Dragon's Teeth

by Mercedes Lackey

  He was pretty well-occuppied as he got to the last set, though he noted absently that it sounded as if Molly was up and moving around again. This was the bondage-and-snuff set, very hard to get, and the only reason he had them at all was because he’d stolen them from a storage-locker. He wouldn’t have taken the risk of getting them personally, but they’d given him some of his best ideas.

  Molly must be awake by now. But this wasn’t to be hurried—there wouldn’t be any Mollys or Jeffreys until next year, next spring, summer, and fall. He had to make this one last.

  He savored the emotions in the pictured eyes as he would savor Molly’s fear; savored their pleading expressions, their helplessness. Such pretty little things, like her, like all his kids.

  They wanted it, anybody knew that. Freud said so—that had been in that psychology course he took by correspondence when he was trying to figure himself out. Look at the way kids played “doctor” the minute you turned your back on them. That religious cult had it right; kids wanted it, needed it, and the only thing getting in the way was the way a bunch of repressed old men felt about it.

  He’d show her what it was she wanted, show her good. He’d make it last, take it slow. Then, once she was all his and would do anything he said, he’d make sure nobody else would ever have her again. He’d keep her his, forever. Not even her parents would have her the way he did.

  Under the last layer of pictures was the knife, the beautiful, shining filleting knife, the best made. Absolutely stainless, rust-proof, with a pristine black handle. He laid it reverently beside the leather straps, then zipped up his pants and rose to his feet.

  No doubt, she was shuffling around on the other side of the door, moving uncertainly back and forth. She should be just dazed enough that he’d get her gagged before she knew enough to scream.

  He paused a moment to order his thoughts and his face before putting his hand on the doorknob. Next to the moment when the kid lay trussed-up under him, this was the best moment.

  He flung the door wide open. “Hel-lo, Mo—”

  That was as far as he got.

  The screams brought the neighbors to break down the door. There were two sets of screams; his, and those of a terrified little girl pounding on the closet door.

  A dozen of them gathered in the hall before they got up the courage to break in, and by then Jim wasn’t screaming anymore. What they found in the living room made the first inside run back out the way they had come.

  One managed to get as far as the bedroom to release the child, a pale young woman who lived at the other end of the floor, whose maternal instincts overrode her stomach long enough to rescue the weeping child.

  Molly fell out of the closet into her arms, sobbing with terror. The young woman recognized her from the news; how could she not? Her picture had been everywhere.

  Meanwhile one of the others who had fled the whimpering thing on the living room floor got to a phone and called the cops.

  The young woman closed the bedroom door on the horror in the next room, took the hysterical, shivering child into her arms, and waited for help to arrive, absently wondering at her own, hitherto unsuspected courage.

  While they were waiting, the thing on the floor mewled, gasped, and died.

  Although the young woman hadn’t known what to make of the tangle of leather she’d briefly glimpsed on the carpet, the homicide detective knew exactly what it meant. He owed a candle to Saint Jude for the solving of his most hopeless case and another to the Virgin for saving this child before anything had happened to her.

  And a third to whatever saint had seen to it that there would be no need for a trial.

  “You say there was no sign of anything or anyone else?” he asked the young woman. She’d already told him that she was a librarian—that was shortly after she’d taken advantage of their arrival to close herself into the bathroom and throw up. He almost took her to task for possibly destroying evidence, but what was the point? This was one murder he didn’t really want to solve.

  She was sitting in the only chair in the living room, carefully not looking at the outline on the carpet, or the blood-spattered mess of pictures and leather straps a little distance from her feet. He’d asked the same question at least a dozen times already.

  “Nothing, no one.” She shook her head. “There’s no back door, just the hatches to the crawl-space, in each closet.”

  He looked where she pointed, at the open closet door with the kitchen stool still inside it. He walked over to the closet and craned his head around sideways, peering upward.

  “Not too big, but a skinny guy could get up there,” he said, half to himself. “Is that attic divided at all?”

  “No, it runs all along the top floor; I never put anything up there because anybody could get into it from any other apartment.” She shivered. “And I put locks on all my hatches. Now I’m glad I did. Once a year they fumigate, so they need the hatches to get exhaust fans up there.”

  “A skinny guy, one real good with a knife—maybe a Nam vet. A SEAL, a Green Beret—” he was talking mostly to himself. “It might not have been a knife; maybe claws, like in the karate rags. Ninja claws. That could be what he used—”

  He paced back to the center of the living room. The librarian rubbed her hands along her arms, watching him out of sick blue eyes.

  “Okay, he knows what this sicko is up to—maybe he just now found out, doesn’t want to call the cops for whatever reason. He comes down into the bedroom, locks the kid in the closet to keep her safe—”

  “She told me that a bear locked her into the closet,” the woman interrupted.

  The detective laughed. “Lady, that kid has a knot the size of a baseball on her skull; she could have seen Luke Skywalker lock her in that closet!” He went back to his deductions. “Okay, he locks the kid in, then makes enough noise so joy-boy thinks she finally woke up. Then when the door opens—yeah. It’ll fly.” He nodded. “Then he gets back out by this hatch.” He sighed, regretful that he wouldn’t ever get a chance to thank this guy. “Won’t be any fingerprints; guy like this would be too smart to leave any.”

  He stared at the outline on the blood-soaked carpet pensively. The librarian shuddered.

  “Look, officer,” she said, asserting herself, “If you don’t need me anymore—”

  “Hey, Pete—” the detective’s partner poked his head in through the door. “The kid’s parents are here. The kid wants her teddy—she’s raising a real howl about it, and the docs at the hospital don’t want to sedate her if they don’t have to.”

  “Shit, the kid misses being a statistic by a couple of minutes, and all she can think about is her toy!” He shook his head, and refocused on the librarian. “Go ahead, miss. I don’t think you can tell us anything more. You might want to check into the hospital yourself, get checked over for shock. Either that, or pour yourself a stiff one. Call in sick tomorrow.”

  He smiled, suddenly realizing that she was pretty, in a wilted sort of way—and after what she’d just been through, no wonder she was wilted.

  “That was what I had in mind already, Detective,” she replied, and made good her escape before he changed his mind.

  “Pete, her folks say she won’t be able to sleep without it,” his partner persisted.

  “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and take it,” he responded absently. If things had gone differently—they’d be shaking out that toy for hair and fiber samples, if they found it at all.

  He handed the bear to his partner.

  “Oh—before you give it back—”

  “What?”

  “There’s blood on the paws,” he replied, already looking for trace evidence that would support his theories. “Wouldn’t want to shake her up any further, so make sure you wash it off first.”

  Okay, so I don’t always take Diana Tregarde very seriously. When this story appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, however, there was a reader (a self-proclaimed romance writer) who took it seriously, and was quite
irate at the rather unflattering picture I painted of romance writers. She wrote a long and angry letter about it to the editor.

  The editor, who like me, has seen romance writers at a romance convention, declined to comment.

  A note: The character of Robert Harrison and the concept of “whoopie witches” was taken from the excellent supernatural role-playing game, Stalking the Night Fantastic by Richard Tucholka and used with the creator’s permission. There is also a computer game version, Bureau Thirteen. Both are highly recommended!

  Satanic, Versus . . .

  Mercedes Lackey

  “Mrs. Peel,” intoned a suave, urbane tenor voice from the hotel doorway behind Di Tregarde, “we’re needed.”

  The accent was faintly French rather than English, but the inflection was dead-on.

  Di didn’t bother to look in the mirror, although she knew there would be a reflection there. Andre LeBrel might be a 200-year-old vampire, but he cast a perfectly good reflection. She was too busy trying to get her false eyelashes to stick.

  “In a minute, lover. The glue won’t hold. I can’t understand it—I bought the stuff last year for that unicorn costume and it was fine then—”

  “Allow me.” A thin, graceful hand appeared over her shoulder, holding a tiny tube of surgical adhesive. “I had the sinking feeling that you would forget. This glue, cherie, it does not age well.”

  “Piffle. Figure a back-stage haunt would know that.” She took the white plastic tube from Andre, and proceeded to attach the pesky lashes properly. This time they obliged by staying put. She finished her preparations with a quick application of liner, and spun around to face her partner. “Here,” she said, posing, feeling more than a little smug about how well the black leather jumpsuit fit, “How do I look?”

  Andre cocked his bowler to the side and leaned on his umbrella. “Ravishing. And I?” His dark eyes twinkled merrily. Although he looked a great deal more like Timothy Dalton than Patrick Macnee, anyone seeing the two of them together would have no doubt who he was supposed to be costumed as. Di was very glad they had a “pair” costume, and blessed Andre’s infatuation with old TV shows.

  And they’re damned well going to see us together all the time, Di told herself firmly. Why I ever agreed to this fiasco . . .

  “You look altogether too good to make me feel comfortable,” she told him, snapping off the light over the mirror. “I hope you realize what you’re letting yourself in for. You’re going to think you’re a drumstick in a pool of piranha.”

  Andre made a face as he followed her into the hotel room from the dressing alcove. “Cherie, these are only romance writers. They—”

  “Are for the most part over-imaginative middle-aged hausfraus, married to guys that are going thin on top and thick on the bottom, and you’re likely going to be one of a handful of males in the room. And the rest are going to be middle-aged copies of their husbands, agents, or gay.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “So where do you think that leaves you?”

  “Like Old Man Kangaroo, very much run after.” He had the audacity to laugh at her. “Have no fear, cherie. I shall evade the sharp little piranha teeth.”

  “I just hope I can,” she muttered under her breath. Under most circumstances she avoided the Romance-Writers-of-the-World functions like the plague, chucked the newsletter in the garbage without reading it, and paid her dues only because Morrie pointed out that it would look really strange if she didn’t belong. The RWW, she had found, was a hotbed of infighting and jealousy, and “my advances are bigger than your advances, so I am writing Deathless Prose and you are writing tripe.” The general attitude seemed to be, “the publishers are out to get you, the agents are out to get you and your fellow writers are out to get you.” Since Di got along perfectly well with agent and publishers, and really didn’t care how well or poorly other writers were doing, she didn’t see the point.

  But somehow Morrie had talked her into attending the RWW Halloween party. And for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why or how.

  “Why am I doing this?” she asked Andre, as she snatched up her purse from the beige-draped bed, transferred everything really necessary into a black-leather belt-pouch, and slung the latter around her hips, making very sure the belt didn’t interfere with the holster on her other hip. “You were the one who talked to Morrie on the phone.”

  “Because M’sieur Morrie wishes you to give his client Robert Harrison someone to talk to,” the vampire reminded her. “M’sieur Harrison agreed to escort Valentine Vervain to the party in a moment of weakness equal to yours.”

  “Why in Hades did he agree to that?” she exclaimed, giving the sable-haired vampire a look of profound astonishment.

  “Because Miss Vervain—cherie, that is not her real name, is it?—is one of Morrie’s best clients, is newly divorced and alone and Morrie claims most insecure, and M’sieur Harrison was kind to her,” Andre replied.

  Di took a quick look around the hotel room, to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. One thing about combining her annual “make nice with the publishers” trip with Halloween, she had a chance to get together with all her old New York buddies for a real Samhain celebration and avoid the Christmas and Thanksgiving crowds and bad weather. “I remember. That was when she did that crossover thing, and the sci-fi people took her apart for trying to claim it was the best thing since Tolkien.” She chuckled heartlessly. “The less said about that, the better. Her magic system had holes I could drive a Mack truck through. But Harrison was a gentleman and kept the bloodshed to a minimum. But Morrie doesn’t know Valentine—and no, sexy, her name used to be Edith Bowman until she changed it legally—if he thinks she’s as insecure as she’s acting. Three quarters of what La Valentine does is an act. And everything is in Technicolor and Dolby-enhanced sound. So what’s Harrison doing in town?”

  She snatched up the key from the desk, and stuffed it into the pouch, as Andre held the door open for her.

  “I do not know,” he replied, twirling the umbrella once and waving her past. “You should ask him.”

  “I hope Valentine doesn’t eat him alive,” she said, striding down the beige hall, and frankly enjoying the appreciative look a hotel room-service clerk gave her as she sauntered by. “I wonder if she’s going to wear the outfit from the cover of her last book—if she does, Harrison may decide he wants to spend the rest of the party in the men’s room.” She reached the end of the hall a fraction of a second before Andre, and punched the button for the elevator.

  “I gather that is what we are to save him from, cherie,” Andre pointed out wryly, as the elevator arrived.

  “Oh well,” she sighed, stepping into the mirror-walled cubicle. “It’s only five hours, and it can’t be that bad. How much trouble can a bunch of romance writers get into, anyway?”

  There was enough lace, chiffon, and satin to outfit an entire Busby Berkeley musical. Di counted fifteen Harem Girls, nine Vampire Victims, three Southern Belles (the South was Out this year), a round dozen Ravished Maidens of various time periods (none of them peasants), assorted Frills and Furbelows, and one “witch” in a black chiffon outfit clearly purchased from the Frederick’s catalog. Aside from the “witch,” she and Andre were the only ones dressed in black—and they were the only ones covered from neck to toes—though in Di’s case, that was problematical; the tight black leather jumpsuit really didn’t leave anything to the imagination.

  The Avengers outfits had been Andre’s idea, when she realized she really had agreed to go to this party. She had suggested Dracula for him and a witch for her—but he had pointed out, logically, that there was no point in coming as what they really were.

  Besides, I’ve always wanted a black leather jumpsuit, and this made a good excuse to get it. And since I’m doing this as a favor to Morrie, I might be able to deduct it . . . .

  And even if I can’t, the looks I’m getting are worth twice the price.

  Most of the women here—and as she’d warned Andre, the suite at t
he Henley Palace that RWW had rented for this bash contained about eighty percent women—were in their forties at best. Most of them demonstrated amply the problems with having a sedentary job. And most of them were wearing outfits that might have been worn by their favorite heroines, though few of them went to the extent that Valentine Vervain did, and copied the exact dress from the front of the latest book. The problem was, their heroines were all no older than twenty-two, and as described, weighed maybe ninety-five pounds. Since a great many of the ladies in question weighed at least half again that, the results were not what the wearers intended.

  The sour looks Di was getting were just as flattering as the wolf-whistle the bellboy had sent her way.

  A quick sail through the five rooms of the suite with Andre at her side ascertained that Valentine and her escort had not yet arrived. A quick glance at Andre’s face proved that he was having a very difficult time restraining his mirth. She decided then that discretion was definitely the better part of valor, and retired to the balcony with Andre in tow and a couple of glasses of Perrier.

  It was a beautiful night; one of those rare, late-October nights that made Di regret—briefly—moving to Connecticut. Clear, cool and crisp, with just enough wind to sweep the effluvium of city life from the streets. Below them, hundreds of lights created a jewelbox effect. If you looked hard, you could even see a few stars beyond the light-haze.

  The sliding glass door to the balcony had been opened to vent some of the heat and overwhelming perfume (Di’s nose said, nothing under a hundred dollars a bottle), and Di left it that way. She parked her elbows on the balcony railing and looked down, Andre at her side, and sighed.

  He chuckled. “You warned me, and I did not believe. I apologize, cherie. It is—most remarkable.”

  “Hmm. Exercise that vampiric hearing of yours, and you’ll get an earful,” she said, watching the car-lights crawl by, twenty stories below. “When they aren’t slaughtering each other and playing little powertrip games, they’re picking apart their agents and their editors. If you’ve ever wondered why I’ve never bothered going after the big money, it’s because to get it I’d have to play by those rules.”