Read Online Thief of Always by Clive Barker - Free Book Online

beast. It almost ate me. I thought maybe it had eaten you."
          Harvey looked down at his hands and legs.
          "Nope," he said. "Not a nibble."
          "I'm glad!" Wendell said. "I'm so, so glad. You're my best friend, for always."
          I was vampire food five minutes ago, Harvey thought; but he said nothing. Maybe there'd come a time when he could tell Wendell about his transformation and temptation, but this wasn't it. He simply said:
          "I'm hungry," and sat down at the table beside his fair-weather friend, to put something sweeter than blood in his belly.

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          XI
    Turnabout

          Neither Wendell nor Lulu was around the following day-Mrs. Griffin said she'd seen them both before breakfast, and then they'd disappeared-so Harvey was left to his own devices. He tried not to think about what had happened the night before, but he couldn't help himself.
          Snatches of conversation kept coming back, and he puzzled over them all day long. What had Jive meant, for instance, when he'd told Harvey that turning him into a vampire was not so much a game as an education? What kind of lesson had he learned by jumping off a roof and scaring Wendell?
          And all that stuff about soul-stealers and how they had to be served; what had that meant? Was it Mr. Hood that Jive had been speaking of; that great power they all had to serve? If Hood was somewhere in the House, why hadn't anyone-Lulu, Wendell or himself-encountered him? Harvey had quizzed his friends about Hood, and had the same story from them both: they'd heard no footfalls, no whispers, no laughter. If Mr. Hood was indeed here, where was he hiding, and why?
          So many questions; so few answers.
          And then, if these mysteries weren't enough, another came along to vex him. In the late afternoon, lounging in the shade of the tree house, he heard a yell of frustration, and peered through the leaves to set Wendell racing across the lawn. He was dressed in a windbreaker and boots, even though it was swelteringly hot, and he was stamping around like a madman.
          Harvey shouted to him, but his call went either unheard or ignored, so he climbed down and pursued Wendell around the side of the House. He found him in the orchard, red-faced and sweaty.
          "What's going on?" he said.
          "I can't get out!" Wendell said, grinding a half-rotted apple underfoot. "I want to leave, Harvey, but there's no way out!"
          "Of course there is!"
          "I've been trying for hours and hours and I tell you the mist keeps sending me hack the way I came"
          "Hey, calm down!"
          "I want to go home, Harvey," Wendell said, close to tears now. "Last night was too much for me. That thing came after my blood. I know you don't believe me-"
          "I do," said Harvey, "honest I do."
          "You do?"
          "For sure."
          "Well, then maybe you should leave too,'cause if I go it'll come after you."
          "I don't think so," said Harvey.
          "I've been kiddin' myself about this place," Wendell said. "It's dangerous. Oh, yeah, I know it seems like everything's perfect, but-"
          Harvey interrupted him. "Maybe you should keep your voice down," he said. "We should talk about this quietly. In private."
          "Like where?" said Wendell, wild-eyed. "The whole place is watching us and listening to us. Don't you feel it?"
          "Why would it do that?"
          "I don't know!" Wendell snapped. "But last night I thought, if I don't leave I'm going to die here. I'll just disappear one night; or go crazy like Lulu." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "We're not the first, you know. What about all the clothes upstairs? All the coats and shoes and hats. They belonged to kids like us."
          Harvey shuddered. Had he played trick-or-treat in a murdered boy's shoes?
          "I want to get