The Soft Whisper of the Dead

by

Charles L. Grant

Necon Classic Horror #20

Cover by Jill Bauman

A digital edition published by

Necon E-Books at Smashwords

This Edition Copyright 2012 Kathryn Ptacek

Cover Copyright 2012 Jill Bauman

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For Alan:

In spite of the Irish,

And because of the advice, the affection, and the late night calls

That taught me what it was like not to be alone.

Table of Contents

Foreward

The First Night

The Second Night

The Third Night

The Fourth Night

A Foreword For Those Who Remember Ralph Bates

For some months before the World Fantasy Convention was held in Berkeley, California, in l981, I had been complaining to a friend of mine — Bob Booth, from Rhode Island — about what I believed was the pretty sorry state of my childhood monster pals. They were, I said, supposed to be scary not cuddly, for god’s sake; they were supposed to make you lock the doors and windows, run screaming from the theater, hold your girlfriend’s hand until she screamed as loud as you.

They were what they were, I had always thought; monsters — no more, and certainly no less. Wonderful, neat, spooky, and all that we lived for in our Saturday night nightmares.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

But times changed.

From cereals to cartoons to some decidedly unfunny television series, my old friends the vampire, the werewolf, Frankenstein’s monster, and all the others who lived out there in dark, were being mocked and ridiculed and turned into objects of pity, without even the saving grace of some lingering affection.

In theaters they were relegated to pornography and slasher films.

In novels they were psychoanalyzed six ways from Sunday, distorted and contorted to the point where vampires walked in daylight, werewolves were only poor slobs who suffered from unsightly growths of unnaturally long hair, and all the monster needed was the love of a good woman.

I mean, really.

Where, I wanted to know, was Christopher Lee, standing at the head of that long stone staircase, his fate soon to be decided by Peter Cushing charging across the table to pull down the drapes and let the sun do its work?

Where were Lon Chaney and Henry Hull, suffering as men, but having a hell of a good time when they turned into wolves?

Where were the real honest-to-god zombies, the guys brought back from the dead by voodoo, to stalk the cane fields, to cast shadows on the walls, to carry the heroine off to that exotic campfire in the jungle?

Where was Simone Simon, when no one believed her?

Bob tried to explain that, unlike me, sooner or later people grow up, that adults are too sophisticated these days to believe in such things. Freud and/or sixty bucks an hour works better than special effects; it’s easier to believe that an actor can become President than a man can become an undead servant of the Devil.

Perhaps it’s true.

Perhaps we have left our childhood dreams behind, stuck up in the attic or down in the cellar, with all those other toys we think we’ve outgrown.

But, I said and probably hysterically by that time; I don’t care, damnit.

Like the little kid who wanted his Maypo, I wanted my fun back, and the hell with the technicolor psycho with the butcher knife in his hand.

What exactly, Bob asked cannily, do you miss then?

I miss Universal Pictures, Val Lewton, Hammer Films. George Zucco, Hazel Court, Lionel Atwill, Ralph Bates, Barbara Steele, Boris Karloff, Elisha Cook, Jr., Tom Conway, and Vincent Price. I miss the old-fashioned frights, the chains, the bats, the storms, the heroines who opened that door and the heroes who didn’t, the fog, the rats, the carriages thundering through midnight, the laboratories, the swamps, the old castles, the mumbled incantations.

So, as it turned out, did Bob, though far more calmly.

And it was he who suggested that I have a talk with Donald M. Grant, the premier small press publisher in the country. ln the unlikely event that you know neither he nor his products, he makes real books. The kind you take in your hands and know that you have before you a work of true craftsmanship that won’t fall apart the next time you sneeze. He does it to make money, because he’d be stupid if he didn’t; but first and foremost, he does it because he loves it, he loves reading, and he understands better than most what it means when you say, “You know, this even smells like a book.”

So out there in California, t talked to him

To this day I don’t know where I got the courage, because this was, after all, Donald M. Grant, who isn’t a relation that I know of, though I suppose there’s a connection somewhere back there, in the clan.

But I talked to him. I bitched about how all the good times, the sheer joy of being scared, had been taken from my life. I moaned about how my friends had been robbed of their mystique by those who thought spotlights were better than shadows. And somewhere in there, thinking I was being clever, I wondered aloud if he would be interested in looking at something that would be blatantly old-fashioned. No so-called new ground broken. No new insights. No new creatures.

Hammer Films, is the way I put it; old-fashioned horror in a book, with all the grand cliches and all the fun I missed so badly.

And more — the setting would be Oxrun Station, my own little corner of the Dark Fantasy world, far enough in the past so you couldn’t jump in your car and run away from The Thing bashing down your back door, when you couldn’t call your best friend on the telephone and ask him where to hang the garlic, when you couldn’t hop on a conveniently waiting plane to get the hell out of Transylvania.

By the time I finished, there on the sofa behind some kind of potted plant, I was so red-faced and loud that people began staring.

But damned if the man didn’t say yes.

I think I was too excited to say thank you.

I know I acted like a jerk, no question about it, though I’m sure I stopped short of kissing his feet.

That was in October.

In March of the following year. I handed him the manuscript of The Soft Whisper of the Dead.

Then Bob Booth got to work again, mentioning on the dust wrapper blurb that this was, in fact, the first of an historical trilogy, all to take place in nineteenth century Oxrun Station. I think that was the first Don knew he was going to get three novels.

So finally it’s done — my vampire, werewolf, and mummy — and I can’t help feeling more than a touch of melancholy, more than a touch of regret; my childhood and its toys are long gone, and my pals have gone back with them. Up there in the attic. Down there in the cellar. But never very far from the best of my dreams.

Mind you, I’m still complaining, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

But god, it sure was fun while the fog and thunder lasted.

—     Charles L. Grant

The First Night

1

It was November, and the leaves on the ground stirred like rats in a sewer, the wind passing over them the breath of a dead season. Stars kept their distance, illuminating nothing; a fox found its burrow over crackling iced snow. In a grey twisted hickory long since crippled by lightning an owl waited patiently for its hunting to begin, while on the tracks that broke through the gap in the low hills, a dog sniffed at the cold iron until it felt a faint trembling. A stone rattled from a cairn, a branch racketed from its bole, and the moon lay tainted shadows where the black was shadow thin.

It was cold, and the lights in the depot were more like fog than gentle comfort. From the lanterns in the eaves of the platform’s overhanging roof the pale glow washed the floorboards to a dull pocked tan, and the bricks of the small building lost their images of welcome. The windows were tall and arched, and they reflected the gas lamps set high on the walls. Reflected, but nothing more-their light barely reached to the edges of the sills, barely broke the line of benches in the waiting room’s center. The glass seemed brittle. The double doors too flimsy. The newsprint posters on the walls far more ancient than they were.

It was empty, and the stationmaster’s office seemed suddenly far too small. Jubal Pierson shook himself as if he’d be able to banish the chill, pushed away from his desk and swiveled his chair toward the window. The barred lower half was down, and looking at the tracks was like seeing into prison. He pulled out his watch and thumbed open the engraved gold lid, grunted at the time and awkwardly stood up. He was tall and ungainly, his dark blue uniform ill-fitting and faded, especially where the left trouser leg had been pinned back upon itself at the knee. Not like the regiment, he thought sourly as he pushed through the door into the waiting room with his crutch; all spit and polish there, nobody cares here. Then he scowled. That was unfair. They did care, and that’s a fact. When he’d returned, leaving most of his leg somewhere east of Antietam, they had put him right into the best hospitals, with the best surgeons, the best nurses. They had voted him a pension, and had given him this job. Not out of charity, because they knew he’d not accept it. Out of pride for his fighting, out of relief for his surviving.

Still, nights like this were not worth the effort.

He looked around the empty room. squinting in the wavering light. The wood stoves in the comers were nearly burned out, and the cold was moving in; the fool newsboy from the Herald hadn’t taken the old headlines from their brackets; and through the back window he could just see the curved black top and red piping of the hackney waiting for the train. He spat dryly and turned away. It was old Horace Bartlett out there in the cold, and the old man could stay there for all Pierson cared. Twice this evening he’d gone out to offer the driver a cup of hot tea. and twice he’d been snapped at as if he had the plague. Well, the hell with him. Pierson had better things to do than put up with a codger who didn’t know kindness when he saw it.

He exhaled heavily, and his breath turned to fog.

He reached back into the office and pulled a long muffler from a peg, wrapped it twice around his scrawny neck and jammed his flat rounded hat down over his head. Then he step-thumped to the doors, pushed one open and went outside.

Across the two sets of tracks was another building. a long and low open shed for the northbound train passengers. Two dim lanterns in either corner barely gave it an outline, made its center look like the mouth of a deep deserted cave. Pierson stared at it a moment, then ·looked to his right. It was coming. He could feel it. After all these years he could sense the train coming even before it began the climb that would take it over the hill and down into the small valley fanning out behind the village.

He didn’t expect anyone to be on this one. Ordinarily it roared and steamed through without a wink, without a whistle. The only clue he had that he might be needed was old Horace and his damned hack, old Horace who never left his hearth unless there was money to be made.

He leaned on his crutch and stomped his foot hard to restore the circulation, rubbed a hand over his right shoulder and pulled the muffler more snugly around his throat. He sniffed and wiped a sleeve over the black bristles of his mustache, walked to the end of the platform and looked up at the moon. At the tops of the trees that were more like cracks in black ice.

He shook his head slowly, wishing it were dawn, made a three-quarter tum and finally saw the light.

And heard the rumbling.

Like thunder coursing through an underground tunnel it dragged the white eye behind it; the ground trembled, a few trees began to sway, and he could hear the faint whimper of a dog racing from the tracks.

Then the whistle, and a startlingly white plume of steam that billowed toward the moon.

He hurried back to the doors and positioned himself in the shallow recess, blowing on his hands and shuddering as if the gesture would generate some heat. Come on, he thought as he straightened his cap and smoothed the muffler down his chest; come on, you damned bastard, ain’t got all night, y’know.

When the night parted he was ready; when the iron wheels shrieked against their brakes and gouted steam into his face, he was pleased with the warmth however fleeting; when the engine stopped and the cars behind it remained dark and unopened, he scowled and looked for the conductor to swear at.

The engine hissed, the bell rang once, and before he realized it, the train was pulling out.

“God … damn!” he said, looking from one end of the depot to the other helplessly, angrily. “God … damn!”

He moved to the edge of the platform and glared at the empty cars pulling past him, batting the steam away from him furiously as he searched for someone to take the brunt of his rage. All night, goddamnit, he had sat in that freezing office; all night he’d waited for a goddamned empty train.

His eyes narrowed. It was Horace. His fault. He knew Pierson would stay if he showed up with that fool carriage. A joke. A damned stupid joke. While Horace the bastard sat in the hackney and took brandy from his flask.

He grunted, turned sharply and fairly marched toward the doors. Joke. The sonofabitch had hated him since they were kids, and this wouldn’t be the first time the codger tried something like this. But this time he wouldn’t get away with it. This time he would pay.

He had his hand on the knob when he felt something at his back.

He looked over his shoulder.

Steam clung to the air in fading clouds, but not thickly enough to obscure the northbound platform.

Or the woman in the dark-hooded cape.

Or the massive black dog standing patiently at her side.

Bess stirred uneasily in her traces, snorting and tossing her head, shaking the carriage and upsetting the ginger grip Horace had on his worn flask. The brandy slopped coldly over his hand, and he cursed, flicking the whip lightly on the bay’s rump to remind her to be still. But despite the drink, and the two pairs of fingerless gloves and the two overcoats and the sweater and the three pairs of socks under the high calvary boots, he was still freezing. He could have gone inside to warm himself by one of the stoves, but then he’d have to listen to Jubal grouse about the war, about his leg, about every goddamn thing in this world except the railroad. And that he had no intention at all of suffering, not tonight.

Bad enough, isn’t it, that he’s dragged away from the fire on a miserable night like this, some smarmy little toad in a fancy coat pounding on his door with a note from Squires Manor on the other side of the park. He scowled and rubbed a hand over the coarse grey stubble on his pointed chin. Squires. Though the name fit the family, what with all its land and money, it somehow didn’t fit the people that carried it. The old man, now, he acted as if his last name should be King, and the wife before she died acted as if it should be God. Pamela. of course and thank heaven, she was different. She was an alright child for one that could read and write better than most men. And since it was her that sent the messenger with the note asking him to meet the train tonight, he couldn’t very well refuse — not when there was a tiny square of white silk in the envelope and a gold coin just lying inside.

But he wondered if catching his death was worth the money.

He shifted uncomfortably, and when his legs complained of cramping he swung himself to the ground and stared at the depot’s rear wall.

They should’ve been here by now, he thought, frowning. The train was gone and they should have been here. Probably got caught by Jubal, Jubal bowing and scraping and flinging open that stupid coat to show all his medals. That’s what it was. Guests of the Squires, and the first thing they see when they get here is a one-legged drunk with a bunch of brass medals.

He sighed for the rescue he would have to perform, slapped Bess once on the shoulder to assure her he’d be back, and made his way around the lefthand comer.

Just as he reached the platform steps the train’s whistle sounded. A long, midnight wail as black as the night that swallowed it whole. He hunched his shoulders and took the four steps spryly, a welcoming smile on his face as he stepped into the light.

And saw the woman coming toward him.

“Ah!” he said, glancing around behind her for signs of her baggage. “Ah, you must be Miss Chambers. I’m Bartlett, ma’am. I been sent to bring you to the Squires place.” He moved forward as he spoke, faltered when she stopped, just the far side of the near lamp. She wore a deep brown cloak, its hood up and shadowing her face. Her hands were out of sight, and down toward the platform’s center he could see a man bending over a large trunk and two satchels.

“Oh,” he said, seeing an extra tip slip through his hands. “Oh, I see you’ve help already.” Puzzled, he shrugged. “They didn’t tell me there was two of you.”

“There aren’t,” the woman said.

When he looked again, the man was gone.

The brandy, he decided, blinking rapidly, rubbing his hands.

And when he looked a second time, he saw the dog.

* * *

It was November, and it was cold. and the bay in the hackney’s traces didn’t mind the soft hands that smoothed through her mane and stroked her cold muzzle and took up the reins and moved her without a whip.

It was November, in Oxrun Station, and the depot was empty; and when the wind blew again nothing moved at all but the ragged end of a muffler, in the doorway, soaked in blood.

2

The Hack sped west along Chancellor Avenue, through the cold dark toward the village proper. The dirt road was hard-frozen, the trees on either side in black and white motley; every so often a wall broke from the verge, high and unlighted, marking the small estates hidden back in the woodland, echoing hooves like cannonade and gunshot, rolling clattering wheels into sharp staccato thunder. The single lantern hanging from the landau roof swung wildly, scattering shadows, guttering once as if it would flare out.

There was no one at all in the high driver’s seat.

For three miles the bay strained, untouched but racing, and by the time it reached the mark where the road turned to stone, its mouth was covered with bubbling white foam. Steam curled from its lathered flanks. Sparks flared from its hooves. While beside it, pacing easily, was a silver-maned black wolf.

Williamston Pike was empty, and Marty Reston didn’t like it. He didn’t like the way the gaslight hid itself in the bare hickory and elms, or the way the houses up and down the road were so dark as to seem deserted, or the way the cobblestones held between them tiny rivers of shifting black. The patches of snow left from the first fall glinted dully, in pale grey; the cold air made the edge of everything too sharp, a thousand stone and wood knives looking to cut him; and the cold air itself, ready to shatter if he moved too quickly. He felt trapped, but he had to do something or his blood would freeze, his skin would tum brittle, and the first light of dawn would find him stiff in the gutter, huddled like a dead cat tossed from a coachwheel.

Slowly, then, he rose from his crouch behind a skeletal bush that threatened with red thorns, thumped his arms across his chest to get the circulation in motion, and took the chance to stand out on the pavement. He was on the west comer, Centre Street and its empty shops stretching down to his right. On the other side was another wooded lot, but this one was being cleared and all that was left were scattered piles of stripped trunks and a few snow-capped deadfalls. There was going to be a new building there one of these days, though probably not until the ground softened in spring. But he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t give a damn. All he knew was that he’d been waiting here for over an hour and not a single carriage had gone by. Not a single pedestrian. Not a single coach or cart. He glared east along the Pike, shook his head and sighed.

Amy was the lucky one, working up there at the Squires’ place where it was warm and she could pinch a bit of food whenever she felt hungry. Definitely the lucky one. Not that she denied him his little sideline; after all, the Squires hardly ever missed the bits of glass and silver she slipped into her apron every now and then. No, she never denied him or nagged him or complained about her lot, not even when he got himself caught and spent time in the workhouse.

But if he had any sense, he would get himself a job that never required him to stand out in the cold, or the rain, or the heat, or any weather at all that wasn’t exactly like spring. If he had more sense, he would get off the street, get himself straight down Chancellor Avenue and into the Inn. They didn’t mind him there, as long as he paid for his gin and made no disturbance. He would stand in front of the fireplace and warm his hands, his rump, shake the winter from his black shortcoat and stay there until summer.

He coughed. He coughed again, harshly, and spat phlegm and blood into the street. A quick glance around to be sure he was not spotted, and he readjusted the scratchy wool muffler around his neck, used the flat of his gloved hands to pull the beak of his wool cap lower over his eyes. He sniffed. He swallowed. He sniffed again and spat blood.

Then he heard the carriage. He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his cosh, peered down Centre Street and saw the hack swerve around the far comer. It kept to the center of the cobblestones, out of the light, but not before Marty recognized the bay. He grinned. Horace had picked someone up at the depot, a traveller with all that travelling gold just lying there in his pockets.

Suddenly, it stopped just a block away.

He frowned as the bay tossed its head wearily, snorting, shifting, steam gusting from its nostrils.

He frowned again; from where he was standing he could see no one driving.

And just as he stepped to the curb to get a better look, he heard the footfall behind him, and felt the hand on his shoulder.

The bay tried to rear within the confinement of its traces, but a voice (a soft whisper) soon had it calm, soon had it moving to the end of the street and around the comer to the Pike. Its eyes rolled whitely at the snarling it heard, but the voice (a soft whisper) drove the sound and the fear and the scent of blood from its mind. For another two miles it trotted, then, until finally it reached a dark wall of fitted fieldstone nearly twelve feet high. It slowed. The wall parted between two marble posts each topped with a marble eagle. Over them soared an iron filigree arch with the words Squires Manor fashioned out of polished brass. The bay turned into the drive, moving easily now as the lantern cast its light ahead of it in gold.

One hundred yards later the trees fell aside and the hackney followed a long, leisurely curve in front of a large mansion. It was three stories high, its walls of brick, its roof gently pitched and interrupted only by a clutch of fat chimneys. The windows were tall and narrow, the porch deep, the shrubs at the base thick and evergreen. It was solid, and plain, the only sign of ostentation the rainbow rise of a stained-glass dome in the center of the roof’s peak.

There were other carriages, other coaches, but the bay did not stop until it had reached the head of the line, almost to the point where the drive met itself again at the end of the loop.

The springs creaked, and a moment later a blanket was thrown over the horse’s back. Its ears pricked up, but when it turned its head it saw nothing.

Nothing but the green eyes of the silver-maned wolf.

There was music, loud and sprightly, and there was laughter to match; there was rich food in abundance, fine wines and champagne; and the guests that numbered eighty were in velvets and gems and silks that caught the rainbow.

Pamela Squires swept through the huge crowded rooms of the first floor in a whirlwind of gold. Her dress, brocade and silk and scooped at the neck to show just enough of her breasts, whispered in her wake and had most of the male guests staring after her no matter who they were with; her hair, long and gleaming in the gas and candlelight, was a deep and warm yellow, sweeping in soft natural waves to nest on her shoulders; and the necklace that she wore was made of gold links, with a single emerald pendant that trapped the light and held it. The gem matched her eyes, and her eyes were alive in a slightly rounded face flushed now from excitement — not from the party. but from the waiting for her guest.

She was never impolite to anyone who stopped her, but she was clearly distracted, her conversation short of perfunctory, her smile a bit strained, her gaze never holding another’s for very long. Instead, it shifted continually to a doorway or a window, her white-gloved hands fluttering around her narrow waist whenever liveried Timmons admitted a new face.

Impervious to the laughter, to the orchestra playing in the ballroom, to the servants’ ministrations. she wandered fitfully until she reached the long greenhouse porch in back. It was warm here and cozy, the large-paned glass walls and slanted glass ceiling holding in the heat from the couples who strolled along the brick-and-wood flooring, admiring the winter roses and other vivid blossoms displayed on marble pedestals artfully placed throughout the room.

A hand touched her arm. She turned, smiled, and rolled her eyes toward heaven.

“Jack!” she said, and tilted her cheek to be kissed.

Jack Foxworth obliged with a grin, took Pamela’s arm and brought her to the rear wall now running with condensation. He was not much taller than she, five years older than her own twenty-four. He wore a black dinner suit with double-breasted quilted lapels and black velvet stitching down the seams of his trousers. His pleated shirt was a blinding white, the studs tiny rubies encased in gold. When he turned to face the house, the French doors opened to the ballroom and the center hallway, the dim light flared in his dark ginger hair.

Pamela stared out at the vast lawn in back, and shivered slightly at the cold held at bay only by a thin pane of glass. “I thought you weren’t going to bother to come tonight.”

He smiled, but barely. His dark eyes seemed almost black against his fair skin, his romanesque features almost harsh when he frowned. “I couldn’t leave you to this … ” and he waved a hand toward the party. “Of course, I know how you love it.”

She giggled. “That’s not very good of you, Jack. After all, Father’s giving this in honor of — ”

“An actress,” he said scornfully. “A French one, at that, and she didn’t even bother to come.” He paused. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the people around here. Bernhardt’s still down in Washington, yet here you all are as if you expected her to walk through the front door at any minute. “

“It’s the thought,” she said, mock-primly. “Do you not give parties when one of your precious ships is launched?”

“I can hardly get a ship into my dining room, Pamela,” he said dryly. Then he turned to her suddenly, took her hands and held them close to his chest.

“Jack, please,” she whispered.

“Pamela, listen, I don’t think I can — ”

He stopped when her head suddenly snapped around, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. “What is it?”

“Did you hear that?”

He followed her gaze, to the wash of pale light that stretched over the snow-covered lawn. “Hear what?”

“Something … a dog. It was howling.”

“I didn’t hear anything. Pamela — ”

She pulled her hands free and dusted at his lapels. “Jack, I can’t talk to you tonight, really. And certainly not about that. I’m expecting someone very important, and she’s late. Besides,” she added, “you and Father have been sneaking around for days, whispering about this and that and not telling me a thing. I don’t think that’s very fair of you. “

“Well, my dear,” he said smugly, “women can’t be expected to know all the gossip in the world.”

“We’re not talking about gossip.”

He grinned. “No, I guess we’re not. And we’re not talking about this friend of yours, either. As I recall, we were talking about — ”

“No,” she said gently. “I told you not tonight. 1 can’t.” She looked up into his eyes and smiled an apology. “Forgive me?”

“I always do, don’t I?” he said sourly.

She kissed his cheek quickly, promised to speak with him later, and hurried out of the room before anyone else caught her.

Ten minutes later she finally surrendered pretext of courtesy and hurried to the center hall. When she arrived, no one was there except Timmons, and he’d known her long enough not to fret over her state. He was tall, black, his grey hair dark, his creviced skin shining with gentle perspiration. He smiled when she glanced at him, looked away when she strode to the paneled walnut door and lay a hand on the faceted glass knob. The hand fell away. She turned, and sighed, and looked to the grandfather clock on the short wall to her left.

“My god,” she whispered in dismay. “My god, it’s after twelve. “

Under the butler’s watchful eye, then, she began a slow pacing along the hall’s crimson runner. The hall itself was long and narrow, wasting little time before it opened on the right to the dining room with its fifteen-foot refectory table and green velvet drapes, the Swiss crystal and the English silver, and the Persian carpets on the floor; on the left was the sitting room, large enough for three sofas, several islands of armchairs and sidetables, a massive fireplace on the righthand wall over which was a portrait of Grandon and Violet Squires.

Directly ahead of her was a staircase that marched carpeted to a broad open landing which could be taken down again on the other side to the back half of the house, and which also split to climb left and right to a gallery that led to the rooms on the second and third stories; and from the gallery’s sharp-angled supporting beams hung twenty-foot Norman and French tapestries which depicted hunts and battles and idyllic woodland glens.

Pamela walked to the first step as if she would ascend, stopped instead and looked up, all the way up to the stained-glass dome and the twelve-tiered chandelier that hung like a glass arrowhead at the end of a thick chain run through a loop at the dome’s center. It was lighted, and the tear-drop crystals reflected the candle flames a thousand times over. A soft smile touched her lips, and her left hand reached out to the newel post so her balance wouldn’t be lost. Like staring into the heart of a comet, she thought, or the soul of a sun.

A knock loud enough to overcome the music.

She turned, her heart racing, as Timmons stirred himself and pulled the massive door open.

The wind took advantage. It swirled over the threshold and chained itself about her ankles, ruffling her skirts and trembling the flames in the silver-sconced candles on the walls. A low fog of snow drifted onto the floor.

And she heard it again, back in the dark now flecked with falling white-a distant, unmistakable howling less a mourning than a summons.

“Oh no,” she said, frowning puzzlement as she moved forward. Then, louder: “Good Lord, what are you doing here?”

3

Ned Stockton looked over his shoulder once, frowning, and stepped inside at Timmons’ silent invitation. A black-gloved hand brushed a dusting of snow from his Inverness cloak, then quickly doffed a felt hat banded in black. His lean, high-cheeked face was flushed with the cold, flecks of white clinging to his thick dark brows. He was c1eanshaven, and clearly apologetic.

“What are you doing here.” Pamela whispered again, glancing around to see that no one else was near them.

“I must see your father, Pam,” he said, his voice resonant and solemn. He looked to the guests just visible in the front room. “I know this is an awkward moment — ”

“Awkward,” she said. “Awkward? My god, Ned, why didn’t you use the back entrance. If anyone — ” She groaned exasperation and took hold of his arm, pulled him away as he grinned at the butler and allowed himself to be hustled down the hallway and past the staircase to a small door on the right. Pamela fairly kicked it open and thrust him inside, closed the door behind them and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Now,” she said. “What’s going on?”

They were in the anteroom of the kitchen. Behind them, another open door showed him the huge black ovens and stoves, the bustling maids and cooks working on freestanding tables in the center of what seemed like absolute chaos. None of the women looked at him for more than a puzzled moment; they were too busy preparing the replacement trays and pitchers for the buffet in the ballroom.

“Ned!” she hissed.

He looked back and smiled, his gaze candidly drifting over her gown, her figure.

“None of that now,” she warned, though her eyes sparked with pleasure. “Come on, tell me.”

He sobered instantly. “Pam — ”

She groaned again. “Ned, how many times have I told you not to call me that. At least not here in the house. If Father should hear you — ”

“All right,” he said, one hand up to calm her. “All right. But I must see Mr. Squires. Immediately, Pam.”

She caught the urgency in his tone and lowered her arms slowly. “Trouble?”

‘‘I’m afraid so.” Another glance into the kitchen, and a finger to his lips as a uniformed maid bustled past them with a shy smile, her arms laden with a tray of crystal wine glasses. When she’d vanished into the hallway, he touched Pamela’s arm briefly. “There’s been a death.”

“No wonder, with all the cold,” she said. “But what does that have to do — ”

“Not the cold,” he said grimly. “A murder.”

In less than five minutes Ned found himself in the upstairs library. He had been there before on several occasions, but the sheer numbers of books on the shelves covering each of the walls never failed to astonish, and awe, him. They also made him feel somewhat saddened since he knew that only Pamela bothered to take advantage of all the knowledge that lay between the rich leather covers. Her father certainly never did: he was always far too busy structuring, digesting, virtually breathing all the facts and figures, the politics and sly dealings that had made him so great a force in the banking world that he seldom had to leave the Station at all. It made him wonder more than once where Pamela had veered from the family tree.

He was standing in the center of a vast Persian carpet, an intricate floral pattern dizzying in blues and golds. In front of him was a long, scalloped-back sofa, and in its center sat Grandon Squires. He was a large man in both height and width, the snug cut of his black evening wear bespeaking wealth more eloquently than the large onyx and gold signet rings on his fingers; his shoes were gleaming black patent leather, and the left foot tapped impatiently in the air.

“I fail to understand what all this has to do with me, Mr. Stockton,” he said. His hair was black, his complexion florid, and his thick lips barely moved as he repeated his statement.

Ned, his hat held respectfully in front of him, took a deep breath. “Sir, Marty was the husband of one of your staff. I only thought it proper that I come to you first before I told Mrs. Reston she’s a widow.”

Squires waved a long cigar impatiently. “Can’t it wait, Mr. Stockton? I have half the village downstairs at this moment, and I fail to — ”

“Mr. Squires,” he said, all patience gone, “Marty Reston was found only thirty minutes ago. He was lying in the trees on the comer of the Pike and Centre Street.” He paused; Squires seemed completely uninterested. “He was brutally murdered, sir.”

“As I understand it,” the banker said, staring at the glowing cigar tip, “Reston was scarcely the kind of man who made friends of decent people. Intimations of highway robbery and things like that.”

“Marty was a thief, yes,” he agreed. “But he wasn’t all that bad as thieves go. He never hurt anyone in his life, but someone certainly hurt him.”

“A falling-out,” Squires suggested, squirming on the couch. “I hear that’s always happening to these fellows.”

“Marty worked alone, sir, he always did. But even if he didn’t, I don’t think he’d have a partner who’d murder him like that.”

“Like what, for god’s sake,” Squires exploded.

“Like tearing out his throat and leaving him to bleed dry in the snow!”

In the shadows behind the sofa, Pamela gasped and clamped her hands to her lips.

There was a moment’s grim silence before Squires cleared his throat and said, “I see.”

“No, sir, you don’t,” Ned said, ignoring the frantic look Pamela gave him.

“Really?”

“Really. You see, just before I received word of Marty’s killing, I was out at the train station. I don’t suppose you know Horace Bartlett.”

Before Squires could answer, Pamela lay a hand on his shoulder and leaned into the light. “He’s the driver, Father. He has the livery in the Village. On High Street, across from the park.”

“That’s right,” Ned said.

“Very nice,” Squires said. “But I have my own drivers, thank you. This … Bartlett means nothing to me.”

“No, sir. But he means something to his wife, and she came into the station worried about him. It seems … ” He hesitated, turning his hat over and over in his hands. “It seems he was dispatched to the depot by your daughter, to pick someone up on the eleven o’clock train.”

Again Pamela forestalled him with a cautious touch to his shoulder. “That’s right, Father. I sent him to fetch Saundra.”

“I believe,” the man said coldly, “that’s why I have Timmons, my dear. To handle things like that.”

“But you know Timmons is busy,” she said reasonably. Then she looked up to Ned, her eyes wide and fearful. “Saundra-”

“Yes, Mr. Stockton,” Squires said sharply, ignoring the startled look his daughter gave her. “What about Saundra. That is, Miss Chambers.”

“I don’t know,” Ned told him. “There was no one there when I arrived, and no sign of any baggage. Unfortunately, however, I did find old Jubal. He was shoved under the platform, in the same condition as we found Marty.”

There was a moment’s pause before Squires lurched to his feet and lumbered across the room. Ned thought he was going to leave, but the banker abruptly reversed direction and stalked back to him, stopping only when there was barely a hand’s breadth between them. His breath smelled of wine and tobacco, and Ned could see the broken veins laced across the man’s cheeks and nose.

“I don’t like gossip, Mr. Stockton,” he said.

“Father!”

“And I don’t like murder,” Ned replied calmly. “It seems there’s someone out there tonight who’s gone mad with the cold. I came here not only to talk to Mrs. Reston, but also warn you.”

Squires reared back. “Warn … me?”

“Sir, you said it yourself — you have half the village in your home tonight, and they’re the most important people we have here, some of the most important in the state. I don’t expect you to cause a panic by making a formal announcement, but I would think you’d want to caution them about their trips home.”

Squires inhaled slowly, and Ned braced himself, so convinced was he that the man was going to strike him. Pamela came quickly around the sofa and stood between them, though slightly to one side.

“Father?”

“The man is presumptuous,” he said as if Ned weren’t there. “I appreciate his bringing me this terrible news, but I do have a brain, you know. I know what to say.”

He turned on his heel, then, and marched stiffly from the room, the door slamming behind him. But before Ned could say anything the door opened again, and Squires was back, his cigar pointing like a lance.

“And see to it, sir, you do not speak to anyone but Mrs. Reston. I’ll not have my staff disturbed and upset when there’s still food and drink to be served. And while you’re at it, you might keep your eye out for Miss Chambers. She is certainly more important than some slimy little thief.”

The door slammed again.

Pamela took hold of his arm, and felt it trembling. “Ned — ”

But the door opened a second time, and as she turned to snap at her father the words caught in her throat. It was only Timmons, his dark face impassive.

“Mr. Squires wishes Mr. Stockton to conduct his … business in the kitchen,” he announced flatly. “And there is someone waiting for you in the hall, Miss.”

“Jack Foxworth, I suppose,” she said just as flatly, looking to Ned and rolling her eyes heavenward.

“No, Miss,” the butler said. “It’s a young woman.”

“Oh Lord,” she said and started to run for the door, stopped halfway and looked back to Ned.

“Ned, you know the way, don’t you? I … it’s been years … it’s Saundra and — ”

He laughed and waved her on. “It’s all right, Pam,” he said. “I can find the kitchen well enough.”

She vanished, and Ned walked slowly after her, pulled the door to and had turned toward the staircase when Timmons came up beside him.

“Mr. Stockton,” he said without looking straight at him, “Mr. Squires also trusts that you’ll be discrete.”

“The police are always discrete, Mr. Timmons,” he said.

“Very good, sir,” Timmons said without a trace of emotion. “That’s very good indeed.”

The butler quickened his stately pace, and Ned glared at his back. Though the ageless retainer worked superhuman hours under considerably unpleasant conditions, he was almost as much a snob as his employer. Getting him to break the solemn mask he wore had become one of Ned’s passions, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was so devoted to Pamela, he would have gladly popped him with a snowball just to see the reaction.

He took the staircase thoughtfully, reached the open landing and had turned to descend the back steps when he heard Timmons say, “Please, madam, come in.” He looked down into the foyer. Grandon Squires was standing off to one side, paying no attention to the guests milling around him. Pamela was there too, beaming, laughing, and holding the gloved hands of a woman who was just throwing off the hood of her cloak, both their feet momentarily encased in a dense swirl of sparkling fog that slipped serpentine and slowly into the gallery’s shadow, and was gone. Neither seemed to notice, so intent were they in greeting each other. Then Ned’s right hand clenched involuntarily into a fist. He had never seen the woman before, but something about the way she slowly turned her face toward him as if she’d known he was watching … slowly parted her blood-red lips in a deliberate mirthless smile and raised a delicate black eyebrow … something in the manner and in the contrast with Pamela sent a chill walking up and down his spine.

He nodded to her politely.

She nodded back, and turned away.

Good lord, he thought, and shrugged his shoulders in a deliberate shudder before hurrying down into the dimly lighted hall. Once out of view, he paused to wonder why the woman had affected him that way, could find no reason and moved on toward the kitchen.

He hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when he saw a tall dark-clad man enter the greenhouse porch’s side entrance. He caught barely a glimpse, but it was enough to know he hadn’t seen him before.

The man stopped. turned his head and fixed Ned with a stare.

A minute later, a young serving maid bumped into him, making him blink rapidly and wonder what the hell he was doing here, standing like an idiot in the middle of the hall. Then he looked to his right hand — it was grasped around the bolt that held the chandelier’s chain to the crank-and-drum on the wall. A shock of cold air swept through him, and he snatched his hand back as if it had been scorched. God, he thought, and swallowed hard; if he had pulled the bolt free and released the chain without grabbing hold of the crank, crystal, candles, and all that iron would have … My god, he thought, Pamela would have been crushed.

4

The guest apartment was on the third floor, the balcony of the sitting room overlooking the tinted roof of the greenhouse below. The French doors were closed now, curtains and draperies pulled snugly over the windows; the bed was turned down and one of the maids had already set a low fire in the grate. The room was silent except for the flames sparking above the pine logs, and for the wind now beginning to thrum in the eaves. The snow that had only been flurries on Ned’s arrival was blowing strongly, tiny hard crystals striking the panes like tiny hard claws scrabbling to get in.

Saundra Chambers sat on a green brocaded velvet loveseat. Though she was well back in one comer, she sat stiffly, almost rigidly, in her right hand a full glass of sherry while her left nervously adjusted the folds of her deep brown skirt. Her narrow lovely face was pale, her thin lips deep red, and they were both made darker by the depth of raven black hair brushed away from her cheeks to perch on her shoulders. At her throat was a red velvet choker centered with a pearl.

Pamela sat opposite her, in a wing-back Queen Anne pulled away from the hearthside. She was excited, her cheeks flushed and her eyes constantly shifting — from the fire to Saundra’s hair, from the rippling drapes to Saundra’s mouth. Finally, she could stand the silence no longer.

“Saundra, did you really … I mean, I know I sound like a schoolgirl, but did you really meet the new President?”

Saundra looked up from her lap. She nodded.

“But … but what was it like?”

The woman shrugged.

“Saundra, for heaven’s sake, it isn’t every day someone I know is presented to Mr. Garfield, even if he is a rather … good Lord, I’d’ve thought you couldn’t wait to tell me all the details!” She rose and crossed to the hearth, reached up to the mantel to adjust a translucent white vase that held a single rose. “Unless, of course,” she added with a barely suppressed giggle, “you’re secretly a Democrat.”

Saundra shifted. “No,” she said. “No, I’m not.”

Pamela sighed relief; her friend could still talk after all.

“Listen, darling,” she said, clasping her hands at her waist, “I don’t want you to think I’m nosey or anything, but … ” She frowned concern as she hesitated. She did not know exactly how to proceed, how to ask the next question without seeming rude. She supposed the best thing would be to get right to it, but Saundra didn’t look as if she were ready for anything but a full week’s sleep. “Saundra, why did you come back?”

Saundra placed her glass on the sidetable at her right hand. The short, milk-glass lamp beside it set the facets afire.

“I told you,” she said quietly. “I told you.”

“I know what you told me,” Pamela said, unable to keep the worry from her voice. “But I’ve known you far too long, haven’t I. I know when you’re saying things right out, and when you’re hiding something. I mean, that’s the way we got through Holyoke without getting into trouble, remember?” She hurried to her friend’s side, sat and lay a concerned hand gently on her knee. “Darling, please, I haven’t seen you in over three years, and I don’t want to start our visit with — ”

Saundra inhaled sharply and held her breath. Her lower lip trembled, and a tic pulled a dozen times at one eye before it faded.

“Oh my god,” Pamela whispered, one hand to her cheek as she shook her head. “Oh my god, I’m so stupid.”

Saundra smiled wanly.

“All this traveling, and then that horrid murder at the depot and … oh, Saundra, please forgive me.”

For the first time that night, Saundra smiled, and her hand covered Pamela’s warmly. “I’m really sorry to be such poor company. Pam. But you’re right, I’m so very tired, and I really didn’t expect to be greeted at the station by the police.”

“The police?” Pamela frowned. “But didn’t … wasn’t there a … Saundra, I sent a carriage round for you.”

Saundra politely covered a yawn with her palm, grinned and put a hand to Pamela’s cheek. “There was no carriage, dear. And now,” she said quickly, as Pamela made to interrupt, “would you mind terribly if I … ” She glanced over her shoulder, to the open door by the fireplace and the bedroom beyond.

Pamela got to her feet hastily, babbling apologies as she was led to the hall door. After extracting a promise for an early breakfast, she kissed her friend goodnight and headed for the stairs.

She stopped only once, with a perplexed frown on her brow. Odd, she thought, glancing back at the door; very odd indeed. The police couldn’t have given Saundra a ride to the house. Ned had come first, by a good half an hour. She tugged at an earlobe, cocked her head and wondered, but she had no time to consider the problem further; when she reached the bottom step, Jack Foxworth was waiting, demanding she give him the evening’s last dance in compensation for her desertion.

“And where is your friend?” he asked, looking up toward the landing.

“Tired,” Pamela said. “She had an awfully long journey. Her ship docked in Philadelphia only last week. Then she was down in Washington, and then the long train ride here … well, I’d be exhausted myself.”

“Well,” he told her, “since I’m sure she doesn’t remember my winsome face, you’ll have to introduce me, won’t you. If you don’t, my dear, I’m going to be awfully crushed, you know.”

“Jack, are you trying to make me jealous?”

His face darkened briefly, and he brushed a finger across his mustache. “I wish I could,” he pouted.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “You and I grew up together, didn’t we? We’ve been through all this a hundred times.”

“I know, I know,” he said, leading her through the living room to the ballroom behind. “But you can’t blame a fellow for trying, can you?”

“Well, you certainly are trying, Jack.”

He laughed and squeezed her hand. “While you’re at it, my dear, you might also introduce me to that foreign gentleman, don’t you think?”

“Foreign gentleman?” She frowned and looked around the room. “What foreign gentleman?”

Jack looked surprised. “The tall one, Pamela. Gregor … Something. You must know him — aloof, terribly aristocratic and all that.”

“Jack,” she said with a tolerant smile. “I haven’t the slightest idea who you’re talking about.” Then she grinned. “How is the champagne?”

“Pamela … ” He tried to look stem, failed, and shrugged as if the man’s identity meant nothing to him. “A friend of your father’s, no doubt.” He would have said something more, but the orchestra once again filled the room with a waltz. He bowed and took her hand. “As long as you don’t throw me over for that policeman.”

“No chance of that,” she assured him without a single pang of conscience. Foxworth preened visibly, and she laughed. slipped into his arms and allowed him to whirl her across the parquetted floor, through the last glow of candlelight, the last notes of the waltz. But despite Jack’s presence. his strong hand on her back, whenever she closed her eyes, she thought of Ned Stockton.

The police station was a century-old clapboard building on the comer of Centre Street and Chancellor Avenue. It was small but well-kept, its front room large enough for several benches along the wall, and a massive desk looming on a platform behind a low wooden railing; its four cells were ranged across the back behind a stout oak door with a barred Judas window, and there were two offices off to the right. One was for the chief. the other for Ned Stockton, one of three detectives the force carried full time.

He was in his chair, feet propped on his desk. Rumpled collar unbuttoned, knotted black scarf yanked down and away. He was scratching through his hair when someone knocked lightly on the open door’s frame.

“Come on,” he said wearily. “I think I’m still alive.”

Rick Driscoll hurried in and grabbed the only other chair in the room, dragging it noisily across the floor until he was almost sitting on the desk. “Well?” he said anxiously. nearly jumping in his seat.

“Well what’?”

“Oh, come on, Ned.”

He groaned loudly for the effect and cupped his hands behind his head. He was only two years over thirty, not really so far from Driscoll’s twenty-three, yet more often than not lately he found himself wondering if he too been so damnably enthusiastic at that age. He hoped not. If he had been, he must have driven the other men crazy. Then he groaned again and closed his eyes, shutting out the chipped plaster ceiling, the dirt-grey white walls and the posters that lined them. But he couldn’t banish the young man’s face: an earnest blond mustache, earnest blue eyes, aquiline nose and solidly square chin. A ladies’ man, no question about it, and all the more glamorous for the profession he’d chosen.

“Ned, c’mon!”

“Nothing,” he said at last. “Not a damned thing.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Well, it is. You were out to the Pike. You saw it. Same as at the depot. No tracks, no signs of struggle, no weapons, nothing left behind.”

“But the ground was frozen; there wouldn’t be tracks anyway. And if you’re right about the dog — ”

“I am right,” he said, “and you know it. You saw what Marty looked like. There isn’t a madman in the world who’d do something like that to a man.”

“But we didn’t see any dogs!”

He sighed, opened his eyes and dropped his feet to the floor. “Rick, you’re a good man, but you’re so damned tired you’re not thinking straight. Do you really think a mad dog like that would stick around so we could take off its head with a shotgun?”

“Well … ”

Ned opened the center drawer and pulled out an envelope. He lifted the flap and drew a sheet of white paper to him. When he overturned the envelope, a clump of black fur dropped onto the paper. The two men stared at it for a silent. long time.

“I don’t know,” Ned said. “Damn, but I don’t know.”

In the reception room, a clock chimed the third morning hour.

“We’ll have to check every dog in town.” Driscoll realized with dismay.

“Yep.”

“My god, do you know how long that’ll take?”

“Yep.”

“And it’s big,” Driscoll said quietly. “It’s really big. You heard it, Ned. That was no little pup we’re talking about here. You heard it. You did.”

Ned pushed a pencil against the fur. turning it in circles as if hoping to conjure an image of its owner. He had told Squires they were hunting a mad killer, but only because he would have felt like a damned fool talking about a rampaging animal in that house. Besides, a dog would scare no one. On the contrary, it would have had some of those drunken fools out there on a hunt, more than likely frightening the beast into the next county and, in the process, shooting each other.

Of course, he thought, if they had heard what he had … “You’d better go home and get some sleep,” he said finally, carefully easing the fur back into the envelope.

“I won’t argue,” Driscoll said, rising and setting the chair back in its place. “Faith will have my head for being out this late.”

Ned grunted and said nothing, but chided himself soundly for forgetting the man’s recent marriage, a ceremony he wasn’t sorry he hadn’t been able to attend. Faith Driscoll was a curious one, no doubt about it, delighting in her stories of Irish ghosts and Irish demons, spending more money on books than Marty Reston had on gin. But she could read until she was blind and talk about men in the moon for all he cared, as long as that talk didn’t affect Rick’s job.

When he was sure he was alone, then, he turned down the lamp and stared at his shadow cast on the wall. There was no window in the office, but it wasn’t long before he felt as if someone were watching him just the same. A sensation that grew so strong he couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder. There was no one there, and the building was silent except for the ticking clock, and the creak of a board being teased by the wind. He tapped a thumbnail against his front teeth; he crossed his legs, he folded his arms; he sighed and slumped in the chair, straightened, and slumped again; he counted the cracks in the floor, and the creases in his trousers.

And when the clock struck four, he yawned and grabbed his hat and coat.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he would get some volunteers from the farms and beat the woods for the dog.

Or the wolf, he amended, idly wondering if he should have mentioned that possibility to Rick. Then he opened the bottom side drawer and pocketed his revolver. He didn’t like doing it, and had only once before brought the weapon home with him. But as he stepped outside and hunched his shoulders against the cold and the blowing snow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d need it before long.

And he’d only gone a dozen yards to his right before he heard the steps behind him.

5

Jubal Pierson was dead.

The body lay on the last trestle table in Doc Webber’s small morgue down in the basement, right beneath the office where he tended to the living. The table, worn and stained and canted slightly to the left, was thrust back against the low side wall, completely in shadow even when the single light was turned on. One of the white-pine coffins that lay near the door had already been marked as his, but the two wouldn’t be joined until it was decided who in the village would pay the funeral expenses. The doctor knew there was no will; there were no Pierson’s left in the Station, and Jubal had always thought he’d live for goddamned ever. But the one-legged stationmaster would have to be buried soon no matter what the police said; even in the cold the body would soon begin to decompose. And there wasn’t enough time for anyone to hunt down his money.

Jubal Pierson was dead.

He lay in the quiet, in the dark, in the cold.

And two hours before dawn, Jubal Pierson moaned.

Pamela lay in her wide four-poster bed, restlessly trapped somewhere between the waking and the nightmare. Her head rolled feverishly from side to side on the large feather pillows covered with white satin, her right hand clenching at the silken sheets in clawed spasms. Her soft blonde hair turned slowly dark from the sweat, and a strand of it clung to the twitching comer of her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered. Her lips parted in silent protest.

She could see something moving, either in the dream or in her room. It was form, and it was shadow, and it was searching for her. Escape was what she wanted, though she had no feeling of menace, no intimations of threat; escape to someplace, though where that was she didn’t know.

She groaned, and she swallowed, and her mother’s tiny silver crucifix glittered at the base of her sweat-drenched throat.

Her left hand reached for the silver chain, reached and fell away.

She almost woke up at the footsteps by her door, she almost woke up at the scratching at her window.

“You’ve come at last,” Grandon Squires whispered as she shrugged off his jacket. “I didn’t believe you would actually be here.”

“I promised you, didn’t I?” said the voice in the dark.

He smiled. “Yes, but I’m an old man and — ”

“You’re not an old man, Grandon. We just had to be sure the time was right. It is. I’m here, and you’re here, and that’s all that matters.”

“My letters — ”

“Were lovely. Now hush and come sit beside me. You’re tired. You need your rest. We have so much to do, and so very little time to do it.”

The corridors were empty.

All the gaslights were turned down.

The temporary staff had been provided cots in the kitchen since the party had ended late; only Timmons had his own room, between the kitchen and cellar doors, and he lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the November storm winding down. Listening too to the cautious footsteps that passed by his door. At first he thought it was Amy, come to give him a little present, something she often did when her husband was in the workhouse and she wanted a favor. Then he scowled at the idea as though it were blasphemy. The stupid fool was dead now, that’s what the police had said. No present for him tonight, no release, only dreams. So it wasn’t Amy roaming the halls, and it certainly wasn’t Miss Pamela.

And if it was Saundra Chambers, he didn’t want to know.

He knew it was part of his duties to guard the house at night, especially now that the staff had been cut back. Used to be there were a full dozen, all living under the same roof, all under his thumb. But that was before Miss Violet died and took her husband’s heart with her right into the grave. And it surely didn’t help that Miss Pamela looked just like her, unknowingly stabbing her father every time he saw her. Like daughter, like mother. But unlike the mother, the daughter was just fine.

Nightwatch, then, was laid on his shoulders, but no one really expected him to stay up until dawn.

So he did not get up when he heard the cellar door open, right next to his room.

And he did not move when he heard the faint whispering.

The gaslight on Chancellor Avenue was dim; it faded in and out as the slow-dying wind threw clouds of thin white around the ornate copper fixtures. Shadows on the street were skeletal at best, ebony spectres seeking graves to protect them from the dawn. The trees scratched at the lampposts, at the sky, at each other when the wind found the strength to explode in a gusting. The snowing was almost over, and because the flakes were dry and small. the brick pavement was almost clear.

Ned moved briskly, with far more energy than he felt, telling himself it was necessary in order to keep himself warm. But his bootheels cracked too sharply, and his stride was much too long, and he didn’t like his shallow breathing, as if he were late walking into church. His shoulders hunched; his hands burrowed deeper into his coat pockets. He stared at his shadow keeping pace before him, sweeping alongside him, hiding behind to start the game again.

He tried to think of Pamela, but every time he saw her face her smile was interrupted by the sounds he wasn’t making.

Whoever was walking behind him almost matched his pace exactly — neither too slow nor too fast, but just enough off rhythm to let him know he was there.

He rolled his shoulders to ward off the cold and hunched them again; he sniffed; he adjusted his hat lower over his brow; he took out his hands and rubbed his palms together, put them back in his pockets and drew them into fists.

He had been on the force for just over ten years. His brother had been a merchant seaman and had been killed in a storm, sinking off the coast of West Africa when he was only seventeen; his sister had died the December she was four, of pneumonia caught when she fell through the ice in the park’s only pond. He was the only one left now. He and his father.

He had been on the force for over ten years, and he was tired of being followed and he wanted to turn around.

He wanted to tell Rick he’d have to wait until daybreak before beginning the hunt, so go back to his new wife and let her tuck him into bed and read him one of those books she had piled throughout their home; he wanted to tell Adelle Bartlett he had no new word on the whereabouts of her husband despite the fact that neither liked him, but even he needed to sleep if he were to do her any good. He wanted to tell whoever it was to either join him, pass him, or get the hell away.

It was foolish, this nervousness, and he knew it. It could be practically anyone in the Station, and it certainly wasn’t the animal that had savaged Marty Reston and old Jubal Pierson. But dawn was less than two hours away, and he should have been the only one on the street.

He wanted to turn around.

But he didn’t.

He reached the corner and paused, shaking the snow from his hat and shuddering grandly. He clapped his hands together as though this was just what the doctor ordered. Then he crossed to the next block over and moved more quickly.

The footsteps matched him. Just off rhythm.

In and out of the light, weak sun to bleak shadow; the snow pricking his cheeks and forehead, sliding down his collar to melt along his back.

He was a grown man. He was over thirty and a policeman like his father, with a normal man’s appetites for women, games and living. He was in good health. He had a nice home, fair pay, and all the excitement he needed. One of these days he may even get married, and with luck it would be to Pamela Squires.

He was a grown man, and shadows didn’t scare him.

But he didn’t turn around.

He reached the next corner and was thankful for the light, turned left sharply, his pace almost at a trot.

The footsteps turned the corner and matched him exactly.

His house — a small cottage midway up the long block — had a warm lamp glowing in the front window. His twice-a-week housekeeper knew he’d be late this night, and her thoughtfulness made him smile, the smile fading when he reached the front walk and heard the footsteps stop.

The sudden silence was too loud.

The sudden quiet too soft.

He considered for a moment, then hurried to the narrow porch, climbed the four steps and pulled out his key. He waited and listened, thrust the key into the lock, and just as he shoved open the door he took a deep breath, and turned.

No one was there.

The street, the pavement, the small yard was deserted.

There was no one on the comer, no one on the walk.

Momentum had taken him almost over the threshold, but his curiosity was stronger, and he returned to the top step with his hands loosely on his hips. He felt more than a little foolish, and more than a little angry, and he glared with narrowed eyes at the empty dying night. A slow shake of his head, and he released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It fogged before his eyes, drifted away like a grey dream, and he would have laughed aloud if he hadn’t heard the wings.

They were just above him, high above him, keeping out of the reach of the lampposts and the lamp.

Though he stared he could see nothing, but he knew that whatever flew over the porch was large, was black, and like nothing he’d ever known. He backed away slowly. He reached out behind him and pushed the door open.

The wings swept by again, and there was no shadow on the snow.

He closed the door just short of a slam and leaned heavily against it. It was the night, he told himself; it was finding Marty and Jubal, and not finding Horace. It was seeing that woman at Squires Manor, not knowing who she was and not at all sure he wanted to know. It was the snow. It was the continual, damnable cold. It was overtiredness and it was hunger. It was all of this and more feeding dark fuel to imagination.

He was a grown man, over thirty, but before he went to bed he turned on the lamps, every lamp in the house.

And lay there in the warmlight, listening for the wings.

The Second Night

6

When Ned awoke, the sunlight slipping into his small bedroom was pallid and without warmth. He groaned as he sat up. and stared with wry amusement at the condition of his sheets and quilt — they were tangled and knotted and half off the mattress, definite signs of restless, unpleasant sleep. But though he sat for a moment with eyes half closed in silent concentration, he remembered nothing, not a dream, not a cry. He was right, then. The previous day’s events had set fire to his imagination. and his helplessness had burdened him with nightmares while awake.

He grunted. That was about as good excuse as any; the only other one was … a quick laugh this time and a long, languid stretching. And as he scratched the sleep from his eyes, his hair, the stiff muscles of his neck, he stumbled into the kitchen, threw wood into the stove and set the kettle on to boil. By the time he returned he was shaved and in his shirtsleeves, holding his collar in one hand while he poured strong tea with the other. Then he sat at the round table and warmed his palms with the brimming cup, staring at without seeing the panes of his back door.

A hell of a night, he thought. But today things would be different. He’d bundle up good, find a dozen strong men and start beating the woods. With the new snow that had fallen before dawn, locating the creature’s tracks would be something even he could do without failing.

He grinned at himself, stretched, and only half-listened to the clock chiming in the parlour. Suddenly, his eyes widened with an almost audible snap and he bolted from the chair, raced into the front room and stared at the timepiece perched on the mantel.

“I … god!” he exclaimed with a disgusted slap to his forehead.

It was four in the afternoon; he had slept nearly twelve hours.

In less than ten minutes his coat and hat were on, his revolver and tie were in his pocket and he was throwing open the front door.

And he stopped, gaping and cursing the run of his luck.

The temperature had risen rapidly while he’d been asleep, and in rising had lifted a thick fog from the snow. It scudded like firesmoke from the low banks and drifts, obscuring the houses across the street and next door, turning to grey shadow a coach rattling by. He slammed the door behind him and began running, hoping he wouldn’t collide with anyone on the way. His footsteps were muffled, his breathing overly loud, and when he veered into the station perspiration gave his face an unpleasant sheen.

Quickly, he stripped off his coat and draped it over his arm, paying only scant attention to the unusually large number of people milling about the waiting room. Two harried patrolmen were attempting to deal with them one at a time, but the noise was deafening, and it didn’t take him long to catch panic in the air.

Scowling now, he pushed through the crowd and, ignoring pleas for assistance, kneed open the railing gate and hurried down to his office. The door was already open. He stepped inside and nearly groaned aloud.

“Mister,” said Lucas Stockton, heaving his six -and-a-half feet out of Ned’s chair, “you are late!”

Ned said nothing while he hung his hat and coat on the rack, said nothing as he pulled the ladder-back chair from the comer and set it before the desk. Then he sat and crossed his legs, and stared at his father.

The elder Stockton was taurine from the cast of his head to the way he lumbered about the room in a semblance of angry pacing. He had been head of the department for nearly fifteen years, and had hoped his son would follow him as well. Ned hoped so too. if he survived the browbeating and tantrums.

“Well?”

He exhaled loudly and stared at his hands. “I was up until after four this morning investigating two deaths. I was cold, I was tired, and you’ve already sent out the search parties to hunt for Horace and the dog so why are you so excited?”

“Because it’s your case, you fool,” he bellowed. “You’re supposed to be here, or out there, not home dreaming like a baby. Lord, I had enough men pounding on your door to wake the dead.”

“Well, here I am,” he said calmly.

Stockton returned behind the desk and leaned forward, his massive palms resting on the blotter. His face was dark, his eyes squinting beneath his thick brows. “This day, my dear Ned, I have had to deal with Adelle because she still can’t find her idiot husband, suffered a lecture from high and mighty Grandon Squires about the way one of my men invaded his house in the middle of an important gathering, and practically had to tie down Richard Driscoll because he wants to go out and hunt down and arrest the whole goddamned world.”

“Now I expect that’s all in a day’s work for you, my boy. After all, you’re the trained detective and I’m only the chief. But damnit, Ned, it’s your work, not mine!”

“Oh, damn it yourself,” he said, grinning. “You’ve just gotten too fat and too lazy.”

Stockton sputtered and dropped into the chair. “You’re impossible.”

“Look,” he said then, “there’s really not much I can do now about that … that animal unless you want me traipsing around out in the fields with everyone else in the village. And I’m sorry about Squires, but I did what I thought best there. You’ve probably already got Rick out anyway, so what’s left for me to do is, I suppose, talk to Adelle and take another look around the depot.”

Stockton’s face softened immediately, and he sighed. “You think you know me pretty well, don’t you.”

Ned shrugged.

“Horace and I go back a long way, son.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Even if he is the crankiest man in the state.”

The chief leaned forward then, suddenly and with a rage in his eyes his son had never seen. “You will find Horace, Ned, and you will find him soon, you understand me? I can handle Squires and his tantrums, but I can’t handle Adelle. You will not sleep until you do, you hear? Not a damned wink until that man is found!”

Ned rose, though not as quickly as his father would have liked, took his coat and hat back down again and was about to leave when the older man spoke again.

“And you’re wrong about Driscoll. He’s waiting out front for you. As a matter of fact, he’s kind of angry.”

“So I’ll apologize, he’ll love it.”

Stockton scowled. “Not about that. He claims someone came in and lifted some evidence of yours.”

Ned blinked stupidly for a moment, then darted over to the desk and pulled out the drawer, grabbed the envelope and shook it over the blotter. Nothing fell out; the black fur was gone.

“Damn!” He motioned his father away and dropped to his hands and knees, crawled into the desk well and searched the floor, then backed out. “Damn, I must have dropped it,” he muttered, though he clearly remembered putting it away.

“Was it important?” Stockton asked, not sure if he should be amused or angry. And when Ned explained, he only shrugged. “Fur is fur is hair,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need it to match with the beast when you find it. Now get out. Get to work.”

Ned agreed reluctantly, had reached the threshold again when his father spoke his name.

He turned.

“Those people out there.”

“I know, I saw them.”

“They’re hearing things, Ned. They’re hearing wolves that haven’t been seen around here in a dog’s age. They’re seeing shadows and ghosts and god only knows what all else.” He paused, and looked down to his hands clasped loosely on the desk. “They know about Horace and all the rest. And they know things like this just don’t happen in the Station.” He looked up again. “It isn’t right, Ned. It’s bad, and it isn’t right. And before you talk to Adelle, drop in on John Webber. He sent me a note that I don’t really understand. Something about Marty, but the man never could write worth a damn.”

Half an hour later, Ned and young Driscoll were in Doc Webber’s office on High Street, next to the livery. But it wasn’t until almost seven that the wizened old physician returned from delivering a child on the other side of the Village. By that time Ned had listened to the nurse-and-housekeeper complain a hundred times over about the recent weather being lousy, General Grant a miserable President, her chillblains aching, and her employer an old lecher.

It was almost a relief when they went down to the morgue.

In the basement was a large room sealed off from the rest of the house by a thick oak door banded in iron; in the center of the door was a narrow iron cross Webber had insisted Reverend Alden bless so the neighbors wouldn’t complain about the bodies lying there. It was cold, the stone walls laced with thin bands of ice, the stone floor uncovered, uneven, and mottled with dark-colored stains. There were several coarse wooden caskets piled in one comer, their lids ranged beside them, a shelf with surgical instruments and vials, and three wooden tables each draped with a white sheet.

Only one of them was empty.

Ned had been here several times before and had never gotten used to the not quite imagined stench of cold flesh waiting to rot. And he didn’t like the way his breath plumed as Webber pulled back the sheet from Marty Reston’s face.

Driscoll went pale, but swallowed and didn’t tum.

Ned breathed through his mouth.

The dead man’s face was a sickly pale grey, his thick lips obscenely vivid, and his throat ripped open from below his left ear to the hollow.

The doctor grunted and set his hands on his hips. The only light in the room came from an overhead lantern with a dented green base, its flame bright but sputtering. It reflected off the surgeon’s high forehead, was lost in the brown hair still thick and wavy. He grunted again and jabbed a nicotine-stained finger at the ragged edges of the flesh, pulling them aside to expose the muscles and flesh beneath. “See that, Neddie? Not expert, but clean enough, all things considered. Got to the jugular neat as a pin. Opened it just like getting at an orange. Not bad, not bad at all.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his soiled smock. And sneezed. “Sorry, Neddie. Got home late last night, from the Squires affair out to the Manor.” He sneezed again. “Actually, I hate those damned things,” he muttered, still poking at the gap in Reston’s neck. “Pretty women, but the men all dress like dandies. Gregor Brastov, that Count fella, you’d think he was going to a wedding, for god’s sake. And Grandon?” His laugh was sharp and continuous until he saw the impatience in Ned’s eyes.

“Doctor … ”

“All right, all right. You never did have any patience, Neddie. You’re just like your father.” He blew a white breath and tapped Reston’s neck. “Now I saw where they found him, same as you.” He looked up, over the tops of his glasses. “You see any blood there?”

“Nope.”

“Neither did 1. Why? Because there wasn’t any. Why? Because it was gone before it hit the ground. Why? Beats the living hell outta me, son.”

Ned blew on his hands.

“Don’t suppose you want to see Jubal.”

“I gather he’s the same.”

“Damn straight. Bit more unpleasant, though. Like whatever did it was in a hurry.”

Driscoll, when he spoke, sounded as if he were strangling. “Are you saying, Doc, that the dog drank all their blood or something?”

Webber looked up, surprised. “Dog? Good Lord, boy, who said anything about a dog?”

7

The fog wasn’t constant. Here it was mist; there it was cloud. It shifted and glided, exposing and burying, giving movement to the trees, to the hedgerows, to the stalks of dead corn still standing in the fields. It slipped under doors and passed effortlessly through windows, and waited under the eaves for a wind to nudge it again. It billowed like smoke and lay in depressions like shrouds, and when it was passed through it grew fingers for grasping.

Adelle Bartlett watched it dully from her living room’s only window, but she did not see it. All she saw was High Street, the coaches hurrying by, the high spears of the park’s iron fencing down to her right beyond the stable. There was a carriage at the curb in front of Doctor Webber’s, a small one barely large enough for two, and she watched that as well. When she’d first caught sight of it she had thought with a start it was the hackney and Horace was home.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything like it. There was no red piping on the roofline, and instead of a bay, there was a roan in the traces.

She sighed and absently pushed at her thinning, nearly white hair, coaxing it back into the loose, netted bun hanging at her nape. Her apron was dirty, her dress wrinkled, her hands unable to stay in one place for very long. All day she’d been waiting for word from the police, and had even roused herself twice to walk down there to ask. But Chief Stockton had no news, and it was very little comfort that he was genuinely concerned.

She turned away and shuffled toward the stairs. There was no sense trying to work now, no sense going to the dress forms and the cloth and the needles, the fine thread. No sense at all. She may pride herself on being the best seamstress in the village, but she couldn’t tat a shawl for a gnat the way her nerves made her fingers jump. Maybe a nap. If nothing else despite the hour a nap would help to pass the time, and when she awakened again the old fool will probably be standing on the doorstep, reeking of cheap gin and grinning like an idiot. There’d be a lot of yelling then, and recriminations, and she would ask him what the children would think if they could see him like this.

And she sighed.

The children. Now why weren’t they here when she needed them? Why did they insist on going off to the army, and to New York, and to some fool college school up in Massachusetts where, the eldest said, he’d learn more about business than he would working in the stable. They were ambitious, that’s for sure, and she was proud of them for it. But why weren’t they here when she needed them for comfort?

A hand on the newel post, one foot on the first step, and there was a knock at the door. She spun around and moved as fast as her bulk would carry her back across the foyer. The door opened almost the moment her hand gripped the knob, and her smile faded to puzzlement when she saw the stranger on the porch.

He was tall and slender, simply but elegantly dressed in a black suit and red velvet-lined cloak, the fog behind him lighted by the streetlamp and swirling away as if not daring to touch him. She couldn’t see his face, but when she looked down she saw the hands — pale and long-fingered, gripping the cloak’s edges to close at his waist.

“Good evening,” he said, in almost a whisper. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs. Bartlett?”

She hesitated before nodding.

His voice was deep, somber, like the tolling of bells from a long abandoned cathedral.

“Mrs. Bartlett, I have word about your husband.” He stepped forward, into the light. His face was lean, his eyes black, his hair in a widow’s peak speckled with grey.

She thought immediately of pictures of dukes and lords she’d seen in the magazines her husband found in the back of the coaches and on the benches of the depot. This man was like one of them, and she couldn’t help wondering what someone like that was doing at her house. But he said he knew something about Horace. She was sure he had said that. She was sure she’d heard those words through the fog that climbed slowly up and around him. Peculiar, it was; she knew she was tired, but she didn’t think it was this bad. Worrying about Horace, that’s what it was. And this man … this man with the voice and the eyes and … “Mrs. Bartlett, may I come in?”

Pamela sat glumly in the library, an unopened book in her lap, a small glass of sherry on the table beside her chair. Twice she had determined to read through Sam Clemens’ latest farce, and twice the volume proved too heavy for her hands. When Timmons came in and asked if she’d like wine, she’d jumped at it too eagerly, and nearly shrank at his disapproval. But even that had lost its pleasure after only one sip.

She looked up at the octagonal clock on the wall above the mantel. Nearly seven; and she sighed.

Ten minutes later she tossed the book on the floor and pushed herself to her feet. She was wearing a simple dress of deep greens and golds, its narrow waist confining, its billowing folds husking in her wake. She paced — from the door to the fireplace, from the fireplace to the first high window. She pulled aside a velvet drape and stared out at the fog.

Her face, normally cheerful even in repose, was thoughtful, almost solemn, and her green eyes were clouded with a worried half-squint.

Something was wrong in the house, and she couldn’t give it a name. It was feeling more than fact, instinct more than reason.

First, that morning, she had eaten alone. Granted, the party the evening before was a long one, a loud one, with more bottles from the wine cellar than she’d ever seen before; granted even people like Reverend Alden had left for home almost reeling. Nevertheless, there’d been plenty of other affairs like it, and her father had always been able to make it to breakfast.

Not always in good spirits, but he’d always come down.

Yet today he hadn’t appeared until almost midaftemoon; and when he did, his customary bluster was curiously missing. He refused a decent meal, picking only at leftovers, and told her he’d be spending the rest of the day napping, that maybe he was getting too old for this sort of thing.

And the admonition to her and the staff that he be left absolutely alone was not only unnecessary, it was delivered in anger.

Stranger still, Saundra hadn’t left her rooms once.

And that more than anything pricked her like a thorn.

It had been over three years since she’d last seen her friend, just before she’d embarked on her first Grand Tour. They had known each other since childhood, and Saundra was always the adventurous one, daring Pamela to this escapade and that and always, somehow, avoiding the blame. Those were marvelous times, exciting times, and she was looking forward to seeing them back in the Station.

But the Saundra she’d greeted last night was different.

She frowned and let the drapery fall, turned and walked slowly back to the center of the room.

Initially, she’d blamed the journey and the weather and the fact that the poor woman looked so sickly and pale. But still, that was no excuse for lying. When she’d had the last dance with Jack Foxworth, and after the last guest had gone giggling into the late morning, she’d seen to it with Timmons that all the gaslight and candles had been turned down or snuffed out. Then she decided she needed fresh air. She went out onto the front porch, and saw in the drive a lone hackney in the shadows, off to one side. She didn’t need to get closer; she recognized it instantly from the red piping on the roof.

But Saundra had said old Bartlett hadn’t fetched her.

She went back to fetch Timmons, and search the kitchen for the old driver. And when she returned with the butler, the carriage was gone.

Impossible, she had thought then; “Impossible,” she muttered now, and decided it was time Saundra gave her an explanation.

She nodded once and left the room, climbed the stairs and knocked on the guest apartment door. There was no answer and when, after a decent moment’s wait, she opened the door and went in, Saundra wasn’t there.

“Well, I’ll be … ”

When she checked the bedroom, the coverlet hadn’t been disturbed — or Saundra had made the bed herself, without waiting for a maid.

She hurried down to the kitchen and found Timmons fussing with Cook over a problem with dinner. The master, Cook insisted, hadn’t ordered any at all, and Timmons was telling her she had to be wrong. When they saw Pamela they quieted, waiting for an answer, but all she did was ask them if they had seen Miss Chambers.

“She’s left, Miss,” Timmons said expressionlessly.

Pamela’s eyes widened. “Left? On a night like this? Did she say where she was going?”

“For a ride, Miss.”

“A ride? good Lord, where?”

“She didn’t say, Miss.”

Pamela turned to leave, turned back and frowned. “Did you give her a carriage, Timmons?”

The butler shook his head. “I didn’t have to, Miss. There was already one waiting.”

“The one I saw last night?”

He shrugged without moving, and only raised an eyebrow when she muttered a sharp oath and stormed into the hallway, strode to the front room to look for her father. He wasn’t there. Nor was he in his room, his study, or the library.

She was alone then, and she didn’t like it.

She stood in the hall and glanced up at the chandelier. It was dark now and would be until the next party they had. Dark, and cold crystal, and suddenly she wished that Ned were here to hold her.

She needed him now.

The house was too cold.

A half hour later the house began to shrink. It was silly of her and she knew it. Nothing was changing, but every room she drifted into seemed much smaller than before. The walls were closer, the ceiling lower, and she couldn’t shake the chill that had her hugging herself as if she were outside, without cloak or gloves.

And then she heard the thunder.

At first she thought one of the staff was moving some furniture about, but when she heard it again, louder, rolling down the staircase, she hurried back to the hall and stared at the chandelier. It was swaying. Very slightly, but swaying nonetheless, the crystal teardrops tinkling softly to each other.

It wasn’t all that uncommon, thunder in cold weather, thunder during or after a rather heavy snowfall. But it unnerved her, and she was halfway to the landing to hide in the library when she heard the fall of the brass knocker. Thunder again. Insistent.

She paused, waiting for Timmons to respond to the summons.

The chandelier swayed, the teardrops like dead chimes.

She scowled and hurried down, hesitated at the door before opening it softly.

“Good evening,” said the dark figure waiting on the porch. “May I come in?”

8

Ned angrily jammed his hands into his gloves, his hat onto his head, and climbed into the carriage so forcefully it rocked loudly on its springs, Driscoll joined him a few moments later, sitting gingerly on his left and holding the reins lightly in his hands. Directly ahead of them loomed the park fence, and the gap where in the spring a pair of gates were to be placed.

Then the fog breathed, and the park was gone.

“He thinks I’m a fool.” he muttered, folding his arms tightly across his chest. “And an idiot, besides.”

Driscoll opened his mouth, shut it, and instead watched the roan shifting nervously, its hooves grating loudly on the slick cobblestones.

Ned shook his head in disgust and weary anger. “For god’s sake, Rick, did you really believe all that mumbo-jumbo he was trying to hand us? My god, the man’s finally too old. He’s eighty if he’s a day, and he’s finally lost his reason.”

“On the other hand, he could be right,” the younger man said, almost timidly. “It wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong, Ned, you know that. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Ned slammed a fist on his knee. “Of course a dog did it! Otherwise, where the hell did the godamned blood go? Evaporated into thin air’?” He shoved himself grumbling back into the comer. “Old fool. He ought to be put out to pasture.” He laughed shortly. “Can you imagine me going to Lucas with a story like that? He’d have me swabbing out the cells with a pair of socks, for god’s sake.”

“He did show us, Ned,” Driscoll ventured.

“Oh sure, sure. He showed us, all right. But were you thinking about what he said? Were you really thinking? Some guy stabs a couple of syringes into Marty’s throat while Marty’s just standing there. He — what did Doc say, extracts? — he extracts all the blood, then tears the throat open to hide what he’s done.” He snorted derision. “Marty wouldn’t have stood still for a shadow, and he sure as hell wouldn’t hang around while some madman drains his blood dry. Jesus!”

Driscoll sighed, lifted his hands to flick the reins and set the roan into motion, and froze when he heard the scream.

Ned sat up instantly, poking his head around the side of the carriage’s narrow wall. “What the hell … ?”

Another scream, muffled, weaker, and clearly a woman’s. A second later they were on the pavement and staring, trying to find the scream’s location in the misdirection of the fog. When it came a third time, accompanied now by the faint crash of breaking glass, Ned slapped at Driscoll’s arm and raced toward the small house beside the livery stable. He took the porch steps at a bound and was about to slam a fist on the door when it swung open slowly. A cautious stride took him over the threshold. Another. and he was in the foyer, looking left and right, abruptly left again and gaping at the living room.

The two chairs placed in front of the brick fireplace were overturned and the upholstery slashed. the vases and portraits on the mantel dashed and shattered on the hearth; a braided throw was bent back upon itself, and a sidetable was lying in the center of the room. splintered as if taken to by a huge man with an axe.

Driscoll made to comment, but Ned hushed him with a gesture, his head cocked and listening until, Finally, he heard a low moan. A quick glance up the steps to be sure it wasn’t there, and he was running instantly, through the living room and palming open the swinging door to the kitchen. He didn’t stop for a moment. He kicked aside an overturned stool and plunged through the back door, just in time to see a tall man in black racing into the fog.

And behind him lay Adelle Bartlett. On the floor by the black oven. She was on her back. her thin dress up around her knees, her hair unbunned and fanned out beneath her. Her eyes were open and glazed, her mouth open and smiling vaguely, her head turned just enough to expose the side of her neck and the thin spill of blood that ran down into her hair.

He yelled at Driscoll to fetch more men and Doc Webber, then leapt off the porch and hit the ground at a run, not bothering to stop when his hat snapped off and disappeared into the grey dark.

The figure running barely ten yards ahead of him took the low fence between yard and stable as if it weren’t there, and Ned followed with a grunt, skidding on the slippery ground as his right hand fumbled inside his coat for his revolver. When it came free, he didn’t bother ordering the murderer to halt; he took careful aim and fired a single shot, just as the fleeing man reached a gate in the far fence. The impact of the bullet punched him into the stout barrier. But Ned almost stopped in his tracks when the wood splintered, the man fell through and was on his feet and sprinting without looking back, without slowing.

Damnit, I hit him, he thought angrily as he charged across the street and into the park. I know it, damnit. I know it.

Once past the iron fencing, the fog lifted somewhat to gather in the trees, the gaslight blurred and diffused, the smooth brick path touched here and there with patches of melting ice.

Ned ran on, his mouth dry and his lungs protesting the touch of cold iron blades. He couldn’t see very far, but he could hear the other’s footfalls, and it didn’t take long before they stoked his rage further. They were maddening. Not rapid, not racing, but timed as if the fugitive were simply engaged in a long-strided trotting. It was a taunting. A daring. A catch-me-if-you-can.

The trees and shrubs on either side enclosed him in a grey cave, the echoes of his own boots much like the gunshot he’d fired at the stable.

Then, suddenly and with a puzzled look on his face, he faltered.

The footsteps ahead had vanished.

He stopped, and there was nothing left but the silence.

With his elbow tucked tight and close to his side. His revolver out like a shield, he turned slowly in place. Listening. Frowning. Holding his breath. His eyes in a squint as they sought betraying shadows. A cautious step forward, another, and a third. His face gleamed with perspiration, and his hair was matted wetly and coldly against his skull. He brushed a sleeve over his chin, his forehead, and began walking again, up off his heels as he looked from side to side.

He didn’t like the quiet.

He didn’t like the fog.

And he didn’t like the way the wounded man had outrun him so well.

Then for no reason at all he remembered the wings, and he shuddered at the memory until he ordered himself to stop.

But he remembered the wings.

Twenty yards later he was perplexed and growing angry. It was possible the assailant had veered sharply into the unseen playing field off to his right, but he surely would have heard him crashing through the underbrush, surely would have heard the snapping of twigs and the crunch of heels on snowmounds; and to the left there was nothing but the close-growing trees, and eventually, the spiked fence that ran along the Pike.

He paused again when he heard the noise.

Ahead of him, up there in the dark covered over with fog was the unmistakable low growl of a monstrously huge dog.

Once. Just once.

Just enough to stop him.

It sounded again, closer this time, deep in the animal’s throat as regular as breathing.

Another sleeve over his eyes, and he extended the gun nervously, wondering if Jubal or Marty had had a warning like this.

And it came out of the fog.

It was black with a silver mane, gliding horribly slowly along the pathway toward him, its head low and its ears laid back, its narrowed green eyes fixed steadily on his own.

It was a wolf, and easily half again as big as any he’d ever seen.

It stopped.

The growling again, filling the air and closing around him, fixing him to the pavement and befuddling his senses.

His throat closed instantly and seemed lined with sharp sand, refusing to clear no matter how hard he swallowed; and a chill not winter’s tightened the flesh across his back. He blinked rapidly, not daring to think, not daring to compare, and took a step backward.

The wolf followed.

A second step back, his heel coming down as if feeling for the edge of an invisible cliff.

The wolf followed, and raised its head.

He lifted his arm slowly and took aim at its breast.

The wolf’s upper lip curled back as the growling started again, louder now, louder, the fangs a dead white and dripping saliva.

It moved forward.

Ned moved back.

It opened its jaws to show him its teeth.

He pulled back the hammer and licked at his lips.

It crouched as if to spring.

Then a calm voice said behind him, “Please. Don’t shoot him.”

9

Ned’s heart stuttered, his lungs stalled. and his finger tightened hard on the trigger. The gun’s retort was deafening, but he had just managed to jerk his hand up to fire harmlessly at the sky. Then he whirled around and aimed the revolver square at Saundra Chambers’ breast.

“That was a damned stupid thing to do,” he said. gasping for air as if the wolf had had him running.

“He would have killed you,” she said, and glanced over his shoulder.

He looked back. The wolf was gone. He looked down at his gun and saw it was trembling. Slowly, then, he replaced the weapon in his jacket pocket, closed his eyes for a moment and turned back to the woman.

She was wearing a thick woolen cloak, the hood drawn up and pinned to her black hair. Despite the dim light, however, he could see the flashing amusement in her eyes and the slight way her lips pulled back in a confident grin. He should have been furious at her interference, should have grabbed her and hauled her back to the station; instead, he put a rough hand around her waist and ushered her swiftly toward the exit, every few steps checking over his shoulder.

“He was too fast,” she said at last. “You never would have gotten the shot off.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for saving my life?” he growled.

“That’s up to you, and aren’t we going too fast’? He’s gone, you know.”

He stopped and faced her. “Look, Miss … ”

“Chambers. Saundra Chambers. I saw you at Pamela’s.”

“Yes, I remember. But look here, Miss Chambers, there’s a wounded criminal out there, and a wolf that has no business being in the Station. I’ve no time to stop and chat. There’s a hunt to be started before the man gets away.”

She nodded. “I see. Well, in that case, may I … ” and she gestured toward the curb as they passed through the gate. A carriage waited there, its driver bundled and huddled on his seat like an ill-formed statuette. “Please,” she said. “I expect your man has already gone for reinforcements. “

Directly opposite them was the beginning of High Street, and he could see a small crowd beginning to mill around the front of the Bartlett house. He hesitated, then spotted a burly patrolman standing at the porch to keep the curious at bay. There were also lights burning in John Webber’s house.

“The park is fenced in, yes?” she said, almost in a whisper. “Unless the animal is a magician, he’ll not be able to get out except this way. As for your wounded criminal … ”

He heard the shrug in her voice, and felt her gaze lingering on his face. He knew he should stay here, guard the entrance and wait for Driscoll to bring men with lanterns and weapons; he knew he should get back to Adelle to see if she were really dead in her kitchen; he knew all this, but he felt his legs taking him into the carriage, felt the carriage begin to move, down High Street past the crowd that turned slowly to watch him.

At Centre Street they turned left.

At Chancellor Avenue the carriage stopped.

Not a word had passed between them, but when he descended to the pavement he turned and looked pointedly at her open cloak, at the expanse of her ivory neck and the swell of her breasts.

“You should cover up more, Miss Chambers,” he said. “You must be cold.”

“No,” she told him with a smile. ‘‘I’m not cold at all.”

He hesitated, then moved directly to the steps, to the door, and turned slowly to thank her.

The carriage was gone. He couldn’t even hear the wheels on the street.

It was quiet in the building, and he hurried to his office where he found his father still sitting at his desk. The old man scowled and looked up, opened his mouth to snap, closed it again and pulled an amber bottle from the center drawer. He poured a half-glass of whiskey and passed it to his son. Ned accepted it, drank it, and gasped at the burning that slid down his throat. His eyes watered, his throat constricted, and when his heart stopped racing he started his story.

Twenty minutes later he finished, without interruption.

“You hit him,” Stockton said.

He nodded. “I couldn’t have missed him if I were blind.”

The chief shrugged. “Then we’ll find him.”

“And the wolf?”

“Like the lady said … ”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“You weren’t there.”

“Did I have to be?”

Ned paused and stared at the taut white of his knuckles. “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, you did.”

The chief pulled a pen from its tarnished brass holder and used the nib to scrape thoughtfully at his chin. The clock in the outer room struck nine. Struck ten. Ned emptied another glass and rebuttoned his coat.

“I have to get out there,” he said. “I can’t sit here just waiting.”

“No reason why you should.”

“Rick say anything?”

“Only what Doc told you.”

“I didn’t believe it before. Dad, but … you should have seen him. Christ, he moved … he moved like a ghost.”

When he reached the door he stopped when his father cleared his throat harshly. “That woman, that Chambers. Odd, isn’t it, how she was there just then.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’ll pay a visit to Pamela about now, after I see how Rick is doing.”

“You do that. Just make sure that visit’s official.”

He grinned self-consciously and walked slowly to the front, to the doors, to the deserted pavement and the curb, where the police carriage was waiting without Driscoll to drive him. Rick, he thought, must have ridden off in the Maria with the rest of the men. He sighed, climbed in and clucked the roan into movement. Five minutes later he was in front of the Bartletts’. The crowd had thinned, became wraiths in the fog as he passed through them to the porch; none of them stopped him, none asked a question.

Inside, he walked through the living room still in a shambles to the kitchen now empty. The back door was still open, the stool he’d nearly tripped over still lying on its side. He righted it and walked around the table to the stove. There were faint red stains on the floor. He hunkered down and traced the barely visible grain with one finger, shook his head and straightened with a weary, loud sigh.

He didn’t bother to take the carriage to the park, not when it was less than half a block away.

And still the crowd was silent.

At the gate were two patrolmen who eyed him suspiciously until they recognized his face. They were young, obviously nervous, holding their gleaming rifles at port arms. When he asked, curtly, they told them they’d heard nothing, seen nothing, and when he glanced into the park he could see nothing but the gaslamps holding back the fog, heard only faintly the calls of his men.

“When Mr. Driscoll comes out,” he said, “tell him I’ve gone to the Squires’ place. Have him meet me there.”

“Can’t do that, sir,” one of them said.

“Why not?”

The patrolman jerked a thumb back over his shoulder.

“ ’Cause he didn’t go in.”

Ned would have said something, but he was interrupted by the thunder.

John Webber sneezed loudly and wiped his nose with a smock sleeve as he bent over Adelle Bartlett. A frown, and a hand to scratch thoughtfully through the sweep of his hair while the other kept his glasses from sliding down his nose. His lips pursed in silent whistling, and he turned her neck gently to bring it to the light. Damn, it’s the same, he thought with a low puzzled grunt. Same as poor Marty. Same as poor Jubal. Only this time whoever had done it hadn’t bothered to hide the marks. No rips now, only the punctures. Bloated a little, discolored, clumsily done, as if he were in a hurry. He sniffed. He straightened and forgot to duck, the back of his skull striking the overhead light. It swung crazily, widely, casting brief shadows over the old woman’s face, making it seem as if her eyes were blinking, her lips were moving. John. John. He grabbed the lantern quickly, glanced over to the table where Marty still lay, then hurried to the door and lifted the heavy bar.

It was cold in there.

Too cold by half.

Maybe young Neddie was right; maybe he really ought to start thinking about retiring, get the hell out of the Station to somewhere where it’s sane.

Then Jubal Pierson moaned.

Webber froze and looked around, and saw the sheet on Jubal’s table shimmer, ripple, suddenly slip hissing to the floor as the stationmaster rose, sat up, and faced him. His eyes were open, the gash on his throat edged with blue-cold.

John, he whispered softly. John, don’t leave me.

The latchbar fell loudly and heavily into place, snaring a corner of his sleeve and pinning him to the door. His head seemed palsied, his hands encased in clumsy mittens, and when Adelle sat up, and when Marty started smiling, he uttered a piercing gutteral cry and frantically yanked at his arm.

John. Adelle whispered. John, where is Horace?

Doc. Marty whispered. Doc. wait for me.

The sleeve tore suddenly, nearly throwing him off-balance, and he nearly screamed as he bolted from the room and slammed the door behind him. He could feel his heart pounding — too loud, too fast; he could feel his bowels weaken, smell the stench of his urine; he could barely see the steps that led up to his home, up to his office, up to the guns he kept in the closet.

And when the door started bending he could see nothing at all.

“You frightened the life out of me, you know that, don’t you, Jack.”

Foxworth leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out toward the fire. A glass of brandy nestled in one hand while the other held an unlighted cigar. “Funny, but I never saw you as the nervous type, Pamela.”

She was in a wine-leather club chair opposite him by the hearth. Though the front room \ was awfully large, she had felt suddenly as if she were much safer near the door. Now, almost an hour after Jack had arrived, she was still babbling — about the house closing in on her, about her father being so secretive and refusing to talk, and Saundra riding out there in weather like this.

The thunder hadn’t helped.

Nor the swaying chandelier.

“Listen,” he said then. staring at the brandy swirling in its snifter. “Pamela, I’ve been thinking — ”

“Oh, please, Jack, not now!”

“ — and I still can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t marry me. Your father approves. You mother would have approved. My Lord, woman, you don’t hate me. I know that. “

“True,” she said, her hands clasped in her lap. She stared at the bellowing fire Timmons had built for them, at the sparks, at the red logs, at the embers on the grate. “But … damn you, Jack,” she said softly, “you know I don’t love you.”

“That does not deter me. If it’s important, it will come to you in time.”

She tried to be pleasant. “I don’t want it to come in time, Jack. I want it first, not later so that perhaps it will be never. “

“I see.”

“Dear Jack,” she said fondly. “No, you don’t see. But maybe someday you will.”

“I suppose you’d rather live in a hovel with that detective.”

“Now that’s not fair, Jack! That’s not fair at all.”

A sudden pounding on the door had Foxworth out of his chair and standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder as Timmons passed the room’s entrance and vanished for a moment. There was a whispering, a hinge protesting, and Ned Stockton was there.

“Pam,” he said, after a brief nod to Foxworth, “I’d like to talk with Miss Chambers, if I can.”

“Ned, what’s wrong?”

“Please, Pam.”

“Well,” Foxworth muttered almost to himself,” ‘Pam’, is it?”

“Oh Jack, do be quiet.” She crossed to Ned and looked up to him, worried. “I’d like to help you, Ned. but she isn’t here.”

“Not yet? Then what about your father?”

“He’s left orders not to be disturbed,” Timmons said from the hall.

“And I don’t suppose Detective Driscoll has dropped by, either,” said Ned sourly.

“Mr. Stockton.” Foxworth said, still standing behind the chair, “would you mind telling us what all this is about?”

Ned hesitated, but he’d known Pamela too long and wasn’t afraid to be blunt; the only unknown factor was Jack Foxworth’s gossiping tongue. But he was tired. and he was cold, and the brandy Foxworth held out to him was too tempting to pass.

“All right,” he said as he walked slowly to an offered chair, “but you’ve got to promise me, Pam, that you won’t toss me out if you think that I’m crazy.”

“Ned.” she said smiling and hanging onto his arm. “I’ve known since we were children how crazy you are.”

So he talked, ignoring Foxworth’s increasingly snide comments in favor of Pamela’s silent attention. And when he was done he leaned back and stared at his empty glass.

“A hundred dollars in gold.” he muttered, “to the man who can tell me what the hell’s going on.”

Silence; the fire the only voice.

“Real gold, sir, or are you speaking figuratively.”

The three looked up quickly, not realizing the butler had entered the room. He was just beyond the reach of the nearest lamp’s light, casting hollowed shadows on a face Ned thought drawn tight in fear.

He looked to Pamela, who only shrugged, and to Foxworth who smirked. “Real gold, Mr. Timmons,” he said doubtfully. “I will personally clean out my bank account and put it in your hands if you can tell me what I don’t know.”

“What you don’t know is vampires, sir,” Timmons said quietly.

“Really.” He kept his voice neutral. “Who?”

“All of them, sir. All the dead are walking.”

The Third Night

10

The break in the cold spell continued well into Saturday, and by midafternoon the brick pavements of Centre Street were crowded with pedestrians blessing the opportunity to be rid of their homes, even if it was for just an hour or two. The street and side avenues were filled and flowing as well, with coaches and open carriages vying sedately for space with a few single riders on highstepping mounts and highwheeled carts hauling foodstuffs and hard goods from the farmers in the valley. The sun was high and spring-golden, the sky too blue to look at without squinting, and the few remaining snowpatches melted swiftly and silently into the gutters.

There was a bank on the comer of Centre and Steuben, of greystone and marble with frosted arched windows and a uniformed guard looking bored at the stoop. Next to it, a story lower, was Oliver Crenshaw’s modest-looking shop, in its single display window a shelf covered with black velvet, and on the black velvet a solitary silver fruit bowl ornately engraved with oak leaves and laurel. By the time the sun had lowered to the treetops, Pamela was there for the third time that day, staring longingly at the bowl, her hands encased in a dark fur muff, her shoulders covered by a half-length brown shawl. Her bonnet was sable-trimmed, the ribbons dangling over her chest a contrasting brilliant red. And her hair, caught now by the sunlight, seemed more gold than yellow.

Beautiful, she thought as she shifted to see the bowl from a slightly different angle. Marvelous.

But though she appreciated the silversmith’s craft and the art that went with it, there was no smile on her lips. She had fled the house two hours ago, hoping that a stroll in the warming air would revive her spirits. Yet nothing had worked. She had been in nearly every establishment on the street, chatted with every seamstress and smith, and still nothing was able to shake the depression she felt.

And she knew what was causing it.

All the dead are walking.

It was ridiculous on the face of it, and Timmons ought to have been ashamed for even bringing it up. Ned, when he’d heard the butler’s solemn pronouncement had gaped in astonishment until a bitter laugh had escaped from his throat. Then he’d muttered crossly about servants and fools and stormed from the house, barely pausing long enough to tell her he’d return today to talk with Saundra. Jack had been less directly rude; nevertheless, he made it icily clear that none of them appreciated the humor in Timmons’ jest. When the man protested he wasn’t jesting at all, Jack smiled gallantly and fetched his own hat and coat, kissed her lightly on the cheek, promising too he’d see her before Sunday.

All the dead —

She moved on, her gaze listless, her stride timid. None of this was working out the way it was supposed to. Though the twinkle in Ned’s eye showed her he still cared, he was too busy now with all these horrible killings to flirt with her properly; and her father refused her entreaties to see a physician when he rose late again; and there was Jack and his persistence, the stories on the street of the wolf that got away from the police in the park, and how the man who’d murdered Mrs. Bartlett had been shot a dozen times and never lost a drop of blood; and Saundra.

She scowled suddenly, startling a woman who’d just left the green grocer’s. Saundra, her oldest friend, her dearest friend, hadn’t passed more than a dozen words with her since her arrival. What kind of reunion was that? What kind of way was that to bring back the old times?

She glanced up at a clock in a nearby haberdasher’s and felt a faint shudder. She knew she was being foolish, knew she was being empty-headed, but ever since this morning she was dreading the night.

It occurred to her then that maybe she could stop in at the police station to see Ned. She had waited as long as she could for him to return, and when he hadn’t that was when she’d taken her black from the stable and ridden into town.

Without thinking, she turned sharply, and collided with a man rushing past her toward the Pike. They stepped back as if burnt, startled and embarrassed, and Pamela was about to push on with an automatic apology when she recognized John Webber. She smiled, but it was an effort — the spindly old man was wearing a battered beaver hat, an ankle-length black coat, and at least three heavy mufflers wrapped chokingly around his neck. A second look, and she saw that his face was deathly pale, his eyes deep in their sockets and heavily, darkly pouched.

“Miss Squires,” he said, tipping his hat quickly, as if he were afraid to expose the top of his skull.

Recovering swiftly from her astonishment, she put a hand to his arm as he was about to hurry off. “Doctor,” she said anxiously, “a word, please, about my father.”

“No time,” he told her, his eyes shifting rapidly from side to side. “No time.” He stared at the clock in the shop window, at the sun, at his shadow on the pavement. “Lord, no time at all.” Then suddenly he leaned close and peered intently into her face. “It ain’t the crazies, y’know. God knows I’ve done things in my time, but it ain’t the crazies.” And before she could stop him he was gone, slipping into the crowd with another tip of his hat.

She considered following him, then changed her mind; what she definitely needed now was a strong dose of Ned Stockton — if nothing else, maybe he could explain why everyone in her house seemed to have gone round the bend; just, she thought sadly, like old Doc Webber.

But she hadn’t gone three steps when a matronly woman bundled in expensive silks and sables stepped out of the bank with a companion who could have been her twin.

“Pamela Squires!” she said, nearly shouting, causing not a few passers-by to smile to themselves. “My dear, how delightful to see you.” She turned to her friend, one less rotund but far removed from slender. “Didn’t I tell you, Gertrude, this would be our lucky day?”

The second woman, whose dark lace shawl was embedded with glittering gems, nodded so rapidly her bonnet nearly tipped from her white hair. “You did, Dorothy, you certainly did.” She placed a white-gloved hand to her rouged and sunken cheek. “And you were right, as always. “

“I’m always right,” Dorothy Hawksted declared. “As I told my daughter-in-law just the other day — you will name your child Ephraim, I said, because I just know it’ll be a boy.” She smiled at Pamela triumphantly. “You see?”

Pamela didn’t see, but she returned the smile gamely, her attention somewhat distracted by a quartet of young men racing across the street and down one block toward Chancellor Avenue and the police station. They were warmly dressed, and they were carrying guns.

“Well, my dear,” Mrs. Hawksted said, “I certainly hope Grandon isn’t going to wait long before his next soiree. I should think the attraction would be considerable, don’t you?”

Mrs. Mumford tittered into a palm.

Pamela held the smile. “Attraction, Mrs. Hawksted?”

“Why, Mr. Brastov, of course,” the woman said with a puzzled frown. “The Count.”

“The … Count?”

“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Mumford whispered, “I suppose we really shouldn’t be bandying the name about on the streets like this, but surely — ”

“Gertrude, please!” Mrs. Hawksted admonished.

Another man darted across Chancellor from the other side; he too was armed.

Pamela frowned while the two women nattered on about the man they had met the night of Bernhardt’s party. And though they were clearly delving for more information, she paid them no heed. Suddenly she felt anxious, and before she realized what she was doing, she muttered an apology and pushed hastily between them, not bothering to look back as she dashed across the street.

At the comer, however, she almost changed her mind. There were several uniformed patrolmen standing in front of the station, each of them holding a rifle, each watching silently as a larger group of armed and angrily muttering civilians climbed into a buckboard. Lucas Stockton was at the curb, his strong voice issuing directions without having to shout. Onlookers were filling the pavement, and not a few were making loud and derisive comments about the police’s inability to catch a simple animal, not to mention a murderer with a hundred bullet holes in him.

She sidled around the crowd, clutching her purse close to her stomach and frowning at the air of hostility she felt. This wasn’t like the Station, not like it at all; they’d had their share of deaths before, violent and otherwise, but never had the people turned against their protectors. It unnerved her, and she was about to push her way inside when she saw Ned on the steps. He recognized her with a brief grateful nod, turned back to whisper something to a young man she knew was Richard Driscoll, then hurried to join her. Before she could say anything, however, he took hold of her arm and pulled her away.

“Hungry?” he said.

She nodded.

“Let’s go to the Inn. The whole damned place has gone mad, and I need some peace and quiet before I start screaming.”

There was no chance for her to comment; she was led through the crowd and away, down the Avenue toward a hundred-year old farmhouse whose first floor had been turned into the village’s most popular restaurant. Immediately they stepped through the front door, Ned was recognized and, at a soft word, they were brought to a quiet booth at the back of the smallest room of three dining rooms. There were no other guests visible, and the waiter only nodded when he was asked to bring them brandy and nothing else.

Pamela watched him apprehensively. It was obvious he’d had little sleep the night before, and his brown hair was atangle over his forehead. He kept his hands clasped on the table, the knuckles pale. the fingers stirring across the backs of his hands. Finally, she lay a hand over them, calmed them, and looked at him with a sad, concerned smile.

“I don’t know,” he said at her silent question. “Oxrun is going mad and I don’t know why. Unless,” he added with a sour grin, “I believe what Timmons told us last night.”

“But it’s not true.”

“You know that and I know that,” he whispered heatedly, “but try to tell them out there! And it’s all thanks to good old Rick. Last night, instead of taking the men into the park as he was ordered, he got a brilliant idea that one of his wife’s books might give him a clue to what’s happening here. So the fool races directly home and reads until dawn. And then … ” He swallowed his growing anger and shook his head once, sharply. “And then he comes in this morning with a story about … about some damned thing called … ”

He interrupted himself with a loud noise of disgust and flung himself back into his high-backed bench seat. A look to the beamed ceiling, to the fireplace nearby, and he sighed, wearily.

“He found reference to something called a werewolf,” he said, “and by god, wouldn’t you know he didn’t mind at all telling everyone he saw. Christ, the word was out in an hour. You saw it, then. Men and boys with rifles, guns, even a few clubs. It’s disgusting.”

She tried to think of something to say, but was too appalled. It was incredible that people she’d known all her life were taken by a fairy tale, even more that men like Ned were forced to take a back seat to myth and superstition.

“Your father … ?” she said.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Oh yes, he was out there, you saw him. He said he didn’t see any harm in it. After all, with all those men out there, they were bound to find something.”

“But that’s insane!”

“Of course it is! Don’t you think I know that?”

She leaned away from his vehemence, felt instant sympathy for his plight. And immediately the sympathy grew her own problems seemed to fade into insignificance.

“And then,” he said, “there’s good old John Webber.”

“Oh my.”

Ned frowned. “What’s the matter, Pam?”

She told him quickly of her meeting with the doctor on the street, and Ned was nodding before she finished.

“Right. The crazies. He came into my office this morning, trying to tell me the bodies he has in his morgue were trying to get at him last night. They walked, he said. They talked to him, he said.”

A deep breath expanded his chest, a breath that slipped slowly between his lips as his weariness overtook him and he sagged. Pamela once again covered his hands with hers, and she held them when the waiter returned for their order. When Ned suddenly protested he’d lost his appetite, she scolded him playfully and made sure the waiter understood she was the one who was in charge, not the detective. After the man left, with a faint smile on his lips, she released him and clasped her hands on the edge of the table.

“This is going to spread, you know,” she told him.

“I know. Lord, do I know that.”

“Then you must stop it.”

He stared at her. “I must … and how am I supposed to do that, Pam? How am I supposed to stop a whole village from going insane?”

“It’s very simple. You must find the murderer, and the wolf, and bring them in. And you must do it before anyone else.”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again and he laughed. A series of barking sounds at first, then a slow climb into a full range of laughter that brought tears to his eyes and a grim set to Pamela’s mouth. She waited until he’d regained control, then repeated herself firmly. And before he could interrupt, she lifted a palm for silence.

“I’m not crazy, you know,” she said. “I don’t believe in these vampires of Timmons’, or that werewolf of Rick Driscoll’s. But something odd is going on.” Without the bother of debate, then, she told him about the house, the silence, the odd behavior of her father that worried her so.

“I am not an uneducated woman, Ned, and I don’t hold with charms and spells. But as I listen to you and I think about it, I wonder. I really do wonder.”

“Then what do you suggest?” he asked.

She ignored the sarcasm and picked up the menu instead. “I suggest we eat first. Then I suggest we drop in on Mr. Webber and see for ourselves what frightened him. He’s old, but he’s not stupid.”

“And Saundra as well,” he said quietly, studiously avoiding looking at her. “Pam, I hate to say this, but all this mess started the same time she arrived in the Station.”

“Ned Stockton!”

“But it’s true, and you know it. And, like your father, it may be nothing. And then again she may know something that’s important to us, something even she may not be aware of.”

“Ned, I’m speechless. But as long as you’re going to interrogate my dearest friend — ”

“Now, Pam … ”

“ — why don’t you interrogate Mr. Brastov, as well. After all, he came in on the train with Saundra that night. Maybe he knows something.”

She would have gone on, expressing her indignation and fueling her anger, but the look on Ned’s face slowly brought her to silence. It was one of amazement, and startled disbelief.

“Ned?”

“Pam,” he said, leaning toward her quickly. “Pam, what did you just say?”

“You heard me very well,” she said, wanting to sound stem, sounding only fearful.

“That can’t be.”

“What?”

“Brastov. He can’t be.”

“Well, maybe he can’t be, but enough people saw him at Father’s party the other night to want to meet him again. And before you tell me it was their imagination, Jack Foxworth was among them. And that man has no imagination at all.” She waited. “Ned … Ned, do you know this man?”

He moistened his lips, took a long pull at his brandy. “No,” he said finally. “Not personally. At least … at least I don’t think so.” Another deep breath, another pull at his drink. “Pam, one of the first things we did the day after we found Jubal and Marty was check with the railroad. Pam, there was no one on that train that night. No one got off at the depot because no one was there to get off at all.”

“That’s impossible. Saundra was … I sent Horace to fetch her myself.”

“That’s not all.”

She heard a log split on the andirons and jumped as the sparks fled into the chimney.

“This man Brastov,” he said, slowly turning his glass in his hand. “He … that is, according to Rick’s books, he’s … ” He stopped, stared, suddenly slammed the glass down and jammed his hands into his pockets. “It’s stupid, Pam. It’s damned stupid and it has to be a hoax.”

“What, for heaven’s sake?”

“According to Rick, Count Brastov is one of the undead.”

“The what?” she asked, not sure she’d understood.

“The undead, Pam. It says in the book the man’s a vampire, and one way he gets around is by turning into a werewolf.”

Or a bat, he thought suddenly-and remembered the wings.

He wasn’t surprised at the total disbelief in her eyes, but at the same time he heard, back in his mind where the shadows began crawling, the sound of the wings soaring over his house, the sound of the silver-maned wolf stalking him in the park.

“Ned? Ned, what are we going to do?”

“Just what you said,” he told her. “We’re going to eat, and then we’re going to pay a visit to the morgue and have a talk with John Webber.”

“Wrong!” said a hearty voice from behind Pamela’s chair.

Ned scowled, and Pam turned quickly, her breath lodged in her throat until, with a tentative smile, she saw her father come round to the front. He was beaming, his face flushed and his eyes sparkling clear.

“You will eat, yes,” Grandon Squires said, “but you will dine with us, Detective Stockton.” He reached for Pamela’s hand and guided her swiftly to her feet. “We,” he announced, “are going to have a celebration!”

11

The steps leading into the cavernous cellar were carved from a single block of stone, and were worn smooth down the center from a century of use. Massive rough beams stretched darkly across the ceiling, and twelve-foot stone pillars were set evenly between them, the weight of the mansion full on their squared tops. The air was filled with slow-dancing dust, and the only light came from narrow slitted windows high on the outer walls. Ten rows of wine racks climbed floor to ceiling, blocking sight from the steps of a small wooden door set flush in the back wall. Beyond it was another room, little used, seldom visited. Here the dust lay in shroud on the damp stone floor, glittering cobwebs were thick, and in the far sunless corners the faint scrabblings of stirring rats.

A single window that darkened as the sun made for the horizon.

A dim patch of light that drew in upon itself, pulling the dark to it like an ebony blanket.

Then a rat crossed the light and paused for a moment; it was black, its tail hairless, and its tiny red eyes darted side to side while its nose tested the air. Suddenly a hand exploded from the dark and snared the back of its neck. It squealed loudly and struggled, its claws and teeth trying to gouge the fingers hard about its throat. A second hand joined the first, and there was a sharp twist and a grunt, and the sound of the breaking spine filled the room like a slap.

The rat twitched once, and died.

The hands drew it out of the light slowly.

There was silence.

There was waiting.

There was the tearing of raw flesh and the muffled sound of something feeding. It was loud, almost deafening, yet behind it was the groan of a wooden door being opened. Or a closet being closed. Or the lid of an ancient coffin rising slowly on its hinges.

A bootstep on the floor.

The feeding noises stopped, and a man on all fours abruptly scuttled into the light. He glanced around furtively, moved again until his back was pressed against the damp wall, the partially eaten rat held protectively to his chest. He was old, his lifeless white hair straggling across his furrowed brow, his gnarled hands liver-spotted and thin; the eyes were rimmed in red, and the mouth was the same. He jerked his legs to him, then, when a gleaming black boot joined him in the light.

“When you’re finished,” a voice told him. “I need to ride tonight.”

He nodded quickly a dozen times, brought the rat to his lips and lowered it again.

“And the lady?”

“I think not, Horace. Not this time, at least.”

Horace Bartlett peered awkwardly over his shoulder, up at the window. “It’s early yet, sir.”

“No,” the voice corrected. “I’m afraid it’s rather late.” The boot vanished, and there were footsteps marking time across the floor, through the dark. “This village will be mine, old friend, but it will not be as easy as I was led to believe.”

Horace buried his mouth eagerly in the rat’s belly, looked up with a grin and wiped the blood from his chin with a blood-stained sleeve. “Sir?” he said. “Sir, why don’t you just … ” and he flapped one arm in a parody of flying.

The voice laughed, and Horace cringed, the rat slipping from his fingers into his lap. When he reached for it, however, the voice stopped him cold.

“Leave it! Fetch the carriage! There is trouble out there, and I’ve no more time to lose.”

Horace scrambled to his feet after a sad look at his evening meal, dusted himself off as best he could and started for the door hidden in the back of the room. He had just reached the threshold when he turned with a puzzled frown.

“Sir? Where are we going that you have to ride?”

A silence that echoed and made the old man cringe. Then: “There should have been three out there last night. There were none. We’re going to pay a visit on Doctor John Webber.”

Ned was astonished. When the Squires Manor carriage pulled up at the porch the downstairs lights were all ablaze, Timmons at the door was in his livery, and the serving girls were all dressed in their best black-and-white. The dining room was filled with silver and gold candelabra, the tall white tapers giving the air a soft haze, like looking at sunrise through extremely fine gauze. Pamela dashed about as if she’d never seen the place before, from every bright comer shouting questions at her father. But Grandon only stood at the head of the linen covered table and nodded foolishly, every so often turning to Ned and grinning. Ned smiled back weakly; he had no idea what was going on, and the abrupt change in scene from discussing dead men returning to the opulence of the mansion had his head spinning.

They had not been there five minutes when Timmons answered the door and Jack Foxworth strode in, greeted Grandon effusively, shook Ned’s hand as if they were old friends instead of rivals, and took his place instantly at Grandon’s right hand. Immediately afterward, Saundra entered the room, and suddenly it was as if every candle had gone dim.

She wore a low-necked gown of midnight blue silk, the rouged swell of her breasts veiled by black Spanish lace. Her hair was brushed straight down to her shoulders and captured the light in faintly blue flares; her eyes were wide and black, her lips still a deep and gleaming red. While the others watched in amazed silence, she walked up to Grandon and planted a firm kiss on his cheek. Squires flushed, and led her to the scrolled chair on his left. After a puzzled exchange of glances, Ned took the seat beside Jack, and Pamela beside Saundra.

As if at silent signal, the staff appeared with silver trays of pheasant and roast suckling, the finest of breads, the best of the cellar’s wines. Ned, though he was increasingly anxious to get back to his work, did not dare pass up a meal such as this. He had every confidence Mr. Squires would reveal the purpose for this surprise feast, but meanwhile he was going to enjoy it, his gaze on Pamela sending messages that had her blushing.

There was no conversation. Squires forebade it. He demanded they enjoy the meal first; purpose would come with the wine at the end.

An hour later it was done.

Squires pushed his chair back and held a crystal glass to the light. He smiled to himself, then looked to jack and Saundra.

“Daughter,” he said with a nod to Pamela, “and friends, I have a very special occasion here this evening. I am not, as you well know, without influence or connections here and there, in the best circles, and — ”

Pamela frowned her exasperation. “Father, please!” she scolded lightly. “Please don’t make a speech.”

Grandon almost lost his good humor, but the anxiety in his daughter’s face brought back his smile. “Very well. Without fanfare or elaboration, then, permit me to make two announcements. My daughter has no doubt mentioned, Mr. Stockton, that I have been behaving rather peculiar of late, and that Mr. Foxworth here has been my willing accomplice. Well, the reason for all that is quite simple: Mr. Foxworth and I have decided it would be best for both our firms if, as soon as is prudently possible, we merge into one. It will,” he said over Pamela’s horrified gasp, “be known as Squires and Company, and Mr. Foxworth shall henceforth be its executive officer.”

Jack leaned back and smiled quietly.

“But Mr. Squires,” Ned said into the stunned silence, “does that mean you’ll be retiring?”

“Indeed.”

“But you can’t, Father!” Pamela exclaimed. “You … you can’t!”

“But I can, my dear. And I shall. After all, I will want to spend as much time as I can with my wife, don’t you agree?”

This time the silence lasted much longer.

Ned wanted to groan, instead looked down at his lap when Pamela’s face reddened. Whether in anger or embarrassment or a combination of both he couldn’t say, but if her father had hoped she’d be delighted, he couldn’t have misjudged her more severely.

Then Saundra spoke for the first time that night. “Darling,” she said to Pamela, a delicate hand lightly on her wrist, “I did want to tell you a hundred times, believe me I did. But Grandon insisted we keep it a secret, at least until he and Jack finished their negotiations. Pamela, this is — ”

“Horrid!” Pamela snapped, throwing her napkin hard to the table and shoving back her chair. She rose and glared at her father. “I am the only family you have left, and I thought you trusted me.”

“Pamela, my child … ” Squires began, suddenly confused that his celebration had gone sour.

“No,” she said with a stamp of her foot. “No, I am not your child. I am your daughter, and I have worked for you and taken care of you and this is the way you repay me?” She looked across the table at Jack, who averted his face with a wince. “And my friend,” she said acidly. “So this was your great big secret, was it?, stealing away the firm that’s belonged to my family for generations? This was it? My god, Jack, what were you thinking of?”

“Pamela,” he said, smiling uncomfortably. “Not in front of the detective, please.”

“Oh, damn your precious sensibilities!” she said, very nearly shouting, and straining Foxworth’s smile. “What in heaven’s name possessed you, Jack Foxworth? You certainly don’t need the money or the backing, and you don’t need … ” Her eyes widened. “Oh no.” She shook her head slowly. “Oh no, Jack, you couldn’t be that low.”

“Darling,” Foxworth began, and sputtered to a halt in the face of her rage. There was a moment’s silence when Ned was tempted to speak, to remind them all he was there, but Pamela suddenly flared again.

“How dare you. Jack Foxworth. How dare you try to buy me!”

“Enough!” Squires roared. leaping to his feet as Saundra buried her face in a napkin, her shoulders trembling. “I will have no more of this in my house!”

“You’re right about that, Father.” Pamela said. “No more of it. Ned, you will take me to the Inn immediately. I shall have a room there.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” Squires told her.

“I most certainly will,” she said. “And I will stay there until you come to your senses.” Then, abruptly, her rage brought tears to her eyes and she fled without another word.

“My,” said Jack Foxworth. “My, my, my.”

Ned. however. said nothing. It was bad enough he’d been forced to witness such a scene; now Pam had placed him in a miserably awkward position. Carefully, he squared his napkin on the table and rose, nodded once to Jack and Squires and headed for the door.

“Mr. Stockton.”

He turned. It was Saundra. Her eyes were not red, nor were there tears on her cheeks. And as Squires reached for the wine decanter and muttered angrily at Jack, she smiled. A humorless. cold smile that only he could see.

“Have a care,” she said.

“If you’re worried about your pet — ”

“My pet?”

“The wolf,” he said. “The park, remember?”

Squires turned suddenly, a puzzled look on his face. “What are you talking about, Ned? What wolf is this?”

Ned waited for her to answer, wondering what sort of game she was playing; but when she said nothing, he explained to the banker about the incident in the park and Saundra’s part in it.

“Saundra, is this true?” he asked.

“I saved Mr. Stockton from killing himself, yes.”

“Not likely,” Ned grumbled, looking over his shoulder as Pam came down the stairs lugging a suitcase bulging at the sides.

“Very likely,” Saundra contradicted. “I know wolves, you see. And you would have missed him. He’s a fast one, he is, and he would have been at your throat before you knew what had happened. Firing that shot in the air is what frightened him off.”

“My … god!” Squires said. “My god, Saundra, you could have been killed!”

“No,” she said, folding her hands on the table. “No, I don’t think so. After all, I did have Mr. Stockton to protect me.”

“Bravo, Ned,” said Jack softly.

Ned would have responded, but Pam called to him to help her, shouted for Timmons to have a carriage brought around. He nodded a farewell again and had just crossed the threshold when Squires stopped him with his name.

“I want you to know something, Ned,” he said firmly. “If you leave with my daughter, you’ll not be welcome in this house again.”

“Mr. Squires, I have no choice. What’s going on here is between your daughter and yourself. I’m leaving for work. If she wishes a ride to the Inn, I can scarcely deny her.” He turned away, suddenly turned back despite Pamela’s urging. “No. No, I’ve changed my mind. This isn’t between you and Pamela alone. Mr. Squires, you know I care for your daughter very much, very much indeed. So I’m making it my business to tell you I think you’re making a terrible mistake.” He looked to Jack pointedly. “On everything.”

“Thank you for your opinion,” Squires told him coldly. “but as usual, you’re wrong.”

“And Mr. Stockton,” Saundra told him as he hefted the bag and opened the door, “you’re wrong about something else. “

“Really?”

“Really.”

“The wolf, Mr. Stockton.”

“What about it?”

“It isn’t my pet.”

12

Small black clouds passed over the stars, their ragged edges silvered by the reach of the full moon. A breeze was born with the death of the light, one that set twigs to quivering and dead leaves in the hollows to stirring like anxious dreamers. In the distance, in those places where the village had not yet reached, where houses were few, or where there were none at all, lanterns bobbed erratically in the dark, stabbing out shadows while dozens of men bundled for warmth and cursing their zeal jabbed poles and knives and long rifle barrels into depressions and burrows, into shadows and ghosts. Once in a while there was a shouting, a running, a convergence on a shrub that gained form with the light. And once in a while there was a shooting, and an echo, and every farmer in the valley barned his watchdog that night.

No one bothered to look up at the sky.

Richard Driscoll knew he was in trouble, bigger trouble than he’d ever been in in his life. By rights, the look Ned had given him that afternoon should have shriveled him to a cinder, and it was only the chief’s timely intervention that prevented what he feared would have been a bloodbath — not to mention a demotion. But he’d only been trying to help. Ever since he’d heard the name of Miss Squires’ other visitor he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. He was positive he had heard it before, and not only because it was so obviously foreign. Instead of leading the hunt into the park himself, he had taken what he still believed to be the proper initiative and had raced home to Faith. He explained what had happened, what he had to know, and they had spent the rest of the night sitting on the living room floor, piles and stacks and scatters of books surrounding them until, just before dawn, Faith had tossed a brand new English volume into his lap.

It was coincidence, of course.

After he’d finished reading the chapter she’d indicated with a trembling finger, he knew it had to be coincidence.

But the more he thought about it, and the more Faith reminded him about what he had seen, what he had heard, the more he began to wonder if such terrible things could be true, could exist. And when he conjured an image of Jubal Pierson’s body jammed under the platform, and Marty Reston all in a heap behind that deadfall, and Adelle Bartlett in her kitchen … it fit. There was no other explanation.

And there was no coincidence.

Faith, her black hair in a cascade over her chest, her black eyes filled with tears, begged him not to say anything, then changed her mind and begged him to talk with Ned, with Lucas, with anyone who would listen.

“They’ll think you’re daft,” she said, pulling him toward the door, “but you’ll have to be strong. Whatever the creature’s up to, he’ll be doing it soon. You’ve no time to waste, Richard Driscoll. You’ve no time to waste at all.” Then she had pressed a rosary into his palm, kissed his cheek and turned her back as he stepped into the daylight.

And some had listened, and most had scoffed, and Chief Stockton had told him: “You keep your damned mouth shut from now on, boy, do you hear me? We got every hothead and fool in the village out there now, and I’m going to have to do something with them. You, on the other hand, are going straight home to get some sleep. Jesus, Rick, the next thing you know you’ll be telling me your wife’s a witch.”

He’d left in a hurry, wandered the streets all day and kept his word — he was silent.

But as night fell with his spirits, the sight of Stockton putting him back walking the patrols, if not outright firing him, made him angry. There was only one way to vindicate himself, and that was to find Gregor Brastov himself.

And the best place for that would be Squires Manor.

To be sure he wasn’t seen, then, he cut through the park and scaled the iron-spear fencing that formed its perimeter. Then he stumbled and walked and forced his way through the thick woodland arm that separated the estates backing on each other from the Pike and Chancellor Avenue. The moon through the trees was covered with spiderlegs, and grey shadows gathered when he stopped to take a breath, to renew his faltering courage. An owl twice questioned him, and something long and thin scurried through the underbrush away from his feet. Several times he became convinced that someone was behind him, stopped several times more to haul himself up to the top of a stone barrier to see where he was.

Finally, as the cold reached into the length of his bones and his nerves began to chill in a slow silent screaming, he reached the boundary of what he knew was Squires Manor.

Within moments he was over the fieldstone wall and making his way through a thick stand of pine. The needles underfoot kept his passage silent, and when he came to the last bole he was able to watch the dark mansion without fear of being seen. A scratching at his cheek, a thoughtful tugging at his mustache, and his hand dipped quickly to his pocket to be sure Faith’s rosary was still safely there.

The house was completely dark save for faint sparks of moonlight on the panes of the greenhouse porch, along the edges of the eaves where ice still clung, in the comers of the windows on the second and third floors. They were like blinded eyes, yet they saw him, and he began to wonder if this was such a good idea after all.

Snow crunched behind him.

He looked back and saw nothing.

A slight grin, then, to demonstrate that the night did not frighten him much at all, the grin soon replaced by a hard, determined frown and a slow inhalation. He had to do this, if only to prove that he wasn’t such a fool; and to prove to Ned Stockton that he was not still a boy, that he had the brains and the courage to work on his own.

After ten minutes of patient waiting, of assuring himself that the household was either at the front or asleep, he moved out of the trees. He wasn’t exactly clear on what had to be done, but the first thing would be to get safely inside. If Faith’s book was right and he wasn’t deluding himself, Brastov would have a place there to hide.

So intent was he then on trying to remember the layout of each floor that he almost missed the shadow standing near the greenhouse. A shadow much darker than the moonshades around it. He faltered until he was convinced it was only his imagination-but when he angled toward the left comer, the shadow angled with him. A deep breath, a swallow, and a thought for his wife.

Another step, then; the shadow moved with him.

Please, he prayed silently, and covered his gun with his left hand, the rosary with his right. Ah, Faith, what do your books say now?

By the time he reached the center of the lawn, the shadow had glided away from the house and was shadow no more. He didn’t know whether to run or be relieved, though the state of his heart made him wish he were home. His cheeks puffed, his back straightened, and he continued to walk boldly as though he had as much right as Saundra Chambers to be on the back lawn in the middle of the night.

He returned the gun to his pocket, though he made quite sure it was still pointing at her stomach.

She was oddly dressed for such a cold night-no cloak or coat, just a shimmering dark gown cut low over her chest. There was no doubt she was beautiful, and he permitted himself a stare, one that twisted to amazement when he saw she was walking on the snow without shoes.

“I was admiring the flowers when I thought I heard a noise,” she explained when he was close enough to hear. “I thought it was that murderer.”

“No,” he said smiling. “It’s only me, Miss, from the police. I … ” He cursed himself soundly for not having an excuse in case he was accosted. But she didn’t seem to care. Relief spread over her face and she clasped her hands at her waist, her arms tight against her sides to swell her breasts further.

“You’re a brave man, Mr. Driscoll. It’s dangerous out here, so I’m told.”

“And if you don’t mind me saying so,” he said as he took the compliment with a nod, “you should be inside yourself. You’re not carrying a weapon and” — he grinned shyly — you’re not very well dressed for a night like this.”

“And are you? Armed, I mean?”

He pulled out the revolver. “This will stop any man who thinks he can take me.”

“I see.”

She stepped closer.

“Now perhaps I’d better — ”

She stepped closer.

“Miss Chambers, I think — ”

She stepped closer, close enough to touch. His smile grew feeble, his gaze drawn to her eyes. To the black there, and the pulsing crimson, and the spiraling sparkling green, and the warm so warm pull that made his arms and legs heavy, his head fill with wool, his own eyes want to close for a long night’s sleeping.

“Mr. Driscoll,” she said, “you are a very brave man. I would think not even Mr. Stockton would want to be alone tonight. I am surprised he did this to you.”

He drew himself up as she closed the gap between them and lay a warm (so warm) hand lightly on his chest. “Detective Stockton,” he said, “has other plans for this evening. I … well, I have a plan too. I don’t need his help.”

“Ah,” she said, looking up, looking deep … “Ah.”

He could feel her breath ghost across his cheek when she smiled and whispered his name; he could feel her touch as her hand traced his weighted arm, squeezing and testing until her fingers reached his wrist and scratched at it lightly, moved lower to take the gun and drop it on the ground; he could feel her lips as they brushed against his.

“Miss Chambers, ma’m, I think — ”

“Don’t,” she whispered softly. “Don’t think at all .. ‘

He felt dizzy, and he swayed.

“Relax, Mr. Driscoll. Relax. You’re quite safe.”

He wanted to grin, he wanted to laugh, he wanted to tell her that she was the one who was safe, because of him.

“Richard,” she whispered. “Richard, I’m cold.”

But the dizziness remained, and as he leaned back to find his balance he saw her lips part, saw the long razored teeth closing in on his neck.

Something snapped a warning, and her gaze no longer held him. He uttered a sharp cry of fear and slammed a wild fist against her chest, grimacing his disgust as he reeled backward, flailing. She laughed, and she followed. He remembered the gun, and saw her kick it out of sight. Then he reached desperately into his pocket and pulled the rosary free. A fumbling that almost dropped it before he held it in front of him, his arm out-stretched and his face half-turned away. Saundra snarled and spat, her hands hooked into claws. She hissed as the moonlight bounced off the gold cross, hissed and stepped backward, and Driscoll finally grinned.

“I see,” he said, though his soul was shrieking. “It’s all true, isn’t it. Damn, it’s all true.”

He smiled and nodded as if he had known it all along, suddenly wishing Ned were with him so he could see this horrid proof. And with concentration thus distracted he was almost too slow in reacting when she launched herself at him. His arm went up quickly, the cross swinging wild, and she screamed like a wounded panther when the gold slapped against her arm. Driscoll gasped when he heard the sudden crackling of burning flesh, gagged when he saw the steam rise from her blackened skin.

But he never saw her free hand come around from the side, scarcely felt the pain when it crashed against his temple.

He staggered, and was struck again. He tried to bring the cross up, but a sharp kick to his knee brought him groaning to the ground. A foot stamping on his wrist, and his fingers flew open.

“Ah,” said Saundra Chambers as she knelt on his other side, away from the rosary. “Ah, Mr. Driscoll, you’ve been doing your homework.”

He saw the eyes, and the fangs, and the deep comforting spirals, but he never felt the tearing as his throat was laid bare.

And he never heard the sound of Saundra Chambers, drinking.

13

Ned lifted the heavy knocker, let it fall, and waited. A second time, a third, and a fourth in exasperation before he turned to glare at Pamela standing calmly beside him.

“This is ridiculous,” he told her. “If I had any sense, I’d take you back to the Inn.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Ned Stockton,” she said without looking away from the door. “John Webber always liked me, and he brought me into this world. More flies with honey, Mister Detective, more flies with honey.”

And besides, her silence added, I don’t want to be left alone just yet.

He was sensible enough not to argue. He still didn’t know what to make of the evening’s revelations, though he did think Grandon Squires was making an ass of himself, not only with that woman, but with Jack Foxworth as well. And adding insult to injury, just before they’d run out Squires had announced he was having a dinner tomorrow night to make the engagement and the merger official for the village. It was ridiculous, and the only reason he had agreed to bring Pamela to the Inn was in the hope that her father would soon send a carriage, with a message that she should return for a reconciliation. He’d waited an hour, but no carriage arrived.

And when he foolishly announced his decision to go speak with Doc Webber, she had grown stubborn in insisting she go along.

A fifth summons, and the door opened of its own accord.

“What in … ”

“Bad hinges,” she said and crossed over the threshold. “You don’t know your own strength.”

Ned followed and called out, and received no answer.

“Maybe he’s sleeping.”

“No, it’s too early.”

“Then he’s gone to see a patient,” she suggested as she peered up the staircase.

“Maybe,” he said. “Though from what you and Lucas told me, I can’t see him going anywhere out there at night.”

He did not have to add that he didn’t trust the house’s silence; he could see she feIt it too, in the shadows of her face and the way her hands knotted together. He called again, almost shouting, and listened for a voice as they walked through each room. But all the rooms were empty, and once they had checked the second floor found only dust, he reluctantly stood at the basement’s narrow entrance.

“You’re not going down there,” he told her when he opened it and she moved immediately to his right hand.

“I most certainly am.”

“For god’s sake, Pam, it’s a morgue!”

She smiled sweetly at him, brushed him aside, and took the stairs as if she were entering someone’s parlour. He shook his head at her foolhardiness, then charged down the steps two at a time when he heard her muffled scream.

There was a single gaslight glowing dimly on the wall, and the moment he reached bottom and spun to the right he saw John Webber lying on the floor. The doctor was on his back, his eyes wide and staring, his legs twisted at painfully sharp angles. His shirt was tom to shreds at the shoulders, and from under the back of his skull Ned could see a pooling of fresh blood. Pamela had turned away, her face covered by her hands, and he knelt beside the old man to lay a finger against his throat. It took him several tries, but he soon found a pulse. Feeble and erratic, yet the touch of his hand caused a stir, a fluttering, while the pale lips trembled.

“Take it easy,” he whispered, stripping off his coat to fold into a pillow.

“No,” Webber gasped, a bubble of pink froth welling at his mouth. “No.”

“Don’t be silly. We’re here to help you.” Then he glanced up at the wall and saw the red gleaming smear where Webber’s head had been smashed. He closed his eyes and swore. “Who was it, Doc?” he asked with a catch in his voice.

Webber gasped and grunted, and when his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips it pushed onto his chin a dark mouthful of blood. Acid rose from Ned’s stomach and he could hear Pamela weeping, but he swallowed the bile and leaned closer, closer to the mouth and heard the name, “Brastov.”

A hollow sigh that lingered until it finished with a harsh choking. The sightless eyes bulged, and Ned knew he wanted to scream. Even at his dying he was trying to scream.

In a moment it was over, and the coat that would have been a pillow became a shroud instead. He shook his head and rose, and lay his hands on Pamela’s shoulders. She leaned into him gratefully to be held for a heartbeat, looked up with swollen eyes that widened as she gasped.

“My god!” she said, and pointed.

He turned, and his eyes closed once, slowly, as if that extra second might deny what he was seeing.

The stout door to the morgue was bent outward near to splintering, the iron hinges almost twisted out of place. And the wood around the center cross was scorched black, and still smoldering. As they watched, a clump of ash broke from the door and fell, scattering into powder.

“We have to get out of here,” he whispered urgently. turning her without releasing his grip about her waist. “I have to get to the station.”

They stumbled to the staircase and Ned had his hand on the narrow bannister when a shadow clouded the light from above, and they both looked up, slowly.

A tall black figure stood in the doorway, face hidden except for a pair of eyes that Ned would have sworn glittered fire-red. It remained motionless for several seconds, just long enough for Ned to frown and tum his head. Listening to something just beyond his hearing. Then he took a step up and the figure stirred.

“I wouldn’t” a voice said calmly, resonating like thunder just below the horizon.

“Now look here,” Ned said. “There’s a man dead down here, and we — ”

The figure stirred again, and moved one pace forward.

“Mr. Stockton, your friends have been very busy tonight. As you have. It is really most inconvenient.”

A red flare, faint, and Ned looked away, down to Pamela who was staring up intently. When she sensed his gaze she blinked rapidly and said, “It’s him, Ned. It’s Brastov.”

“Miss Squires,” Brastov said as if surprised to see her. “How marvelous. I wish I had had the opportunity to dance with you the other evening.”

She scowled, and the hand that lay against Ned’s chest clenched into a fist. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

The Count took the first step and Ned moved off his stair.

“A pity about Doctor Webber,” he said. “A strong man for one so young, and yet so old. As I said, your friends have been busy.”

He moved again. and the first glow of the gaslight put shadows to his face that gave him features. And suddenly Ned remembered the evening in the hall and the curious sensation of displacement he’ d felt — it was Brastov he had seen going into the greenhouse.

“You will move out of the way, please.” the Count said quietly, descending slowly, fluidly, the cloak wrapped about him barely moving at all.

Ned and Pamela backed away. avoiding Webber’s body until they were on the other side of the morgue’s crumbling door. The Count, smiling pleasantly, took a deep breath and pointed to the bar still fast in its braces.

“You will lift that off. please.” he said.

“I’ll do no such thing!” Ned said angrily.

“Oh. but you will.” Brastov told him. And though his lips held the smile, his eyes narrowed and there was a darkness there he found oddly comforting, one sparked with colors, with warm fire, with a beckoning that sounded almost like Whispering. Though he knew he’d made no conscious decision, he could feel his arm lifting, could feel his hand reaching for the bar. And the Count still smiled, and the lights still beckoned, and just as his fingers gripped the raw wood Pamela slapped him hard, jarring his face to one side.

“Don’t!” she ordered harshly. “Don’t look at him, Ned!”

The Count shook his head in disappointment. “Miss Squires, I was hoping this wasn’t going to become unpleasant.”

But she was having none of it. She took her arm from around Ned’s waist and jabbed a fist in the air between them. “You killed him,” she said with a swift glance at Webber. “And I’ll wager you killed Jubal and Marty and poor Mrs. Bartlett.”

Ned, whose mind had gone numb for a moment, recovered just in time to see the Count’s slight nod of confession. He reacted instinctively — his left hand darted into his coat and pulled out his revolver, cocked the hammer and aimed at the man’s breast.

Brastov laughed, a short laugh deep and echoing. ‘“My dear Mr. Stockton, you still don’t believe, do you. What a fool you are. What a pitiful fool.”

“Believe what,” Ned sneered. “That you’re some kind of monster? Please, Mr. Brastov, give me some credit.”

The count stepped closer.

Ned backed slightly away, pulling Pamela with him though the revolver was still up and armed.

“You have a short memory, policeman.”

The park, and the wolf, and the shot that went wild.

“No,” Ned told him. “No, I don’t. And this time I won’t miss.”

Before Pamela could stop him, he pulled the trigger, and the explosion in the small room was deafening. The smell of black powder, and the sound of the bullet striking the wall behind the Count. He opened the cloak, and his white shirt was untouched. The gun fired again, and again the explosion, and a shower of stone chips that pattered to the floor. A third time before Pamela put her hand on his wrist and forced it slowly down. He was breathing heavily, and there was perspiration on his brow. He stared stupidly at the useless weapon, at John Webber by his feet, and at the morgue door. His mouth opened, closed, and as he stared at the iron cross his eyes widened in comprehension.

“Enough, Mr. Stockton,” Count Brastov said, all patience over at the game he was playing. “Open the door, now!”

“Ned, he can’t do it!” Pamela said. “The cross — ”

“I know, I know.”

“Mr. Stockton!”

Ned’s right hand trembled violently and reached out as if to grab for the bar, suddenly veered and snapped the delicate chain from around Pamela’s neck. She yelped, but Ned had the tiny silver cross up and in front of them.

“Open it yourself,” he taunted. “Go ahead, Mr. Brastov. Open the door yourself.”

The Count’s face darkened in fury, and his lips pulled away from his gleaming sharp teeth in a silent, enraged snarl. “Put it down, Mr. Stockton. I tell you for your own good to put that vile thing down.” Ned moved forward, and the Count backed toward the stairs.

“Ned,” Pamela whispered, “be careful.”

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “He’s not got us yet.”

Brastov had reached the staircase. His hand took the bannister and in a sudden wrenching motion pulled a section free and flung spinning it at Ned’s head. Ned ducked, but the wood glanced hard off his shoulder, sending him to one knee, pain blurring his vision. But he was able to hold up his hand just as Brastov gathered himself for a leap at his throat.

“No.” Ned gasped, gritting his teeth, his jaw taut. “No.”

There was a silence, until the Count sighed. “I am so sorry for you, Mr. Stockton.” He said as he began to climb the stairs. “I am so very sorry indeed. You think you have the answers, but all they are going to do is provide you with more questions. I suggest you do not think of this as victory.

In fact, it would be a good thing for you, a very healthy thing indeed if you left Oxrun Station first thing in the morning and did not return. If you stay, Mr. Stockton, you will not like what you see. When I am finished, you will not recognize it at all.”

Ned drew back his hand as if to throw the crucifix, but there was a vague crackling sound, a hissing, and when Pamela gasped he looked to the Count’s boots and saw thick mist slipping out from under the cloak. Slowly at first, a death-pale grey, then more rapidly until it enveloped the man, all but the redfire eyes that glared once before winking out.

The wind came immediately after.

It roared down the stairs and scattered the mist, flinging dirt and debris in a hailstorm around their heads, forcing them to duck away and cower against the wall.

And in the midst of the wind, a maniacal laugh.

And out of the wind a monstrously huge bat that dove at them and wheeled, dove again while Ned held up the cross and shoved Pamela between him and the protection of the wall. The bat circled and came a third time, the sound of its wings the sound of the wind. the sigh of the fog. Its eyes were red-fire, its fangs stabbing at his neck, and when Ned swung his arm and the cross struck its chest it spun to one side, hovered, and vanished.

And when the wind was over there was nothing left but silence.

Ned stood cautiously, peering at the empty staircase as he brushed at his clothes. Then he turned to see if Pamela was all right and saw her standing in front of the door, swaying as if she were about to faint. He grabbed her arms and tried to pull her away, but she balked.

And then he heard it.

From beyond the morgue door the sound that had bothered him earlier.

Voices, distant but unmistakable, and they were whispering his name.

The Last Night

14

The kitchen was sunny, filled with a soft gold light that better belonged to early spring, brightened further by the church bells that rang out by the dozens over the village. The wood stove in the comer muttered sharp incantations to itself as it held the cold at bay, and a cardinal perched boldly on the outside sill of the window over the sink. Pamela watched it from her chair, her hands palmed around a cold cup of tea. It looks like blood, she thought, and shuddered. Smiled wanly when Ned, rumpled and wrinkled from sleeping on the couch, reached over to touch her arm.

They had said little to each other since rising several hours past dawn. He had heated the water for her makeshift toilet, slipped wood into the stove so the kettle would boil. He knew they should try to eat something, but each time he reached for an egg, a slice of bread, his stomach rebelled, and one look at Pam told him she felt the same. But it was more than her silence that worried him; it was the reasons for it. On the one hand she had been given the shock of her life at Squires Manor the night before when she saw with her own eyes her father hand away her birthright and announce his impending marriage to a woman less than half his age.

And then there was Count Brastov, something not even a nightmare dared conjure for their sleep.

Immediately the vampire had left them, they had stumbled up to the doctor’s front room where Ned raided the dead man’s liquor cabinet for the strongest brandy he could find. But the fires they had set within them did not quell the deathly cold they felt. They waited, fearful Brastov would return for another attempt to free his slaves, waited for an hour while they heard all the whispering downstairs.

Finally, arms about each’ other’s waist, they hurried into the night and ran back to the Inn. By the time they reached it, however, Ned had been able to find some order for his thoughts and suggested they go directly to his home.

Brastov, he reasoned, knew where she was staying, and the only way Ned would be able to protect her would be if he were close by. He doubted the Inn’s landlord would believe their story, and doubted further he’d be allowed to sleep on a table downstairs. Pamela hadn’t hesitated at all; she agreed, and even argued when he threw a series of blankets over the sofa for his own use. And it was then that he told her for the first time that he loved her, told her he’d be honored if she’d agree to be his wife. Perhaps the moment was ill-timed, but her response was to kiss him full upon the lips before she slipped away to the bedroom.

They left all the lights on, after Ned had drawn crosses on every door and window while whispering prayers he’ d thought were long forgotten.

The night had exhausted them; they slept too hard for dreams, too lightly for nightmares, and now, as Ned stared at her golden hair so warm in his kitchen he suddenly decided he was hungry after all. Without a word, with only a smile, he rose and made a large breakfast, and startled himself with his appetite, noting with pleasure that Pamela too was feeling the aftereffects of their fear.

By noon they were in the living room, on the sofa, her head on his shoulder.

“We’ve wasted a lot of time,” she said.

“We had to believe.”

“Yes. Yes, we did.”

“And now?”

She stirred. “Now we … ” She moved out of his embrace and stared at him. Her emerald eyes were clouded with worry, and ringed with fear just barely controlled. “Now we have to stop him.”

He smoothed a hand over his collarless shirt. “Why?” he wondered to the room. “Why here? With all the cities, all the people in this country, why did that creature have to pick us?”

She shrugged. “What does it matter? We have him, and we have to be rid of him.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let it go at that. Pam. I can’t. You’re right, but I have to know why.”

“He’s evil.”

“Indeed.”

Her hands wrestled in her lap slowly. “He used Saundra, you know. He used her to bring him here. She must have met him on the Tour and he … Ned, is she one of his?”

He rested his head on the sofa’s high back. “I don’t know. I would think so, from the looks of it. but then he must have powers we can only begin to understand. She could be his. Or she could simply be someone he has bewitched.”

“Like she did my father,” she said bitterly.

“I’m afraid so, darling. But that’s a bewitchment easily broken. That’s — ” He sat up abruptly and turned to her. “Yes! By god, Pamela, that must be it!”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“Your father. I remember him telling me that first night he had half the village at his party for Miss Bernhardt, and most of them were some of the most powerful influences in the country. Brastov, whatever he is, is no fool. A small village as a base because he must remain undetected, and what better village than this one?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, that’s all right as far as it goes, but surely you don’t believe he thinks he can turn all of us into loathsome creatures like himself, like he did with Jubal and the others. It wouldn’t work, not if he wants to … to take over the country.”

Ned smiled. “But he doesn’t, darling. What he wants is power, more power than he has now. And protection. By getting these people under his influence, one way or another, he has both to such a degree that he’d never be caught. Never. And the first step would be to get a man like your father — ”

“My God, Ned,” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “My God, Father!”

She started for the door. snatching down her cloak as she entered the hall. Ned was instantly behind her, taking hold of her arm and shaking his head. “Darling, we can’t.”

“We have to!”

“Not yet,” he said urgently. “Not until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“I thought we had a fairly good idea.”

“No, you misunderstand. What I mean is, we have to know more about him. It’s like … god, I hate to say it, but it’s like knowing someone like Marty Reston. You get to know him, what he can do and what he can’t or won’t, and you’ve found his weakness. It’s the weakness that puts men behind bars, Pamela. The weakness.”

After a moment she stopped resisting and considered what he’d said. “And how are we supposed to find this out? Ned, except for Rick — ”

“Exactly!” he declared, reaching for his own coat.

“We’ll get over to Rick’s house and find out just where he learned about these vampires and things. Perhaps Faith can help.” Then his expression turned grim. “And once we know, we can act.”

Pamela opened the door and winced at the bright sunlight. “We don’t have much time. Father’s party is tonight.”

“Don’t worry, darling. As long as we have the sun, please, don’t worry.”

Grandon Squires sat alone in his study, a large tray filled with half-eaten sandwiches on the floor beside him. On the desk beneath his hands were ledgers and accounting books, open and filled with notation scrawls. He was frowning. But less at the figures he was working on than at his daughter’s rebellion. He knew he’d been wrong in springing the news on her that way, but he’d been so excited when Saundra had accepted his proposal that he’d scarcely been able to contain himself. He had been alone for so long, and though there was a part of him that would always love Violet, there was an even greater part that did not want to see him spend his declining years alone.

Saundra.

Dear Saundra.

His brow furrowed with concern. Though she had assured him a dozen times over the malady she’d picked up during her journey was not serious, nevertheless he could not stop himself from fretting. Each time he tried to see her during the day she refused him admittance, and Timmons had just informed him her meal trays were untouched. It wasn’t natural for a young woman to be so without an appetite, and he decided that protest or not he would send for John Webber and have her examined. Today, without fail. He wouldn’t have her dying on him, just when he thought he’d found happiness again.

With a loud sigh to the empty room, then, he pushed away from the desk and walked to the window overlooking the back lawn. A glance at the sky, and he scowled. Tendrils of pale clouds were sifting over the blue. There would be a storm tonight, he thought; he’d best get Timmons immediately, before it was too late.

And then … then he would send an urgent message to his daughter. Not even Saundra could begin to console him if Pamela were no longer here by his side. And the first thing he would tell her is that a reexamination of the books had proved he had indeed been a fool, that the broad portraits of grandeur Jack Foxworth had painted so lovingly and persuasively were little more than vague sketches in a child’s school pad. More so since it was obvious Pamela had been right, that the man had been using him to get directly at her. Even young Ned Stockton was more honest than that.

He grunted and returned to the desk, yanked the bell-pull and reached for his stationery. By the time Timmons had made his way upstairs the note for his daughter would be finished and sealed.

And then he would visit Saundra. Ill or not, the best thing for recovery was time with one who loved you. He smiled to himself and whispered her name.

Ned was shaken. As he veered around the comer on the roan he’d taken from the police stables, swinging up to Reverend Alden’s church on Williamston Pike, he tried to convince himself he was still not in bed, still not dreaming that his home, his love, his world were crumbling around him.

He and Pamela had gone straight to the Driscoll home, a small brick cottage on King Street, where they found Faith sitting alone in her front room, waiting for her husband to return. Her eyes were swollen with tears long since dried, and in her hands she held a book whose pages had been tom viciously from their binding. It had taken nearly an hour to bring her around to speaking, and an hour following for the young Irish woman to tell them what she knew and what she suspected, and what she had told her husband to do. They had said nothing. They had expressed no surprise, no disbelief, only a deep sickening revulsion as what they feared was confirmed.

It had to be true or they’d all lost their minds.

He had left Pamela with the sobbing woman and raced back to the station. As he did, he considered telling his father, and decided against it. The older man had often told him many curious stories about Oxrun and its past, and always ended each with a mild but stem caution: “No matter how it looks, there are always explanations, son, there are always explanations. Just because we’ve not been privileged to know them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Things happen in the Station, that’s all. Things happen. It’s been that way since the beginning, and maybe someday I’ll tell you that story as well.”

No; this he would have to handle on his own. The fewer people involved, the fewer people liable to be hurt. As it was, he thought as he reined in his mount, he was afraid Rick Driscoll in his zeal was dead, if not worse.

The church was a Gothic building of perfectly cut, large fieldstone blocks, impressively solemn, cathedral-like in its presence if not its size. The vicarage was beside it, but after several minutes of frantic pounding he received no answer and cut through the yard to the church’s side entrance. It was unlocked. Once inside, the quiet and the dim light worked to unnerve him as he made his way through several deserted antechambers toward the altar.

He called out several times, cringing at the echoes so recently ringing with hymns, but Alden did not respond, and he felt no qualms about running down the center aisle between the polished walnut pews to the grey marble baptismal font set in an alcove just at the back. The sculptured lid was heavy, and he scraped his knuckles as he heaved it from its place. From his pocket he pulled a series of small herb vials Faith had given him, and filled them with the holy water lying still at the bottom. As the last one bubbled to a close, he capped it and reached to the lid again.

And stopped.

The little water remaining had begun to tremble, ripple, and as he stared it grew dark, darker, and black. He glanced up at the alcove’s stained-glass window, and realized with a silent groan that the sun was fading, the leading edge of the storm already covering the village.

When he looked down again he saw his reflection … and suddenly, without warning, his own face was gone and in its place was Gregor Brastov and his red-fire eyes.

Busy, my friend, he heard in the silence of the old church. Very busy, I’m sure, but I’m afraid you’re too late.

15

Pamela’s apprehension drove her to anxious pacing across the Driscolls’ front room. From door to window to a rocking chair by the hearth; she picked up the tattered book and reread the pages in fearful disbelief, tossed the book to the chair and paced once again. Faith watched her but said nothing, her eyes almost blank as they followed the golden hair, the glints of light on the dress, the boots whose heels were muffled on the carpeted floor.

“You can’t help him, you know. No more than you can help my poor Rick.”

Pamela sighed and scrubbed her hands dryly.

“It’s too late. Too late for us all.”

“Oh do shut up,” she snapped, whirling around with a scowl. “We have hours of daylight left. You said yourself he’s helpless in daylight.”

Faith lowered her head to stare at her hands. “You have to find him first, don’t you. It won’t matter if you don’t find him.”

The carpentry shop was filled with sawdust-on the floor, in the air, in clouds and clinging specks through Zack Cabot’s thick sandy hair. He was neither tall nor husky, but his forearms and chest were thick and solid, his hands a scarred blur as he ran the plane over a two-foot length of rounded hawthorn. Chips and curls fell at his feet, and for almost thirty minutes there was only the sound of the metal blade at its work.

“For heaven’s sake, man,” Ned finally exploded from his stool in the comer, ‘‘I’m not asking you for perfection!”

Cabot didn’t bother to look up. “You want these stakes done right, young man, you bide your patience and you hold your tongue.”

Ned grunted and squirmed.

“Don’t know what you want ’em for anyway. Damn silly. if you ask me.”

“Just do it, Zack, please? I’ve told you all I can for now.”

“Ain’t told me nothin.”

“Zack … ”

“All right, all right, but god knows why you need a dozen.”

“I can’t wait anymore,” Pam finally said. “It’s been almost two hours. If he doesn’t come back soon … Faith, I don’t know if I can wait.”

“You must,” Faith told her, toneless and resigned. “You have no choice.”

She turned helplessly, bound by her promise to Ned not to leave the house, and equally tom in her desire to run to her father and tell him what she knew. She was desperate. And she was afraid in spite of the weapons Faith had told them they could use. Several times she reached for her cloak, and just as often watched her hand fall away. Outside, on King Street, couples strolled in the waning light, home from visiting, from sharing dinner, from spending their Sundays as they always have done.

Sunday! she thought. “Faith, it’s Sunday. Surely — ”

“Sunday don’t mean anything to a man who knows the Devil.”

And what, she thought then, if Reverend Alden didn’t believe him, wouldn’t help him? What if he couldn’t persuade Cabot to make all those stakes? Suppose the horse had thrown him, or he had been waylaid by his father. She gnawed hard on her lower lip, bit the inside of her cheek. No; she couldn’t stay any longer, no matter how much she’d promised. She just couldn’t, and she knew that Ned would understand.

When she took down her cloak and swung it close around her shoulders, Faith leapt from the chair and stood in front of the door as if daring her to leave. Pamela, however, only took her arms gently and moved her aside.

“But you can’t!” Faith cried, pointing at the window. “The sun’s almost gone! You can’t go out there now!”

“I can and I will,” she said grimly, reaching for the doorknob. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out the silver cross. “This helped me before; it will help me again, at least until I get … ”

“Yes,” Faith said, “yes, and where are you going?”

There was no need for thought. “Home. Ned was right. It all started with Saundra Chambers, and I’m going to find out if that’s where it ends.” She grabbed Faith’s hands, squeezed them before they fell into an embrace that almost broke her resolve. Then she was gone, racing down the steps to the pavement.

The last thing she heard was Faith calling after: “Please, Miss Squires, please find my Rick!”

Timmons backed out of the kitchen quickly, weary of fighting with Cook over a dinner on such short notice. It was going to be a disaster, and he knew it. Just one day to find enough food to feed half the village, prepare it and serve it as if they’d had it around for ages. One day to deliver several dozen invitations and polish the silver and replace the candles and see to it the house was immaculate and keep what was left of his slow-crumbling temper.

He strode the halls swiftly, eyes narrow and lips taut, his white-gloved left hand every so often testing a panel, a sconce, the top of a sideboard, patting the tapestries for signs of hidden dust. He could hear Mr. Squires upstairs, bellowing for a clean shirt; he could hear Cook scolding her help in a voice not too short of a nagging wife’s whine; he could hear the wind beginning to pick up outside the green house where he finally escaped for a few moments’ peace among the lush plants and vivid blossoms. The worst of it was, the entire staff from himself on down thought Mr. Squires was being a fool. If only Miss Pamela hadn’t left in such a huff. If she were here, things would soon be right again, and perhaps this farce wouldn’t be carried out. He shook his head sadly, and left the warm room.

A glance at the center hall’s clock told him it was time to choose the wines for the occasion. He opened the cellar door and hurried down, pausing just long enough to light the gaslamps on the wall. Then he veered sharply into the wineracks, frowning concentration, touching a bottle here and there and rejecting, picking up a wicker basket from a pile near the last row and finally slipping the chosen out of their nests.

When he was done he turned to leave, and stopped when he saw the door at the back. It wasn’t open, but there were tracks in the dust below it. He grunted, and shook his head. He told the maids a hundred times a week to stay away from that part of the cellar, though for all the good it did him he might as well be talking to the rats who made it their home. There was nothing of value in the other room, but he suspected they used it for late night assignations, or early afternoon trysts with a willing tradesman or two. It was shocking, but his eyes could see only so much at a time; and whenever he complained to Mr. Squires, the old man simply muttered something about discipline and order not being his job.

He set the basket down and walked over to check the lock. It was fast, and when he rattled the knob the door held to.

A skittering in the shadows, and he spun around, without thinking picking up a bottle and flinging it fiercely overhand. It crashed and there was a tiny shriek, wine dripping, and silence. Timmons smiled. The bottle could be replaced; the rat would be a good snack for some of its brothers. As he took the stairs and snuffed out the lights, he reminded himself to have one of the stableboys come down and shovel the remains into the trash. That wasn’t his job; and besides, he thought as he turned out the last flame, the cellar was getting too cold for his old bones, too cold and too dark.

The idea of lying to Pamela was unpleasant, but he could not bring himself to include her when he made his first stop. Later, he told himself; later, when it was done, he would take her home. But not now. Now was the time when he need test his courage, to see if he had the strength to face Gregor Brastov.

Cautiously, gnawing on his lower lip and holding his breath, he descended the steep stairs, the burlap bundle under his arm heavy and unwieldy. He stumbled once, grabbed the bannister and held his breath. A cobweb swayed as a white spider repaired it. His shadow was divided by the glow from upstairs and the gaslight flickering weakly on the wall. When he reached the bottom he closed his eyes once, opened them and saw John Webber’s body just as he’d left it. The door, too, was the same, though the ashes at the base had grown to a small pile.

He took small steps and swallowed; he felt the perspiration snaking down his sides; his lips were dry, his tongue felt swollen. He sidled around the body and tried to ignore the deep flat cold.

He lay the bundle on the floor and took hold of the bar. The wood was like ice poked through with needles. He gritted his teeth and lifted it carefully, just as carefully leaned it against the wall and reached into the bundle for a stake, and a large hammer. A hand to the knob. A single creaking turn. And despite its massive weight the door opened smoothly.

The acrid stench of decay that billowed from the room made him gag and clamp a hand hard to his mouth and nose. He almost bolted for the stairs, instead returned slowly to the wall and turned the light up as far as it would go. The flame jumped and hissed an angry blue, the shadows multiplied and danced, and the dark of the morgue was driven to its comers.

He stood at the threshold, poised to flee if he had to.

He reined in his fear and took the first step.

There was no sound, no whispering, only the three trestle tables and the corpses that lay on them. He neither looked at them nor touched them; he strode quickly to the overhead lantern and after three fumbling tries finally had it glowing. Then he returned to the outer room and lifted his bundle, stood there afraid to reenter.

Had things been as he’d last seen them he would have felt exceedingly foolish, and grandly relieved. But they weren’t. The stained, bloody sheets were in piles on the floor, and the bodies were lying serenely on their backs, hands folded over their chests, faces up toward the ceiling. At the foot of each table was a coffin, lid propped beside. Go on, Ned, he told himself angrily; go on, they can’t hurt you. Faith said they can’t hurt you until the sun goes down.

An involuntary glance to the stairwell, and he could see the light dimming by stages, as if someone up there were drawing it back on a leash.

A look at John Webber made his decision. He ran back into the morgue and grabbed the first stake, held it over Jubal Pierson and stared at the dead man’s grizzled, unearthly face. A sleeve over his eyes to clear the sweat away and he brought the hammer up, knocking against the light and setting it to swinging. The hammer came down as the light swung back, and Jubal Pierson opened his mouth in a bloodless silent scream as the stake lanced his heart. He thrashed, and the hammer came down; he wrapped his fingers around the stake, and the hammer came down; he opened his eyes with hellish hatred to stare directly at Ned, and the hammer came down and the stake pierced his heart and the vampire was pinned to the table beneath him.

An anguished sigh that filled the room, fetid breath that turned Ned’s head, and Pierson at last slumped, his chest soaked and running with viscous black blood.

Ned refused himself thought — he moved directly to Marty Reston and repeated the process.

Then he stood over Adelle Bartlett and could not swing the hammer.

The light outside the door was nearly gone.

The old woman lay peacefully, save for the gash at her throat the same woman who had plied her expert seamstress trade for anyone in the village, and it made no difference if the money were there. For Pamela on special occasions, and twice for his own mother.

Black blood dropped from Marty Reston to the floor. Steam rose from the puddle that ran toward Ned’s feet. This one couldn’t be one of them, he thought, drawing back his hand and the stake. She couldn’t. Surely there were things about people’s lives that protected them after death. Surely there were.

The light outside the door turned suddenly black.

Adelle Bartlett’s eyes opened, and her lips grimaced in a smile. Neddie, she whispered, have you found my Horace yet?

He groaned as the old woman planted her elbows and made to rise. He groaned as her red-fire eyes sought to find him and hold. And he groaned almost screamed as he swung stake and hammer up over his head, down into her chest and closed his ears to the shriek, the damnation that swirled like bats’ wings around him. She grabbed his wrist, and the hammer swung down; her free hand clawed for his eyes, and the hammer swung down; smooth ebony blood gushed from her mouth and the fangs that had been her teeth suddenly withdrew as she fell back and died when the hammer swung down.

When he ran, he almost forgot to bring the bundle with him.

And when he reached the outside he groaned one last time.

The sun was nearly gone, and the wind had climbed to a banshee keening.

16

“What the bloody hell do you mean, she’s gone?” Ned shouted, wild-eyed and frantic. He had hold of Faith Driscoll’s shoulders and was shaking her violently, finally pushed her aside and dashed into the front room.

`“Gone,” said Faith resignedly … She couldn’t wait for you.”

Ned turned quickly. “You let her go? Fool, don’t you know what’s out there?”

“I know. It has my Rick. I know what’s there.”

He reached for the mantel to support himself, still unable to shake the feel of Adelle Bartlett’s fingers around his wrist, the sight of Marty Reston’s devilish sneer before the first blow of hammer shattered his dead heart.

“Where?” he asked wearily.

“Home,” Faith told him. “She said — ”

She never had time to finish. He burst from the hearth and shoved past her, was through the door and into the saddle before she could reach the porch. He rode swiftly, dodging the few carriages still on the streets in defiance of the wind, nearly running down a group of children playing hoops at one corner. The short cape of his Inverness coat flapped like wings against his shoulders; his hair spun and tangled furiously into his eyes. He leaned over the roan’s thrusting neck and urged it on, round the comer onto Williamston Pike, and out toward Squires Manor.

Pamela came through the front door as if she’d never left. The moment Timmons saw her his face creased in a broad smile, but he held his welcome back when he saw the determination in her eyes, the firm but hurried step of her boots on the staircase. She made directly for the library, flung open the door and glanced around for her father. He wasn’t there. The room was dark. She backed away instantly and took to the stairs again, this time heading for the guest apartments on the third floor. Below her she could hear the bustle of the staff, the calls, the curses as frenzied preparations for the last minute celebration caused collisions in the halls. She did not smile. Instead, she took hold of the doorknob and pushed in, Saundra’s name on her lips.

But the room was empty.

She looked into the bedroom and frowned. There was no one there either. Curious, she thought as she wandered aimlessly over the carpet. Surely, for such an occasion, Saundra would be frantically dressing by now. Yet, when she opened the wardrobe, she was not surprised to find it bare. Nor were there clothes in the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.

And the mirror over the vanity had been turned to the wall.

She about-faced at once and went to the hall again, one finger pensively to her lips while the other hand pulled at the folds of her skirt. She must be here, she thought. She can’t have left. She can’t.

One by one, then, she checked every room on the floor, every closet, until her hands were dark with dust and her cheeks were smudged, her hair straggling down over her brow.

“Where?” she whispered to herself urgently. “Where?”

The second floor yielded the same results, and she was just about to descend to the first when her father lumbered up and saw her. All thought of Saundra vanished for the moment when she saw the look of pure relief and love on his face. They said nothing; they embraced, and a moment later her ear with filled with his profuse and awkward apologies. Then he pushed her away from him without dropping his hands and stared at her face.

“Pamela, have you been rooting about in the cellar? Look at you, child!” He stopped, and grinned sheepishly. “No. Look at you, daughter! My Lord, you’ll never be ready for tonight if you don’t hurry.” Another frown. “You … you are planning to be the hostess, are you not?”

“I thought that would be Saundra’s job,” she said flatly.

“Yes. Well. Saundra is a little difficult to get hold of, as you can well imagine.”

She debated but for an instant. “I can imagine more than you, father.” She took hold of his arm and began leading him back to her room. “Come with me while I clean up and change. I have something I think you ought to know.”

“But time — ”

“ — is short. Yes, I know. But much shorter, Father, than you think. Please, bear with me. There’s a story I want you to hear.”

Amy Reston cursed and muttered all the way down the steps into the cellar. It was bad enough, wasn’t it, that Timmons damn his black soul, was a tyrant today. Bad enough she was barely over mourning her Martin when the call comes and she has to work like a demon for the likes of Grandon Squires. Good thing they’re paying double wages, though she really didn’t need it.

Martin had piled enough away for a rainy day to keep her happy until someone else came along; and she herself had a great deal of silver hidden under the bed for the next time she could get to Hartford and the man who took it, gave her money, and asked no questions.

She wiped a hand over her pudgy face, back through the red hair snarled with finger brushing and perspiration. Another oath to solidify her annoyance and she stood with her hands on her hips and stared at the rows of wine bottles that seemed to stretch forever ahead of her. When she reached the end row she saw the locked door in the rear wall, smiled briefly at a memory of Marty and her back there on an old mattress that had been rescued from the trash. But the memory faded quickly. Marty was dead, and she had to fetch the damned wine.

Now how the hell was she supposed to know which bottle was which, huh? Timmons told her to fetch some silly French name thing, and here she was unable to read English, for god’s sake! Well, she knew it would have to be a red wine, and he did say it was in the last rack. If she happened to grab the right one first off, so much the better. If she didn’t and had to come back, well that young rake from the baker’s would be glad to help her find it, she was sure.

Lifting her starched black skirts with one hand to keep them from dragging in the filth on the floor, she hurried into the shadows, paused when she realized she’d only turned on one light. But the idea of walking all the way back was too much; one bottle was all she needed. She spat when a cobweb brushed across her hair, spat again when she found what she was looking for and pulled the bottle out. She held the label close to her face and squinted, shrugged, and was about to return when she noticed the door in the rear wall.

It was open.

Pamela stood behind her dressing screen and slipped the emerald-dark dress over her head. Then, as she bent to fasten the laces that held the bodice together, she listened as her father strode angrily from one side of the room to the other. She’d thought that hiding behind the screen would make her story easier to tell, but it hadn’t been. Luckily, Squires hadn’t interrupted; if he had, she’d never have found the nerve to finish. And talking about vampires and werewolves while standing half-naked in the safety of her own room had brought a blush to her cheeks, a feeling of being absolutely and completely stupid.

When he spoke, it was almost in sadness. “I don’t know what to say, Pamela.”

Say you believe me, she willed as she deftly closed the last gap and stepped hesitantly around the screen. But he wouldn’t. She could see it in his face, in the way his great head cocked toward her, like a man to a willfully lying child pretending great innocence.

“You don’t like her anymore, I know that.”

“Father — ”

He held up a hand: Hush while I’m talking.

“I can understand that because Saundra is not the same woman who left Oxrun Station three years ago. She’s grown. She’s seen the world. She’s met new people and learned new things. She’s worldly and much more wise than the girl we used to know. Our correspondence over the past six months — ”

“ — six months?”

“ — has proved that to me beyond a doubt.” He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his left hand pulling absently at a string loose in the quilting. “And I had hoped you two would still be friends when she returned.”

She crossed to the vanity and sat on the velvet-tufted stool. A brush, pearl-backed and silver, worked its way briskly through her hair. “We were,” she said. “At least I thought so.”

“Well, you obviously aren’t now, and this little story of yours proves it.” His head shook slowly. “Do you not want me to marry again so much?”

“Father, that isn’t it,” she said earnestly. “It isn’t. You know I want nothing more that your happiness.”

“Then — ”

She turned and held the brush like a shield in front of her chest. “But not with her, Father. My god, you’ve got to believe me!”

He stood clumsily and almost staggered toward the door. “My darling, there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you. But what you’re asking now is too much. It’s really too much.”

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. “What do I have to do to prove it to you?”

“Nothing,” he said, finally letting bitterness creep into his tone. “Nothing, because there is nothing to prove.” He paused at the threshold. “The first guests should be here in an hour. I would hope you’d have the civility to come down and greet them.”

The door closed softly.

Pamela flung the brush at it and let the tears fall.

“Well, I don’t give a damn what you say, Mr. High-and-Mighty Timmons,” Amy said crossly. “I saw what I said I saw, and that there back door was open. And it weren’t open when I went down there.”

Timmons held back an acid retort, remembered instead she would want more stray bits of silver and such now that her husband was gone; and if he wanted to keep the same payments it wouldn’t do to have her annoyed. So he smiled tolerantly, patted her shoulder and left the kitchen to the bellowing cook. A moment later he was at the cellar door, suspiciously peering down at the shadows.

There was someone there. He could hear someone moving despite the noise upstairs.

He was only at the third step when Saundra Chambers appeared at the bottom, a dusty wine bottle held carefully in one hand. She smiled at him as she climbed upward, the midnight blue gown offsetting her pale shoulders, the rise of her breasts not veiled by lace. He swallowed his initial fear and backed away as she neared him, nodded as she passed with a shadow-brief smile, and when she had turned into the kitchen he looked around and rushed down.

The door was closed, the lock in its place.

His puzzlement put a frown on his brow, but he thought little of it. Not until he reached the hall again and saw Miss Chambers enter the dining room. Without really knowing why, he followed quietly, watched as she examined the place-settings, picking up the silver plates, nodding and replacing them exactly as they’d been. As if she owned the place, he thought sourly. And he decided it was his job to caution her about disturbing what had taken so long to prepare.

He hurried up to her then, just as she held another plate to her face.

Timmons gasped — as he looked over her shoulder he could see his dark features distorted in the high polish. Saundra Chambers, however, cast no reflection at all. He backed away as she turned and stopped when her lips parted in a smile.

“Well, Mr. Timmons, checking up on the guests?”

“No, Miss,” he said, barely avoiding a stammer.

“Then please don’t hover. It’s annoying.”

She walked past him to the doorway, turned and smiled again. “Besides,” she said, “no one will believe you. I know you’ve tried and they didn’t believe you then. Be brave, Mr. Timmons. If you keep quiet, you’ve nothing to fear.”

Timmons felt his bowels loosening, his heart begin to pound. Sweat broke on his pale palms, and a trickle of ice snaked down his spine.

If he knew nothing else, he knew she was lying.

But he had not taken more than a dozen steps into the hall when the door suddenly slammed open and Ned Stockton burst in. His hair was wild, his coat undone, and under his left arm an awkward bundle of something wrapped loosely in burlap.

“Timmons!” he snapped as he swept the hall and rooms with a gaze that seemed panicked, “has Miss Pamela returned?”

“Yes sir,” he said, his voice trembling.

Ned looked at him curiously. “Is she all right?”

“Yes sir.”

Ned started for the stairs, paused and looked back. “Timmons, you were right, you know. God, you were right. “

“Yes sir, I know that.” And he started to say something else when Saundra Chambers appeared on the landing.

Stockton saw the butler’s startled expression and looked up. The moment froze, was broken only when Squires came down the righthand steps.

“What the hell … ?” he demanded, and yelled wordlessly when Saundra suddenly broke into a run that shoved him against the bannister. Ned instantly took after her, the bundle slapping at his waist, and as he reached Squires’ sprawling form, the man grabbed his arm.

“Just a minute, sir!” he bellowed.

“No time,” Ned said desperately. But when he yanked his arm free, the bundle slipped from his grasp. The burlap unwound, and stakes and hammer clattered down the stairs.

“God!” Squires said, gaping at the weapons. “My god, you are mad!”

And before Ned could move, Squires had grabbed one of the stakes and was pounding him fiercely with its side.

Several blows struck his coat, and he groaned as he heard the sound of glass breaking. Foolishly, he looked down to see dark stains spreading over the cloth. And in that moment Squires lay the stake hard against his temple. He staggered and fell back, unable to fight the darkness gathering behind his eyes. And the last thing he saw, then, before the dark came, was the chandelier beneath the glass dome.

It was lighted. And it was swaying.

17

The black was edged with redfire flames feeding on human skulls, multiplying and spreading; there were greenfire spirals whirling slowly through the dark; there were suns and there were comets, and there was pressure barely felt, a pressure that grew as the coldfire, redfire, greenfire faded, the black shaded to grey, and the grey to a face that bent anxiously over him.

“Ned? Ned, are you all right?”

He tried to sit up, but the fire returned and he moaned, fell back and realized he was lying on somebody’s bed. Pamela’s bed. He looked without turning his head, and closed his eyes against the light.

“Ned, darling, I know what happened. What are we going to do now?”

“Brastov,” he said, chilled that he sounded so much like Webber before his dying. “And Saundra.”

He reached a quivering hand to his head and felt a thick bandage wrapped around it. There was blood over the right temple. There was a damp, cold cloth lying atop it. When he opened his eyes again, Timmons was there as well, a pewter bowl of water cupped in his palms. The butler nodded, and Ned unthinkingly nodded back. The agony returned, and he groaned.

“You must lie still,” Pamela ordered softly.

“I can’t. There’s too much to do. All those people, they’ll be here any minute.” But his urgency was incapable of surmounting the throbbing in his head, and Pamela hushed him, stroked his brow lightly and pleaded with Timmons to think of something. Now. The butler, however, was too afraid to do more than minister to Stockton and she ground her teeth in exasperation until she spotted the bundle of stakes lying on the floor. Ned’s coat was beside it, hastily thrown over a chair. Quickly she rose and hurried to it, fumbled through the pockets until she found a single unbroken vial. She held it in her hand and looked to Ned, who had lost consciousness again. Then with a silent admonition to Timmons to keep the man there, she slipped soundlessly out of her room and headed for the stairs.

Her father was below, shouting still at the top of his voice and terrifying the servants.

She blocked out the noise as she climbed, one hand on the bannister, the other gripping the vial. She had no idea what to do with it, but there was no time left to think of a plan. She had to confront Saundra before the house filled, confront her and find out where Brastov was hiding.

She knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

She knocked again. “Saundra? Saundra, it’s me, Pam. I … I want to apologize for what I said last night. It was foolish of me, I know that. I would dearly like to make it up to you. Saundra?” She knocked. “Saundra?”

She tried the glass knob.

The door swung open.

Saundra was standing by the windows, idly brushing her hair. “There’s no need for pretense, my dear,” she said as Pamela entered and closed the door silently behind her. “We both know, don’t we.”

Pamela covered her mouth with one hand, to stop a sob from escaping. “Why?” she asked. “Why?”

Saundra turned, as beautiful and cold as the night framed behind her. “Gregor? Because he loves me, my dear. Because he can give me anything I want.”

“Love?” Pamela scoffed. “What does something like that know about love?”

“Enough,” she said, taking a step forward. And when she smiled, Pamela saw the vampire’s fangs gleaming. “More than enough.” An abrupt hesitation. “You shouldn’t have come here, Pam. You shouldn’t have, you know. In less than two hours it will all be over.” Pamela glanced around the room, trying to think, trying to stall so that Ned could regain his strength and help her. “Rick,” she said suddenly. “Where is Rick?”

Saundra’s lips pursed. “Rick?” she said musingly. “Rick. Ah! You mean that little man who works with your lover?” She walked across the room, backing Pamela away, and stopped in front of a closet. “He thought he knew, too.” she said. “He didn’t know enough.” She yanked opened the door and Pamela screamed.

Rick Driscoll’s body fell out, face down, the skull landing on the carpet with a sickening thud.

“You see,” Saundra told her, “if you drink it all at once, there’s no hope of return. A pity. We might have used him.”

Pamela refused to look at the ghastly white, bloodless corpse. Instead, her left hand buried in the folds of her dress worked to unstopper the vial she held there. “Ned got the others, you know,” she said bravely, her chin up, not quite quivering. “Pierson and the others, he got them.”

Saundra only nodded. “So I would gather. But while that’s unpleasant, Pam, that’s not the end. There’s another, you know.”

It took her a moment before she said, “Horace. Lord, I forgot about Horace.” Saundra shrugged. “If you say so.” Then she looked toward the clock on the mantel. “But now I must go, darling. There are guests to greet, and your father to keep happy. “

Pamela growled low in her throat and pulled out the vial, the stopper falling to the floor. Saundra glanced at it idly, did not stop walking.

“No,” Pamela said, moving quickly to stand in front of the door. “No, you’re not leaving here.”

“Please, Pam, don’t make this difficult. Your time will come.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Pamela, you’re being silly. There is no stopping the inevitable and you know that as well as I do. Just step aside, dear, and I’ll be sure that Gregor treats you well.” Another smile, and the teeth, and the breath of the dead. “I think it would be fun to be together, forever, don’t you? Yes, I think it would be great fun indeed.”

Pamela shook her head rapidly, fear trapping her words in her throat.

Saundra glared. “All right, if you insist.” She drew herself up. “Do you like wolves, Pamela? Do you like wolves?”

Pamela stared as the woman’s form began to shimmer and her face slowly mingled with the face of a black wolf. She wanted to cry out, she wanted to scream, but nothing she thought of could stop the transformation — until she remembered the vial in her hand.

Suddenly, with a shouted “Damn you!” her arm snapped up and the water flew across the space between them. The vial dropped to the floor, and shattered while she watched, horrified, at the results.

Saundra shrieked as the liquid splashed into her face. Her hands snapped up to rub at the fire there, pulling away great strips of burning, melting flesh. Bone poked through her cheeks. Her eyes widened as her hair caught fire. The dress smoldered and burst into flame. She shrieked again and staggered backward, hands flailing now as the blessed water shredded her lips. A foot caught the leg of a chair and she was tossed backward, her hips slamming against the window sill. Her arms shot up one more time, high out of the flames, fists damning heaven as she catapulted through the pane. Silently. Slowly.

Pamela raced to the window and leaned out, just in time to see Saundra crash through the greenhouse roof and land on a pedestal that once held winter roses. The force of the fall slammed the marble into Saundra’s back, trapping her, impaling her as the fire did its work, the flames gouting up once before subsiding and dying.

“Oh my god,” Pamela whispered, “Oh my god.”

“I think, my child, it’s a little late for that.” And when she turned, Gregor Brastov stepped into the room.

Ned groaned and rolled painfully into a sitting position. When Timmons attempted to push him back again, he thrust the hand away and sat on the edge of the mattress, holding his head and waiting for the dizziness to pass, the pain to subside.

“Where is Pamela?” he demanded when he realized they were alone.

Timmons told him.

“Idiot!” he said, staggering to his feet. “Idiot, you shouldn’t have let her go.” He did not wait for an excuse, however. He swayed, put a hand to his temple and waited for balance. Then he reached down and grabbed a stake and the hammer from the pile on the floor, stumbled to the door and flung it open. The house was silent except for the wind, and with a swallow of bile that had jumped to his mouth he moved cautiously to the stairwell, looked up, looked down. Grandon Squires was striding across the hall, and Ned called to him as he hurried as fast as he dared.

“I have sent for the police,” Squires told him when he reached the open landing. Then he looked disdainfully at the stake, at the hammer, and at Ned’s bandaged head. “You will be taken care of.”

“Mr. Squires, you don’t understand!”

“I understand perfectly well, Stockton. And you can be sure your father will be looking for a new position as well. I will not tolerate such — ”

The crash interrupted him, and they both stared as Timmons bolted past him and raced for the back.

“Damn you, Stockton,” Squires said as he advanced toward the staircase, “if this is more of your doing — ”

He choked into silence and lifted a hand to point while a stunned amazement crossed his face. Fearfully, not wanting to move, Ned looked over his shoulder. Count Brastov was coming down behind him, holding Pamela before him with a rigid arm across her throat. He was too numb to move, too suddenly filled with despair when they passed him, Pamela’s eyes wide with pleading.

“You may drop that thing now,” Brastov told him with a look to the hammer.

The stake fell from his grip, and the hammer clattered down the steps to land at Brastov’s feet.

“Now back away, little man.” When Ned did not, could not move, the Count’s eyes flared. “Back away!”

Despite himself, Ned felt his legs taking him back up the stairs to a point halfway to the second floor. Pain welled in his head and he reached out blindly, grabbed the chandelier’s chain and hung on as Brastov turned to Squires, who was frozen to the spot.

“I do not believe we have been formally introduced,” the Count said with a feral grin. “As you can see, however, I do know your daughter.”

Squires looked desperately to Ned, then back to Pamela who was limp but still conscious in the vampire’s unrelenting grasp.

“As a matter of fact,” Brastov continued, “I shall know your daughter even better before this night is over. Much, much better.”

Ned closed his eyes tightly and fought with the pain, ordering it, willing it to fade just enough to give him strength, just enough to let him think.

Timmons appeared, then, running around the staircase to stand beside Squires. “Sir,” he said, “It’s Miss Chambers.”

“Ah yes,” Brastov said. “She did well … for what she had to do. A little greedy, perhaps, but she did permit me to enter this fine house. My house, Mr. Squires, soon enough as you’ll see.”

Squires gulped for air, for words, and the only thing he could say was, “My … my guests … ”

“But of course,” Brastov told him. “I haven’t forgotten your guests at all. We shall have them in, won’t we. Just as you wanted, and just as I planned. We shall have them in. All of them. Now, sir — ” But further instructions were cut off when Pamela tried to bite down on his wrist. He laughed and slapped her hard with his free hand. And when Grandon made to leap for the stairs, he tightened his grip and glared. “Heroics,” he said quietly, “are for dead men, sir. I shouldn’t do that if I were you. Nor,” he said more loudly when Timmons tried to slip away, “would I try that either. No, we will wait here for the first guest, I think.”

The strength returned to Ned’s legs, and his head finally cleared. Slowly, so not to attract the Count’s attention, he brought a hand to his face and wiped it clear of perspiration, and fresh blood that was seeping through the bandage. Then he stared at Pamela’s profile, demanding silently she tum to look at him; at his eyes.

Brastov nodded when the butler returned to stand beside Squires. Then, very carefully, he lowered his arm and pushed Pamela slightly away from him. But his hand he kept on the back of her neck.

Ned swayed with a brief wave of dizziness swept over him. When he was clear again, however, he looked at his right hand. At the chain. Followed the chain up to the chandelier, down below to the bolt that held it in place. He let his fingers slide down the links, and tensed himself to jump.

Timmons saw the move and almost lost the struggle to let it show on his face.

Pamela, Ned thought; for god’s sake, Pamela!

Then Squires looked to the side, and saw Ned’s hand. “Stockton,” he yelled, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Pamela!” Ned screamed then, and threw himself over the bannister, ignoring the pain that lanced through his legs as he landed and simultaneously pulled the bolt free.

Pamela dropped instantly, the Count’s hand wrenched free of her throat. She rolled instinctively away, over the edge of the stair and down toward Timmons who darted forward to grab her.

Brastov had turned, less at the shouting than at the sound of the chain rattling through its loop. He looked down at Ned lying helpless on the floor, suddenly frowned when he saw the bolt in his hand.

Then he looked up. but it was much too late.

The chandelier plunged downward, a flaming crystal spike that caught him square in the chest before he had a chance to do anything more than utter an enraged animal scream. He was slammed to the landing, and the crystal shattered, showered, exploded outward to shatter again against the walls, the doors, the floor, the stairs.

Sparks and candles landed on the hall tapestries, their ancient threads almost instantly bursting into flame, flames that reached and strained and caught the underside of the gallery, the edges of the carpets. Parts of the chandelier framework sheered off and sliced through several gaslights on the wall, creating rows of blue furnace that torched the staircase too.

Other bits of candlewick were tossed into the adjoining rooms, and a servant who’d run from the explosion tipped a liquor tray over, spreading brandy on the refectory table and on the Persian carpet; the brandy caught. the linen flared, and it didn’t take long before the dining room was an inferno.

Ned dragged himself to his feet and staggered toward Pam and Timmons, the heat from the growing fire turning his face red. But he stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking up when there was a sudden rumbling as the remaining skeleton of the fixture began to shudder.

Despite the danger from the fire he forced himself to watch, forced himself to see what was left of Brastov’s features swell to purple, to yellow, to black, to peel away in strips like obscenely long worms and fall curling to the side to expose the man’s veins, muscles, the bone of his skull. Smoke in boiling torrents swept up through the iron frame. and a wind suddenly roared down the hallway as the chandelier trembled, shook violently, was rendered invisible inside a swirling tower of mist and red fire that writhed on the landing before catching the wind to it and using it to rise swiftly toward the ceiling, blasting through the dome and into the night sky.

There was a great deal of shouting, then, screaming as the staff raced around, grabbing what valuables they could at Squires’ red-faced direction. Ned gathered Pamela into his arms and ran out the front door to the end of the drive’s loop. There he set her down, ordered her to wait, and ran back again, struggling against the tide of servants fleeing the doomed manor. Once inside, he peered through the conflagration, grabbed Timmons by the arm and shouted Squires’ name. The butler shrugged and pushed him away, turning to grab Amy Reston and guide her to safety.

Ned saw him a moment later.

He was standing in the front room, staring up at the portrait if his dead wife over the mantel. The frame was burning and the canvas was beginning to curl, and before Ned had a chance to fight through the flames a beam crashed down from the ceiling, and Grandon Squires vanished.

18

Ned thought the silence in the small house almost too loud to bear. The three days following the fire had been spent with Pamela going through the charred rubble of Squires Manor; they found little more than bits and pieces of her life there, and most of that crumbled to ash at her touch. The village, however, rallied to her side, offering shelter and food and support if she wanted. It touched her deeply, and she wept often, and neither she nor Ned said a word about the vampire.

A tragic accident, and life goes on; and not even Lucas disputed the story.

Finally, just before midnight on the evening of the fifth day, Ned brought Pamela home from her room at the Chancellor Inn. They had dined together, and he had found the courage to tell her he could no longer stand the little house he owned, not with the silences that filled every room whenever she left them. Her eyes brimmed with grateful tears, and she told him she didn’t care what anyone thought, she would stay with him until Reverend Alden agreed to join them.

“But there are these dreams,” she said as they sat on the sofa and he put his arm about her shoulders. “I have these horrid dreams, Ned, and they won’t stop.”

He knew. He knew exactly what she meant.

“It will be that way, I’m afraid,” he said gently. “At least for a while.” His hand cupped her chin, and he smiled. “But it’s over. You know that. It’s over, and we’re still here. For all his power, Brastov is dead and we are still here.”

She sighed, and nodded. “Saundra. I still can’t believe it. We had such marvelous times together when we were younger, such wonderful times.” Then, much quieter: “But at least she’s free now. At least she’s free.”

He hesitated, and would have passed on what had just occurred to him but she caught the change in his mood and looked at him questioningly. He shrugged. “Horace,” he said. “They found his body in the cellar this afternoon.”

Her eyes closed, and her face took on such an expression of relief that he was startled until she told him Saundra’s warning.

“Well, I said it’s over, didn’t I? Now you can believe it.”

She nodded, and for several minutes they sat in comfortable and comforting silence. Then, just as Ned felt himself dozing, she allowed herself a smile. “I’m not a poor woman, you know. There’s still the business.” The smile became a grin. “Would you object to being a rich policeman ?”

He laughed and hugged her. “I would object to being a poor one more.”

“Then it’s settled,” she said with a decisive nod. “I shall make us more money — Father taught me better than he knew — and if we’re lucky perhaps Timmons will work for us again.”

“Sure. But only if the man smiles, Pam. If he doesn’t smile, he’s out.”

Her laugh was small, but he was heartened at the effort. Good spirits, for Pamela, were in short supply these days, and he knew it would be a long hard time before she was herself once again. This, however, was a start, and he need ask for no more.

“Darling,” he said softly, and turned her face to his, was about to kiss her when there was a knock at the door. She scowled, and he muttered all the way to the door about his father minding his own business. “I tell you, love,” he said as he took hold of the knob, “this dropping in at all hours is definitely going to stop.”

The door opened, and he saw the fog, and the man in the black cloak standing on the porch.

“Good lord, Jack” Ned said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Good evening,” Foxworth whispered softly. “May I come in?”