[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind

by Charles L. Grant

  "But you are all right."

  "Yes. Well, maybe."

  "You scared the hell out of me, you know."

  "You should have been in my place."

  "I'm sorry. My fault. I should have kept quiet."

  "It's not your fault, Greg. But you just don't come up against something like this every day, you know. It takes a while."

  "Yeah, but you've seen it. I haven't. It's easy to believe when you see it right out there."

  "Oh god, Greg," she said, "you don't know how wrong that is."

  The light came so quickly she thought in disorientation there was someone on the porch roof searching for her, poking a worn flashlight into each of the small windows on the second floor. She wondered as she flung aside the bedclothes how they'd found her here on Raglin Street, how they'd known she'd been picked up by Greg and had gone home with him. Then she stopped, the cold of the bare floor reaching up through her soles to grab at her calves. She rubbed her eyes with her forefingers and sat on the edge of the mattress. Her heart calmed, her breathing grew less shallow; there was no one outside, it was dawn. Somehow, whether by sheer exhaustion or a retreat from fear, she had fallen asleep.

  And Greg wasn't in the bed.

  She padded out to the hallway and listened, hugging herself, then moved cautiously down the stairs to the front room. Greg was sitting in front of a small fireplace, naked, cross-legged, staring at charred logs with his palms cupping his cheeks, his elbows propped on his knees. She sat beside him and waited, anticipating speech and yet starting when he spoke.

  "Question," he said. "A couple, actually. Why didn't that thing chase you into the woods? It could have gotten you easily, and it didn't. Two: what the hell is it? Three: what the hell does whoever it is that's doing this want? Four: why the hell am I sitting naked in the middle of the livingroom talking about monsters from B movies when I should be in bed, trying to figure out a way to stay home instead of going to work?"

  She shook her head.

  "Five," he said then. "What do we do about it? Sit around until it shows up again?" He raised a fist, thumped it hard on his knee. "Damn! Damn, I ought to have my head examined."

  "Why?" She shifted to face him, a hand on his thigh, searching his stubbled face for signs of retraction.

  "Because," he said.

  "That's no answer. That's something a kid would say."

  "Well, isn't this stuff we've been talking about more suited to kids than to adults? Isn't it? Great hulking beasts rising out of empty fields and quarries, winds that come from nowhere, smashed sheds and stone thrones—my god, Pat, have you really been listening to what we're talking about here?"

  "Have you been down here all night thinking about that?"

  He nodded. "And unless I get my butt in gear, I'll be here for the next hundred years."

  She stood, offered him her hand, and he took it, allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

  "I'm hungry."

  "Shower first, food second, school third."

  He stepped back, his hands on her shoulders. "You mean—''

  "You said it yourself, Greg—what are you going to do, just sit around and wait for something to happen? I don't know about you, but I can't do that. Besides, if we go outside maybe we'll learn something. Anything. Don't ask me what, I don't know." When he headed for the stairs she followed. "Greg, about . . . about what we were saying last night about all those people— did you decide anything?"

  Halfway up the staircase he paused and looked down at her. "No," he said. "As a matter of fact, I was talking off the top of my head. It all sounded good, pro and con, but now ... I don't know. It could be anybody." His grin was strained. "Even me, babe, even me."

  She didn't echo his laugh, nor did she follow him when he sprinted the rest of the way to the second floor. Her flesh was tight with a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in the house, and her hands were unable to keep from fluttering mindlessly. So many people, she thought—reluctantly keeping Greg's name at the bottom (very bottom) of the list—and I have to see them all today. No sense. Life made no sense.

  And she remained silent through breakfast, through the ride to Hawksted, barely acknowledged her colleagues when they waved to her on the Long Walk.

  She didn't like what she was thinking.

  She didn't like thinking that Greg might have tried to put her onto someone else just to keep suspicion from himself.

  And she didn't like thinking that somewhere out there, waiting with the wind, was a force that had been created by someone who hated.

  19

  AT ten o'clock, Danvers summoned her into his office. He was in tweeds, his mustache waxed and gleaming, his thumbs hooked into waistcoat pockets. She thought he looked too damned smug for what he'd just lost in his department, but she said nothing, only nodded when he gestured to the chair cornering his desk. Then he shifted his gaze from her face to the series of theatrical posters framed behind glass on the walls. And it wasn't until then that she noticed for the first time the deep short lines about his eyes, the defiant and melancholy thrust of his chin.

  "About the meeting, Doctor," he said, still refusing to look at her. He waited. She said nothing. "The, uh, car business." He swallowed quickly as if trying to hide it. "I've had that car for thirty years, Miss Shavers. I suppose I shouldn't have placed so much value on it. And on top of your . . . well, it has been made rather clear to me that I behaved badly. For that I apologize."

  She hesitated a moment before saying, "There's no need, really. I understand."

  "Well, I do anyway. It's the right thing to do, hardly makes up for the harsh words, but . . ."He waved his left hand expansively. "You do understand, of course, that your new position does not mean an abdication of your responsibilities to the department as it now stands. Of course you do. I simply wanted to make that clear so there'd be no misunderstandings in future. Thank you for coming, Doctor. I'm sure you have plenty of work to do."

  She rose, nodded to the back of his head, and left. Feeling nothing. Stopping in the corridor to glance back and gnaw on her lower lip thoughtfully. What Greg had said the night before came back to her, dimly, and she tried to imagine Danvers stooping to something as uncivilized, literally, as traffic in the occult. No, she decided; Greg was right, there, but for the wrong reasons—Ford didn't have it in him to do something like that. He was too preoccupied with veneer and pomp to resort to nightmare. He was the kind of man who demanded grandstand performances, an audience for his monologues, and a sweeping exit which would leave her alone on the stage in a fading spotlight.

  But there was no relief as a result.

  She walked through the next two hours jumping at shadows, staring at faces, examining every word said to her for menacing nuance, every glance leveled at her for lethal connotations. By the time she had finished lunch in the Union she was trembling so hard Janice asked her twice if she wanted a sweater, complaining at the same time of the lack of heat in all the buildings. Apparently, a boiler had broken down during the night, producing an overload which, in turn, collapsed the rest of the ancient system.

  In her office at one, she quickly turned on the overhead light and the desk lamp when a cloud sailed across the sun.

  She could not concentrate on a letter she felt she had to write to the Trustees because her door was open, and everyone who passed was stared at, scrutinized, as she sought to label them friend or deadly.

  She knew what she was doing to herself, but no matter how often and how harshly she scolded herself she was unable to stop. Having accepted the reality of her dream-demon, she suddenly found new focus and uncompromising clarity in everything she saw. A new and unsettling dimension to every sound she heard. She did her utmost to accept the myriad and heartfelt congratulations that swarmed around her, heard herself talking glibly about the triumph and her plans without giving a single thought to the import of her words. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the shadows and the fear and the prayer that Greg would end his seminar ea
rly and take her home, lock her in the closet, go out and do battle so she could attend to her life without complication.

  At two-thirty it struck her she hadn't seen any of the Musketeers at all that day. Four times, then, she reached for the telephone to call Harriet's home or the dorms, and four times she pulled her hand away and watched it close into a fist. Twice she did call Kelly's apartment; there was no answer. As a last resort she called Goldsmith, got him on the eighth ring.

  '"Mr. Goldsmith? This is Pat Shavers."

  "Yep."

  "Mr. Goldsmith, have you seen Abbey or Kelly around today?"

  "Nope."

  "Did ... did the police talk to you yet?"

  "Yep."

  Her grip tightened on the receiver. Laconic was one thing, but playing a New England Gary Cooper was too much for her nerves. She rang off without saying goodbye, grabbed her coat from the rack and walked down to Greg's room. It was empty, his own coat gone. She frowned and went down to the first floor, looked out the side door and released a held breath when she saw the VW still in the parking lot. At the Union, then, she thought, and hurried outside, not wanting to use the tunnel system in spite of the sharp-plunging cold.

  He wasn't there.

  She walked over to Administration, to the library, checked the main parking lot and all the lounges in the dorms.

  He wasn't there.

  She returned to Fine Arts and her office, sat at the desk and watched the red slowly fade from her fingers, felt warmth reassert itself with an unpleasant needled tinging. When the telephone rang she grabbed it frantically, nearly dropped the receiver and was panting when she answered. It was Wes Martin, asking too politely if she would mind stopping by the station on her way home. She tried to pry information from him, but he turned officious on her and simply repeated his request.

  Kelly, she thought then; my god, he's found Kelly. Or Abbey.

  The chair slammed against the wall when she rose suddenly, the door vibrating in its frame when she slammed it behind her. And when another tour of the campus failed to turn Greg up, she accepted a ride offer from a student she knew vaguely, was dropped off on Centre Street across from the station.

  She didn't want to go in there. Though the building didn't look at all foreboding, the simple fact of the high, barred windows overlooking the street was enough to make her hesitate. If something had gone wrong, she might be in there in an hour or so, and who would she call? Her parents were less than useless, and Greg had . . .

  With a hand covering her mouth she crossed to the opposite corner just as Martin climbed out of a patrol car. He smiled and waited for her, held her elbow as he guided her inside, around the raised desk and through the lefthand door at the rear of the room. Down a short corridor broken by a door on either side and one at the end; it was through the latter that he took her into an office bare except for a long conference table in its center, chipped and polished and imposingly thick. Eight chairs had been set around it. Martin took the head and motioned her to his left. There were no windows; the only light came from a brass fixture on the wall over her head.

  "Do I need a lawyer?" She said lightly as she pulled off her gloves, fluffed her hair.

  "No," he said. "Don't be silly."

  "Then why all this?" she asked without demanding.

  "Because I need to talk to you, Pat, and its too public out front."

  "Kelly?"

  He leaned back in the chair and folded his hands on the table. She kept silent, because he seemed to need the time to gather his thoughts. He was trying to find the right way to say what was on his mind; she knew that instinctively, and she was grateful he didn't just pounce on her with . . . whatever it was, whoever it was.

  "I just came from King's," he said then, reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out three small plastic bags. When he dropped them on the table she could see they were labeled, though she couldn't read the lettering, and they contained fragments of stone. She pulled away, and questioned him with her eyes.

  He touched the one in the middle. "This is from your workshop, the one in your apartment." He lifted a finger to still a protest. "This one here contains what was found on the floorboards of your car."

  "I told you how I am," she said nervously. "Damn it, Wes—"

  "And this," he persisted, "is from the car that Susan Haslet was driving the night she was killed."

  "What?"

  "People . . ."He gathered the bags together, fenced them with his palms. "People have a tendency, Pat, to think that just because we're a small place here we have small operations. They forget the money behind us. Especially folks who haven't been here a long time."

  "Well, that lets me out."

  His smile was brief. "Indeed. Right. The reason I'm saying this, though, is so you understand the police don't have to run to a big city to run accurate, thorough tests when we have to."

  "So?" She was getting angry now, taking exception to his lecturing tone, to the manner of his posture, to the way he looked around the room without looking at her. He was behaving exactly as Ford Danvers had that morning—hiding from her without actually leaving the room. "Come on, Wes!"

  "This is all from the same block. From a block taken from the quarry. Now I know," he said quickly, raising his voice to forestall her, "you have this stuff in your workshop, and I know how it got there, how it got in your car. What I have to know now is, Pat, how did it get in Susan Haslet's car?"

  She opened her mouth to tell him she hadn't the faintest idea, snapped it closed when she realized the implications of what he was saying. "Now wait a damned minute, Wesley Martin! Are you trying—"

  He shook his head wearily. "I'm not trying to say anything, Pat. Just hold your horses."

  "Hold my horses?" She stood and walked to the far end of the table, turned and slipped her hands into her pockets; otherwise, she thought, she might go for his throat. "Hold my horses? That collection of marble you have there is from my workshop. I'll take your word for it. Now you tell me it was in this Haslet girl's car, too, and whether you know it or not, you are definitely implying a connection of some sort. But I didn't know her. To see her, yes, but she wasn't in any of my classes, none of them. And I was never in her car, so I didn't drop that stuff there. Besides, how should I know what a drunk girl will—"

  "Who said she was drunk?" he demanded quietly.

  "What?" She was confused, passed a hand over her face to gain some time. "But I heard—"

  "You heard wrong, Pat. The girl was perfectly sober when she died. We think, but we don't have any proof, that she was forced into that telephone pole. She was hit broadside and slammed sideways into it. Drinking had nothing to do with it."

  "Oh." She turned around before she remembered there were no windows to look out, turned back and took hold of the nearest chair. "Oh."

  "The car," he said then.

  "What?" Distractedly.

  "Your car, Pat. We brought it in, remember?"

  The room suddenly seemed much smaller, much warmer. What wasn't touched by the light seemed suddenly darker.

  "Pat . . . Pat, we found blood on the door."

  She sat, hard.

  "The window was broken in, I told you. On some of the glass embedded in the door's weatherstripping there we found blood. Minute traces not very old. The idea being kicked around is that Kelly was in the car when the window was smashed, and whoever did it reached in and dragged her out. Cut her face or her hands, probably, or her legs if she was wearing a short coat. We also found threads, green ones. Pat, did Kelly have a green coat?''

  She nodded, looked at him down the table's long alley. He was so small, she thought, like from the other end of a telescope.

  "Why . . . why are you telling me all this?"

  "It's your car, Pat. She was your friend, sort of."

  "But Abbey—"

  "Is still missing." His expression told her they held out little hope of finding either of the women still alive.

  "I want to go home," she wh
ispered.

  Martin parted his hands and spread the plastic bags in front of him again. He did not look up. "Pat, who smashed up Professor Danvers' car? Who broke your car window and dragged Kelly out? How did it get back in the garage without you knowing about it?"

  "Please be quiet," she said, putting her hands to her head. She had to think, she had to make sense so he would leave her alone.

  "Pat, did you cut yourself when the window broke? Are there any cuts on—"

  "Damn you!" she whispered harshly. She rose and rounded the table, stopped at his side and pulled up the sleeves of her coat, the sleeves of her sweater. "Look!" Her arms were pale, lightly veined, completely untouched. "Happy? Bastard." She headed for the door.

  "Pat."

  "If you're going to ask me any more questions, Wes, I want a lawyer. If you're going to accuse me of something, read me my rights or whatever the hell it is you do and be done with it. Otherwise, I'm going home. Now."

  She opened the door, did not hesitate to close it and stride blindly across the floor to the railing. The desk sergeant watched her; she could feel his gaze on the back of her neck, could hear as she pushed through the railing Wes enter the room and stand there silently. It took most of her strength to keep walking, to prevent herself from spinning around and shrieking at him. And once outside she turned right and walked as fast as she dared without breaking into a run. Reached home without remembering seeing anyone at all. Climbed the porch steps and stood in the foyer, one hand patting her chest, the other gripping a fold of her coat and twisting it. She saw nothing but the stairs, and she took them one at a time, watching the landing appear before her, watching her hair, forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin appear in the gilded mirror over the table. It was a death's head she saw—skin taut over prominent bones, eyes pouched and sunken, lips without color, chin outthrust, comically pugnacious.

  Her door was unlocked.

  With an acid, silent thanks to the police she went in and took off her coat, moved to the sofa and stared down at the cushions. Someone had been sitting there, one of the policemen who had searched the apartment. Another had not replaced the cartons and tins in the kitchen cupboard properly. Or had it been all one man? A cop who started working conscientiously and, when it became evident he wasn't going to find anything, ended carelessly.