“Police!” shouted a male voice.
Ben looked at Darren, noticing for the first time that his eyes were open, as if the terror he’d experienced at the moment of his death had frozen them that way, fixed forever on the face of the thing that had killed him. Ben wondered what had become of Mrs. Settles. Undoubtedly her body was elsewhere in the house, equally ravaged.
“We have to go,” said Titus, snapping Ben out of his trance.
“Where?” Ben asked.
Titus pointed to the bedroom’s lone window. Going to it, he opened it and looked out. “Jump,” he told Ben.
Ben looked out. The ground seemed impossibly far beneath them. He hesitated.
“They’re coming,” Titus said behind him.
Ben heard the footsteps on the stairs. In a moment there would be men coming into the room, men who would believe that he and Titus had killed Darren Settles and his mother. He put one knee on the window ledge, feeling himself tip forward. He followed it with his other foot, so that he was perched on the edge. Then he let go and tumbled into nothingness.
Chapter Twenty
The pain in Ben’s leg was getting worse. As he limped along behind Titus, he longed to stop for a moment. He would even welcome being caught by the police. At least he wouldn’t be running for his life then. No, your life would probably be over, he reminded himself.
“Where are we going?” he asked, wincing as a stab of pain sliced through his knee. He’d landed on it when he’d jumped, and it was moving with an odd clicking sensation. Titus seemed to take no notice of his injury, however, moving quickly through the streets.
“To the library,” Titus answered. “Do you have the key?”
Ben felt in the pocket of his pants. “Yes,” he said. “I have it.”
He could still see the faint flashing of the police car lights several blocks behind them, the sky around them turning alternately red and white. The officers were certain to have found the bodies. What would they do next? he wondered. Where would they look for the killers? For us, he thought. Where will they look for us?
He knew that he and Titus must be the prime suspects in the crimes. After what had happened during the past few days, their names would be foremost in the minds of the police. Ben suspected, too, that Blackwood may have worked some of his evil magic on them. The vampire seemed to possess powers that Titus didn’t.
They reached the library and Ben took the keys from his pocket. His hand shook as he unlocked the door and let Titus in, following behind him and securing the bolt so that anyone else attempting to get in would have at least that minor difficulty to contend with. It might, Ben thought, provide them with a few extra seconds in which to escape.
Titus went into the main room, not bothering to turn the lights on. “Blackwood!” he called out, his voice trembling with rage. “Show yourself!”
“What makes you think he came here?” asked Ben, glancing around nervously.
“This was where he began his work,” said Titus, turning around in a circle as he peered into the shadows.
“The boys,” Ben said. “This is where he would first see them.”
“Yes,” said Titus. “He would befriend them, gain their trust, so that when the time came to take them they wouldn’t fear him. Not at first.”
The realization of what Blackwood had done stunned Ben. He had pretended to care about the children he’d killed. They’d gone to him willingly, seeing him as someone they could believe in. And in turn, he’d torn their souls to pieces, throwing away their bodies like spoiled fruit.
“You judge me too harshly.”
Ben drew closer to Titus as Blackwood emerged from the darkness of the children’s room. Instead of inhabiting the horrific form of the Death Puppet, he looked as he did when the photograph on his book jacket had been taken. He reached for a light switch and flipped it on, flooding the room with light.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now we can see things as they really are.”
Ben stared at his face. It was the face of a man in his middle years. His hair was neatly cut, and he wore small, round glasses that magnified the size of his eyes. He was dressed in brown pants and a white shirt, the collar and cuffs neatly starched. When he moved, it was with neither the ungainly gait of the Death Puppet nor the smooth movements of a man confident in his powers. Instead, it was with the slightly stiff walk of a man whose body was beginning to slow down.
“You see,” he said, directing his comments to Ben, “I am not such a horrible creature as you imagine me to be.”
“That isn’t your true form,” Ben said, trying to control his emotions.
Blackwood smiled. “Perhaps not now,” he replied. “But it was then, when the things Titus accuses me of took place.”
“Accuses you of?” Titus said. “There’s no doubt that you killed.”
“As did you!” Blackwood shot back. “As do we all!”
Titus looked away as Ben tried to meet his gaze. “What’s he talking about?” asked Ben. “There are more of you?”
Blackwood laughed harshly. “Indeed there are more. Dozens more. Perhaps even hundreds. Hidden in the woods and mountains. Living openly among you. We are not the first, nor shall we be the last.”
“There will be one less when I am done with you,” Titus told him.
Blackwood smiled and nodded his head. “We shall see about that,” he said. “Already the people come for you. Already they are remembering John Rullins and pairing his name with yours.”
“Why did you come back here?” asked Titus. “With the whole world at your disposal, why did you return?”
“This is the place of my greatest achievement,” Blackwood said, gesturing at the library. Then he looked directly at Titus. “And of my greatest failure.” He paused. “You could have been magnificent,” he said. “You could have surpassed me in power. But you turned your back on it. You betrayed me.”
“I betrayed nothing,” Titus said.
Blackwood walked toward him. Ben saw Titus stiffen as the vampire approached, his eyes watching Blackwood warily. Blackwood stopped in front of them. Reaching out, he ran his finger down Titus’s cheek.
“Do you remember how it felt to lie in my arms?” he asked. “Do you remember how our bodies moved against one another, how our mouths hungered for the taste of one another?”
Titus said nothing. Blackwood looked wounded. “You don’t remember?” he asked, his voice teasing. “But you told me that you would always love me, that you would do anything for me.”
Titus grabbed hold of Blackwood’s wrist and twisted it sharply. With a scream of rage, he pushed the vampire forward and into one of the stacks. It fell backward, showering them with books as they tumbled to the ground. Blackwood let out a furious hiss.
“It’s time to finish what I failed to do the last time we met,” Titus said.
Blackwood’s free hand went to Titus’s throat, the fingers wrapping around it tightly. Ben saw the nails begin to bite into the skin, and blood welled up from beneath them. Blackwood seemed to gain strength from the sight and feel of the blood. He struggled against Titus’s hold, slowly bringing his pinned wrist up and taking hold with that hand as well.
Ben knew that Titus, despite his strength, was going to be overpowered. He was tired and weakened from running. Blackwood had the strength of desperation to aid him. He had nothing to lose, and he knew it. He also had his hatred of Titus to power his body.
Do something, Ben thought. Help him. But what could he do? He’d already proven that he was no match for Blackwood. He had no powers, no magic with which to attack the vampire.
Suddenly he recalled the book in which he’d read about the Death Puppets. They had been killed, he remembered. But how? The details escaped him. He hadn’t been interested in such things then.
The book, however, was still in the box beside his desk. As Titus and Blackwood continued to struggle, Ben ran to his office. Switching on the light, he opened the box and looked for the book. When he
had it in his hands, he raced to locate the illustration of the Death Puppet. Behind him, he heard the grunts and muttered curses that accompanied the fight between Blackwood and Titus. Time, he knew, was running out.
He fumbled with the pages, flipping through them until he found the drawing. Forcing himself not to look at it, he scanned the page opposite it. “A total of nine deaths were blamed on the creatures before they were eventually rounded up and destroyed,” he read. “Reportedly by setting them afire.”
Fire. That was the answer. He threw the book down and stood up, looking around the room for anything he could use against Blackwood. Opening his desk drawer, he found a box of matches that Martha had left there. These he held tightly in his hand as he ran back to the great room. There, he found Blackwood on top of Titus, their positions reversed. The wounds on Titus’s neck were bleeding freely, and Blackwood was bending down, his snake-like tongue extended toward the blood.
Frantic, he ran at Blackwood and smashed into him with all his might. The vampire slid sideways, falling off of Titus. Ben opened the box of matches in his hand and struck one. It flared to life, and he held it out toward Blackwood.
The vampire laughed. “You poor, brave boy,” he said. “Trying to save him.”
As he spoke, his face changed, becoming younger. A moment later, Trey looked up at Ben. “You couldn’t save me,” he said. “What makes you think you can save anyone now?”
Ben stared into Trey’s eyes, mesmerized. The flame burned down the thin spine of the match, scorching his fingers and going out. He didn’t even notice as Blackwood’s hands closed around his throat.
“I’ll suck your eyes from your skull,” the vampire said as all the air fled from Ben’s lungs.
Ben began to black out, his consciousness dimming quickly as Blackwood choked him. Then he felt a violent wrenching as he was pulled from the creature’s grip.
Titus stood over Blackwood. He was holding in his hand a can of some kind. “Give me the matches,” he ordered Ben.
Ben did as he was told. Titus took one of them and lit it. Holding it in one hand, he pointed the can at it and pressed a button on its top. A faint mist burst from the nozzle. When it touched the match’s flame, it bloomed into a cloud of fire. The cloud streamed at Blackwood’s face and surrounded it.
The vampire uttered a shriek of pain and tried to shield its face from the fire. But it was too late. The flames clung greedily to his clothes and hair. Blackwood staggered to his feet, the flames spreading wildly over his body. He beat at them uselessly with his hands, screaming. As he turned first one way and then another, the flames reached out and caught hold of the things he touched. Tongues of fire leaped from the open pages of books, and the old wood of the shelves quickly followed.
Ben and Titus moved toward the door as the library became a crucible kindled by the whirling dervish of fire that Blackwood had been transformed into. It seemed to ignite with ferocious eagerness, as if the books themselves had been waiting for the chance to devour the thing that had once used them for its unholy purposes. Blackwood danced in the hellish ruins of the collection, writhing in agony as his tortured body transformed into a myriad of shapes before settling once more into the twisted form of the Death Puppet.
Titus looked down at the can in his hand. It was furniture polish, an old can that Ben had found in a desk drawer and used to remove the dust of summer from the library’s tables. Titus tossed it into the flames, where it exploded in a shower of sparks.
“Will he die?” Ben asked.
Titus nodded. “This time he will,” he said.
The fire was crawling up the walls of the library. Thick smoke already filled the room. Titus grabbed Ben’s hand and led him to the door and out into the warm night.
“Where are we going now?” asked Ben.
Titus gripped his hand more tightly. “Home,” he said as he started to walk.
Chapter Twenty-one
The walk back to the house was slow and difficult. Ben’s leg was aching, and each step brought fresh pain. Even with Titus’s help, Ben wasn’t sure he would make it.
“Are you sure that Blackwood’s dead?” he asked Titus.
“I believe he is, yes,” Titus answered.
“You sound almost disappointed,” remarked Ben, hearing a note of sadness in Titus’s voice.
“He didn’t start out a wicked man,” Titus said. “Once he was like you or I. But he allowed the sickness to distort his mind. He believed its promises, and it made him something terrible.”
“He didn’t have to let it,” Ben said, the pain in this leg making him angry at what seemed like a defense of the monster they’d just destroyed.
“You can’t imagine its power,” Titus said. “It surrounds you with its voice, fills your dreams with its lies until you want nothing more than to give in.”
“Then why didn’t you?” said Ben.
“I did, for a time,” Titus replied.
“But you changed,” Ben reminded him.
“Yes,” Titus said softly. “I changed.”
Finally they reached the farmhouse. Titus helped Ben inside and up the stairs to the bedroom. Ben collapsed onto the bed, welcoming its embrace. Although the smell of the burned hives still lingered in the air, he felt safe. Blackwood was dead, and it was over.
Titus sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at Ben. Seeing the expression on his face, Ben grew worried. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Blackwood was right,” Titus said. “They will come for us.”
“So we’ll run,” Ben said. “We’ll get in the car and leave.”
Titus shook his head. “Running will only stop them for a short time,” he said.
“Why can’t you use some of those mind tricks?” Ben asked. “The ones Blackwood used on me and everyone else?”
“Perhaps I could do that,” Titus answered. “But that would protect only me. You would still be vulnerable.”
Ben stared at him. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why?”
Titus took a deep breath. “The powers we develop work only for us,” he explained. “They are designed to fool, not to protect. We can use them only to benefit ourselves, not to help others.”
Ben looked into his eyes. He knew Titus was telling the truth. He could tell by the worry that was clouding Titus’s face, by the concern in his gaze.
“Then make me one,” he said. “Make me like you.”
Titus shut his eyes. “I can’t do that,” he said.
Ben sat up, taking Titus’s hand. “You can,” he said. “I know you can. Blackwood made you, didn’t he? Why can’t you do the same?”
Titus opened his eyes. They were wet with tears. “I promised myself I would never do to anyone what Blackwood did to me,” he said.
“But I want you to,” Ben insisted. “That way we can be together.” He leaned in and kissed Titus gently on the mouth. “Forever,” he added.
“You have no idea what you’re asking,” Titus said. “You’re asking for death.”
“I know,” Ben replied. “But I’ll be with you. And we can use the bees to keep from becoming like Blackwood.”
Titus gripped his hand tightly. “Think about what you’re asking me to do,” he said. “Think about what it will mean.”
“Never dying,” said Ben.
“Yes,” Titus said. “Never dying. Seeing centuries pass, civilizations disappear, people grow old and wither away while you stay the same.”
Ben thought about what Titus was saying. It was similar to what Blackwood had said to him in the jail cell, only instead of sounding wonderful, now it sounded horrible. The idea of remaining alive forever seemed fantastic at first, especially if he could spend that time with Titus. But what would he be giving up in return?
“Do you see now?” Titus asked. “I am nothing more than the watchman for death, the witness to every one of the world’s endings. I don’t possess the gift of eternal life—I am damned to be here when all else is gone.”
Ben did understand, and the realization broke his heart. Tears slipped from his eyes and down his cheeks as he pressed his face against Titus’s chest and wept. Titus put his arms around Ben and held him tightly.
The sound of voices coming from outside made Ben pull away. Titus left him sitting on the bed while he left the room. A minute later he reappeared. “They’ve come,” he said.
“The police?” Ben asked. He hadn’t heard any sirens, but perhaps they’d turned them off so as not to alert Titus and Ben to their arrival.
“No,” Titus said. “Not the police. The others.”
Ben brought his injured leg over the side of the bed and sat up. Standing, he hobbled toward the door. “I want to see them,” he told Titus.
Titus helped him down the hall to the front of the house, where Ben looked out a window. The front yard was crowded with perhaps two dozen people. Their faces were filled with anger as they stood looking at the front door. Many of them carried flashlights, which they shined up at the windows, searching for any signs of life.
“Up there!” a woman shouted as her light flashed on Ben’s face.
He let the curtain fall and stepped back into the hall, as if somehow that would hide him from the crowd. Turning to Titus, he thought feverishly, trying not to succumb to the panic he felt building inside him.
“What do we do?” he asked.
“I could destroy them,” said Titus.
Ben shook his head. “No,” he said. “Then you would be no better than Blackwood.”
“It would save us,” said Titus.
“Only for a short time,” Ben told him. “It’s like you said—then others would be after us.”
“What other choice is there?” Titus asked him.
Ben closed his eyes, calming himself. He imagined Trey in the bathtub, his life swirling around him in pink clouds. He had been unable to do anything to save his lover. He hadn’t been given the chance. But now he had been given a second opportunity, a chance to redeem himself.
“There’s another way,” Ben said, opening his eyes and looking at Titus. “I can give them what they want.”
Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire Page 17
