The front door was standing slightly ajar, the light from the foyer spilling across the front veranda. Sonja frowned and glanced up at the second-floor windows. Her prey was still here. She could feel it. The question was why!
It had taken Sonja twenty minutes to find this place. The renfield, the one called Phaedra, had that advantage, on top of a good five-minute lead. She cautiously pushed the front door, but it swung open without incident. She stepped inside the grand foyer, eyeing the decor for hidden trip wires or skulking bodyguards. There were none.
She tilted her head, allowing her mirrored sunglasses to slide to the end of her nose, and dropped her vision into the occult spectrum. What had been empty air a moment before was filled with dark energies that seethed like heat shadows cast against a summer sidewalk.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed men dressed in old-fashioned evening clothes, brandy snifters in their hands, watching a large dog mount a naked woman. But it couldn't be a dog, because it had hands. As Sonja turned to get a better look, the shades flickered and disappeared.
Sonja shook her head. She had to keep her guard up and not allow herself to be distracted by shadows. Even though the Contessa might be crippled, she hadn't gotten to be four centuries old on just luck and blood.
Sonja started up the grand staircase, scanning the doors that lined the second floor. They all seemed to be locked save for the one at the end, which stood slightly ajar. She nudged that door all the way open with the toe of her boot. The interior of the room was dark, save for a sliver of light from the half-open bathroom door that fell across the floor, illuminating the bloodred carpet.
"Do not be so hesitant, my dear," said the Contessa from somewhere inside the darkened room. "You have nothing to fear from me."
"Forgive me if I do not believe you," Sonja replied as she crossed the threshold.
The Contessa sat propped up against the padded headboard of a large oval-shaped bed, dressed in a red velvet robe trimmed with monkey fur. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and across the red satin pillows like ink from an overturned bottle. Her skin was milky white and as smooth as alabaster, unmarred by age or imperfection. Her delicate, long-fingered hands were folded in her lap, cradling what looked like the remote control for a TV set.
Sonja glanced about, probing the shadows for signs of an ambush, but all she saw were a pair of prosthetic legs draped over a nearby chair like a pair of empty pants.
"Where is she, witch?"
"She?" the Contessa asked, arching an eyebrow.
"The renfield."
The Contessa pointed with the remote control in the direction of the bathroom door, which stood slightly ajar. Sonja gave it a wary push, and it swung all the way open on its hinges, revealing Phaedra-born into the world as Faye Alice Baker-hung by her heels over the marble tub, her throat slit from ear to ear like a summer hog. The sight didn't surprise Sonja; after all, she had caught the scent of blood the moment she entered the house.
"I hated having to do that," the Contessa said, turning the remote control she held over and over again in her hands. "Really I did. But I had no choice. There was no point in running away again. I knew it, and so did Phaedra, although she could not bring herself to admit it. It wouldn't be fair to her, leaving her on her own.... What would she do without me? I did her a kindness, really."
"So you put her down, rather than leave her to face life without you. How altruistic of you. I notice you didn't let her blood go to waste."
"I will meet eternity in no skin but this one."
"Once a vain, psychotic bitch, always a vain, psychotic bitch, eh? Put down the remote, old woman. I'll be as quick about this as I can."
The Contessa shook her head in defiance. "No! I refuse to die at the hands of a monster such as you! My family once strode the world as kings! What right does a lowborn freak of nature such as yourself have to destroy me? I was Made by my own hand, and by my own hand shall I be Unmade!"
The Contessa pointed the remote at the heavy velvet drapes and pushed the button a final time. The curtains parted like those of a stage, and the first rays of the rising sun spilled across the room. Both women instinctively lifted their arms to shield their faces from the sunlight, but only one burst into flames.
The Contessa screamed as her skin and hair caught fire, the flames quickly spreading to her gown and bedclothes. Sonja backed away, both repulsed and fascinated as the ancient vampire's flesh bubbled and melted, dripping from her bones like wax from a candle. Within seconds the Contessa had been reduced to a thrashing skeleton, and yet she continued to scream.
The fire, having consumed the bed, quickly spread to the red velvet wallpaper. The walls ignited like dry kindling, and suddenly the entire room was ablaze. Sonja leapt through the curtain of fire and smoke that swallowed the door, rolling as she hit the hallway floor in order to extinguish the flames clinging to her jacket. The hair on the right side of her head was burned to the scalp and heat blisters were rising across her back, but she barely noticed.
The interior of die mansion was already filling with heavy, acrid smoke. As she hurried down the stairs towards the front door, Sonja felt a chill on her spine. Someone, or something, was watching her. She turned and saw what looked like a tall man the color of shadow standing on the landing above her, watching her with eyes made of fire.
Sonja ran out the front door and all the way to her car, throwing it into gear the second the engine turned over. She was halfway down the drive before she bothered to close the door. She didn't know why the old blood-witch's patron had chosen to lay low, and she didn't care. Vampire slaying was one thing, but demon hunting was a whole other ball game.
Inside the funeral pyre that once was known as Red Velvet Manor, a shadow shaped like a man stood in the grand foyer and laughed as the grandfather clock with the zodiac face struck thirteen. Upon the final strike, a pillar of fire punched through the roof, and the final visitor to its gilded halls closed its burning front door behind him.
End
Nancy A Collins Page 5
