Dark Changeling

by Margaret Carter

  The words stabbed him with the sharpness of a tangible wound. “Don't say that—it terrifies me.” His mouth captured hers, then moved down to her neck again. The radiance of her life flowed into him. He bathed in it, oblivious to everything but the blood thrumming in her veins and her passion answering his.

  For the rest of the night he didn't allow her out of bed for more than three minutes at a time. He ravished her over and over, urging her to one orgasm after another, driving both of them to exhaustion and beyond. Whenever he relaxed, Alice's image and her parroted message invaded his mind, and he turned to Britt to banish the memory. Far from complaining, she encouraged his frenetic appetite. Clearly she considered this mindless abandon the therapy he needed.

  Around three a.m. she fell into a wrung-out, sated sleep, nestled in the curve of his arm. Lulled by the rhythm of her heartbeat and respiration, he drifted in and out of a semi-conscious doze. The candles on the dresser burned down to pools of wax and went out. Just before dawn he coaxed her awake for a final, gentler interlude. When she got up afterward, he was dismayed by her enervated appearance. Nevertheless he pretended to ignore the faintness she tried to conceal. By now he knew better than to offend her with apologies.

  * * * *

  BETWEEN DAINTY nibbles from a granola bar, Britt said, “Bet you didn't see this morning'sWashington Post, did you?” She unfolded the paper on Roger's desk. They were sharing a private lunch break at the office the day after the shooting. “Looks like our quarry finally got careless again.” She pointed at a short article on one of the inside pages.

  “Halloween Coming Late?” the headline quipped. The reporter gave a tongue-in-cheek account of a “giant bat” sighted over Rock Creek Park the previous night. As highly colored as the two separate informants’ stories were, Roger didn't doubt Britt's conclusion.

  “So we know he hasn't left the area,” said Roger.

  “If we didn't know already, from what Alice told you last night.” Weariness from more than lack of sleep shadowed Britt's eyes. Roger wished he had risked her ire and insisted she take the day off.

  “There was always the chance he'd given her that message weeks ago,” Roger said. “The ‘bat’ seems to settle that point.” He frowned at the wrapper Britt was crumpling. “Is that your entire lunch?”

  “I had a cup of yogurt and a can of V-8,” she said. “Look who's talking. You haven't eaten all day.”

  “You know I don't need anything. Not after last night.” In spite of the worry that preyed on him, an echo of the pleasure they'd shared rippled through him.

  “That's a lot of Taurus,” said Britt. “If it were true, I'd be too weak to stand up. You do need additional nourishment. If I pour you a glass of milk, will you drink it?”

  Roger spread his hands in a gesture of acceptance. As Britt got up to fetch the milk, the telephone rang.

  “Lieutenant Hayes calling,” said Marcia. “I know you don't like to be disturbed at lunch, but—”

  “Put him on,” Roger said.

  “Doctor, I have bad news,” said Hayes with his characteristic nervous cough. “I'm calling from the hospital downtown. Your patient who shot herself died last night. This morning, actually, just before dawn.”

  Roger leaned back in his chair, willing his heartbeat to slow down. Considering the severity of Alice's wound, he shouldn't be surprised. “I'm sorry to hear that. But where do you come in?”

  “She didn't die naturally. I mean, not from the gunshot wound itself.” Britt, overhearing, set down the styrofoam cup of milk and stared quizzically at Roger. After a pause, Hayes went on, “Somebody got into the intensive care ward and pulled the plug—unhooked her from the monitors, IV, and so on. Then he—well, this is one of the crazy parts. He cut her throat, severed the left jugular and carotid, with some jagged object, and the M.E. can't figure out what.”

  Claws. He tore her neck open with his fingernails—something no human assailant could manage.Nausea welled up in Roger's throat. When he had it under control, he said, “Why in the name of all that's holy are you just getting around to notifying me?”

  “Give me a break, Doctor! I've been here since six thirty, interviewing staff, trying to figure how the perp got in without anybody catching him.”

  “I apologize,” Roger said. “Lieutenant, howdid he accomplish that?”

  “You tell me!”

  Roger stood up. “I'll be right over.” After Hayes hung up, he switched to Marcia and ordered her to cancel his one o'clock patient.

  “Mine, too,” said Britt.

  “Certainly not,” Roger said. “There's no reason for both of us to go.”

  She scowled at him in frustration. “I don't know if I should let you out of my sight.”

  “You know how you felt when I treated you that way,” he said. When Britt conceded the point with a reluctant smile, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “You'll get every detail, don't worry.”

  As he was about to leave, Britt said, “Your milk.”

  Rather than argue with her, he drank it down without pausing for breath.

  A few minutes later he rode the elevator up to the ICU at the community hospital. The disinfectant fumes made him wish he had skipped the milk. In the lounge Hayes and Rizzo, the medical examiner he'd met at the stadium, waited for him.

  “If this doesn't take the prize!” said Hayes after a perfunctory greeting. “Nobody remembers any suspicious person wandering the halls last night, coming or going. The nurses on duty in intensive care didn't see anyone. In fact, they don't remember a thing from about five a.m. until their relief arrived at six!”

  “Don't remember?” Roger echoed. He was beginning to guess how the murder had been accomplished.

  “Total blank.” The detective shook his head. “I take back every sane thing I ever told you about this case. I think the guy really is a phantom.”

  “Unless he disguised himself as an orderly or a maintenance worker,” said Roger.More likely he used that psychic veil illusion. But he couldn't suggest that to Hayes.

  “That could explain how he got to the ward without being noticed. Not how come the nurses don't remember what happened.”

  “Are they still here?” said Roger. “Could I talk to them?”

  “The senior nurse on duty is. I let the other one go home. All the patients were transferred to other rooms for the day, and anyhow none of them saw a thing.” Hayes smoothed his moustache. “Say, you think he could've somehow drugged the nurses?”

  “I didn't notice any signs of that,” Rizzo put in, “but I wouldn't rule it out.”

  Roger asked the medical examiner about Alice's death. The reply added nothing substantial to what Hayes had said. “She seems to have been dead between thirty and forty-five minutes when the morning shift came in and found the duty nurses sitting at their station in a daze. With the carotid artery severed, your patient died instantly without regaining consciousness.”

  Since Rizzo seemed to expect it, Roger muttered an expression of relief that Alice hadn't suffered. Meanwhile, Hayes had left the lounge and was just returning with a middle-aged nurse in tow, her short-cropped auburn hair fading to gray, her eyes bloodshot behind square, gold-rimmed glasses. The detective introduced her as Mrs. Gifford.

  “I'd like to talk with her alone, if I may,” said Roger. When the two men had left the lounge, Roger invited Mrs. Gifford to relax on the divan and immediately lulled her into a trance. He viewed her instant submission as ominous in itself.

  “Now tell me, calmly, knowing you are completely safe, who came into your ward this morning at five.”

  Her expressionless voice answered, “A tall man—big man—

  with deep red hair and a beard. He just—popped out of thin air. For some reason I'd been dozing off. Next thing I knew, I looked around at Kathy, and she was asleep with her head on the desk.” A small frown creased the woman's brow.

  Roger traced circles on her temples until she sank into tranquility again. “It's all right now. Noth
ing will disturb you. Tell me what you did then.”

  Her hands resting limp on her knees, Mrs. Gifford said, “I got up to walk over to Kathy, at the console, and wake her. Then this man—appeared—beside her chair. Something went wrong with my vision. The lights seemed to go dim all of a sudden. And I thought the man's eyes burned, like red-hot coals. He told me to sit down and relax. I felt warm and sort of—liquid—all over. Something told me he shouldn't be there, but I couldn't get excited about that. He told me not to worry, to go to sleep and forget about him.” She heaved a long sigh. “I guess I did fall asleep, because the next thing I remember, the day shift nurse was shaking me.” Her breathing quickened. “That man—he got to one of the patients—”

  Smoothing the tension from her neck and shoulders, Roger said, “You must not worry about that. You aren't to blame. Forget what you saw, and be at peace. I will now count to ten, and you will awaken refreshed. One, two....”

  A few minutes later, he lied to Rizzo and Hayes with all the persuasion at his command. “I can't get her to remember anything. I suspect a quick-acting drug, rapidly eliminated from her system. Unless, of course, your suspect hypnotized both of them.”

  Rizzo greeted that suggestion, as Roger expected, with a nervous laugh. No one could hypnotize two people at the same time that thoroughly, not when the victims were alert and on guard.

  No one human, that is,thought Roger. Until this incident, he hadn't acknowledged what a deadly adversary even a “young” vampire could be.

  Chapter 20

  HE'S PLAYING with us,Roger told himself for the dozenth time since the disaster at the hospital. The “giant bat” sighting demonstrated that Sandor had lost none of his brashness, and the murder of Alice showed that the renegade hadn't restrained himself out of caution. He could strike at Roger and Britt whenever and however he chose. Roger wondered whether Britt had remained safe because of the cross she wore constantly, or whether Sandor simply wasn't ready to claim her yet.

  Furthermore, over the past few days since Alice's death, they'd heard nothing of the Kovak family except through official police contacts. If Mr. Kovak or his son planned to sue Doctors Darvell and Loren for malpractice, they were in no hurry to initiate the process.

  Shortly after nine o'clock Wednesday evening, Roger's reading of theBoston Globewas interrupted by a twinge of apprehension from Britt. He extended an inquiring telepathic tendril.

  “Nothing” she replied. “The phone startled me.”

  Since she didn't insist that he break contact, Roger listened in on the conversation. To his dismay, the caller turned out to be Peter Kovak. “Dr. Loren, we got a little emergency here.”

  “Yes, what is it?” No sign of Britt's anxiety crept into her voice.

  “It's my mother. She's in real bad shape, hysterical. Dad and I can't calm her down.”

  “I understood she had been prescribed tranquilizers?”

  “Yeah, but she threw them away after—you know.” The young man's voice quavered with emotion; Roger wished he could read its nature through this indirect link. “She never got around to refilling it. Look, Dr. Loren, seems to me you owe us. Can you come check on her?”

  Of course Britt felt she “owed” Alice's family; Roger knew trying to convince her otherwise would be futile. “Yes, I'll be there as soon as possible.”

  After she'd hung up, Roger spoke to her: “Colleague, I'm not sure you should make that visit alone at night. And since when do you make house calls, except in a graver “emergency” than this?”

  “Come off it, Roger. If you had received that call, you'd be out the door already. You feel more responsible for their troubles than I do.”

  “Because Iammore responsible. Besides, I'm better able to protect myself.”

  Anger flared in Britt's telepathic voice. “I functioned perfectly well for thirty-five years before I met you.”

  “Granted, better than I did before meeting you.” But the prickle of uneasiness along Roger's spine wouldn't go away. “At least let me come with you, for my own peace of mind.”

  “Are you kidding? The way two out of three of them feel about you?”

  While Roger couldn't deny the soundness of Britt's argument, his internal alarms screamed at the thought of her visiting the Kovaks alone. Rationally considered, though, what harm could come to her? Mr. Kovak wouldn't have consented to Peter's calling Britt if they harbored resentment against her. Roger gave up his objections, contenting himself with observing Britt through their mental link.

  * * * *

  WHEN BRITT'S car pulled up in front of the Kovaks’ house, she saw nothing to justify Roger's qualms. The house stood quiet, with several lights shining in addition to the bare bulb on the porch. Britt walked up and rang the bell on the side occupied by the elder Kovaks.

  Peter opened the door and stepped onto the porch. He wore a floppy gray sweatshirt that hung well below the waistband of his commercially faded jeans. “Glad you could make it, Doc.” He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder at the dark, wooded back yard.

  Listening, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her hooded windbreaker to tame their illogical tremor (blast Roger!), Britt heard no footsteps in the back rooms, no crying. She sensed Roger's inner alarm jangling again. She pushed it to the back of her mind. He had to learn she could take care of herself, and damned if she'd let his overprotectiveness cloud her judgment.

  Lightly grasping Britt's elbow, Peter guided her inside and locked and bolted the door with his free hand, then steered her toward the hall. “Thanks for coming. Mom's in their bedroom.”

  Britt's psychic antennae, fine-tuned by contact with Roger, vibrated at that remark. “Roger, something feels wrong. I think he's lying.”

  Linked with Roger, she felt his fingers flex as if the young man's neck were within their reach. “Then get away from him—now!”

  Before Britt could jerk out of Peter's grip, he pulled a revolver from under his sweatshirt. “Sorry about that, Doc,” he grinned. “I made a little mistake. Mom's in Florida. They're visiting her folks—therapy, like—and they won't be back until Sunday.He helped me talk them into taking a little vacation.”

  For an instant Britt's vision dimmed with the shock.I should have listened to my worrywart colleague. "He? Who?” No answer. Recovering, she said coolly, “What are you trying to accomplish, Peter?”

  “Get moving.” He prodded her down the hall to the master bedroom. “I told you I blamed you and the other shrink for what Alice did. It's time to pay up.”

  When Britt stepped into the bedroom, she noted that it had been stripped down. The sheets had been removed from the double bed, the dressers cleared of all portable objects. A couple of dresser drawers had been taken out altogether. “Give me your purse,” the young man ordered.

  For a few seconds Britt considered flinging it in his face as a bid for escape. She sensed Roger's relief when she discarded that idea and simply handed over the heavy bag. “This wild escapade won't do you any good. Dr. Darvell knows where I am.”

  “Great, that'll save me the trouble of contacting him. I want him here.” Peter backed out and closed the door, locking it with the click of a deadbolt.

  Britt stepped over and gave the knob a ritual tug. “Do they always live this way, or was it arranged just for me?”

  “I suspect the deadbolt is new. He seems to have gone to elaborate lengths to get the room prepared” Roger answered.

  “Right. There won't be much point in searching the drawers and closets for a weapon. He'd have cleared out anything useful.” She could always attack Peter with a coat hanger, of course, if she were fool enough to try such a ploy against a loaded gun. She glanced at the barred window. “And what a lucky break for him that the security grills were already in place.”

  She plopped down on the bed, surrendering to the shakiness she'd suppressed in the attacker's presence. “I guess there's no use telling you to stay away.” Buried under that facade of detached intellect, he hid an alter ego who'd be right
at home in the annals of the Round Table. Danger to women seemed to have that effect on men of his generation.

  Roger had already collected his car keys—not bothering with a jacket, since the temperature, in the fifties, would feel pleasantly cool to him—and started out the door. “Don't be silly,” he told her.

  “But, colleague, it's you he wants. I'm just the bait.” She walked a bit unsteadily to the attached bathroom to splash cool water on her face. The medicine cabinet stood empty, its mirror door removed, and the toothbrush rack held a plastic glass. “Thorough, wasn't he?” Britt observed.

  She fought to keep her head clear of the scarlet fog that threatened to engulf Roger. “If you think I'd consider leaving you to face that maniac alone—well, you insult me.” To Britt's relief, he suppressed his anger, its pressure gradually receding.

  “If you must come after me, at least take precautions,” she urged. Should Roger and Britt not appear at the office in the morning, Marcia would call them at home. He ought to leave word for her.

  Thinking over the suggestion, Roger agreed. He erased the message on his answering machine and recorded a new one: “Marcia, if you are hearing this, Dr. Loren and I are being held by Peter Kovak at his home. If we don't contact you by noon, notify the police.” By that time police intervention could hardly make matters worse.

  Britt followed his reasoning but doubted its validity. “Must you have her wait until noon?”

  “I won't risk the law intervening too quickly and endangering you. Confound it, this is a hostage situation!”

  “I noticed.” She reined her own fear, striving for a detached stance that wouldn't feed Roger's panic.

  She felt him chafing at the downtown congestion around Market Circle. After passing through Eastport and reaching Forest Drive, he made better time. As he turned up Route Two toward the South River bridge, Britt addressed him again.

  “You're actually coming here alone?”

  “You couldn't expect me to bring reinforcements in these circumstances. Aside from the risk to you, how could I possibly explain this situation to the police?”