggled to force the point more deeply into his body, to throw his weight fr
om her own. Saliva dripped from the fangs that nearly touched her throat Gasping, heart thundering, arms trembling, she at last managed to cast him to the side. She scrambled to her feet, shaking still. He lay on the ground like an animated figure with a faulty battery, arms and legs thrashing. She slid the sword from beneath her coat and lifted it high again, bringing it down against his throat. Sobs escaped her. It wasn’t easy to sever a head. Once again, she had to strike several times. At last, the head rolled away. And this time, as she watched, the flesh seemed to wrinkle, then wither, turn gray . . . slowly become ash and bone.
She fell against the wall, staring at him, fighting the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm her and the tears that rose in her eyes.
As she sat there, she became aware of the whispering sound again. A whooshing that made it seem as if a thousand voices were hissing in her ears. She forced herself to rise quickly, to look around, to rescue the stake from where it had fallen in the bone and ash upon the floor.
She was still being called down the hall by an invisible draw.
There were doors along the way, but she didn’t pause. The door at the end of the hall, with the strange light emanating into a field of dancing shadow, was where she needed to be. Resolutely, she walked on.
She came to the door. Her fingers again tensed and froze on the knob. She forced herself to twist it.
The light was coming from a massive blaze that burned in the hearth. And at the hearth stood a woman.
The woman who had come to her house.
She was elegant in form fitting black with trailing, gossamer sleeves. Her features were classically beautiful, framed by a wealth of sleek dark hair. Her skin was pale, her lips were very red. She seemed pleased by Tara’s appearance, those lips breaking into a slow, secret smile.
“Welcome, ma chere!” she said softly. “Welcome . . . you see, you are most incredibly welcome here, though you turned me away from your home. Ah, well, the Alliance has never been known for its diplomatic tact. But. . . what does it matter? You’re here now. And such a smart girl, clever girl! You knew the way down the hall, and that every door was but a roadblock, before you came to me. Of course, however, I was calling you, but. . . that’s because you’re so very welcome. Isn’t she welcome, mes amis?”
Tara started. Her attention had been so focused on the creature at the hearth that she hadn’t looked around the room.
People . . . or creatures . . . were all about. A young couple huddled together against a wall, pale, anemic looking. A bearded fellow in Victorian attire was seated in a wing chair, just to the left of the fire. Two women, the one resting upon the other’s lap, were on the bed, while another man was lasciviously stroking the long blond hair of a teen-aged girl.