Part 12 (1/2)

It's suppose to hold true even if that person has been transformed before the two meet.

The antigen remains of course. I don't know if it's true. I think it was with Dante and Morgan, though. I've never seen anything like the power of the bond between the two of them.”

”Dante and Morgan?” Mary asked.

”My sister and her husband. Our silent partners in the business. Hadn't you guessed by now? They're vampires.”

Chapter 11.

Vampires. Maxine Stuart's own twin sister-the award-winning, supposedly deceased screenwriter everyone had been talking about a few years back-was alive and well. Or undead and well.

And according to Max, vampires were very well depicted in her sister's films.

They were not Stoker's murderous monsters or Whedon's soulless demons. They weren't even immortal. Not really. They could die by several methods, including incineration, blood and starvation. But they did have souls, feelings, and they were fully capable of every so-called human emotion.

Mary got so caught up in learning everything about Michael what he was and what that meant, that she spent the entire day talking with Maxine, Lou and Stormy.

They pulled out DVDs of Morgan DeSilva's vampire films, played them and narrated, answering Mary's questions while making judicious use of the pause function In between films, they told her tales of their own encounters with vampires in the five years since they'd first opened their agency. Mary lost track of how many times they told her their lives had been saved by one of the undead. They lamented that she couldn't meet Morgan and Dante to see for herself what they were like, but the couple were vacationing in Ireland, looking up one of Dante's oldest and dearest friends while they were there.

By the time she'd heard all they had to tell her, Mary was convinced that her instincts had been on target. There was no need for her to run away from Michael.

There were issues the two of them would need to address. G.o.d, there were more challenges to this new relations.h.i.+p than she could even begin to think about now. But he was exactly what he'd told her he was, exactly what she had known in her heart he was all along. He was the man she loved.

They were all in the comfortable living room, in that private section of the house now. The last video had ended, and the stories had wound down. Maxine had left the room briefly, and she returned now with a file folder in her hands which she offered to Mary. ”I think you should look at these records” she said. ”This is just what's official. I have no way of knowing what he's done since he crossed over, but once I saw this stuff, I had no doubt about Michael Gray's character. I don't think you will, either. Not that you seem to anyway. But you said you wanted to know everything. Did you even know how he came to be shot?”

Shaking her head slowly, Mary opened the folder, skimming its contents. It held commendations, testimonials and a 1928 newspaper report headlined, Death of a Hero.

”There was a shootout between Capone's gang and a rival gang,” Lou Malone said. And when she detected the catch in his voice, she remembered that he'd told her he had been a cop for twenty years before retiring and joining Maxine in this business. Maxine sat down beside him, put a hand on his shoulder. It was a loving touch.

He patted it with his own; a friendly gesture.

”A seven-year-old kid, confused and scared by all noise, ran into the cross fire.

Michael Gray ran out of a perfectly good covered position, into the storm of bullets, threw himself on the kid and acted as a human s.h.i.+eld. The kid got nicked, nothing serious.

Gray took nine bullets.

He went silent then, his lips pressed tight.

”A man like that doesn't turn bad,” Stormy said. He changed, physically, from a dying mortal to a powerful vampire. But inside, he's still the same guy. The hero cop who died saving a little boy.”

Maxine nodded. ”The official reports say that his wife, Sally, shot herself with Michael's service revolver the night after his death. I've been doing some digging, and rumor has it that he went to her after he was changed over. Told her what he was. She freaked out and blew herself away, right in front of him.”

”Oh, G.o.d.” Mary had tears streaming from her eyes now. She reached out to clasp Stormy's hands. ”Thank you. Thank you all. I can't tell you how much you've helped me.”

”Glad to hear it,” Stormy said. She glanced at her watch, then shook her head.

”We've been talking forever. Why don't you join us for dinner and then we'll-”

”What time is it?” Mary asked. For the first tie she realized how long she must have been here, in the company of these people. Three movies, hours of conversation-and the sky beyond the windows was already growing dim. ”Oh, no.”

”What's wrong?”

”I... I promised Michael I would be there when he came home tonight. If I'm not-he's going to think-”

”Look, we'll call him,” Maxine began.

”I have to go. I have to be there.” She surged to her feet and ran for the door over the protests of the others. She couldn't bear the thought of Michael returning home an not finding her there. He would a.s.sume that, like his wife so long ago she couldn't deal with what he was. And it was the furthest thing from the truth.

Maxine looked at Lou as the Jag squealed out of the driveway and out of sight.

”She said the killer was dead. And Dunst agrees with that, right?”

”She also said Michael Gray sensed she was still in danger,” Lou said, and he pursed his lips looking up at the sky. ”Moons gonna be full tonight.”

”You're right. We'd better follow her. But it's going to be d.a.m.ned tough to keep up with her, given what she's driving and the way she's driving it.”

”Then we'd better hurry.” ”I'll try to reach Michael Gray,” Stormy said, as Lou and Max ran to the car. ”I'll let him know what's going on, where she is, just in case.”

Michael emerged from the crypt at sundown and crept through the cemetery as the darkness gathered, until he reached the woods at the rear. Once on the bath, out of sight, hidden by the trees an the night itself, he pushed for speed. But instead of feeling closer Mary with every step, he only felt an eerie, ever-growing sense of emptiness. He knew before he even saw the vacant spot in the driveway that she wasn't there.

Mary was gone. She'd taken his car, and she'd left him.

He wasn't even surprised. Gut-wrenchingly disappointed, but not surprised. He ran around to the rear of the house, down the slope to the beach and searching the sh.o.r.eline as if he expected to find her out there. But he didn't find her, and he had known he wouldn't.

He hadn't sensed any doubts from her as she'd made love with him all through the night. He hadn't tasted her fear in her blood. She hadn't fallen apart, hadn't been driven insane to the point of taking her own life, the way his wife had when faced with the knowledge of what he had become. Foolishly he had let himself believe that wouldn't change when she had time to mull it over by the cold light of day. Obviously it had.

He stood there on the sh.o.r.e as the waves washed up over his feet and the self- pity washed up over his soul. But not for very long. As the upper curve of the huge, silver moon crested the horizon and its light trickled toward sh.o.r.e on the rippled mirror of the ocean, he stopped feeing sorry for himself immediately. The beam of moonlight pierced the veil of his pain with the shattering reminder that tonight might very well be the last night of Mary's life.

He didn't panic. He'd been a cop for too long to panic. Instead, he ran for the house while his mind sought order within chaos. Where the h.e.l.l could she be? How the h.e.l.l could he find her in time? He tried sensing her but she was either too far away or entirely closed off from him due to fear or revulsion or both.

A phone was ringing when he entered the beach house. And it wasn't his. It took him three full rings to realize it was her cell. Dammit, she'd been so eager to get away from him that she'd left her phone behind. As well as all her other belongings, he noted as he surged into the gust room and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone.

”Mary?”

”No, I'm sorry,” a man's voice said. ”Is this Michael Gray?”

”Yes, who is this?”