Dark Magic Page 0,126

never spoke of it, even to me. I think we both wanted it to be nothing more than a nightmare."

"The city kids were drinking." Gregori picked the information out of his head.

Beau nodded. "We found empty bottles floating in the water, on the bank. Then we heard them screaming. Not just any kind of screaming, but the kind that stays with you forever. It wakes you up at night in a cold sweat. My father stayed drunk for a month afterward trying to forget those screams. I know it didn't work." He wiped his mouth again. "It's never worked for me."

I don't want to hear this, Gregori. It hurts him too much to remember, Savannah protested, her fingers curling in Gregori's shirt.

Gregori stroked a caressing hand down her hair.

I will ease his pain later. It is interesting; in his mind I sense Julian's presence, as if he, also, soothed this man. Why would the alligator killing humans so upset his father? Why would the terror of it linger in him for so many years? In this place there have been many deaths, few of them pleasant. Perhaps it is necessary that we hear this tale.

"We were covered in insects, like a blanket, crawling on us. And it was almost impossible to breathe." Beau touched his throat, remembering the feeling of suffocating. "Still, we couldn't leave them. We kept pushing through the reeds and roots. For us, the going was very difficult even though we had a much smaller boat. The water was black and murky near the bank. It formed a pool there, and the water was stagnant. The stench was unbelievable, like a slaughterhouse of dead carcasses left to decay in the sun. My father wanted to leave me in the boat at the mouth of the pool, said he would go on foot, but I knew if I let him, he would die."

"Oh, Beau," Savannah breathed sympathetically. She was almost as distressed as the captain. Automatically Gregori soothed and comforted her, providing a stronger, insulating cushion for her. She was like a sponge, soaking up the terrible trauma.

"I guess we both accepted that we probably wouldn't make it out of there," Beau continued. He skillfully guided the boat around a snag. "But we went in. It was black. Not just like night, but black. My father lit the lamp, and then we could see them. The boat was splintered, huge chunks out of it, as if something enormous had attacked it. It was sinking, nearly under water. One boy was clinging to it, but blood was spraying into the sky. We couldn't get to him. Something came up out of the water, something prehistoric. Its eyes were evil, and its mouth was gaping open. It was no ordinary alligator, and it was enjoying itself, playing with those dying kids."

Beau shoved a hand through his hair in agitation, looking out across the familiar water. Gregori stirred, drawing the captain's attention. Those peculiar silver eyes caught his gaze and held it. Instantly Beau felt calm, centered, protected, disconnected. The tale he was relating became just that, a story that had happened to someone else.

Gregori felt the strange shifting in the captain's mind, like a hazy veil that produced a programmed reaction. He focused and followed the trail, the pattern of evil he was so familiar with. He recognized Julian's healing touch, the safeguards he had set for the mortal to prevent the tainted shadow from spreading. Beau La Rue had been touched by a vampire. He had escaped, but not unscathed.

Savannah's soft little gasp in his mind betrayed her presence. He found himself smiling that she could slip in and out of him, so much a part of him that he could no longer tell where he started and she left off. She had access to his memories and his knowledge. The more time she spent in his mind, the better she was at acquiring the lessons centuries had taught him.

More than you know.

Savannah sounded smug.

Beau was much more relaxed, not the happy captain of earlier, but his tension had definitely eased. "There was nothing we could do for any of them. We had entered the monster's playground, and he was in the mood to play. He didn't try to drown any of them right away, or kill them outright. He tossed them into the air and ripped parts of them away. Pieces of bodies were floating in the water. A girl's head bobbed up and down near the bank.