The Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire, page 4
Backward.
The last thing he heard before he hit the sand, and a rather dramatically placed rock, was Claw Tackard, bellowing bloody murder.
Professor Sloan Tarkingdale did not like dogs, wrinkled handkerchiefs, or people who wore belts that didn’t match their shoes. He didn’t like airplanes, either. They were too big, they were too crowded, and they tended to fall down when they were supposed to fly up. And stay there. He much preferred his expensively shod feet, his British racing green Jaguar, and express trains, in that order, to get him from one dangerous, life-threatening assignment to another. He left the ground only when he had to, and only, preferably, under severe sedation and after a long visit to the airport chapel. But Time, this time, was not on his side, no it wasn’t, and taking a luxury liner from his home base in London’s West End would have consumed too many precious hours. Too many people were in danger. Too many lives would be lost. Too many souls slipped away. Too many opportunities missed. As it was, he feared that he was already too late for the beginning. And having missed the beginning, the end was too disastrous, too chilling, too thoroughly nasty to contemplate.
So, courage firmly in his sweaty grip, which had wrinkled his suits to no end, he had flown from London to Boston’s Logan Airport.
He had driven up the coast to Assyria, in Maine.
He had taken the best room available at the SurfSide Hotel, and now he stood on the small semicircular balcony, purple silk dressing gown with black velvet lapels in place, goatee neatly trimmed, curved pipe smoking, as he watched the night creep over this place, turning the sea black, the beach grey, and his mood sour.
Several days had passed since his arrival, and nothing had happened.
He had even taken it upon himself to attempt an examination of the turret-comer stone mansion that had no name over there on the headland. It was the perfect spot for what he sought, almost a necessity for his enemy, but the only road leading to it had been blocked by fallen trees, boulders, and uprooted shrubbery. He later discovered that there was in fact another way—by boat, to a small, boiling-sea cove at the headland’s Atlantic face, where, he had been told, he could find stairs carved into the rock. Lots of them. He decided the examination would have to wait until his jet-lag had left him.
It was discouraging.
All the signs and portents, all his years of training, all his professorially honed skills of deduction and ratiocination had pointed to this very spot for the next great battle, perhaps the greatest of his career.
And nothing had happened.
He brought the pipe to his lips and puffed in agitation, and a hint of despair.
Pedestrians casually walked the street below; automobiles passed slowly, their unseen occupants once in a while calling a friendly greeting to those on the sidewalk; up at the marina, the lonely sound of ships’ bells; from various nightspots along Beachfront Avenue, the muffled joy of music and people laughing.
Lord, he thought, didn’t they know?
Didn’t they understand?
“Sloan, stop posing.”
Slowly he turned his carefully maintained leonine head toward the balcony immediately to his left, the one that belonged to the connecting room. He stared at the woman standing there.
Didn’t she know?
Didn’t she understand?
Obviously not, when he noted the disdainful but patient look she gave him. She was, even for the longtime personal assistant of an incredibly wealthy man whose entire adult life had been dedicated to the eradication of Evil wherever and whenever it was unearthed, breathtakingly beautiful. Flowing black hair that nestled softly upon her shoulders, deep and intelligent black eyes, full red lips, a figure that made palms sweaty and fingers twitch, a—
“Sloan, knock it off.”
“What? What?”
She shook her head lovingly. “First you act as if these balconies are going to collapse and we’re going to drop out of the sky like a stone any minute now even if we are only on the second floor. Then you act as if you want to tear off all my clothes and ravish me right here in the semi-dark where no one would know except maybe those two men in the park across the street. And I think one of them is a pirate.”
He blinked.
She smiled.
He cleared his throat. Puffed his pipe. “You are wrong, Dianna. I am simply deeply concerned that we will not achieve our goal in time.”
Her nod was thoughtful as she turned to the sea, to the eternal rolling black where no doubt a tidal wave was preparing to smash Assyria flat. He didn’t much like the sea, either. It had too much water.
“Yes,” she said, “I can see that.”
He lowered his voice and leaned closer, only the railing, several potted plants, and the generous expanse of his girth preventing him from climbing over and seeking comfort in her arms, a prospect which, while it made him temporarily giddy, was also out of the question.
They were, after all, colleagues.
Business and pleasure do not mix.
And even if they did, he couldn’t afford her.
“And if,” he continued solemnly, “we don’t find the fiend soon, who knows where he will put to ground? And if he does, how will we ever find him again? Have you seen all the trees around here? Thousands of them, for god’s sake. And the mountains . . .” He rolled his eyes in distress. “How will I ever be to able to carry on the family hunting tradition if I fail and he remains free?” He sighed his dismay and placed a palm over his heart. “I don’t want to disgrace my good name. And I don’t want to plunge the world into chaos.” He sighed again, closed his eyes, puffed his pipe. “I hate burdens, Dianna. No sooner do I shed one than another takes its place.”
He fell her shift, and a cool finger reached through the foliage to touch his cheek.
“You’re a good man, you know.”
He shrugged. That much was obvious; it was the burdens part he hated.
“But this time you’ll make it. This time will be the time that ends it all. Forever.”
He hoped so. Lord, he dearly hoped so.
The balcony trembled when a breeze slipped down from the sharply peaked roof overhead.
He watched the two men down in the park holding, no doubt, some sort of mysterious sea-type conversation. Probably about fish.
“Can I have a raise?”
The one man, who didn’t seem to be more than five-and-a- half feet tall to his expert eye, had something on his shoulder. He squinted, humphed. It was either a naked vulture or a rubber chicken.
“I said, can I have a raise?”
He chuckled benignly and blew a smoke ring. Dear, sweet, adorable, amusing Dianna Torne. Always there when he needed her, always ready with a clever quip or a quiet scold to put all things in perspective. Without question, she was a treasure, and an integral part of his never-ending crusade against the minions of the dark. Indeed, as he mused on, and pondered a little, how had he ever been able to destroy the craftily craven Creature of Cracow without her? What horrors would he have faced if she hadn’t deciphered the clues that had led them to the successful annihilation of the infamous, albeit unknown to the public-at-large, Monster of Southwestern Munich? And all those others—so many, many others!—who would have escaped his righteous wrath had it not been for her ready wit and perspicacity, her courage under fire, and her bravery under stress.
Of course, he had something to do with it too, or he wouldn’t have become so respected and justifiably famous in certain esoteric circles.
It wasn’t, he thought sullenly, as if she did all the work.
I mean, somebody around here has to read all those godawful musty-tomes in languages no one in their right mind would want to speak in the first place except for a few bonkers monks. And somebody, for crying out loud, has to spend days deciphering the obscure diagrams and hellish arcane symbols and make sense of the omens and portents. And so what if she did all that too, it was his money that allowed her to do so, wasn’t it? Why, if it hadn’t been for him, for god’s sake, she’d still be plying her trade in that… that… exorbitantly expensive place in Regent Street, that laughingly labeled Lonely Hearts Club, elegantly but expertly separating eager customers from their money in exchange for a few hours’ pleasant company for dinner and dancing in a private club.
So what the hell was she after a raise for?
His well-tended eyebrows lowered a notch.
Was this a ploy, he wondered suspiciously. A trick? A ruse? Was it more than a raise she was after?
“Sloan, stop it.”
Nuts.
The finger poked back through the potted plants and brushed across his manfully jutting chin with the beard on it and gave it a gentle flick.
“Just give me a raise.”
A faint cry in the air, above and behind the hotel.
He frowned, cocked his head and listened. Was that the call of the demonic Devon Nighthawk, on the prowl for the souls of men who had just lost their wives in boating accidents?
He listened.
“All this travel and hunting and killing and stuff is all well and good, and don’t think I don’t appreciate your picking up the tabs along the way, because I do, but a girl has a private life, you know, and expenses. God, all those expenses! You wouldn’t believe it even if I told you.”
The cry came again.
No, not the Nighthawk.
Although it was just possible that it was the hunting siren of the supernaturally bent Owl of Jummara, seeking the pulsating livers of animals not previously protected by certain elaborate, and damn messy, rituals.
“I have bills.”
Unless it was …
Unless it was …
Unless, at long last, it was …
Tarkingdale felt his stomach begin a slow crawl toward his throat.
“I mean, dressing in silk is nice once in a while, but it gets damn cold in winter, you know?”
The balcony quivered when the breeze gusted to a wind, and faded again.
“You ever try to wear silk underwear in Finland, in the middle of February?”
As a matter of fact, he thought—
“Besides,” she whispered playfully, “if you don’t give me a raise, I just may be too distracted to make a correct translation or interpretation the next time our lives depend upon it. I mean, not that I’d do it deliberately or anything, because you know how devoted I am to you, Sloan, but economic pressures and things … you know?”
The cry became a shriek.
Tarkingdale swallowed heavily.
One of the men across the way threw up a panicked hand, but not in time to prevent something huge, something black, from swooping out of the dark and knocking him ass-over-teakettle off the sea wall.
Tarkingdale gasped.
“So,” said Dianna, “what do you think?”
The sand cooled rapidly once the sun had set, and the crest of the low-tide waves took on a near phosphorescent glow. Roxanne Lott loved the beach when it was this way—deserted and quiet, all the sunbathers gone, the beachcombers waiting for another dawn, the birds away and nesting for the night. She loved it. It allowed her time to think, to ruminate on her life and its future, to plan for the day when she’d be able to leave Assyria and strike out on her own.
And on summer evenings like this, wearing a T-shirt, cut-off jeans, and going barefoot, it was almost as good as making love, without all the sweaty parts.
She stretched her lithe arms over her head and breathed deeply of the salt air; she dropped to the sand and did a dozen quick pushups; she raced her shadow for a brisk hundred yards; she picked up a shell, examined it, and flung it sidearm into the water. A fairly decent toss, she judged, but not one of her best. On a good day she could knock her mother out of the crow’s nest with a peanut.
And there was the rub.
The crux of her problems.
The nub of her troubles.
The TammieRox.
Many years ago, when she was but a child in diapers, her father had owned half-a-dozen working boats. There were good times. Bad times. Fair times. Lousy times. And now only the TammieRox was left, rusting all to hell and leaking from places that didn’t even touch the water. Even her dear father was gone, dead these past five years, which left her, her mother, and her younger by a year sister to man the nets, the helm, the anchor, the floppy fish that refused to stay caught, the innards and the eyeballs and the occasional slimy eel that was simply too Freudian to mention.
“It’s okay if you want to leave, dear,” her mother would say at least once a week, spitting tobacco over the side, not always checking the direction of the wind. “I don’t mind. Gonna retire soon anyway, might as well be now as later.”
She would sigh then and squint longingly at the sky as if hoping that soon she would join her husband there. Except he wasn’t there. He was still here. In the foyer. Wearing his yellow slicker and yellow rain hat, one hand out so his wife could hang her umbrella from his wrist.
Her sister, Tammie, thought it was fun, and had even decorated him last Christmas with spare tinsel and a winking yellow bulb in his mouth.
Roxanne, however, thought it disgusting, morbid, and didn’t her mother know the disturbing effect it had on the dates she brought home? Especially when she had to bring out the blindfold?
Dusting him was absolutely out of the question.
She picked up another shell, and tossed it away.
The moon flirted with a thin cloud or two.
Not, she thought glumly, that there were all that many dates to be had anyway in a place like this. Most of the eligible bachelors left town as soon as they graduated from the area high school over in Bally; the rest of them took to the ships, hauling and heaving and doing all kinds of fisherman things, most of which she couldn’t abide. Including the sailing. All those waves and floating things and water deep enough to drown King Kong—it was enough to make her shudder just to think about it.
Which, by default, left her home to tend the books, mend the nets, and run the blowfish cake machine in the garage.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, now there was Jared Graverly.
For almost three weeks the smarmy real estate man had been making the rounds of every homeowner in town, offering to buy their property for insultingly large amounts of money. In cash. No questions asked, no repairs need be made, just sign the papers and tell me when you’re leaving.
“You could be set for life,” he had told her just two days ago. “Think of what you could do with all that money. Why, you could go to that college you keep yapping about, you could buy your mother a new car, you could even—”
“Not interested,” she’d answered stiffly. She didn’t much care for Graverly. Aside from his manner, which was something akin to a slug on speed, he wore blue sharkskin suits, patent leather loafers, and greased his hair straight back from his forehead. Sometimes there were streaks.
“My dear, you shouldn’t be hasty. Something like this doesn’t come along every day.”
Which only proves there is a God, she’d thought.
“I will leave my card. Talk it over with your charming mother and your adorable sister. Neither my client nor I are in any hurry.”
But he had been back yesterday morning, and again this morning, each time his manners fraying a little more around the slippery edges. It wasn’t right. There was something fishy going on here. Especially when he refused to divulge the name of this mysterious client of his.
Unless it was simply her imagination.
She kicked at the sand.
She was known for her imagination.
Damnit.
Such as, she thought dismally as she booted at a shell along the beach’s hard wet apron, the time two years ago when she had thought that the actor who was really a baron and lived in the cottage on the beach at the edge of town had proposed to her. It had been, naturally, a silly misunderstanding, one easily blamed on his accent, all those r’s rolling and tumbling and all, but it had had the town giggling at her for months, and the baron avoiding her as if she had the plague.
And like the other time, when she saw the flying saucer land on the north headland, behind the stone mansion. She had seen it clear as day one afternoon, big and round and dropping little green wriggly things onto the ground, which scurried into a hole they burned with a fierce orange laser and were never seen again. So intent was she on taking mental notes for the newspaper that she’d nearly run the TammieRox into the rocks at the foot of the cliff.
They had had a good giggle over that one, too.
Then there was the time a while back when a huge white whale tried to—
An idle glance to her left, and she stopped, breath trapped in her lungs.
Oh lord, she thought.
He was there.
Sitting on the sea wall.
Talking to the pirate with the rubber chicken on his shoulder.
A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she swayed.
She didn’t know what to do. If he turned around and saw her, he’d probably run screaming into the night, and she’d never see him again; if she turned around and went the other way, she’d end up at his cottage; if she simply stayed here, frozen, and he turned around, he’d probably run screaming into the night; if she stayed here, frozen, she’d freeze her buns off.
She took a step.
He didn’t turn.
She took another step.
He didn’t turn.
She imagined him spotting her, leaping from the wall, sprinting over the sand to grab her in his arms and declare his love for her at the top of his voice.
A flush crawled over her cheeks.
She rubbed her stomach to calm down.
Rox, she ordered, knock it off.
Another deep breath, a squaring of her shoulders, and she walked unsteadily on, forcing herself to think about Graverly instead, and why his client was trying to buy the whole town. It didn’t make sense. Who would want this place?
She stopped again.
The baron?
She looked at him, frowning.
Could it be…? Was it possible? Was the baron the mysterious client? Was he trying to buy the town for himself so he could foreclose on her mortgage and run her out of the state just because … nah.
