On a Darkling Plain Read Online Free PDF

stomachs. Their wet tongues laved her skin. She gave them all a good petting, crooning “Good boy,” “What a pretty dog,” and similar comments. For a moment, she felt a pang of nostalgia for her mortal childhood in Athens, when she’d romped with her father’s hunting hounds.
    After a minute she clambered to her feet. “Go away,” she said, making shooing motions with her hands. “You’re good dogs, but I can’t take you in the house with me.” The adoring canines permitted her to depart alone, but watched her mournfully as she walked away.
    Nearing the house, she saw that it was a hideously botched attempt at a grand home in the neoclassical style, with an incongruous string of leering gargoyles running along the roof line. Obviously her unwitting host had been more fortunate in his landscaper than in his architect.
    She climbed the circular steps to the twin-paneled front door. Instead of a keyhole, it had a keypad mounted on the jamb. She laid her hand lightly on the buttons. After a moment, the numbers eight, four and three came into her mind. She punched in the combination and the door clicked softly open.
    She stepped into the vestibule. The smells of furniture polish, pipe tobacco and dry white wine hung in the air. Above her, on the second floor, the hearts of four humans slowly thumped while their breath sighed in and out. By the sound of it the mortals were all fast asleep. Easy prey, but not for her. Vampires as ancient as she could only be nourished by the blood of their fellow undead.
    Her intuition urged her toward the arch directly opposite the front door. She stepped through it into the house’s central hall, then gasped with delight.
    A treasure trove of paintings hung along the walls. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the owner of the house had assembled his collection, or to the manner in which he’d chosen to display it. An early self-portrait by Picasso hung beside a gorgeously illuminated page from a medieval Bible, which in turn bordered a voluptuous nude by Rubens. But the disorder, the jarring clash of cultures and periods, didn’t matter in the least, because every piece was magnificent. The vampire could have lost herself in any one of them for hours.
    And they were safe. Intact. Perhaps the dream that had roused her from her year-long trance had been only a nightmare. Perhaps the masterpiece for which she feared was safe as well. Except for the warning embodied in her vision, she could think of no reason why it shouldn’t be.
    Encouraged, she paced on into what in the eighteenth century would have been the withdrawing room. Here it was an extension of the householder’s art gallery; he’d eliminated the windows in the bowed back wall to provide more hanging space. The pictures here, a Wyeth and a Mondrian among them, were as exquisite as the ones in the central room. All except one: a portrait of an Elizabethan lady. The lady’s shoulders, eggshell-colored ruff, long white neck and dark brown hair w’ere as the vampire remembered them, but her face was only a muddy blur.
    Aghast, moving as fast as a cheetah, the vampire rushed to the painting. A sharp, astringent smell stung her nostrils. Someone had employed a solvent to scour away the pigment of the Elizabethan lady’s features, destroying the portrait beyond any hope of restoration.
    The vampire lifted the picture gently off the wall. Holding it to her bosom as if it were her dead child, she dropped to her knees on the polished oak floor and rocked slowly back and forth.
    John Kincaid had painted this portrait: grinning, mercurial John. She’d never even spoken to him — by Elizabeth’s time, she’d already withdrawn from both mortal and undead society — but she’d been fond of him nonetheless, ensuring that he found generous patrons, savoring his triumphs and endearing quirks as one might the antics of a character in a play. And, of course, marvelling at the passion and technical proficiency of his art on