Part 35 (1/2)

”Did you drink deep of this? Or just taste it and run away?”

He then force-fed Neil those hours he and Britt had spent as captives in Peter's house. Roger enveloped the other vampire in the miasma of hate, fear, and grief that had hovered around Peter like a fog over a swamp. The vision of Peter's fixed stare, eyes red- rimmed from weeping for his sister, his hair and skin clammy with sweat, his hand squeezing the revolver, sprang to life. And then the moment of his death, his head cras.h.i.+ng into the window.

”I didn't kill him for pleasure,” Roger told Neil. ”I knew how he felt. I know what it is to face losing a person who means everything to me.” He revived the terror of the void that threatened to engulf him when Peter aimed the gun at Britt.

Neil shriveled like an undersea creature washed up on the sand at high noon. A ratlike screech: ”Get away from me!”

Roger shrugged off the feeble spasm of resistance. ”Hardly. I have the strength now. You are weaker because you're alone. I have an ally.”

”Your pet!”

”No. She provides for me out of love. Something you'll never know.”

Unless you choose to reach out.Roger didn't bother projecting that thought. He knew the renegade would never take that risk.

”You've seen too many sensational movies, picked up distorted ideas of what we should be. You believe that nonsense about satanic autonomy. The fact that we're solitary predators is only part of the truth. The blood-bond sustains us. Without it, we wither away.”

Roger visualized the emerald cross, refulgent with light that pulsed like a heartbeat, in his grasp. He extended it toward the other vampire. ”Take it. Let it heal you.” The radiance burned Neil like sunlight. With a last despairing wail, what was left of Neil Sandor fled into the darkness.

The world heaved as if racked by an earthquake. When Roger's vision cleared, he was lying on the ground next to Neil. Probing, he touched no sentience. He heard no hiss of air in the lungs, saw no expansion of the chest. A few seconds of concentrated listening, however, brought the stutter of a feeble pulse to his ears. Before second thoughts could rise up to sap his resolution, Roger clamped his hands around the renegade vampire's neck. With a single twist he broke the spine.

Panting as if he had run across town on foot and battled for hours instead of a few minutes, he staggered to Britt and leaned over her. She lay face up, her eyes closed, still holding the jeweled cross to her breast.

He touched her, both physically and mentally. He felt nothing.

Heaving a sob, he gathered her into his arms. He felt himself falling into blackness. For a timeless interval it deafened and blinded him.

What drew him back was the flutter of her heart against his chest. She was only unconscious, not-not gone. He carried her to the car and laid her on the back seat. Crouched beside her in the cramped s.p.a.ce, he rested both hands on her head. ”Britt- wake up.” He whispered to her and simultaneously spoke inside her mind. Nothing. He hadn't realized how deeply he'd drained her life- force to fuel the attack.

”Dear G.o.d, Britt, why didn't you stop me?” He plunged into her mind.

Again the void swallowed him. He had never seen darkness before, only the luminous gray other people called ”dark.” But this time he would not yield to the emptiness. He clung to the certainty that Britt lived-somewhere. His eyes strained through the blackness until he glimpsed a tendril of light. He floated toward it. He grasped it like a golden thread to guide him through this labyrinth.

For the place had now become a maze, no longer a featureless darkness. He traced the thread through tunnels like the corridors of a dungeon in a Gothic tale, their stone walls coated with frost. At the center of the labyrinth he found Britt lying on a bed of stone; around her hung icicles glimmering with an internal blue light of their own.

One segment of his mind knew this was not a real place, only an imaginary construct to help him lure Britt out of her retreat. He thought,How archetypal can you get? She would love this!

He stepped through a veil of cold that resonated in his bones like a musical note pitched too high for mortal ears. Britt looked and felt like a statue of ice. He pressed his lips to hers.

At first he felt no response. With a dim idea of restoring the life-force he had taken, he bit his lip to warm her cold mouth with his blood. He poured his soul into a plea for her to waken. An echo of her normal vitality answered him. He fed it, lavis.h.i.+ng his energy upon her, nouris.h.i.+ng her as she always nourished him. He felt his heart beat with hers, his life flowing into her as if they shared a single bloodstream.

Abruptly he found himself in the car, holding Britt and kissing her. He discovered he actually had bitten his lip, and somehow his teeth had scratched Britt, too, for he tasted her blood mingled with his like a sacrament. Except for the abysmal fatigue that weighed upon her, she felt normal to his psychic touch.

”Beloved, can you forgive me-”

”Don't!” She placed a finger on his lips. ”I did what I wanted to do-what we had to do.”

He strapped the seat belt around her and got out his car keys. ”You're so cold-I have to get you home.”

With a faint smile at his solicitude, she said, ”I appreciate the thought, but we aren't finished yet.”

He arched his eyebrows interrogatively.”Sandor,” she said. ”You only broke his neck, didn't you?”

Roger understood at once. Hurrying back to the Kovaks' yard, he found the renegade's body where he had left it, dusted with a fine layer of snow. He lifted it over his shoulder and carried it away from the garage, into the woods. What now? Though he knew he had to finish the job, he couldn't bring himself to decapitate Neil. The thought of dismembering a body-even Neil's-as Sylvia had been dismembered revolted him.

Besides, if the body were found, that mutilation would attract more official interest than a less exotic murder would.Excellent excuse, Roger, he chided himself. But it did have the merit of truth. A further complication came to mind: If at all possible, he must make sure the body wasnot found, at least not until it decayed too far for reliable autopsy results.

He recalled what he'd been told about total destruction of the brain. Without giving himself further time for reflection, he opened the side garage door with a handkerchief wrapped around the k.n.o.b and rummaged among the tools for a suitable blunt instrument.

Sledgehammer-perfect. Hefting the weapon, he returned to the apparent corpse. Roger's stomach churned at the thought of what he had to do. He ordered it to shut up.There's no consciousness here. Think of this as wrecking a machine.