Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles 9)

"Upstairs, I found Big Ramona in my wing chair by the cold fireplace with her rosary beads in her hand. Her full white hair was already braided. She was in her best rose-flowered flannel nightgown. She gave me a big hug and I went in to shower and change.

"After we said our night prayers and I let it be known I was too damned tired for a whole Rosary, we were soon snuggling spoon fashion and I was remembering that mysterious stranger in the weak light of the broken moon.

"Then I heard the computer switched on. A low green light emanated from the monitor.

"What a nuisance, I thought. 'Goblin, why do you do these things?' I murmured, but then I heard a strange sound. It was the clicking of the computer keys.

"I shot up out of bed and came into this parlor and stared at the computer. He had most certainly typed out a message:

QUINN, DANGER EVERYWHERE; I'M AFRAID.

"I was stultified. Never had he done this before. Turn it on and off, yes, but to write on it without my hand? I sat down at the computer and I wrote out the words as I recited them aloud:

" 'Goblin, I love you. I couldn't have come home without you. Explain what you mean about danger. ¡¯

"I moved my hands away from the keyboard and watched the rapid, seemingly magical depression of the keys as he wrote out:

I SEE IT NEAR AND FAR. GO AWAY. I LOVE YOU. DON'T LOVE REBECCA.

"I began to whisper my response to him, that is, to talk aloud to him as I had always done -- that he needn't worry -- when the keys started firing again, and I saw the writing on the screen:

THROUGH THE COMPUTER, QUINN. I AM STRONG IN THE ELECTRICITY, NOT STRONG NOW IN ANY OTHER WAY. TOO TIRED FROM SWAMP. QUINN, GO.

"This all but dumbfounded me, but it fitted with my growing understanding of him, and so I hammered out:

" 'Goblin, who was the stranger? Who were the bodies?¡¯

" 'I don't know,' came his answers. 'The bodies were dead. ¡¯

"That was a typical example of Goblin's reasoning. For a long breathless moment I sat there, and then I typed out: 'Goblin, I love you. Don't ever think that I don't love you. Put up with me and my off-and-on ways. ¡¯

"There came no answer, and then, before I could hit the save button to preserve this little dialogue, the computer switched itself off. Or rather Goblin switched it off.

" 'What does that mean?' I said aloud, looking about me. But no answer came from the darkness. There was nothing to be done but to go back to bed. . .

"And to lie there, awake, pondering all that had happened, including the fact that Goblin could now write on the computer without using my left hand to do so -- a frightening discovery, though one which was all bound up in my head with the awareness that he had led me out of the swamp.

"In summary, what I mean is I felt guilty for how shabbily I'd treated Goblin.

"Goblin had my admiration again, the way he had gotten it when I was a little boy and he taught me to spell big words. Goblin and I were close again. Goblin knew I was telling the truth. Goblin understood everything.

"I felt it excitedly while at the same time rejecting totally his message. We were close, that's what mattered.

"But we were to come even closer.

"Sometime during the night, as Big Ramona snored and I dozed in a half sleep, dreaming of Rebecca, there came into the room a stranger.

"Goblin, with a hand on my shoulder, awakened and alerted me. Sleeping on the left side of the bed I was turned to my left, and I opened my eyes to see Goblin staring past me in the direction of the fireplace. There came the tight squeeze from Goblin which on the island had meant caution.

"I rolled over as if it were merely natural in my sleep.

"I could see the figure at the mantel, and measuring it by that marker I calculated it was a tall man -- and I knew by its outline that it was no man I knew, but its shape conformed with the shape of the man I'd seen in the swamp in the moonlight.

"I could see the outline of a bold head, well squared-off shoulders, and the glint of a hand on the mantelpiece. I was certain it was the same man! There came a tapping sound from the mantelpiece. There was something white on the mantelpiece.

"And then there came a low utterance of laughter.

"I climbed out of bed lickety-split, though Goblin tried with all his effort to stop me. And as I rushed across the room in my bare feet I heard the sound of paper crumpled and I picked out of the shadows the sight of a white paper ball tossed into the fireplace.