Blood Red

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m trying so hard to…”

“To believe what’s unbelievable,” Stacey said.

“So you do believe that vampires exist?” Lauren said.

“Of course,” Stacey told her.

“But….”

Stacey shook her head, staring at Lauren. “But why doesn’t the world know? You’ve just seen them—and you still don’t completely believe. And,” she said, and hesitated, looking at Mark, “I think that Mr. Davidson could tell you that there are plenty of vampires out there who are living their lives in as normal a manner as possible, hurting no one. But there are also those who…” Again, she paused. “There are people, regular people, who are psychotic. Cold-blooded killers. It’s no different in the world of the undead.”

“The undead,” Lauren murmured slowly. “In other words, I may already know some vampires, good vampires, and I just don’t realize it.”

“Maybe.” Stacey said. “Many exist without their closest friends knowing the truth.”

“Sure they do,” Lauren said skeptically.

“I know that this is a lot to take in,” Mark said.

“But the important thing is, you’re safe here,” Stacey said. “Big Jim sleeps out in the caretaker’s cottage, Bobby is here a lot of the time, and I’ve been through this myself before. Our only weaknesses can come from within.”

Lauren stared at them. “Lieutenant Canady told us to come here. Are you telling me that a police lieutenant believes in vampires?”

“Yes,” Mark told her.

“His wife used to be one,” Stacey explained matter-of-factly.

“Used to be?” Lauren said.

“No one really understands what happened there, but Maggie was a vampire. For years and years. Then Sean came into her life, they had a major battle with a really vicious enemy, and then…she was human again. It was really great for Maggie, because she desperately wanted to have a family. It’s different with Jessica Fraser, who owns this place. She’s vampire, too. A good one, of course.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why Sean sent you here,” Stacey explained. “We know how to fight evil. We’ve all fought vampires before.”

“The bad ones, of course,” Lauren murmured.

“Of course,” Stacey said, gravely serious.

Could this nightmare be real? Lauren wondered.

When she’d woken up just a few days ago, the world had been spinning on its axis, and, though they’d had their problems, they had all been…

Sane.

But now…

Mark Davidson set a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up into his eyes. Serious eyes, striking eyes, eyes that had practically hypnotized her from the start.

“It will be all right. I don’t intend to stop until I’ve taken Stephan down, and it won’t matter how many servants he has running around, doing his bidding.”

“Right.” She knew she sounded exhausted and disbelieving, and she didn’t care.

“I need a shower,” he said. For the first time she noticed that there was black, sooty, stuff all over his shirt.

She realized that she was covered withg it, as well.

It was death.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

She was literally wearing the evil of untold years.

Realization hit her, and suddenly she thought she was going to pass out.

She remembered where she had seen the man who had accosted her on the street before.

She had seen him in the crystal ball.

9

T he shower felt good. Mark made the water as hot as he could, and the steam rose around him, and though he wondered if he would ever again feel that he was clean, really clean, given that he’d been doing this so long, he certainly felt a hell of a better physically.

Maybe, if he ever succeeded in destroying Stephan, he would receive vindication, and in that, surely, there would be a little peace.

Thinking back, he had to admit that it had actually been an amazing day.

It wasn’t often that you found out that a police lieutenant not only believed in what you were saying but actually had experience battling vampires. And then there had been the moments on the sidewalk.