Dark Changeling

by Margaret Carter

  Roger swallowed the protests that sprang to his lips. He should have known Britt would react this way, and a bigger fool than he was would recognize that pursuing the argument would just alienate her. “At least promise you won't take any more stupid chances?”

  “Like following you last night?” She granted him an apologetic half-smile. “I won't do anything else without consulting you, if you'll promise the same. All for one and one for all.” She offered her hand.

  “Illogical—there are only two of us.” Clasping her hand, he said, “I agree—no more secrets.” He amended, “As far as I can live up to that without betraying other people's secrets.”

  “Great, we can go over the files on the case again—honestly, this time.” Though her voice held no reproach, Roger flushed with shame. She flipped her briefcase open. “Got anything to show me?”

  Digging a folder out of the file cabinet, Roger laid it on the broad cherrywood desk. “Reports on the Boston murders. Not that they'll tell you much you haven't already surmised.”

  Britt pulled up the chair from the computer table and spread out her materials. “And you can look over my notes on the local crimes, tell me how close my guesses came. Colleague, much as I hate to draw attention to my human imperfections, I can't read in this light.” The curtains, as usual, were closed.

  With an apology, Roger switched on the hanging lamp above the desk, to cast a cozy glow over the work space.

  Leaning on her elbow and opening the topmost of her files—the autopsy report on Sylvia, Roger noticed—Britt said, “You know, last night I actually managed to forget about all this.”

  “So did I.” He couldn't keep the pain that stabbed through him out of his voice.

  “If you start feeling guilty about that,” said Britt, “I'll be strongly tempted to bonk you over the head with yourPhyscian's Desk Reference . How is self-flagellation going to help your friend?” Her bracing tone softened. “Are you ready to talk about her?”

  “Yes.” He struggled to blank out the image of Sylvia's mutilated body. For the first time he saw his eidetic memory as a curse rather than a gift.

  “It's none of my business, but—were you lovers?”

  “No, I don't think that relationship exists among vampires. They—wesatisfy our libidinal needs with human partners. Sylvia and I were—close—in Boston, and she blamed me, with perfect justice, for Sandor's persecution of her.” Britt's silent invitation drew Roger out and made talking about Sylvia less difficult than he'd expected. “I made several disastrous choices. That's not neurotic guilt, it is simply a fact.”

  Britt's fingers rested lightly on his. “All right. Listen to the advice you'd give a patient—put it behind you and move on. Learning from your mistakes is one thing; wallowing in them is something else altogether. I don't understand about the rape. You said vampires don't normally indulge in genital sexuality.”

  “They're incapable of it, except when the female is in estrus. Sylvia was.”

  “Interesting.” Britt's nails tapped thoughtfully on the desk top. “Then maybe it wasn't rape.”

  “No, in that she probably didn't resist at the crucial moment. On the other hand, I'm absolutely sure she didn't consent.” After a minute's reflection, he amended his answer. “In an ordinary rape, would you judge that the victim's orgasmic response made it any less rape?”

  Britt's mouth twisted in distaste. “Just the opposite! Why did he decapitate her? Homicidal frenzy? Revenge for trying to refuse him?”

  “More than that,” said Roger. “He wanted to make sure she was dead. Breaking her neck alone wouldn't have done it.”

  “Then the legends are true, to that extent?” Resting her chin on both hands, Britt gazed speculatively into the middle distance. “What other methods of killing vampires work? How about the stake in the heart?”

  Did she contemplate undertaking Sandor's destruction herself? No, even Britt wouldn't try that singlehandedly; the question had to be purely theoretical. “Only to the extent that a stake left in the body holds the wound open until irreversible damage occurs. Otherwise the vampire's system could regenerate. Besides decapitation, the sure methods are total destruction, such as by fire or explosion, or, at least, destruction of all or most of the brain.”

  “I see.” Britt fidgeted in the wooden chair and rubbed the back of her neck. “I can't tackle this without chemical assistance. Got any coffee?”

  “Of course, you know I drink it myself.”

  “Then bring on the caffeine. Time to get to work.”

  Roger went to the kitchen to start the coffee. When he came back with a tray bearing the full pot and two mugs, he found Britt hunched over a map she'd spread out on the desk. The greater Washington area, including Baltimore, Annapolis, and northern Virginia. “What's that for, colleague?” He set the tray on the top corner of the desk, off the map.

  Britt took a mug in her left hand and continued marking red X's on the map. “Not as much detail on streets as I'd like. I thought we might find a pattern by pinpointing the locations of the killings, with dates. So far it doesn't suggest a thing to me.”

  Sipping his hot coffee, Roger leaned over her shoulder. “It doesn't suggest much to me, either. They're clustered mainly in Anne Arundel County, which we already knew. What would you expect to notice that the police wouldn't?”

  “Not me, you. I hope you can visualize your way into the killer's mind and make something out of this mess.” She gestured at the random sprinkle of X's, each with a date jotted beside it.

  “Where did you get that idea?” said Roger. “I don't think like a vampire. I was brought up as human and only found out about my mother's race the night before Sylvia died.”

  “You think more like a vampire than anybody else I know,” said Britt, marking the final spot on her map.

  “The trouble is, Sandor isn't even a typical vampire,” Roger said. “He's a sadistic psychopath with an exhibitionist streak and faulty impulse control.”

  “And superhuman powers, Lord help us. Still, there are points you can verify. For one thing, you can confirm my doubts about these dates. Aren't there an awful lot of gaps?”

  “I see what you're getting at,” said Roger, sitting in his swivel chair. “From what I know of Sylvia and—others, full-blooded vampires can't go that long without human prey. These—” he tapped the stack of files—"can't be his only victims.”

  “Then what does he do between murders? Do you think he feeds without killing when things heat up too much?”

  “Maybe.” Thinking of Sylvia's habits, Roger said, “Self-indulgent as he is, I'm willing to bet he takes a victim at least every other night. If he could restrain himself, he could even kill them without drawing attention. As you noticed, the wound can be almost invisible.”

  “Yes—and suppose he chooses victims who won't be missed that much?” An undercurrent of excitement bubbled in Britt's voice. “Street people, other marginal types?”

  “He'd have to choose carefully, to avoid people contaminated by drugs or disease.”

  “Still, he must be doing something like that,” said Britt. “Roger, I'll have to backtrack through the newspaper files for incidents along those lines, less conspicuous unsolved deaths. Or maybe suggest that Lieutenant Hayes dig up post mortem reports of that type from Baltimore, Annapolis, and D.C., if I can think of a plausible way to bring it up without mentioning my nutty theory about vampires.” She gave Roger a self-mocking grin.

  “Your map does suggest one thing,” he said. “It reminds us how mobile Sandor is. Whether he's using a stolen car or muscle-powered flight—”

  “Would he do that in an inner city neighborhood?”

  Roger shrugged. “You saw him. He seems to have some kind of invulnerability complex. However, I consider a car more likely. If so, assuming he doesn't mind spending half the night on the move, we should extend our search over half of Maryland and northern Virginia, or possibly as far as Philadelphia and Richmond.”

  Britt's shoulders sa
gged. “You're right, darn it. Zeroing in on his lair doesn't look too hopeful.”

  “If he has a house or apartment, at least there's a hope of his making a slip that would get him noticed,” said Roger. “But that isn't necessarily the case.”

  Folding the map, Britt said, “Explain that.”

  “He wouldn't mind foul weather and uncomfortable sleeping conditions as much as an ordinary man would. I suspect he rests in abandoned buildings, a different location every day.” Hazardous as that practice sounded, Sandor's unkempt appearance bore out the supposition. “I wouldn't think of doing it myself—one would be totally exposed and unprotected in the daylight hours—but he seems to think he leads a charmed life.”

  “Then catching him helpless by day doesn't sound promising.” Britt drained her coffee and poured another cup. “Let's read through these reports. Maybe inspiration will strike.”

  They spent the next hour going over the files, exchanging occasional comments. Britt's marginal jottings made it clear how close to the target her guesses had struck. Skimming her notes from big-city newspapers across the country, Roger wondered how he could ever have hoped to keep her ignorant.Thank God she's on my side!

  At one point she asked, “What about that teenage boy in Boston, right after you left? Any connection?”

  “One of Sylvia's—donors,” he said. “Another revenge killing.” He explained how Sandor had pursued Sylvia from city to city.

  After a while Britt scooted over to the computer station to type in a chronology of the dates and a list of common factors from the various crimes, along with additional facts she'd picked up from Roger. “I don't know that I want this in writing,” he said.

  “Suppress your paranoia, colleague. Stored on disk under a file code nobody but us knows isn't exactly ‘in writing.’ I think better this way.” Finished, she frowned at the screen. “Profile of a homicidal vampire,” she said. “One more thing—we should watch the papers for reports of UFO sightings, similar weird phenomena.”

  “I don't get the connection.”

  “As you said, the other night in the Tawes Garden couldn't be the only time he's risked flying in a settled area. People must catch glimpses of him sometime.”

  “Yes. Not that we can alert the police to that clue.” He poured a cup of coffee, found that it had cooled to lukewarm, and set it aside.

  “That's the frustrating part,” Britt agreed. She rubbed the back of her neck and stifled a yawn. “Did you tell Lieutenant Hayes about the Boston case?”

  “Yes, I wouldn't have wanted him to stumble on it by himself and wonder why I kept quiet.”

  “If we do manage to track down Sandor, though,” she said, “we can't turn him over to the authorities, can we?”

  “Unfortunately not. Exposing him could expose all the rest of us.” Volnar's orders weighed heavily upon him. “I have to eliminate him without giving away the existence of our kind—and I don't know how.”

  Saving the file and switching off the computer, Britt winced in discomfort as she leaned back in the hard chair. Roger stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, thumbs at the base of her neck. “Let me help.” She relaxed into his slow, rhythmic massage, accompanied by just enough psychic influence to drain the ache from her muscles.

  She let her head droop back, resting against his midriff. “Nice,” she murmured. “If you could bottle this stuff, the makers of prostaglandin inhibitors would go bankrupt. This is a form of hypnosis, too, isn't it—the way you touch people?”

  “Yes.” His hands wandered from her shoulders to her upper chest. “Except I've never touched anyone else as—intimately—as I touched you last night.”

  “And you better not!” Her eyes drifted shut. “Are you trying to seduce me or put me to sleep?”

  His breathing irregular from the contact with her, he said, “I haven't decided. Which would you prefer?”

  “Depends. Are we ready to knock off for the night?”

  “We'd better. You're extremely distracting, colleague.”

  She rubbed her head against him. “I didn't mean to be.”

  “In your present condition, you can't help it.”

  “What condition?” She stood up and began putting away the file folders.

  “Haven't you noticed how diligently I avoided you at this point in your cycle last month?”

  Turning to face him, she blushed, though her eyes held steady on his. “Why, no, I didn't make the connection. You mean every month you'll know exactly when—?”

  “Of course.” He clasped her hands. “Forget the files until tomorrow; they aren't going anywhere. You're still in pain, and I want to ease it for you.”

  “Just backache, cramps, the usual. Did you have something more than a massage in mind?” Freeing her hands, she wrapped her arms around his waist.

  His voice rough with leashed desire, he said, “I understand many women gain relief from those symptoms through orgasm.”

  “Well, it's certainly worth an experiment,” she said, her teasing smile erasing the fatigue lines around her mouth. “But—well—it would be kind of messy.”

  “You think I care?” He could barely restrain himself from sweeping her into his arms and carrying her to bed.

  “Most men would.”

  “Then they're taboo-obsessed jerks.” He nuzzled her neck. “Please—you're dealing with a desperate man here.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  Upstairs she insisted on spreading a bath towel on the bed before she would undress and lie down. “I wouldn't think of ruining your satin sheets. Colleague, you really want to—?”

  Removing the last of his clothes, Roger sat beside her, bridling his eagerness. “Does that repel you?”

  “Not at all. It's just so different from the typical male reaction.” With a husky laugh, she opened her arms to him. “Well, if you were a typical man, I wouldn't be here.”

  He foraged over her body with delicate caresses of fingers and tongue, working his way downward with exquisite deliberation, until she moaned aloud with impatience. When he had her writhing with unrestrained passion, he urged her to her first climax before claiming his reward. Although the taste differed from the blood that flowed in her veins, it was redolent of her passion and satisfied him just as fully.

  After her second orgasm she gasped out a question about the soundproofing of the walls. When he assured her, “Completely reliable,” her moans segued into screams.

  * * * *

  BRITT STAYED all of Friday and Saturday night and a few hours of Sunday night, going home each day. The harmony between her determination to maintain her independence and Roger's lingering need for privacy while he slept pleased him. His rational self rejoiced that they could bask in their mutual passion without chaining each other. The less calculating half of his mind gibbered with fear whenever Britt was out of his sight. He took care to restrain that overprotective impulse in her presence.

  After she left Sunday night, he received a shock when he played back the day's messages on his answering machine. Following two calls from telephone solicitors, he heard a voice that he knew and loathed all too well: “Doc, you're probably wondering when I'll come after that woman of yours. I will, and don't you forget it, but not any time soon. I'm giving you plenty of chance to—” A blip in the tape, a few seconds of silence, and the same voice resumed: “You're about to find out how it feels to be hunted.”

  Chapter 16

  AFTER SOME hesitation Roger told Britt about Sandor's phone message. Recalling what he'd learned about intimacy with a vampire enhancing the human donor's psychic gifts, he recognized that already Britt was beginning to read his emotions with an accuracy greater than chance. He couldn't lie to her, for whenever she sensed him holding anything back, she pounced on it.

  “As you mentioned before, we can't report incidents like that to the police, so we're on our own,” said Britt the next Saturday morning as they shared breakfast in his dining room. Or, more accurately, she was eating whi
le he watched. She sliced off a corner of her cheese omelette and transferred it to a small plate for Roger. “Do you think you could kill him? Last time, you hesitated.”

  “And now he's targeted you. Next time, I won't hold back.”

  “That message he left gives me an idea.” She chewed thoughtfully, staring at the opposite wall with a look in her eyes that worried Roger.

  “What it tells me is that you've got to be more careful. At least let me pick you up instead of driving over here at night by yourself.”

  “Don't start that again,” she said with an impatient wave of her fork. “If anything, I should go out alone more often, try to decoy him into the open.”

  “What?” He reached across the table to grip her hand. “Don't even think of that!”

  She tugged until he released her. “Stop telling me what to do. Be logical, colleague. Is it better to wait around for him to attack, or set up a confrontation on our own terms?”

  “Even assuming he'd fall for an obvious decoy setup,” Roger said, “you can't do it because it wouldn't work without my cooperation. And you won't get it.”

  With a sigh she said, “Oh, all right, I won't try to blackmail you into cooperating.”

  “And give me your word that you won't try some hare-brained plot on your own.”

  “I promise—no suicide missions.”

  Roger took an unenthusiastic nibble of the omelette. “The hell of it is, he intends to work on our nerves with this waiting game, and it's succeeding. We haven't heard of anything that could be attributed to him all week.”

  Britt nodded agreement. “And if you think I'll give him the pleasure of knowing he's succeeded, by creeping around afraid of shadows, forget it. And I'd still like to know where he gets his meals between murders.”

  Britt had spent Wednesday evening digging through newspaper back issues again. She'd reported only a couple of dubious deaths that might fit the specifications. “No doubt he's more discreet than we gave him credit for,” said Roger. “Don't give up on your idea of flagging reports of weird phenomena, too.”