Once bitten

by Stephen Leather

  What happened next came as a series of disparate images, like photographs shot with a time-lapse camera: the man looking up, his eyes widening with fear; the woman's left hand jumping up to her mouth to stifle her scream; Terry laughing; the child crying; Terry's hand reaching out, the fingers curled; the man's throat ripped clean open, blood spurting over his shoulder; the woman moving to scoop up the child; Terry laughing and rolling as she flew, her other hand curving to strike; the child falling to the floor, arms and legs scrabbling for something to hold on to; the woman's coat covered with blood as she crumpled to the floor. Then Terry and I were up in the air again, the cold breeze in our faces as we soared above the trees.

  We circled, watching the girl kneel by her mother's side, taking her cold hand in her own and pushing it against her cheek, her tears mixing with the blood. Terry pointed at me and then at the girl. My turn. We dived down together, the ground rushing up and again it came as a series of separate images: the girl, blood on her cheek; Terry laughing; the girl's eyes open and blue, misty with tears; Terry's teeth, sharp and white making small biting motions; my hand forming a claw; the girl reaching up with a small hand as if trying to fend off the attack; the forest floor leaping up at me. Then I twisted and turned and veered away from the girl and the two bodies and next I was standing behind them, my feet on the floor, my hand aching in its still-formed claw. I looked up and saw Terry whirling through the air, her eyes hard and menacing, then she flowed down and landed next to the girl and picked her up around the waist. The woman groaned as she lay dying on the ground but Terry ignored her. The girl cried out and struggled but Terry put her mouth next to her ear and whispered something and the child went still as if drugged. Terry kept her eyes on me as she walked up with the child.

  "She's yours, Jamie," she said as she got close.

  "No," I said. "I don't want her."

  "She's your's," she repeated, only this time her face was changing, she wasn't Terry anymore she had blonde hair, blonde like the child's, and her eyes were the same blue. It wasn't Terry any more it was Deborah holding the child, only the child wasn't a child anymore, it was a baby.

  "She's yours," said Deborah and she held up the baby, and it wasn't healthy and laughing anymore it was crying and in pain and its lower half was as deformed and twisted as the trees in the forest around us.

  "No!" I yelled. "No! No!"

  Deborah narrowed her eyes and there was hate in them. "You can't kill a child!" she screamed.

  "I don't want to kill her," I shouted back. "I don't! I don't!"

  Then I woke up to find Terry looking down on me, her hair brushing against my face. "Jamie?

  What's wrong?" she asked as she put her hand up against my forehead. I was sweating.

  "Bad dream," I said.

  "I'll say. What about?"

  I shook my head and swallowed. "Nothing," I said.

  She smiled ruefully. "Jamie, if you don't want to tell me, that's one thing, but there's no need to lie. I've been lying here next to you for the last five minutes wondering whether or not to wake you up you looked so uncomfortable, so don't give me that 'nothing' crap."

  I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's my problem."

  "Problem?" she repeated, frowning. She lay down by my side, her chin resting on her right palm as she played with my chest with her left hand. "Was I in it?"

  "Yes," I said. It was easier to speak to her with my eyes closed. Strange patterns in red and orange danced around, spirals and circles, almost hypnotic. Her voice seemed very far away as if she was speaking to me from the end of a very long tunnel.

  "You shouted something about a baby?"

  "A child. We were hunting a child."

  "We?"

  "You and me. We were in a wood, a terrifying, dark, cruel wood, blackened trees, tangles of brambles, a nightmare sort of place. We were flying."

  "Flying?" She sounded amused.

  "We were flying through the woods, above them, and then we were attacking a couple and their child." I felt pressure on my eyelids and realised that Terry was kissing them softly. "You killed them," I said. "You ripped out their throats."

  "It was a bad dream, that's all," she said soothingly. "We don't fly through the air, Jamie. We don't rip out people's throats. We don't kill children. We don't kill babies."

  I felt the tears go then, welling up and forcing their way through my closed eyelids. She gently brushed them away with the back of her hand.

  "Who's April?" she asked. I tensed, flinched almost. She caressed my forehead again. "You called out her name. And Deborah, your wife's name. Who's April?"

  "My daughter," I said. The two words sounded strange. I don't think I'd ever used them before.

  "I didn't you had a daughter," she said.

  "I don't," I answered. "Not any more."

  "What happened?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  "She died."

  "Oh Jamie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She lay next to me in silence for a while before she spoke again. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "Yes. I don't know."

  "How did she die?"

  "In hospital. A few days after she was born."

  "She got sick?"

  "She was born with spina bifida. She was all messed up, below the waist. God, it was so sad.

  She looked so perfect everywhere else, her little hands, her lips, big blue eyes like her mother's, she was so cute. But everything else just came out all screwed up. There was nothing we could do, nothing the doctors could do."

  "When was this?" she asked.

  "About a year ago. Last April. That's why we called her April."

  "Is that why you got divorced?"

  The tears were flooding out now and I opened my eyes, letting them flow down my cheeks and wet the pillow. It wasn't the first time I'd cried for April, and I was sure it wouldn't be the last.

  "Deborah divorced me about six months later."

  "She blamed you?"

  "Not for April being the way she was, no."

  She said nothing, just put her head against my shoulder and held me. I closed my eyes again. I could picture April lying in the plastic bubble, her eyes open, looking right at me. Deborah was next to me, her hand on the plastic, trying to touch our child. She was crying, and so was I. There was a doctor there, too. He wasn't crying, but then it wasn't his baby.

  "Tell me, Jamie," said Terry.

  "I can't."

  She lapsed into silence again. Eventually I began to speak, to tell her. About the conversation Deborah and I had later, back in her hospital room. About what should happen to April. About quality of life, about how it wasn't fair for her, about how she'd never, ever, have a normal life, that maybe she'd be better off…

  "Dead?" said Terry, finishing the sentence for me. "You said that?"

  I opened my eyes. "I said it but I don't think I meant it. I'm still not sure. I think I was playing Devil's Advocate, you know, testing her feelings. I remember telling her that the doctors could do it, they could just not try so hard to keep her alive and she'd just go, quietly, no pain. I wasn't saying they should, I just said they could. She went crazy, she accused me of all sorts of thing, she said I was in it with the doctors that we all wanted April dead and that I didn't love her because she wasn't perfect, that I hated anything that wasn't one hundred per cent right. She screamed and slapped me and then she just went quiet and hardly spoke to me again. April died the day after.

  Deborah didn't say anything but I knew she blamed me, she thought I'd spoken to the doctors and got them to do it. I didn't, Terry, I honestly didn't. I didn't kill her, I'd never kill a child."

  She held me tightly. "I know, Jamie. I know you wouldn't."

  "I tried to tell Deborah that, but she wouldn't listen. She never went home, she went to stay with a friend instead and a few months later she filed for divorce. Now she's using her lawyers to punish me."

  "She needs someone to blame, Jamie, that's
all. If she can blame you then it takes the guilt off her own shoulders. The more she can punish you, the better she feels about herself."

  "God, you think I don't know that," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice even though it wasn't Terry that I was angry about. "I'm the psychologist, remember?"

  "I remember," she said. "But sometimes perhaps you can't see the wood for the trees, you know?"

  "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

  "There's nothing to be sorry about, Jamie. And there's no need to feel guilty. You didn't do anything wrong."

  "I know," I said, but inside I wasn't so sure. What really made me feel bad was that, deep down, I wasn't sure whether or not I really had wanted April to die. My conscious mind, that was sure that I really had been playing Devil's Advocate with Deborah, preparing her for the time when April would die as the doctors had said she would, but below that, in the black depths of my mind, there lurked the thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd wanted her to be taken away because she wasn't perfect, she was a reminder that things went wrong that couldn't be fixed and that the time would come when my own body would be beyond repair. Deborah knew how I felt about growing old.

  She threw that in my face towards the end. The car, she'd said, that's why I spent so much time working on the car, because that was something that I could stop from getting older just by spending time on money on it. But it wouldn't do any good, she said, the car would still be around long after I'd gone. I was the problem, not the car. I was the one that was getting older and I was the one that was going to die so why the hell didn't I just grow up and accept it. Not everything in life was perfect, and not everything stayed perfect. Part of me wanted to explain that to Terry, but I didn't, I just ran it through my mind, round and round like a child's merry-go-round, the golden horses with gaping mouths and staring eyes galloping faster and faster but getting nowhere.

  "Easy, Jamie," said Terry, smoothing my brow. "Take it easy. You're breathing like a train."

  She kept nuzzling my neck and kissing me softly, murmuring words in a language that I didn't recognise but which were soothing nonetheless, until waves of blackness enfolded me and I dropped back into sleep.

  The Visitors When I woke up she was still holding me, and I felt a lot more stable. Telling her about April had helped and there had been no more nightmares and when I awoke I felt refreshed, almost new, as if a load had been lifted from my shoulders even though I was all too well aware that nothing had changed. If anything I had more to worry about after what Terry had revealed. I left the basement before it got light. I'd wanted to stay with Terry but she said she had things to do and it would be easier if I was out from under her feet. She explained that since Blumenthal had discovered the basement she'd decided that she would have to move on, to shed the identity of Terry Ferriman the way a snake loses its old skin. That took time, she said, money had to be moved, assets reallocated and documents prepared. Once that was out the way, she said, she'd be back in touch and we'd go onto the next stage. If I wanted to. After I'd thought about it. I told her that I already knew the answer and that I loved her as much as she said she loved me, maybe more so, and that I was quite prepared to do whatever was required. She kissed me and told me that I had to think about it because once it was done there was no turning back and the next thing I knew I was standing outside in the street.

  There was a message on the answering machine from Chuck Harrison and one from Rick Muir.

  Rick said he had good news and bad news for me. The bad news was that there was nothing untoward about the hair at all. The good news? Yeah, he'd pulled the waitress. Frankly, neither piece of news surprised me. I felt wrecked, the result of making love to Terry and the mental stress of coming to terms with what she'd told me.

  I rang Chuck Harrison's office and got his answering machine. I left a message, telling him to hang fire on any settlement and that I'd be in later in the day. I'd had enough of lying down and allowing Deborah and her lawyer to walk all over me, tired of taking the blame for what had happened to April. I guess that talking to Terry about it, opening up for the first time, had helped me face up to the fact that it wasn't my fault, that nobody was to blame. I'd help Deborah start a new life, I'd give all the financial and moral support she needed, but I wasn't get to let her punish me any more. I didn't tell any of that to Chuck's answering machine, though.

  I stripped off and fell into bed. I was drifting in and out of sleep when the doorbell rang. It was light outside, but only just, and at first I thought the phone had rung and I was groping for it when the doorbell rang again. I pulled on a white towelling robe and padded down the hall. I checked the door viewer and saw two uniformed cops looking bored. One was chewing gum, another had his hand on the butt of his holstered gun and I had a feeling that it wasn't a social call.

  I opened the door. I didn't recognise either of them. The one with his hand on his gun moved to the side so that he could draw it quickly if I made a threatening move. Behind them, parked by the kerb, was a police car.

  "Hiya guys, can I help you?" I said, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt.

  "Jamie Beaverbrook?" asked the gum-chewer.

  "Yes. Is there a problem?"

  The gum-chewer shifted his shoulders in his jacket as if it was uncomfortable. "We'd like you to come with us, sir," he said.

  "Where?"

  "The precinct, Sir."

  "Is it a case?"

  "All we know is that you are to come with us, Sir." The "Sir" always seemed to come as an after-thought.

  "Hang on while I dress and get my computer." I made to close the door but he stabbed his foot against it.

  "If you don't mind we'd like to wait inside while you get dressed, Sir. And you won't need the computer. Our orders are to get you downtown as quickly as possible."

  Behind him the other officer's hand tightened on the butt of his gun. I didn't like this, I didn't like this one bit. For once I'd have been grateful if they'd cracked a vampire joke or made the sign of the cross, anything to break the tension. "And if I refuse?" I asked.

  "Then we'll still come in, Sir," he said.

  Defeated, I turned my back on them and headed for the bedroom. The gum-chewer followed me and watched as I picked out a suit. I figured if it was trouble I might as well look the part. "Do I have time to shower and shave?" I asked him.

  "You can do that down at the precinct, Sir," he said. Oh yeah, I thought, happens all the time.

  The nice kind police officers downtown always allow the poor misunderstood felons a wash and brush up before they got down to the third degree. I dressed and knotted on a red power tie and then went with them to the car. They said not one word to me all the way to the precinct, not one lousy word. Other than a couple of speeding tickets it was my first ever taste of the wrong side of the law, and I could appreciate why so many of the men and women I had to interview looked so nervous. It was the not knowing that was so worrying. The uncertainty. At least I knew what police procedure was and that I had an expensive lawyer to call on if I had to, but even so I was scared shitless. They took me in, walking either side of me as if escorting a mass murderer, and led me through the reception area. There were several officers there that I recognised but they all avoided looking at me. We went through Homicide and I kept looking for De'Ath but there was no sign of him. Captain Canonico was there, though, standing by the water cooler and filling a coneshaped paper cup. He saw me as he straightened up and grinned evilly.

  "Looks like you're up to your neck in shit this time, Beaverbrook," he said.

  "What's going on, Captain?" I asked him.

  "A couple of heavyweights from Washington want a word in your shell-like ear." He emptied the water into his mouth, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and nodded at the gum-chewer.

  "They want to see him in my office." Then he turned his back on me and refilled his cup. The fact that whoever it was had swung enough weight to commandeer Canonico's office made me feel even more nervous and
my stomach grumbled acidly as they took me to the room and knocked.

  A man in a grey suit opened it, looked at the uniformed officer and then looked at me. He opened the door wider. I saw Rivron get up from a chair. He avoided my eyes as he walked by me. To my mind he looked guilty, but then I probably did, too.

  The door clicked closed. There were two men, and both of them were wearing grey suits, shiny black shoes and crisp white shirts. There the resemblance ended. The one who'd opened the door was tall and thin and had a sallow, almost funereal complexion, pale lips and eyes that were a surprising shade of green, totally out of character with the rest of his colourless features. The other was just as tall, a shade over six feet, but he had thick sandy hair and a rash of freckles across a snub nose and plump cheeks. He was broad-shouldered and had obviously been a football player in his college days but still had a few years to go yet before he went to seed. Both were in their early thirties but had eyes that seemed much older, as if they'd spent most of their working lives being bored. Neither of them offered to shake my hand but they both introduced themselves. The thin one was called Hooper, the football player was Sugar. That was it. No first names, no rank. I asked to see their identification and they smiled the smile of predators scenting prey.

  "No ID," said Hooper.

  "Not as such," said Sugar.

  "What do you mean, not as such?" I asked.

  "Well," said Sugar, "if you were to come up with a real fancy lawyer who could get the backing of a very important judge, then maybe, just maybe, we might come up with a Washington telephone number that he could call. And then the judge would speak to your lawyer and your lawyer would speak to you and then you'd be speaking to us again."

  "At the moment it's just you and the good Captain and a couple of members of the department here who know that we are involved," said Hooper.

  "And frankly," said Sugar, "that's how we'd rather keep it, for the moment at least."