to the next stall over, peeking in ....... Betty, the ranch's cutest filly, was lying crumpled and shrunken on the straw, half in shadow, half in the light. Even in that partial visibility, he could see that her body had been drained of blood and probably a lot of other things as well. Her well-muscled legs were thin straight sticks, and her ribs showed in shadowed slats across her stomach. There was a sickening stench of rot and decay in the small enclosure.
Terry backed up, nearly gagging, and hurried as quickly as he could past Jasper stallwjust as the horse crumpled to the ground.
The vampire!
His leg was hurting like a bastard, but he tried to ignore the pain and pull himself up the incline at the side of the building using the railing.
A black shape loomed out of the darkness above him. Terry would have fallen had he not been holding the handrail. He stared upward. There was something about the shape that was familiar to him, and he might have thought he'd seen the figure before, as a child, only he knew instinctively that that was impossible because the shape was so old, so very ancient, and he knew that nothing like it had been seen since long before his birth.
It was large, its bulk blotting out the Big Dipper in the sky behind it, and it began to move slowly forward, down the incline toward him.
It moved smoothly, as though not propelled by legs or feet. It did not gain clarity as it approached the details of its face and form were not revealed it remained as murkily vague as it had at the top of the short slope, but as it drew nearer he could hear it, a sound like liquid, like water.
'Love,' the figure whispered, and its voice was low and assured and filled with the confidence of age. Terry heard wind in that whisper, and sand, and years. Years. Love?
*
He wanted to turn, wanted to run, but he couldn't. He was frozen in place, and he realized that even if he had been able to move, his gimp leg would not have enabled -' ' him to run fast enough to escape. A slimy hand pulled his own fingers from the handrail, ' closing over his fist. Another slipped around his body, '' lifted him up.
He smelled rot, death. -' The figure spoke again, and Terry realized that the * seven word it had spoken before had only sounded like
'love.'
What the shape had really said was 'blood.'
Rich was sitting on top of his desk, notepad on his lap 'and camera slung over his shoulder, waiting for Sue when she arrived at the newspaper office. He hopped off the desk when she walked into the newsroom. 'Thank God you're here,' he said. 'I'm going to be covering the murders, and I need you to hold down the fort. You'll have o. to take over the normal news this week. Jim'll help you,
:
- I but probably not much. He's got another job, and sports
: - ...: is just about all he can handle.'
'Murders?' Sue said. 'There were more?' She felt
*' -- .+:,: weak, almost dizzy, and slightly sick to her stomach. She
' wondered if she looked as bad as she felt.
' ',:' .
Apparently not, because Rich looked straight at her and
- , ' seemed to see nothing out of the ordinary. He nodded.
-- 'o : ' :..
'The groom at the Rocking DID was killed last night. So
::: :,i : .: were all of the ranch's horses.'
=- : ..
Sue could not speak. Her mouth was dry, and she could
: ; - * :, only nod dumbly. There was a dark, empty feeling deep inside her. If she had only talked to Rich or his brother, told them what she knew, maybe this could've been
: avoided. Maybe the cup hugirngsi couldn't have
' I
But what did she know?
And why would anyone believe her?
And how could she have changed anything?
It didn't matter, she told herself. It was her responsibility to do what she could. If she hadn't wasted her week end, if she'd talked to her grandmother the way she'd intended to and found out more about the cup hugirngsi, if she'd told Rich and his brother, maybe the town could have been alerted, precautions taken.
But the restaurant had been busy, she hadn't really had a chance to talk to her grandmother. Now she had the horrible feeling that time was running out That if they did not do something, if they did not act no it would be too late.
'It's a vampire,' she said. '
Rich stared at her. 'What?'
'A vampire's killing all these people. We call it a cup hu #rngs in Cantonese.' . 'Not you too.'
'My grandmother knows all about it.'
'Hold it right there.' Rich took a deep breath. 'This is going to be a very hectic weel I know there's been a lot of talk about vampires, and that may turn out to be what's occurring here, but right now I need you to help me with the paper. If you can't do that, I'll tell you right now, you're not going to get any credits at the college, and I'll find someone else to do your work. I know this is harsh, and I don't want to sound unreasonable, but this is nearly an emergency situation.
I need to be able to count on you.'
'You can count on me, but I think we should let people know what's happening.'
'That's what we're doing. We're a newspaper. That's our job. But it's not our job to tell people there are vampires murdering people when we don't know if that's the case. Right now, another person has been killed. It is our responsibility to report that death and the circumstances surrounding it, and not to speculate further. At this point, we let people draw their own conclusions. When a cause is discovered, when the murderer is caught, we will report that also.'
Sue stared at Rich. She had never seen him this serious before, and she was a little taken aback at his intensity.
He seemed to recognize this himself, because he slid demy smiled. His smile was not as relaxed as it usually was, nor as natural. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Things are a little tense around here today.' ....... i Sue nodded. 'That's okay. I understand.'
'You're going to be doing a lot of writing this week, and I'm going to need you here. Can your parents spare
'I'll work something out.' ; .:
'Are you sure?' ;:
Rich's phone rang, and he started to reach for it, but then he motioned for Sue to pick up the line. 'Go ahead. You've got to start sometime.'
She hurried around his desk, stood behind his empty chair, and grabbed the receiver. 'Hello, R/o Verde Gazette, this is Mr. Carter's desk.'
'You're not my desk,' Rich whispered. 'And you're not my secretary.
Next time, say 'Newsroom.' '
She nodded at him, waved her hand, tried to concentrate on the call.
She listened for a few moments, then said, 'Wait a minute. I'll ask my editor.' She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. 'It's a rancher who says his trees are dying. He wants us to do a story on it.
What should I do?'
'Tell him we'll do the article, and set up an appointment
Sue took her hand from the mouthpiece, told the man she would be happy to interview him for a story, and made an appointment for one o'clock.
She scrambled around for some scratch paper, Rich handed her a pen, and she wrote down the address and phone number.
