Daughter of darkness, p.1
Daughter of Darkness, page 1
DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS
By Charles L. Grant
(Writing as Simon Lake)
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright 2015 by Kathryn Ptacek
Copy-edited by: Tony Masia
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
Photo by Jeff Schalles
Charles L. Grant taught English and history at the high school level before becoming a full-time writer in the ’70s. He served for many years as an officer in the Horror Writers Association and in Science Fiction Writers of America.
He was known for his “quiet horror” and for editing the award-winning Shadows anthologies. He received the British Fantasy Society’s Special Award in 1987 for life achievement; in 2000, he was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from HWA. Other awards include two Nebula Awards and three World Fantasy Awards for writing and editing.
Charlie died from a lengthy illness on September 15, 2006, just three days after his birthday. He lived in Newton, NJ, and was married to writer/editor Kathryn Ptacek for nearly twenty-five years.
Book List
Horror
Novels
Black Oak: Genesis
Black Oak: The Hush of Dark Wings
Black Oak: Winter Knight
Black Oak: Hunting Ground
Black Oak: When the Cold Wind Blows
Fire Mask
For Fear of the Night
In A Dark Dream
Jackals
Millennium Quartet #1: Symphony
Millennium Quartet #2: In the Mood
Millennium Quartet #3: Chariot
Millennium Quartet #4: Riders in the Sky
Night Songs
Raven
Something Stirs
Stunts
The Bloodwind
The Curse
The Grave
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead
The Last Call of Mourning
The Nestling
The Pet
The Sound Of Midnight
The Tea Party
The Universe of Horror Trilogy
The Soft Whisper of the Dead
The Dark Cry of the Moon
The Long Night of the Grave
Collections
Dialing the Wind
Nightmare Seasons
The Black Carousel
The Orchard
Science Fiction
A Quiet Night of Fear
Ascension
Legion
Ravens of the Moon
The Shadow of Alpha
As “Geoffrey Marsh”
The Fangs of the Hooded Demon
The King of Satan’s Eyes
The Patch of the Odin Soldier
The Tail of the Arabian, Knight
As “Lionel Fenn”
The Quest for the White Duck Trilogy
Blood River Down
Web of Defeat
Agnes Day
668, the Neighbor of the Beast
By The Time I Get To Nashville
Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire
Once Upon a Time in the East
The Once and Future Thing
The Really Ugly Thing From Mars
The Reasonably Invisible Man
The Seven Spears of the W’dch’ck
Time, the Semi-Final Frontier
As “Simon Lake”
Daughter of Darkness
Death Cycle
Death Scream
He Told Me To
Shapes Berkley
Something’s Watching
The Clown
The Forever House
As “Felicia Andrews”
Moonwitch
Mountainwitch
Riverrun
Riverwitch
Seacliffe
Silver Huntress
The Velvet Hart
As “Deborah Lewis”
Eve of the Hound
Kirkwood Fires
The Wind at Winter’s End
Voices Out of Time
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
Visit us online
Check out our blog and
Subscribe to our Newsletter for the latest Crossroad Press News
Find and follow us on Facebook
Join our group at Goodreads
We hope you enjoy this eBook and will seek out other books published by Crossroad Press. We strive to make our eBooks as free of errors as possible, but on occasion some make it into the final product. If you spot any problems, please contact us at publisher@crossroadpress.com and notify us of what you found. We’ll make the necessary corrections and republish the book. We’ll also ensure you get the updated version of the eBook.
If you’d like to be notified of new Crossroad Press titles when they are published, please send an email to publisher@crossroadpress.com and ask to be added to our mailing list.
If you have a moment, the author would appreciate you taking the time to leave a review for this book at whatever retailer’s site you purchased it from.
Thank you for your assistance and your support of the authors published by Crossroad Press.
DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS
For Emily Kathryn,
Without whose expert testimony killer dodgeball would still be a fond, if painful, memory
Chapter One
The last thing Cass wanted to see when she opened the door was another zombie.
It stood alone on the porch, one foot bare, the other wearing a shredded sneaker; its shirt and pants were in tatters, its face a disgusting, peeling pale gray, with wide dark eyes rimmed with dark green, sneering blood-red lips, and most of its teeth missing; greasy hair straggled over its brow, only barely moving when the night wind gusted under the porch roof.
It snarled at her and raised its arms stiffly as if ready to knock her aside.
She rolled her eyes and didn’t move.
“Hey, Fuller, give me a break, huh?” it whined. “It’s cold out here.”
With a shrug she stepped aside to let it join the two zombies in the dining room, another rooting around the kitchen, and stiff another in the living room trying to open a window without getting its makeup all over the curtains. There were also a couple of ghouls floating around somewhere, some designer-sheet ghosts, three vampires who kept hissing at each other, a pirate captain complete with peg leg, an Ace-bandage mummy who had forgotten to leave room for his mouth, and an assortment of things she still couldn’t identify.
Distant lightning flashed through the clouds, outlining the trees and houses across the street. She waited for the thunder, but flinched anyway when it came, rolling, echoing, fading just when it seemed as if it would go on forever.
She shook her head and sighed. Coming here tonight was probably one of the dumbest ideas she’d ever had. In the first place the host, Jewel Lanborn, was nowhere to be found, so Cass was stuck answering the door.
In the second place she was about the only one at the party who hadn’t decided to wear a traditional Halloween costume. For reasons she could no longer remember, she had made herself into a punk rocker, complete with multicolored spiked hair hiding the natural auburn beneath, a torn black T-shirt with a grinning skull on the chest, tight black jeans, and a black leather jacket festooned with chains and silver studs. Her face was painted with a vivid blob of red on each cheek, purple eye shadow, and black lipstick.
She had a miserable feeling she looked worse than any of the zombies.
In the third place Rick didn’t show up. And that made her feel even more stupid. Not because he hadn’t come, but because it bothered her so much that he hadn’t.
It wasn’t, as her best friend, Meg, had told her often enough, that Rick had declared his undying passion for her; and it sure wasn’t that they, could even be considered going together, not seriously. They had gone to three or four movies together since last July. That’s all. No big deal.
So…?
Nothing, she told herself angrily; so nothing. Then why, she wanted to know, was she feeling so lousy?
It sure wasn’t the party. Aside from the usual few jerks, everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time. There was deafening rock music on the living-room stereo, nonstop horror movies on the big-screen TV in the family room downstairs, enough food to feed half the school for the rest of the year, and Jewel’s parents stayed out of the way upstairs, just as they had promised.
Cass started when someone tapped her shoulder. “Boo, you dummy, and would you mind closing the door before we all freeze to death in here?”
She closed the door and leaned against it, scowling at Meg standing in front of her.
Her best friend, who looked more like an undernourished blond Elvira than the Wicked Witch of the West, adjusted her red-lined cape and jerked a thumb toward the living room. “Come on, there’s something I’ve got to show you.”
Cass allowed herself to be led from the wide center
She did anyway.
Meg slapped her arm. “Hey, that’s not nice. You think we ought to save him?”
“He’s a big boy, he can save himself,” Cass answered, stepping back across the hall into the dining room. The long, orange-cloth-covered table was laden with food, from pizza in five varieties to bagels in nine, plus makings for sandwiches, bowls of munchies, and at least a hundred gallons of soda.
Meg grabbed a doughnut, grinned as she bit into it slowly, and left when someone called her. Cass wandered into the kitchen, where she traded some wisecracks about her hair and the chains with Viv Holmbrook, who claimed she was Alice in Wonderland. It might have worked if Viv didn’t have such fiery red hair.
“She had a dye job,” Viv explained, fluffing her hair. “She’s a now kind of girl.”
Cass laughed and moved on. Just as she stepped into the living room the windows filled with blinding blue-white light.
Everyone froze, waiting for the deafening explosion of thunder that rattled the glasses and made the lights flicker.
A werewolf yelped.
“God,” someone said with a nervous laugh, “that must’ve been right overhead.”
The music was turned up.
The movie was turned up.
The mummy grabbed Cass then, and they danced until Viv wandered in and the mummy decided it preferred real hair to yellow-and-green spikes. Cass didn’t mind, and soon she found herself back in the center hall, glancing at the large mirror on the wall near the door.
You, she told her reflection, look like a jerk. She checked her watch: it was just past ten. And still no Rick.
The reflection glared back in disgust, reminding Cass that he hadn’t promised to come, and there had been no suggestion of a date, so she had no reason to feel either mad or hurt.
But she did, and it was stupid.
Lightning flashed again, and this time the thunder was not as loud, but it lasted longer. It was obvious the storm was getting closer, fast.
A face appeared over her shoulder, attached to a three-piece suit and a hideous paisley tie with a battery-powered red bulb flashing at the knot.
“Hey, George,” she said, recognizing the guy she had decided not to save from Jewel.
He touched a finger to one of the spikes and grimaced as if he’d been stabbed. “Glue?”
“Mousse. I think three or four bottles.”
She leaned back against the beveled-edge table beneath the mirror, folding her arms loosely over her chest. A group of mixed beasts crowded past them toward the food, wondering aloud when Jewel was going to start turning out the lights so the real fun could begin.
George watched them, then put his hands into his trouser pockets and glanced around. “I have a feeling we don’t exactly fit in, you know?”
He was right, Cass decided. She, the hard-rock punk, and George, who was supposed to be a yuppie with good taste, just did not blend with the rest of the crowd. No one had made any cracks, though. George was too tall—a head taller than she—and too broad at the shoulders for anyone to insult him. He wasn’t handsome—his nose was a bit large, his lips a bit too thin—but when he frowned, his unusually thick eyebrows tended to make him uncomfortably menacing. And that, she knew, was about as far from the truth as you could get.
George glanced at the door. “Maybe,” he said, shrugging, “I ought to go, huh? This isn’t really my”
She grabbed his arm and gave it a quick twist. “Over my dead body. You came, you suffer, just like the rest of us.” She laughed. “Why don’t you find Jewel? Explain the yuppie joke, maybe she’ll do a belly dance for you.”
He blushed.
She giggled and took a deep breath. Poor George, she thought. He’s not a nerd, but definitely too shy to live. She forced a cough. “Boy, I sure could use a drink.”
George’s answering smile was lopsided. “Okay. But when Rick comes, he can get his own.”
He was gone before she could respond, and she kicked herself for being so obvious. Which made her feel even dumber, and more miserable.
The music stopped abruptly at an almost simultaneous arrival of thunder and lightning.
She jumped, looked around sheepishly to make sure no one had seen her, and then decided that as long as she was at the party, there was no reason why she should stand around like a jerk. Fun, then; Cass decided that she was going to have some real fun before the night was over, even if it killed her. She started to find George and her drink, but a knock on the door stopped her before she took her, first step.
She whirled, grabbed the knob, and yanked the door open, vowing to move away from the foyer and stop playing doorman.
But no one was there.
She blinked, frowned, stepped outside, and looked around.
The large front yard was empty; the black oaks on either side of the flagstone walk clattering their bare branches together in the October wind. Leaves raced toward her across the grass and veered away.
The sidewalks on either side of the street were deserted, the trick-or-treaters long since gone home. Nothing but a single streetlight down to her left, and scattered porch lights burning amber across the way.
The wind pushed and pulled at her.
She could smell the rain coming.
Rubbing her bare arms absently, Cass peered into the night, sure she hadn’t been mistaken.
She figured that it was nothing but stupid little kids playing stupid little jokes. She tried once more to see if anyone was hiding in the shadows, but the wind had grown too strong, the air too chilled. With shoulders hunched she hurried back inside and slammed the door. A ghoul in a white tuxedo raced by, yelling that he couldn’t have a séance with all the lights on.
A séance?
She groaned.
Someone knocked on the door again, hard this time, almost pounding.
Laughter rolled out of the living room; the television was turned off.
For a moment, just a moment, there was a deep and empty silence..
Until the knock sounded again.
“All right,” Cass muttered, “all right.”
She opened the door, ready to dish out a good-size piece of her mind; instead, she threw up her hands when lightning cracked over the trees. The thunder that followed was like the slow deliberate ripping of still canvas, ending in an explosion that did more than rattle the panes and a few glasses. It knocked the lights out.
But not before she saw the huge shadow reaching out for her throat.
Chapter Two
Cass fell back away from the grasping figure with a startled yell, whirled in a panic when someone grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling. Her left hand slapped out, but the wrist was caught and she could hear, distantly, a steady voice telling her to take it easy. Other voices called for the lights, laughing, a few mock screams, and above it all Mr. Lanborn bellowing for a little peace while he tried to find out what had happened.
“Hey, Cass, be cool,” George said, loosening his grip to stand beside her, his face taut with concern. “It’s just the lightning.”
Frantic, she looked toward the open door.
The shadow was gone.
In its place stood a girl; she was Cass’s height, slender, and dressed in a billowing silver blouse and loose pants that looked as if they were made of woven aluminum.
“Are you all right?” the newcomer asked.
“Oh god,” Cass said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. “God, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Somebody handed George a flashlight, and he aimed it at the girl’s face, then muttered a hasty apology when she jerked her head away, but not before Cass saw her dusky complexion and curious, almost Oriental features, and the gleaming blue-black hair parted in the center that dropped below her shoulders.
“Is anybody dead?” Meg called from the front room.
The commotion settled; candlelight winked on. She heard Mrs. Lanbom organizing things in the kitchen, her husband asking one of the boys to go down to the cellar and check the circuit breakers.
