Dark Changeling

by Margaret Carter

  “They really are claws if I don't clip them often enough,” she said, her breathing ragged. “You still taste strange—almost human, but not quite.”

  “You have a rather interesting flavor, too.” He nuzzled her neck.

  Suddenly her embrace lost its playful quality. Melting back into fully human shape, she flung her arms around his neck and fastened her mouth to his neck with desperate intensity.

  Instinctively reacting as if to an attack, he raised his hands to ward her off. Recovering, he stiffly put his arms around her again.

  “Sorry,” she gulped. “The last few days have been terrible. I keep having nightmares. Or should that be ‘daymares'?”

  “That's one of the sillier neologisms I've ever heard.” He led her to the couch and fitted her half-empty wine glass into her hand. “Care to talk about it?”

  “I dream about Rico,” she said. “And our kind aren't supposed to dream frequently or vividly at all. I'm on the verge of taking him, and he suddenly grows fangs and attacks me. Stuff like that.” She sipped her drink and said with more animation, “Don't bother trying to analyze it, Doctor.”

  “You already know what I would say.”

  “Okay, on this one thing you were right, and I was wrong. I shouldn't have told Rico where to find me.”

  “So you regret your cradle-robbing already?”

  “Don't rub it in.” She hunched her shoulders, trying to dislodge the arm he'd draped around them. “The kid came to visit me the night after we picked him up, and he's been hanging around the building ever since. He won't take no for an answer. The doorman threatened him with the police, so now he loiters across the street as long as he can get away with it.”

  “I can understand you don't want that kind of attention focused on you,” said Roger. “But surely he'll give up sooner or later?”

  “Sure, if I don't encourage him.”

  “You wouldn't have any reason to do that.”

  She set her glass on the coffee table and looked up at him in wide-eyed appeal. “But I already have. It isn't a matter of reason. Roger, he's so— It's no use, I can't explain why I want him. Help me.”

  What did she expect from him? Noticing the washed-out hue of her aura, Roger said, “You haven't had anyone in several nights, have you? That's unusual for you.”

  She grabbed his hand, her nails gouging his wrist. “I need what you can give me.”

  “Sylvia, you'll have to explain more clearly.” But he sus-pected, with dismay, that he knew what she meant.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, a hard, grinding pseudo-caress. He had to force himself to return the embrace and stroke her head and back, gentling her until her mouth softened under his. Her body temperature seemed lower than usual, her taste like crisp, chilled white wine. She snuggled into his lap, burrowing under his shirt and raking his back with her nails. Her bared teeth skimmed his cheek and throat without quite breaking the skin. He felt her trembling with the effort of restraint.

  He perceived her need as a whirlpool sucking him under. With gentle firmness he dislodged her and placed her a few inches from him on the sofa. “As you yourself told me, we can't get that from each other. What you need is human prey. Whether it's right for me or not, it obviously is right for you.”

  “Not when I'm wanting that boy this badly. It's an addiction—and maybe you could help me break it, if—” She gulped a couple of deep breaths. “Let's drink from each other.”

  “No, don't ask that,” said Roger, feeling her bristle at his rejection but unable to accept her advances.

  He sensed the effort it cost her to speak quietly. “Listen, Roger, I know you're moving away. Soon, isn't it?”

  He nodded. “Around Labor Day.” He'd already done most of his packing and had accepted a farewell steak dinner from Matthew Lloyd and his wife.

  “Then it may be a long time before we see each other again. Do this for me before you go—as kind of a parting gift.”

  “Sylvia, I just can't— Believe me, I'll do anything else to help.”

  Her lips curled back from her teeth. “Easy to say—after you're taken from me twice.”

  “Not by force, the second time.” He clenched his fists at his sides to combat the impulse to shake sense into her. “And I apologize.”

  “Not good enough. I don't know much about how human boys are trained, so I can't imagine what you picked up in prep school. But I was taught not to tease. And that's exactly what all this—this heavy petting amounts to.”

  Her anger felt like an iron band tightening around his forehead. “I simply don't see what you could expect to gain from such an exchange.”

  “That's exactly it. You don't understand. You never will understand, unless you trust me and take that step. I'll be damned if I'll try to explain. Not with your skeptical, analytical, super-rational—oh, forget it!”

  When she tried to retreat, Roger pinioned her arms with his own. The desperation in her voice knifed through him. He couldn't refuse to assuage it. “If that's truly what you want, I'll cooperate.”

  Fierce need flamed in Sylvia's aura. With no preliminary caresses, she sank her teeth into Roger's throat. Though the pain made him wince, he didn't fight. He endured the initial gush of blood in passive silence. After a few seconds, however, his vision misted over, and he felt as if his life were pouring away into a black hole. Sylvia's thirst seemed to turn him inside out, scraping him hollow, like a starfish dissolving and absorbing its prey.

  Then he felt her creeping, oozing into his mind. No—ripping into it. Tearing out his consciousness by the roots, to clear space for her own.God, she's inside me!

  “Get out!” He didn't know whether or not he screamed aloud. He threw her out in a convulsion more like a visceral heave than a voluntary act. At the same instant, he tore free of her hands and teeth. He found himself looming over Sylvia as she knelt on the couch, her mouth smeared with crimson.

  She staggered to her feet, automatically wiping her lips on her forearm. “Monster—human?—you're colder than any of us!”

  He reached for her, the gesture dying halfway through.

  “Go away!” she gasped. “Go—and stay away!”

  He went out into the night.

  * * * *

  SHADOWED BY a gnarled two-hundred-year-old tree, Sylvia sat on a bench next to the pond in the Public Garden and waited for Rico. The doorman's suspicious glances had convinced her to stop inviting the boy to her apartment, but she couldn't make herself stay away from him. Well aware that the more times she drank from Rico, the worse she became hooked on him, and painfully conscious of his pale skin, violet-smudged eye sockets, and growing fatigue, she couldn't stop. Only night before last she had met him here, determined to send him away once and for all, and yielded to his begging for yet another rendezvous.

  Sylvia raised her eyes from the reflection of the moon on the pond and scanned the park. Her night vision picked up no sign of human life. Why was Rico late? If anything, she would expect him to show up early, as he had for their last meeting. The thought of his naive ardor brought a smile to her lips despite her worry. He'd be shattered when she broke off with him, as she had to sooner or later.It had better be sooner, if I want him to survive. She'd never killed a donor and never intended to.

  Her skin prickled, not from chill, but from nervousness. Folding her arms across her bosom, she got up and started walking slowly around the pond on the footpath. Disturbed by her passage, a duck quacked under a bush. No other sound. Sylvia raised her head to sniff the air. The night breeze shifted, carrying a trace of a scent that scraped on her nerves. Following it, she turned away from the pond and catfooted along a winding walkway. Now she heard the murmur of a man's voice on the far side of the pond, mingled with a wordless coo in a woman's tones.Tourists, she thought. Locals knew better than to walk here after dark. After a second to assure herself that the lovers weren't headed in her direction, Sylvia continued on her course.

  Approaching the boundar
y of the park, she heard harsh breathing. When she slinked closer, a bearlike growl rasped on her ears.

  She caught sight of a feeble glow at the foot of a tree. Residual heat, distinct from the pale blue auras of insects and frogs. At the same instant, the smell filled her nose. Blood—dead blood, but freshly spilled.

  A shape loomed above the heap of cooling flesh. A lurid aura, the crimson glow of vampire eyes, and a mouth smeared with red.Neil!

  She broke into a trot. The attacker vanished into the night. No point in pursuing, for he'd veiled himself and sprinted out of her reach. Huddled against the tree trunk lay Rico's body. Sylvia needed no touch to tell her he was dead. The last vestiges of warmth seeped out of his flesh. There was a dark gash under his chin. Her stomach churned with the scent of his blood.

  So this is what Neil meant!

  Much worse than attacking her directly! He'd violated her property rights, slaughtered her human pet, and branded her with the same stigma of violence he wore.

  Sylvia threw back her head and wailed.

  * * * *

  AFTER RICO'S murder, Sylvia half expected Neil to show up at her door again to gloat over his revenge. That didn't happen. Instead, when she alighted from the elevator on the ground floor of her building the following night, she found a young man strange to her arguing with the doorman. The latter threw a harassed glance at Sylvia.

  “Miss LaMotte, I been trying to tell this punk you don't want to see him.” He turned back to the intruder. “You leaving, or do I have to call the cops?”

  The visitor, who looked around twenty years old, wore jeans and a leather jacket. Along with the black hair that grew below his collar, the clothes reinforced the “punk” stereotype the doorman had pinned on him. Though this boy stood taller and broader than Rico, Sylvia saw something in his profile that reminded her of her murdered “pet.” Chest heaving, the young man said, “Oh, so that's her! Lady, I've got a few things to say to you!”

  The doorman grabbed his arm. “That does it, you—”

  Sylvia hurried over to them. “Wait a minute.” The two men froze. “Who are you, and why do you want to see me?”

  “Rico ever mention his cousin Tony?”

  “Yes, he told me about you. I'm terribly sorry about what happened—I saw it in the paper.” Catching Tony's eyes, she focused her hypnotic power. If she could calm him here and now, he might leave without creating further trouble.

  Tony relaxed in the doorman's grasp. Only for a second, though; then he stiffened again and said, “Yeah, I bet you're sorry! He told me some of what you did to him.”

  “We were friends, that's all.” She brushed her fingertips over his arm, trying to reinforce the compulsion of her gaze.

  Jerking away from her, Tony said, “That's not how I heard it.”

  Hopeless, Sylvia decided. To have any chance of manipulating him, she had to work on him in private. Here, depending on how much Rico had remembered and passed on, Tony might blurt out the word “vampire” within earshot of the doorman and anyone else wandering through the lobby.

  “It's all right,” she said. “Tony can come up to my apartment. You'd like that, wouldn't you?” she said to the young man. “We can talk about Rico.”

  “That's what I'm here for.” With a defiant glare at the con-fused doorman, he rubbed his arm and followed Sylvia to the elevator.

  Upstairs she let him into her living room, bolted the door, and turned on the overhead light. The prosaic atmosphere didn't calm her uninvited guest. Tony reeked of grief and hate, as well as a more palpable miasma of nervous sweat. He feared her, Sylvia realized. How much of the truth had he gleaned from Rico? She wished her advisor were here to help.Dark Powers, I wish anybody were here—even Roger, the idiot! She hadn't spoken to him again before his departure from Boston, and now she regretted cutting herself off from that comfort, inadequate though it was.

  Stop that! I'm too old to expect constant protection. Powers of night, I'm practically a mature woman!

  “Can I get you something to drink, Tony?” she said, deter-mined to seize control of the situation. “Maybe I could make a pot of coffee.”

  “I wouldn't drink with you if I were dying of thirst.” He planted himself on the couch like a soldier defending a hill.

  Her attempt to treat this intrusion as a normal social call wasn't working too well. “Listen, Tony, I liked Rico. It was a ter-rible shock to read about his death. Why should you be mad at me?”

  “Don't give me that bull!” Tony's voice was hoarse with stifled tears. “He got his throat ripped up—I had to go ID him!”

  “What do you think that could possibly have to do with me?” She sat on the couch, as far from Tony as possible.

  “I know damn well you had something to do with it. I seen Rico go nuts over girls before. He didn't get sick and sleep all day and hook school—or come out with this jive about drinking blood.”

  So Rico had started to remember. Sylvia tensed, prepared to pounce if Tony made a threatening move. “That simply doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting I tore his throat to get his blood?” She feigned a tremulous laugh, as if the idea were too silly to mention. “Look at me—a skinny girl is going to kill a guy with her bare hands? Anyway, haven't you read about all the other murders like this? Rico was just another victim.”

  “Crap! The others were women.” He leaned forward, tucking a hand inside his jacket. “Maybe most girls wouldn't be able to do that to Rico, but from what he said, you're different. Vampires have super strength, don't they?”

  She suppressed a gasp. “I can't believe you're spaced out enough to accept that!”

  “It sounds pretty wild, all right. So let's see—” He pulled a rosary out of his jacket and lunged at Sylvia.

  Involuntarily she cringed back, arms raised to guard her face. His grin of triumph showed Sylvia her mistake. At once she recovered, forcing herself to fold her hands in her lap and ignore the cross less than a foot away. But it was too late to erase the impression made by her initial retreat.

  “This sure does the job on you, all right,” said Tony.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” she said, taming the quaver that tried to creep into her voice. “You startled me, so of course I jumped.”

  “I don't buy that. You're scared! I never believed in vampires before, but the way Rico looked, and the way you're acting—” He jabbed the cross at her and smirked when she flinched.

  “What now?” she said, staring into his eyes. If she could keep him talking long enough, she ought to be able to hypnotize him out of his vindictive mood.

  Fumbling in his side pocket, Tony pulled out a knife and unfolded it one-handed.

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “You're going to cut my throat because you have some fantasy about me killing your cousin.”

  “Shut up!” Again he thrust the cross at her. This time it touched her bare arm.

  The cheap plastic seared her like hot iron. With a scream she leaped up. Tony crowded her toward the bookcase, training the cross on her like a gun. His eyes flickered to the red welt on her arm. “Well, son of a bitch, it works!”

  “Look at me, Tony,” she pleaded in a whisper he had to strain to hear. “I liked Rico, I never would have hurt him. Go home and forget all this.” For a few seconds he gazed into her eyes, his hostile stare softening. “I know how upset you are about his death. I can feel your sorrow. Let me help you, Tony, let me take the hurt away.”

  He let her take a step closer to him. The arm holding up the rosary drooped a little. She reached up, her fingers almost brushing his cheek.

  Abruptly he jolted back to full alertness. He took a swipe at her with the knife, which she barely dodged. “Don't touch me, monster!” He brandished the cross between them.

  Now she understood that Tony's faith in the symbol armored his mind against her. She had no hope of controlling him as long as he held the cross.

  Again she backed up, pretending even more fear than she felt. She gathered her psychic energy, shaping it
in her mind as a child's hands might shape a snowball, ready to throw. Her muscles coiled tautly. She reached behind her to grope in the bookshelf. Tony, focused on the cross that sustained his courage, didn't notice. In a blur of motion human eyes couldn't track, she pitched a heavy book at him.

  He involuntarily ducked. At the same instant, Sylvia activated her psychic veil. To Tony's sight, she knew she appeared to vanish. She darted behind him. Her right hand slammed down on the nape of his neck. He collapsed to the floor.

  He lay face down, the knife next to him, the rosary still beneath his limp fingers. Sylvia lifted his hand off the thing but couldn't work up the nerve to move it. Even without Tony's will charging it, the religious symbol frightened her. She was ashamed of the feeling but powerless to fight it. She had to get the rosary out of his reach. He wouldn't stay unconscious long.

  After a minute's thought, she summoned Katrina with a soft mewing call. The cat padded into the room from wherever she'd been resting. “You managed to miss the riot, didn't you?” Sylvia said. She knelt beside Katrina to stroke the fluffy head. Gazing into the cat's eyes, Sylvia silently delivered her command.

  Her erect tail twitching, Katrina stalked over to the unconscious boy. Fastidiously she snagged the rosary beads between her teeth. Holding her head high, the beads dangling, she minced into the kitchen. Sylvia followed, to watch her leap to the window left open for access to the balcony. Familiar with this route, Katrina climbed out to the balcony as confidently as ever. Through the window Sylvia watched her slink to the rail and drop the rosary between the bars.

  Sylvia let out a sigh of relief. She hadn't known for sure that the trick would work, for she'd never given the cat such a complex command before. Calling Katrina back to the kitchen, she bestowed a “Good girl” upon her and opened a can of tuna.

  When she returned to the living room, she found Tony stirring, emitting muffled groans. After switching off the light, she rolled him over on his back and sat astride his chest. The second he opened his eyes, her own captured him. In the dark, she knew, he would see her eyes glow red.