Dark Corner (22 page)

Diallo drew in a deep, deep breath. He laughed, like a
giddy child.

"The night!" Diallo said. "I have missed the freedom of
darkness. At night, all things are possible for us. Always remember that truth."

"All things?" Kyle said.

Instead of answering, Diallo dropped to his knees in the
grass.

Alarmed, Kyle went to him, but Diallo waved him away.

His father ripped away the sleeves of his silk shirt, exposing his muscular arms. He spread his arms to their full
length. He closed his eyes and raised his face heavenward.
Moonlight seemed to shimmer around his head, like a
halo.

What is he doing? Kyle wondered. His father's behavior
did not follow anything Mother had taught him. What was
this talk of finding a watcher that was better than a man?

Tension thickened the air as his father meditated, his
body like an onyx statue.

The silence endured for several minutes ... and then
Kyle heard, faintly, the gallop of approaching animals.

It sounded like dogs.

David and Nia were in the living room when the dog
went berserk.

They had temporarily given up discussing the Bible, the
ghost, and the other strange things that David had experienced lately. They just didn't have any solutions. Tomorrow,
David would visit the psychic woman, Pearl, to get some answers.

They were watching a sappy romantic comedy movie that
Nia had insisted he would like, when King went nuts. The
dog had been lying on the floor, viewing the television as if engaged in the story. Abruptly, King jumped up and began to
bark.

"What's wrong, boy?" David said. "What're you barking
at?"

King ran out of the living room. He continued to bark.

Confused, David looked at Nia.

"He could be hungry," she said. "Or want to go outside."

"He doesn't normally act like that"

He found the dog in the hallway. King stood on his hind
legs, scratching the front door, barking.

David looked outside the window. There was no one in
sight.

King quit barking, and whined.

"What is it, boy?" David said.

The dog looked at him with yearning, as though frustrated by their inability to communicate directly.

"What's wrong?" David said.

King ran to a window. He scratched the glass. He whined.

"Do you want to go outside?" David said. "Wanna go
outside?"

Whenever David made the suggestion in the past, if King
wanted to take him up on it he wagged his tail. King's tail
did not wag this time.

David grasped the doorknob. King growled.

The dog only growled at him when they were play-fighting, and there was nothing playful about what was happening now.

Cold anxiety touched David's spine. He was not afraid of
his dog. He was afraid of what his dog evidently sensed, a
threat that he could not see on his own.

He went to a window and looked outdoors once more. He
saw only the night silent, deep.

Stories that his father had faked his death. Ghostly visitations. Anonymous phone calls. Mysterious family Bibles. So
much bizarre stuff. Add a freaked-out German shepherd to
the list.

"Is everything okay in there?" Nia said.

"Why don't you answer her?" David said to King. "You
seem to be the one here with the sixth sense"

King trotted past David and into the living room. The dog
settled on the carpet beside the coffee table. He was his ordinary, lazy self again.

"One of these days," David said, "you're going to learn
how to talk, or write, or something, and you're going to tell
me what that show was all about, Mr. King"

King yawned.

Puzzled, but deciding to leave it alone, David returned to
the living room.

Kyle watched his father as the approach of the dogs grew
louder.

Diallo remained kneeling, arms spread, eyes closed, face
tilted skyward. Like a worshipper of the moon.

A pack of a half-dozen dogs swept around the corner of
the mansion. They looked like mutts that had been left to fend
on their own and find their meals in garbage cans and handouts. None of the animals wore a collar. All of them were
full-grown, and none of them weighed less than thirty
pounds.

The hounds passed Kyle as though he did not exist. They
gathered around Diallo.

Oddly, though the dogs were excited and panting, they
did not bark. They were quiet, expectant.

Kyle had never witnessed a vampire using a canine for
any purposes whatsoever, other than ordinary security. His
father, he believed, was going to do something with these
beasts that Kyle had never seen before.

Diallo uttered a soft cry. With his nails, which had grown
into sharp claws, he slit a gash in each of his wrists. Thick
blood streamed across his skin.

Kyle winced.

Diallo offered his bleeding wrists to the dogs.

The dogs padded closer to him. They lapped the blood,
three of the hounds on each of his arms.

Comprehension came to Kyle. Diallo was going to make
these hounds his servants.

He viewed the rest of the spectacle with amazement.

Almost as one, after the canines fed on Diallo's blood,
they dropped to the grass. They squirmed and squealed.
Saliva bubbled from their lips.

Diallo motioned for Kyle to come forward. He grabbed
Kyle's hand and got to his feet.

Diallo's self-inflicted wounds had closed.

"I have always used dogs as watchers," Diallo said. "They
are a man's best friend. Why not a vampire's?" He laughed.

The dogs wailed in pain.

"Their pain will pass soon," Diallo said. "They are experiencing the death of their mortal bodies."

As Kyle watched, the hounds ceased their cries and
seizures. They began to recover.

"These hounds will remain active both day and night,"
Diallo said. "They will possess extraordinary intelligence. They
are obedient to my will. They are peerless guardians and
hunters"

"I never knew dogs could be used like this," Kyle said.

"Lisha knows," Diallo said. "She taught me"

Kyle felt betrayed by Mother. She claimed to have taught
him all of a vampire's abilities. What else had she kept secret
from him?

"When the dogs bite another canine, or a human," Diallo
continued, "the bitten one will fall under my influence and
will serve as either a servant hound if a canine, or a valduwe
if he is a human."

"A valduwe?" Kyle said. He had not heard the word in
many years.

"Valduwe have the hunger for blood, but do not possess all of our talents. They are excellent warriors." Diallo's lips
twisted into an enigmatic smile.

"Mother teaches that the valduwe are an abomination,"
Kyle said. "She forbids their creation."

"When will you put away childish things?" Diallo said.
"And claim your birthright as a vampire?"

Kyle did not know how to respond. Diallo smiled. He
snapped his fingers.

The dogs arranged themselves in a tight line, like trained
soldiers.

Diallo placed his hand on Kyle's shoulder.

"This is my son, Kyle," he said. "Look upon him."

The canines' attention shifted to Kyle. Unlike normal
dogs, they did not turn away when he met their gaze. They
stared at him, without fear. Unnatural awareness gleamed in
their eyes.

"You will obey Kyle as you obey me," Diallo said. "He
sits on my right hand. You are my warriors."

Father speaks as though he is preparing for battle, Kyle
thought.

In unison, the dogs howled.

I pointed out to you the stars, and all you saw was
the tip of my finger

-Tanzanian proverb

If 'the tiger sits, do not think it is out of respect.

-Nilotic proverb

Chief Van Jackson got the call Saturday morning: someone
had turned up missing.

Tawanda Gary, nineteen years old, had vanished from the
home at which she was baby-sitting last night. The woman
of the house had come home from work late last night and
discovered that her two children were alone, and when her
worthless, pothead man came in at dawn, he was clueless,
too. A call to Tawanda's grandmother, whom she lived with,
didn't turn up any leads, either. Her grandmother hadn't seen
Tawanda since she had left to baby-sit.

Tawanda's vehicle, an old Ford Escort, remained parked
under the carport of the house at which she'd been working.

Kidnapping and abduction were extremely rare crimes in
Dark Corner. Jackson had handled an abduction case only
once, and that had been over ten years ago. Murder was
equally rare. The only murder in recent memory was when a
man had killed his wife in the midst of a domestic dispute,
and the murderer had actually called Jackson, personally, to
give himself up.

Intuition warned Jackson that this case wasn't going to be so easy. He began the investigation the best way he knew
how: by talking to folks.

Saturday morning, Jackson spent a while talking to the
family who'd hired Tawanda to baby-sit. The woman was
forthright and trustworthy, a hardworking lady who held
down two jobs to make ends meet. He knew her folks, too.
They were good people.

But he wasn't impressed by her live-in man, Andre.

In his early thirties, Andre was a known drug user and
had never worked a stable job in his life. He hung out at the
basketball courts and the car wash with his buddies, smoking weed and drinking beer. If laziness were a felony, Andre
would have been serving a double life sentence.

Every time Jackson saw the man, he thought of Jahlil,
and what could happen to his boy if he didn't get his life on
track. If Jahlil's attitude did not change, Jahlil was Andre in
a few years.

Jackson hated the pathetic example that Andre set for the
younger boys in town. But his main problem with Andre on
this day was that he was sure the guy was hiding something
related to the girl's disappearance.

"Come outside with me for a minute, will you?" Jackson
said to Andre while they were in the small living room.
"Want to chat with you"

"I'm really tired." Andre yawned dramatically. "I was out
all night."

"Ain't gonna take but a minute," Jackson said.

Reluctantly, Andre followed him outdoors. Jackson leaned
against the patrol car. Andre watched him, his hands buried
in the pockets of his baggy jeans, restlessly jingling coins.

Andre didn't look tired. He looked scared.

"First off," Jackson said. "I don't care about your reputation for smoking weed. We ain't here to talk about that"

"But I don't smoke-"

"Don't start lying to me, all right?" Jackson said. "Don't
wanna hear it. It ain't the issue."

Andre drew in a shaky breath. "I don't know what happened to Tawanda, Chief. I really don't"

Jackson removed his hat and began to straighten the brim.
"I'm the kind of man, I listen to my intuition. You know what
it tells me? Tells me that you're telling the truth-part of it."

"I ain't lying, Chief!" Andre said. "I rolled out as soon as
she got here to watch the boys, and when I got back to the
crib my woman was already here and said Tawanda was
gone. I don't know nothing."

Jackson finished flattening the edge of the hat. He set it
back on his head. "What're you scared of, Andre? You're
shaking like a leaf."

Andre lowered his head. "I ain't scared."

"You got fear stamped all over you, buddy."

Andre dragged his hand down his face. "Look, I can't
talk about it."

"Can't talk about what? You can't hide information that
could help solve a crime. That's obstruction of justice,
buddy. You serve time for that"

Andre raised his head. His eyes were wet-looking, as
though he were about to cry.

"You need to check out the crib up there," Andre said. He
quickly motioned toward the horizon, then dropped his arm
as if he'd gotten an electric shock. "Any wicked shit going
down here, you better look there first."

Jackson had followed the man's finger. The only house
"up there" was the Mason place.

A coldness wrapped around Jackson, like a mantle of ice.

"All right now," Jackson said. "You got to explain what
you mean. What's Jubilee got to do with the girl?"

"Hell, naw," Andre said. "I done already told you too
much. I ain't getting any deeper into this shit."

Andre fled inside the house. He slammed the door in
Jackson's face.

Jackson knocked. "Open up, buddy. We ain't done chattin'."

No one answered.

Jackson knocked again, then rang the doorbell, and still
they ignored him. It surprised him. He had never faced resistance like this from folks in his own town.

But one thing was clear: Andre was scared out of his
mind.

He briefly considered using some official force to make
Andre speak to him, but he decided against the idea. The
guy was flat-out too scared to talk, and he had directed
Jackson toward a source that might bear fruit. Jackson didn't
like to push folks too hard. It wasn't his style-a good thing,
really, because in a small town like this, he'd never needed to
be that tough to get the job done.