Part 10 (1/2)

He was thinner than he'd been at the time the picture was taken, his hairline farther back, but there was never any doubt in her mind who it was He was drinking from a mug and reading a book, though he looked up every few seconds, glancing alt around nervously. He spotted Kerry as soon as she started toward him, and she saw his gaze flick around the room as he tried to decide who best to approach for help.

She held her hands out-fronts, then backs-to dem- onstrate she carried no weapons, and she gestured behind her, which was meant to draw his attention to the fact that she was alone.

Marsala looked tense, but at least he didn't bolt.

”I'm all alone,” Kerry said as soon as she was within range and could say it softly, so as not to attract attention. ”Please, can we talk? Here is fine.” He didn't look like she'd expected.

Somehow she'd thought he'd have a twitch, or some manic gleam in his eye, something that would mark him as a man with inner demons Someone fanatic enough to run over anyone who got in his way and steal people's fathers and little boys from their homes Kerry sat down, placing her hands on the table where he could see them. ”Where are my father and brother?” she asked.”I don't know.” For a second she thought he was going f70 to deny knowing what she was talking about, but then he added, ”Home by now, I guess. Or still in the hospital. Or maybe the police have them. I let them go, you know”

She'd seen they weren't home and she wasn't sure whether to believe the other possibilities, but any note of hope was good to hear anyway ”I'm not a vampire,” she said- She could see the thought Swrr, you're not travel through his brain. ”Any test,” she a.s.sured him, ”anything you can think of, 111 do it.”

He sat looking at her- ”You were with them.”

”Yes” There was certainly no use denying it ”Regina and Ethan. 1 never met them before Thursday night. I didn't know what they were.”

”They killed my friends-Phil and George, Ken, Danny, and Marcia”

”1 know,” she said That sounded worse than it was- ”I mean, I didn't know until after”

”I was watching,” Marsala said, and for an awful moment she thought he meant he'd seen his friends die- ”I saw him drive up with you, introduce you to her.” And she realized he must have been somewhere near Ethan's house. ”I saw him clean the blood out of the car, and then I saw them drive you home Like a d.a.m.ned escort service.”

”It was his blood,” Kerry said, not sure how Marsala was interpreting what he'd seen Did he think Ethan had fed on her in her father's car, making her a vampire that very night, or that it was Marsala's friends' blood and that she had helped kill them? ”ftbaw's blood. His own. Your friends were going to kill him- I came into it in the middle of things. I didn't understand 1 thought they were crazy and they were going to kill some poor innocent guy””He's no innocent,” Marsala said.

”I know that now” Kerry nodded for emphasis. She i7t couldn't bring herself to say any of the things Ethan had suggested She just said, ”I do know it”

”Did they drink your blood?” He reached to push the loose strands of hair away from her neck but stopped, perhaps thinking touching her was inappropriate, or maybe realizing the marks would have gone away by now in any case She swept the hair clear anyway ”No,” she said firmly ”She drank Joey's blood”

There was no answer for that ”I watched him change into one of them ”

Kerry wasn't sure she'd heard that right ”You watched . ”>”

”It took a while Four, five months from the time he first met her”

”No,” Kerry said, but before she could explain that it only took seconds, he continued, ”At first we didn't know There were all those rehearsals, twice a week, then three times, every night by the last two weeks Ridiculous schedule for a school production, like the play was more important than the school- work But then it was finally over Except that it wasn't over 'I'm going out.' he said Every night Just like that 'I'm going out' He led us to believe it was one of the girls from the play, but then Patty, my wife, and I found out it was that Regina woman, the director 'She's older than / am,' Patty said He didn't care She'd bitten him by then ”

”I'm not sure what you're saying,” Kerry admitted”She encouraged him to lie to us She taught him to smoke marijuana, and she provided him with liquor even though he was underage He'd never done any of those things before His marks He'd been a straight-A student in high school, dean's list every semester But suddenly he was failing and taking incompletcs Dropped his old friends, dropped his old *73.

interests Stayed up all night, partying, didn't want to get up in the morning Talked back to his mother, sa.s.sed me. We had no idea then, but it was the vampire's bite He was changing into one of them right before our very eyes, and we didn't know it Then I started following her Then I saw.”

Kerry shook her head That's not-”

Marsala pointed a finger at her ”I didn't know how to stop it” He nodded slowly ”I do now”

He'd stopped it with Regina ”Professor Marsala,” Kerry said She didn't dare say, Your son was growing up and be made bad decisions, or That's called rebellion, not vampirism. His story was an awful mishmash combining truth and speculation and, she supposed, a fathers gnef and guilt She said, ”It isn't like that Either someone's a vampire or not, it doesn't take months ”

That what one of them told you””

She nodded ”Do you believe everything they tell you?”

”No,” she said ”Of course not But-”

”Don't believe anything,” Marsala said ”I don't know what they promised him But then, when they'd strung him out long enough, when they were done laughing at him, they killed him The police thought it was a car accident”She remembered Ethan saying that he and Regina had arranged the deaths of Marsala's friends to look like part of a straggle between opposing drug factions Of course they wouldn't discard drained bodies carelessly The vampires couldn't afford to have people speculating in that direction And as Ethan had admitted, unexplained disappearances raised too many questions Marsala was nodding, as though to encourage her to be- lieve ”He'd been dnnking Car hit a tree But I knew That 173.

woman was evil. She turned our son against us I started tracking her, and I found out what she was, then I kept on tracking her because I knew there couldn't be just one 'Wail long enough and she'll lead us to more.' I said Even Patty didn't believe me She couldn't race it and she ran away But I knew The sunlight proved me right”

An image of what had been left of Regina flashed through her mind Although she wasn't aware of it. it must have shown on her face, for Marsala said, ”You saw her? You saw what the sunlight did? Don't feel sorry for her Do you know why sunlight destroys them?”

Kerry shook her head ”Because Cod won't permit such evil to exist under the sun”

Kerry bit her lip to keep from asking why, then, Cod would permit such evil to exist under the moon ”You”-Marsala pointed at her again-”you're an in- between case Like Joey Seduced by the glamor of evil”

The word seduced made her cheeks grow warm, which he no doubt saw He nodded, and she was sure he thought it was worsethan it was ”Fight them,” he said ”I know they've got their claws in you, but fight them ”

”They do not have their claws in me,” Kerry protested, ”and at least they don't go around ramming school buses and kidnapping innocent people”

”I don't think you know half of what they do,” Marsala said Which was probably true ”How old is your young- looking friend? Fifty years? A hundred? Two hundred? Mul- tiply that times three hundred sixty-five nights a year, and call me cold blooded”

t74 They don't kill every night”

”Something else they told you?”

Ethan hadn't killed last night, she thought Or, at least, she was fairly certain he hadn't On the other hand, the night .before, he and Regina had killed four And tonight he was planning on killing at least one She ran her hand through her hair ”I don't want to argue,”

she said ”I didn't come here to defend them. But I'm not one of them And I'm not one-of-them-in-training. I want some a.s.surance that you haven't hurt my dad and my brother If you can give me that, I'll tell you where Ethan is, and how you can get him ”

Marsala sat back and looked at her as though evaluating ”Vampires don't lie?” he asked ”I never said that I just-”

”Do you lie?”

Kerry worked hard to look him right in the eyes ”No”

”Then you told your father exactly what happened Thurs-day night”

Kerry looked away ”I He didn't ask, and I didn't volunteer the information”

”Which is not the same as lying?” Marsala said There was no good answer to that 'Then let me ask you this,” Marsala continued ”How did your friend know who 1 was?”

”He recognized your picture in the paper”

”If he saw the paper”-Marsala gave a grim smile-”how is it you didn't know your father and your brother are safe?”

”What?”

175.

”You didn't ask, and he didn't volunteer the informa- tion?”