BloodWalk

by BloodWalk (lit)

  Garreth stared at Fowler in horror, suddenly remembering. Maggie! He had completely forgotten about her! "I'm in deep shit. Pray for a miracle, Fowler, or the next time you see me, I may really be a ghost."

  He spun away, and despite the exhausting drag of daylight on him, began to run.

  9

  His single hope all the way home was that Maggie had not come over after all, but one quick look through the garage door windows shot that down. Her Bronco with its "SHE-PIG" license sat parked in his side. I'm dead.

  He crossed his fingers and silently climbed the outside steps. Maybe she had fallen asleep waiting and did not realize how late he was.

  No such luck. The door opened even before his key touched the lock. Maggie stood in the opening, fully dressed.

  Garreth opened his mouth. Only no words came out except a guilt-stricken: "Maggie . . ."

  "Garreth!" She threw her arms around him. "Where the hell have you been?"

  He gaped at her in surprise. "You're not angry?"

  "Angry? Of course I am. I'm furious. I've been frantic. My god, you feel like ice. Come in and get out of those clothes and into a hot shower this instant." Hauling him in by the shirt front, she shut the door and began unbuttoning his uniform shirt. "When you didn't come home, I called the office. Doris said you'd left ages ago and she was worried because you'd left both your jacket and slicker and when she looked out at the parking lot, your car was still there, too. Where did you go?"

  The scent of her blood curled around him, bringing up the taste of the girl's blood in his mouth. He pulled loose and bolted around her for the bathroom. "Just walking. Did Doris tell you about the accident I worked tonight?"

  She followed him. "She told me. Walking where, for god's sake? I got dressed and drove all over town, too. You weren't anywhere."

  The smell of her was making him dizzy with longing. He shut the door between them. "I ended up in the cemetery."

  "Again? Why? Isn't that what we have each other for, to talk to and work out these job stresses?"

  "Yes, but . . . I forgot you were here."

  As soon as the words were out he wanted to kick himself. Open big mouth; insert big flat foot. An ominous silence answered from the other side of the door. Garreth stripped off his clothes and jumped into the shower.

  The bathroom door banged opened. Magpie jerked back the shower curtain and turned off the water. "You forgot I was here?" she said quietly.

  He grimaced. "I'm sorry."

  The blue eyes bored into him. "What else happened besides the accident?"

  "I don't know what you mean." He could not talk about the writer and bloodmobile with her.

  Her lips tightened. "Okay, you want to shut me out, I guess I can't do anything about it."

  The hurt in her voice ran through his gut like a knife. "Maggie, I'm not-"

  "Yes you are," she said sadly. "You always do. Somewhere in every one of our conversations there's a wall and part of you is shut away on the other side. You're very skilled at putting up diversions to hide the wall, like when you worm out of dinner invitations, but I see it anyway. I keep hoping that one of these times we'll mean enough to each other that the wall will come down. But maybe not."

  He hugged himself. "Maggie, I'm sorry." He wanted to hug her, to take her in his arms and soothe her hurt and somehow make it up to her for not loving her as well as she deserved, but the scent of her blood beat at him. He was afraid to touch her. "I don't know what else to say."

  She sighed. "I don't either, Garreth. Maybe until we do-"

  "Maybe what we both need is sleep," he interrupted. "There's that movie in Bellamy you've been wanting to see."

  "Witness."

  "Yes. Why don't we go Monday, just have a good time, and then we can talk afterward."

  She stared hard at him for several minutes before replying, but finally she nodded. "All right; we can try."

  When she had gone Garreth turned the cold faucet and leaned back against the stall with the icy water pelting him. We can try. Her tone held no optimism. He bit his lip. He was going to lose her. It would be better for her, but . . . he would lose one of his fragile ties with humanity, and he would have nothing to come home to but the apartment and the ghosts waiting there.

  Lane's laughter echoed in his head.

  10

  He dreamed of fire. He stood in the shade of a tree at the edge of the artificial island in the city's Pioneer Park. High overhead a summer sun blazed in a heat-bleached sky. Lane lounged on the railing of the old-fashioned octagonal bandstand in the island's center. A blood-red dance costume cut up to her hip bones showed off the full length of her showgirl legs. Even in the shade her hair shone rich mahogany, and her eyes gleamed red as fire.

  "Come here to me, inspector," she crooned. "Blood son. Lover. I need you. We need each other."

  "The hell I need you," he yelled at her. He wanted to leave the island, but the wooden bridge lay in the full blaze of the sun. Just look­ing at it made him feel weak. If only he could find his mirror-lensed trooper glasses. Somehow he had mislaid them, though. He searched all his pockets in vain. The thought occurred to him that perhaps Lane had taken them.

  "But you do need me, lover," she called. "You don't want to be all alone."

  "I'm not."

  She laughed. "You're referring to your human friends? Don't be foolish. They don't want you. See?"

  She pointed. Following the direction of her finger, he caught his breath. Massed at the shore end of the bridge stood Duncan, Maggie, Maggie's father in his wheelchair, Anna Bieber, Nat, Sue Ann, Chief Danzig, and Helen Schoning. And Julian Fowler, too.

  "All in favor, say Aye," Duncan said.

  "Aye," the rest of them chorused.

  "Carried." From a box of kitchen matches in his hand, Duncan struck one and tossed it onto the bridge.

  "Maggie, stop him!" Garreth yelled.

  Maggie turned away.

  Smiling thinly, Duncan struck another match. "What's the problem, Mikaelian?" He tossed the match. The plank it struck began to smolder. "All you have to do is come over and stamp them out."

  Garreth tried, but the moment he stepped out of the shade, the sun struck him down like a sledgehammer. He reeled back into the shade, pain blinding him.

  Duncan struck and tossed another match. A second plank caught fire. "I don't see what's so difficult. Just walk over the bridge and join us. Anyone can do that. Any human."

  But Garreth could not. The sun held him pinned in the shade of the tree. He could only stand and watch helplessly while his single link to those on shore blazed up.

  "You see, lover?" Deceptively soft arms wrapped around him from behind. Sharp teeth nipped his ear. "You're mine. I'm the only one who'll have you. I'm the only one who understands. Now aren't you sorry you murdered me?"

  11

  Sunset woke him. Garreth scrambled gratefully out of sleep and stumbled out of bed. In the bathroom a note on the mirror greeted him: Maggie tonight. Don't forget this date.

  As though that would save the relationship. True, she had been friendly enough when he saw her Saturday and Sunday, but there had been a certain reserve.

  At least he had done better with her than with Duncan. An attempt Saturday to smooth things over with the other officer when he found Duncan parked in the Schaller Ford lot had met a chilly reception. "So the department is too small to afford a feud?" Duncan snapped. "Too bad." Gunning his car, he pulled away in a scream of tires.

  Then there had been Sunday and Julian Fowler. Garreth found the writer in Anna Bieber's livingroom when he arrived after dinner to take her to evening mass. The fact that the writer accompanied them to church did not bother Garreth. As usual, he found the service soothing, quite the opposite from the physical agony which Lane, raised in a strict faith, had experienced around religious objects. Afterward, though, having tea at Anna's, Fowler kept asking questions about Lane. What had Mada been like as a child? How had she changed when she finally came home again? Did she
ever mention the names of friends in Europe or fellow performers she worked with? Did Anna save letters from her? Did she remember the return addresses and postmarks?

  Cold crawled down Garreth's spine. The man asked questions like a detective. In the right quarters, the answers were likely to bring him too much knowledge . . . too much for Garreth's safety and peace of mind.

  "You sound like you're planning a biography," he had said. "I had no idea you had to know so much to write fiction."

  Fowler smiled. "Oh yes. I have to make it sound realistic, after all."

  Garreth had spent the evening sidetracking Anna into reminisces of Lane's childhood and come home exhausted.

  And today had one strike against it already. After two days of feeling no hunger, thirst burned in his throat with a fierceness that the entire remaining contents of the thermos scarcely blunted. The cattle blood tasted even thinner and more unsatisfying than usual.

  He surveyed himself wryly in the mirror on the closet door . . . black turtleneck shirt, tan corduroy sport coat and slacks, mirror-lensed trooper glasses to protect his eyes. What the well-dressed vampire wears to a goodbye date. Saluting his image, he turned and left to wait at the station for Maggie to get off duty.

  12

  The late show ended around eleven. They walked out of the theater into an overcast night that although chilly, smelled of spring . . . damp earth and hints of green. Clean smells, free of any blood scent. Garreth drank them in.

  "Did you like the movie?" Maggie asked.

  "Of course. It's a good flick." He lied, but how could he tell her the truth, that movies were always difficult at best, sitting there drowning in the smells of blood from other patrons, tortured by thirst and sometimes by deadly whiffs of garlic which left him suffocating, the air in his lungs hardened like concrete. Tonight, too, one of the blood scents had carried the sour flavor of disease. Its touch set him itching. But most uncomfortable had been the painful chords the movie rang in him as the big-city detective hid in the alien culture of a rural community. Detective John Book had one big advantage, though, which Garreth envied. When it became clear he did not belong, at least that cop had another world to return to.

  Garreth had parked in the next block. They started to cross the street . . . only to stop short at the wail of a siren. A Jeep wagon painted with the sheriff's star shot past them from the side street and into the parking lot of the courthouse across from the theater. The stocky driver vaulted from behind the wheel to race into the two-story Law Enforcement wing of the courthouse.

  Maggie stared after him. "That's Tom Frey."

  The undersheriff. The hair twitched on Garreth's neck. "I wonder what the trouble is."

  Serious discussions of their relationship could wait. As one, they changed direction toward the courthouse.

  Both the Bellamy PD and Sheriff's Office shared the wing. A broad counter with glass and metal grilling along it partitioned the main office. Behind it Tom Frey's black Amerind eyes glinted grimly as he glanced from a walrus-mustached PD officer to a tall, lean man who looked as though he belonged on horseback working cattle-Sheriff Louis Pfeifer.

  ". . . heard the trouble buzzer," the officer was saying, "and ran down from the jail, only as I came out the stair door, someone hit me from behind. By the time I could get up again, this turkey had fished the car keys out of my pocket and was dragging Emma outside with him. He had a gun. I called Wes in 512 on the radio right away and he's tracking them. They're headed northwest."

  The sheriff spun. "Tom, get on the horn to the Russell and Rooks SO's, then call our deputies. Have them spread out north and west, but keep back. We don't want Emma hurt."

  The undersheriff reached for a phone.

  "Can we help, Sheriff?" Garreth asked.

  The tall man looked around through the glass at them and smiled. "Who says there's never a cop around when you need one? Our dispatcher's been kidnapped. Why and how he got past the counter, we don't know. Give me your radio, Clell."

  The PD officer lifted it out of the case on his belt. Pfeifer handed it to Maggie through an opening in the glass. "Head toward Schaller and help 512 keep track of that car."

  Garreth and Maggie raced for the ZX.

  As they reached it the radio crackled with alerts issued by the Russell and Rooks SO dispatchers for the Bellamy PD car carrying a male of unknown description and a female which the dispatchers described.

  Then another voice said, "512 Bellamy. Subject is headed north from County 9 at Droge Corner."

  "Lincoln Street takes us out to 9," Maggie said. "But I don't know where Droge Corner is."

  With no siren or lights to clear the way for him, Garreth drove carefully as far as the city limits, then stamped the accelerator. "Watch for anything that looks like a corner."

  "That ought to be fun in this dark." Maggie tightened her seat belt.

  A harsh male voice came on the radio. "If that pig following me comes anywhere near, I'll kill this bitch."

  A woman yelped in pain.

  Garreth's headlights caught a sign with names and distances to various farms. The top name read: Droge.

  "Garreth-" Maggie yelped as they hurtled past.

  He was already hitting both gas and brake and hauling at the steering wheel to spin the car in a one-eighty turn. He gunned back for the corner, reached it still accelerating, and somehow still made the turn anyway, wheels screaming, gravel from the new road scattering beneath his wheels. Maggie whooped like a banshee.

  "572, turning east five miles from last turn."

  "Get away from me! I'm warning you!"

  Garreth swore. He had not noticed his mileage at the turn. "How are we going to know which corner it is?"

  "Relax," Maggie said. "These roads are section lines, remember, exactly one mile apart."

  She counted crossing roads; he concentrated on keeping the car on theirs and, when it came, making the turn without piling them into a heavy stone fence post at the corner of the field.

  "I see them!" Maggie hissed.

  He did, too . . . small ruby points of light far ahead, and two more points half a mile beyond those. The farther lights swerved and vanished.

  "572. Turning north-"

  Maggie hit the transmit button on the hand radio. "We have you. 512."

  "You've got one last chance to get away from me or this cow dies."

  A female voice came on moments later. "Bellamy SO. Fall hack, 512."

  The tail lights grew larger and brighter as Garreth gained. He watched them swerve into a turn. He followed, and shortly after that, drew up alongside.

  "Roll down the window, Maggie." When she did, Garreth shouted across to the Bellamy officer, "Drop back and mark that corner. I'll follow him from here."

  "Orders are-"

  "He won't see me, I promise." He shut off his headlights as he passed the PD car.

  Maggie gasped.

  The road stretched before him in a distinct gray ribbon, as though through twilight. On it ahead of him, growing ever brighter, shone the tail lights of the stolen police car.

  Maggie clung to the radio. "I can't see a thing. How can you?"

  He hesitated only a moment before answering. "I never told you but I'm a werewolf."

  "Terrific. I've been dating a fruit loop." The car fishtailed and she swallowed audibly. "How fast are we going?"

  "I'm afraid to look."

  Her stream of language had to come out of her father's oilfield days.

  The lights ahead swerved off onto another road, then another and finally into a lane which consisted of two wheel ruts with a grass-grown center. Far up the lane, perhaps half a mile, Garreth made out the blocky shapes of buildings, one tilting crazily.

  He down-shifted to slow the car, then stopped with the hand brake to keep the brake lights from giving their presence away. "Maggie, I'll follow on foot from here."

  "On foot! Garreth, you can't-"

  He climbed out. "Take the car and go back to wait at that last corner fo
r the others. I'll leave my jacket on his fencepost to mark the lane. Get going."

  "Do you have a gun?"

  "Of course." He patted his ankle holster, and before she could protest further, took the radio from her, peeled off his sport coat, and dropping it over the fencepost beside the gate, sprinted up the lane after the fading lights of the car. His breath swirled thick and white around him in the chilly air.

  The lights vanished.

  Garreth stretched his stride. Had they gone over a rise? Around a corner? He had almost reached the buildings. He slowed, still looking around for the car. The lane led on past. Could the kidnapper have continued?

  No, voices carried on the night wind, whispers so low no normal ears could have heard them . . . a woman's, frightened and weeping, a man's hissing angrily. "Stop whining, you bitch, or you're dead."

  Garreth tilted his head, testing for direction of the sound. The house with its multiple doors and windows gaping empty, or in the dark cave of the tilting barn? A car could be hidden from sight in there. The barn, he decided. The wind brought him scents of human blood and sweaty fear mixed with the odor of moldering hay.

  Circling behind the house, he climbed through two barb wire fences to the rear of the barn. The windows, empty of glass, were high and small. The doors had been blocked up some time in the past. Garreth nodded in satisfaction. The kidnapper should feel himself safe from the rear, then. The sealed door gave no protection from a vampire, though.

  He pressed against the door. Everything in him wrenched sharply, then he stood inside between disintegrating stacks of hay. A tall, rawboned man with a heavy thatch of dark, wiry hair sat against the bales in a position where he could watch the lane. Beside him huddled the dispatcher, a short, plump woman in her late thirties, held down by an arm twisted behind her back.

  Now what? Garreth plucked at his mustache. As soon as he revealed his presence, the man would open fire. The trick was to make sure he did not shoot his hostage first.

  But what would happen if the kidnapper shot and hit him? Theoretically, if a vampire could pass through a door, an object could pass through him without harm. Wooden stakes excepted. Theoretically.