At the Twilight's Last Gleaming by David Bischoff Page A

thing about him, after his heart, was his mouth. It almost seemed to stretch from ear to ear when he smiled. “I don’t know what good that would do, pumpkin.”
    “He might lay off me a little, see me less as one of the masses, you know. He wouldn’t think, there’s that rebel woman, he’d think there’s Col. Williams little girl. And maybe he’d be nicer then.”
    “Hmm. That’s a possibility, Rebecca. Very well then, yes. That’s just what I’ll do. And I do think there’s a PTA meeting coming up next week, and I’ll be in town then.”
    “Oh Dad, that would be super!”
    “My little bird,” he hugged me.
    “Daddy, did you ever wish we hadn’t left England?”
    In the light from my bed lamp his broad brow furrowed. “Why would you say that, pumpkin? We’re back home now. We’re in our own country.”
    I shivered. “I don’t know Dad. The Pentagon is just across the Potomac River. We’re right by Congress and the Supreme Court. The other day I heard a dreadful racket and I looked up and there was this great big helicopter whup-whup-whupping toward Andrews Air Force Base — and I think, that’s the White House helicopter carrying President Johnson to Andrews Air Force base, where my father works!”
    “That’s right. I’ve seen it myself. Quite a sight through these old elm trees. And I’ve been on Air Force One… Not when the President was there, of course, but…” He cocked his head. “Well, I’m a little alarmed, I must say. I thought that you and your little brother would love it here. You’d learn a lot and benefit from being close to the center of things.”
    “Dad, we may be near Washington D.C., the nerve center for the world’s most powerful nation. But we’re in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and I’m going to a school where more than half the students are learning to weld or keep house. We were by Oxford before. I guess I miss it. I think I learned a lot there.”
    He grinned. “You learned to be a Beatlemaniac and an oddball. I never should have taken you to see
Beyond the Fringe
.”
    “Oh, and the trips to London, yes. We did see a lot of Shakespeare too, you know.”
    “Cheeky girl!” he said. “You know, I don’t see why we can’t get you some kind of summer program over there this year! Why not?”
    I was at first thrilled at the idea, but then I remembered. Peter. We’d have to see how that went, right?
    “Oh yes, let’s do look into it!” I said.
    “So, do you think you can go to sleep now, minus nightmares?”
    “You’ll be there to beat ‘em all up, Daddy.”
    “You are a sweetie. Goodnight, dear.” He reached over to the bed lamp.
    “Maybe,” I said, “I’d better keep that on.”



CHAPTER TEN
    T HE VAMPIRE STOOD by the window.
    He was very tall, and had I could feel his presence, radiating through the room. His hair was slicked back, and his long cape slowly fell toward the floor, from where it had once hung in the air as wings. Outside the window, the night moved like a living thing, and I heard a wolf’s howl, distant and mournful.
    I lay upon the bed, and watched him.
    I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
    He was magnificent.
    His hair was a long mane of black, beautifully combed, perched atop broad shoulders. His forehead, pale and domed, had a bottom of fierce eyebrows, like black flares. His face was long and elegant — regal, with high cheekbones, and a soft mouth. His eyes blazed with hazel focus, looking at me as if I were the only thing in the world that mattered.
    Despite myself, I felt my heart hammering in my chest.
    He was big and powerful and beautiful.
    Slowly and gracefully he glided over to where I lay on the bed. I could almost feel his body heat as he neared me, but I barely noticed. I could only look at the eyes from where I lay on the bed. They bore into me with a hypnotic fervor, and I felt myself in some kind of fevered trance.
    The vampire reached the bed.
    He bent.
    The cape lifted and draped over me.
    I