Kiss Of Darkness

“Mary,” he murmured. He hated it when she talked that way, no matter how liberated the world was supposed to be.

“Please, Jeremy. I’ve read up the recent surge of private sex clubs—there was an article in the paper a few months back about one right in New Orleans. No sign on the door. People come from all over, because they can do what they want to do there.”

“Yeah. Have silly rituals and slice their thumbs and suck each other’s blood. That’s pathetic, Mary.”

“No, it’s not. No one is allowed to push anyone else into doing anything they don’t want to do. The woman who wrote the article said she wasn’t hit on as much there as at a bar.”

“Maybe she’s old and ugly. And if there was already an article—”

Mary sighed. “Jeremy, I want to take this story national. An exposе—what’s going on here and in the States. Look, I’m going, with or without you. I won’t be going alone. Nancy agreed to come. But we need a guy. I mean, we’d like to have a guy with us. And, if you don’t go, what are you going to do? Play some dumb computer game all night?”

“Mary, I designed that game, and it’s going to get me a good job.”

To his amazement, she took his hands, pleading. “I want this story so badly, Jeremy. Please.”

“All right, fine. I’ll go.”

She jumped up, a brilliant smile on her face. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Ever.”

“Listen, Mary, when I say we have to leave—”

“We leave. Fine. Now, quit worrying. I always land on my feet.”

“How do we get there?” he demanded.

“It’s too cool. We head up that path toward the mountain, and we get picked up by a carriage.” Mary shook her head, smiling. “I still don’t know why that girl invited me. I guess I’m just lucky.”

I guess you’re just beautiful, he thought.

But he wanted her to be happy, so he kept his mouth shut. He’d go, but he still didn’t like it.

He was still unhappy when Mary went to her room to change for the night. While she was gone, he went outside. The psychologists were all in the restored judicial palace across the street, now a four-star hotel.

He walked into the lobby and asked for Jessica Fraser, but she was already out for the evening.

What the hell was making him so uneasy?

Nervous enough that he wouldn’t dream of letting Mary go alone.

And nervous enough to dread the fact he was going to go.

He hesitated, then left a note.

A precaution.

Someone needed to know where they had gone.

2

In the shadows, PowerPoint flashed a new image on the screen. The ancient lecture hall was filled, and Bryan MacAllistair was amazed that the many students gathered here from around the world had listened to him thus far in rapt silence. He was nearing the end of his lecture, only a few more points to make.

“This is an eighteenth-century sketch of Katherine, Countess Valor, considered one of the greatest beauties of her time. She was charged with crimes so vile that the court records were sealed. Later, they were lost to a fire. Was she a real monster, or herself a victim of evil? Like Countess Bathory, she was a member of the aristocracy, and one of the many women to find riches as a mistress in the court of Louis XIV. History records a cult within his own house, members of his royal court who became involved in witchcraft. The lady in question is actually the focus of another lecture, but she has a connection to this area. She was condemned for witchcraft and murder but, miraculously, made an escape. Some say she turned to smoke and escaped between the bars of the Bastille. At the time, witch hunters could still make a living, and the price on her head was so high that she was hunted across the continent. The accepted belief was that she had made a pact with a demon, perhaps even Satan himself, in the guise of a fiend known as the Master. The Master, the legends say, is an anglicized form of an ancient Babylonian evil, a being sprung from the womb of the lamia, one of the very earliest vampire myths, a woman who sucked the life from infants. It’s said that Katherine escaped here, to Transylvania, where the Master had gained a foothold, seeking his help, his power.

“But perhaps this creature had become infuriated with her previous disregard of his power in her own pursuits, for he did not come to her aid when she reached these fog-shrouded mountains. The witch hunters found her here. She had run hard and fast, but with no followers, she had no guard to watch over her as she slept. The witch hunters came upon her, and they immediately axed her beautiful neck. The story goes that there was a hideous outcry from her deadly lips, and she spilled more blood than might have filled the veins of a dozen good women. Not satisfied that the removal of her head would keep her evil at bay, they chopped her into pieces, then burned those pieces in an inferno they kept going for thirteen days and thirteen nights, thirteen being the number of members in a coven, the number of diners at the ill-fated last supper, when Christ was betrayed. At any rate, there was little doubt she was dead when her pursuers finished with her.

“Did she in life really consume the blood of countless virgins in order to perform magic not only for the nobility but for the king himself? Or was she the victim of jealous rumor, and did time itself create the monster? That is the question we all must answer for ourselves.”

He waved to the crowd of spring-break students who had filled the old guildhall and headed down from the podium. As he walked, he was met with a thunder of applause. He hurried down the aisle, anxious to escape. Ostensibly, he had come to teach; he was actually on the trail of the monster.

When he’d found out he was coming to Transylvania, he’d promised his friend, Robert Walker, dean of history at the local university, that he would give a speech. But he’d had to sandwich it in between his commitments and now he was running late.

He had done a lot of traveling lately, he reflected, watching what seemed to be the awakening of an ancient evil.

He left the guildhall behind and reached the large village square. And there, despite his haste, he paused and looked up. The sky seemed to be roiling. There was a moon, not a full moon, but a crescent. It gave scant light, and even that was extinguished when the clouds moved over it.

There was a hint of red in the moon’s glow, and even in the shadows when that glow was gone. He didn’t like the night. He’d spent most of his life traveling, studying the evils one man did to another in the name of belief.

He picked up his pace, eager to reach his hotel.

In the lobby, he paused, feeling the sense that something…someone…was there. He turned around. Nothing. No one. It didn’t matter. He’d received enough of a warning when he’d been in London. He knew what he was facing.

“Professor, your key,” the young man behind the desk said.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Again, he looked around the lobby.

Then he reminded himself that he was out of time, and he hurried up the stairs.

Jessica sipped her wine, staring at the fire burning in the grate. The flames fascinated her, rising, falling, lapping at the ancient stone of the hearth. Gold, red, even a touch of blue…

“Don’t you agree, Miss Fraser? That society itself has created so many of the difficulties our children face? Society and the modern world, with its bombs and wars?”

She stared across at the sturdy German professor who had spoken to her. They had been talking about dealing with teenage angst. She blinked, realizing she didn’t have the least idea what he had said in the last few minutes. That morning, she had given her speech. She had been asked to speak about teenage fantasies, and setting troubled youth on the right path. The German had been quizzing her endlessly, it seemed, apparently quite taken by her ideas.

She had to get out.

Why? she taunted herself. Why was she so eager to escape into the night when she was suddenly afraid of shadows?

Confront your fears. It was one of her own doctrines.

“A very difficult time, yes,” she agreed, and rose, smiling. Watching the fire had been like an opiate. She felt positively serene.

Surrounded by…normalcy.

“Excuse me, will you? It’s a bit late, and I’m feeling a bit jet-lagged suddenly. Good night.”

The desperate urge to escape—even to hide—was on her again. She had to force herself not to run out of the restaurant.