Child of Twilight

by Margaret L. Carter

  Snatching up the key, Greer leaped out of range and slapped his palm to the side of his neck. “You little she-devil—” He held out his hand to stare at the flecks of red.

  Gillian wanted to scream with frustration. Only pride stopped her. How can he resist? What makes him so strong? Added to her bitter shame at her impotence was the realization that if she’d planned her attack instead of lashing out in random anger, she could have Greer disabled and the key in her hand at this moment.

  He’d left her alone briefly. Now he was back, with the camera. “There’s your supper.” With his foot he pushed the plastic cage toward her. It contained a pair of white mice. He held up the Polaroid, poised to snap.

  Gillian snarled at him. Let him photograph her feeding? But when he made it clear that he would wait for hours if necessary, hunger defeated her pride. The smell of his blood tormented her. She drained both mice, hardly bothering to soothe their panic first, while he took picture after picture. Still hungry, she fractured the bones and sucked out the marrow.

  Openly gloating over this performance by his specimen, Greer tossed her a paper sack and a wet rag. Much as she hated helping the man in any way, he’d correctly gauged Gillian’s distaste for the mess. She cleaned up the mouse fragments and wiped the tile floor.

  Shortly, the professor, calm and freshly washed, announced that he was leaving. “I’ve got to attend a convention, so I’ve taken a room at the hotel. But don’t worry, I’ll be back to check on you. Think about what you’re going to say for our next conversation.” He scanned her without looking directly into her face. “That couldn’t be comfortable. You must be getting pretty sick of it.”

  He left her alone with her dismal reflections. Bitterest was the knowledge that Volnar and Claude had been absolutely right about one thing. If she’d accepted a blood bond with one of them—with any adult, including Roger—she could be broadcasting her location at this instant.

  AT THE HOTEL in College Park just off the Washington beltway, Roger dropped off Britt and waited for her to pass through the lobby before entering himself. Inside scents of sweat and perfume assailed him. The sensory assault grated on his nerves. He threaded his way past a knot of people in pseudo-medieval dress, who seemed to be arguing about the convention schedule. At the far end of the lobby two women sat behind a table littered with index cards, name badges, and flyers. Heading in that direction, Roger noticed that the front of the table bore a banner trimmed with sprigs of fake mistletoe: “Welcome to Yulecon.”

  He purchased a membership from a plump blonde in red satin, who wore a lapel pin that proclaimed, “I’m not born again, my Mother got it right the first time.” Good God, neo-pagans! He might have been amused if he hadn’t been concentrating so hard on blocking out her fruity cologne. Pinning on his name tag, Roger proceeded to the next step, renting a room. The Christmas tree next to the registration desk was real. Its pine fragrance provided a welcome antidote to the artificial smells that hung thick in the overheated air. As Eloise had predicted, the hotel had vacancies, and within minutes Roger was in the elevator, key card in hand.

  On the way up he mentally reached for Britt, informing her of the room number. Two minutes after he’d entered the room, heavily curtained with forest green drapes, and lain down on the king-size bed to savor the quiet, she tapped on the door. He got up to let her in.

  “Clandestine assignations,” she said after bolting the door behind her. “What fun!” She plopped down on the bed and patted the mattress. “Sure you don’t want to take time out to make proper use of this?”

  “Time we don’t really have.” Roger treated himself to a leisurely inspection of Britt. Following advice from Claude and Eloise as veteran convention-goers, she wore an emerald green three-piece pantsuit with dangling earrings in the shape of holly sprigs—a gift from one of her nephews—to foster the carefree image of a fan indulging in a weekend of revelry. A pendant Roger had given her, a large, teardrop-shaped emerald, hung between her breasts. With their peaks clearly visible beneath the clingy knit fabric, she did look tempting—almost too tempting to allow within any other man’s reach. “Aside from health considerations—yours—you know hotel rooms make me nervous.” Taking a seat in one of the armchairs by the coffee table, outside temptation’s range, he scanned the furnishings. “I don’t care for the idea of your bringing our target up here alone.”

  “What do you suggest I do, hypnotize and interrogate him in the bar? Don’t be silly.”

  “He could easily misinterpret your motives.”

  Britt countered with a long-suffering sigh, “Come on, colleague, I’ve been handling men well over half my life. In the unlikely event he gets pushy, I can deal with it. Good grief, do you expect him to knock me down and ravish me?”

  Roger’s lips tightened with disapproval. “Don’t.” The thought was too alarming to entertain, even as a joke.

  “Don’t worry, Eloise says that at things like this, a hotel suite isn’t a bedroom, just another kind of meeting lounge.” Digging in her oversize shoulder purse, Britt produced a couple of lapel buttons. When she’d pinned them on her jacket, Roger saw that they read, respectively, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate,” and “Blood is thicker than water—and much tastier.” A sentiment he endorsed but hardly wanted publicized. “You should have one of these pins,” she said. “Since you won’t wear a costume, you need something to make you blend in.”

  “I dressed the way Claude said I should.” Roger glanced down at his outfit—a black pullover, charcoal gray casual slacks, and loafers.

  Britt shook her head. “There’s something about the way you wear it—better than a suit, but you still look like you wandered over from an AMA conference. Eloise gave me another button—” She rummaged through her bag again and took out a third metal disk. “Here, this one’s perfect for you!”

  Roger accepted the button and grudgingly pinned it on: “Don’t tell me what kind of day to have, dammit!” Well, he couldn’t deny it encapsulated his mood. “You and Eloise seem to be in charge of strategy. What now?”

  “I hang around with Eloise and Claude, while you lurk in the background until she hooks me up with Greer.” Britt fished a program out of her bag and scanned it. “He’s on a panel with Eloise and three other people at eight. Bigfoot in Fact and Fiction. At the end of that session she’ll introduce us, and I’ll lure him up here. You can listen in telepathically, if that’ll make you happier.”

  “I fully intend to,” said Roger. “No point in my having to get the results from you secondhand. Besides, you can draw on me to enhance your hypnotic influence over him.”

  Britt nodded. “Sounds good. Okay, I’ll sneak out, and you follow anytime you think it’s safe.” She gave him a brief, emphatic hug before leaving.

  Five minutes later, Roger took the elevator down to the mezzanine, intending to check the dealers’ room before catching up with Claude, Eloise, and Britt. He kept abreast of trends in vampire fiction, on the grounds that he needed to be aware of how the largely unsuspecting human world regarded his race. Eloise’s critical judgment forewarned him against the worst excesses of bottom-of-the-barrel horror fiction. Half the recommended books bored him senseless, anyway, but Britt liked to keep up with the field, too, so he humored her by collecting the stuff.

  The dealers’ room proved to be uncomfortably crowded. Roger couldn’t help brushing against other shoppers as he made the circuit of the tables, and each contact made him flinch, as his unruly instincts interpreted it as an assault. When he involuntarily bared his teeth at a robed, cowled teenager who blundered into him, he decided it was time to get out. He quickly stopped at the largest book display to buy three new paperbacks on Eloise’s recommended list, then headed for the exit. Beside the door he noticed a glass case full of jewelry that held some promise of quality. A bronze dragon-paw necklace with a large opal in its claws caught his eye. That might please Britt. After a brief inspection, he bought it for her.

>   Judging that he’d stayed away from Britt long enough to avoid giving the impression that he was deliberately trailing after her, he followed her mental traces to the main ballroom. Convention volunteers were in the midst of clearing the back half of the hall for a Regency dance that, according to the program, started at eight. Meanwhile, up front Claude and Eloise, seated on folding chairs in a friendly, informal style, were rendering folk songs to the accompaniment of Eloise’s acoustic guitar. Thirty to forty people comprised the audience. Britt sat at one end of the front row listening. Roger took a chair at the opposite end.

  Claude was outfitted in his complete vampire regalia—ruffled white shirt, ruby stickpin, high-necked, black, crimson-lined cape. The two front rows, Roger noted, ran heavily to young women whose rapt gazes never left Claude’s face. Eloise wore an empire-style dress of royal blue velvet, cinched tight beneath the bustline with silver embroidery. A matching silver snood confined her chestnut hair. She was finishing up a song in which she seemed to enact the role of some sort of shape-changing water sprite.

  A muted patter of applause greeted the conclusion. Claude’s eyes lingeringly traveled over the small audience. “Any requests?”

  A babble of phrases answered him. Claude nodded affirmation to somebody’s shout of, “Sweet William’s Ghost.” He and Eloise sang in dialogue form about Sweet William and his Lady Margaret, who “ran over the hills on a cold winter night in a dead man’s company.” As soon as they fell silent, the babble resumed. Holding up a hand for quiet, Claude said, “How about another nice, gloomy, romantic ghost story?” He exchanged glances with Eloise, who strummed a chord in response. They launched into a ballad, reversing the previous one, in which Claude played the part of a bereaved man and Eloise his dead sweetheart:

  “I’ll do as much for my true love

  As any young man may.

  I’ll sit and mourn upon her grave

  For a twelvemonth and a day.”

  At the end of a year and a day the ghost begged her lover to leave her in peace, while he demanded a kiss from her “clay cold lips.” Roger recognized the archetypal folklore motif of excessive grief binding the dead to the earth. Eloise sang the ghost’s quasi-vampiric response:

  “I fear if you kiss my clay cold lips,

  Your end will not be long.”

  As the ballad unfolded, Roger sensed the appeal, more than audience-directed drama, that Claude projected. Eloise, under the mask of the lyrics, answered him with cool remoteness. When the song ended with the spirit’s withdrawal to a higher plane and the lover’s acceptance of loss, the listeners applauded enthusiastically. Claude’s genuine emotion, modulated to the requirements of the performance, communicated itself to them.

  Roger had seldom seen Claude “on” like this. It was interesting to observe how the actor-vampire played to his public. While he didn’t ignore the male spectators, careful to toss out witty replies to their shouted jokes and comments, Claude focused most of his attention on the women. His eyes caressingly brushed each one he spoke to, the second or two of contact designed to leave her with the impression that if only he were free, she would be his companion for the night. Roger found himself hoping Claude wouldn’t turn that teasing sensuality in Britt’s direction. The air seemed permeated with a rosy, sweet-scented mist. Roger began to grasp how Claude endured these overcrowded surroundings. Able to gather and mold the emotions of his audience, he thrived on the tumultuous responses Roger shrank from.

  Eloise, joining Claude in a duet of Kipling’s “Female of the Species,” sang in a brittle, ironic tone. She couldn’t be oblivious to Claude’s toying with the audience; no doubt over the years she’d learned to distance herself. Roger could hardly blame Claude, whose aura showed that the residual hunger from his recent ordeal remained unsatisfied, yet the behavior did seem tactless in Eloise’s presence.

  Finally Claude refused any further song requests, announcing that he had to move on to a scheduled autograph session. “We’ll be singing at nine, after Eloise’s panel, to warm up for Mock Turtle Soup’s concert. See you then, n’est-ce pas?” The majority of the audience, of course, trailed after him in search of autographs.

  While Eloise packed up the guitar, Britt talked quietly with her. Roger wandered into the hallway, since he didn’t need to be within earshot to listen telepathically. Britt remarked that Eloise looked as if she needed a break and invited her to grab a drink in the cocktail lounge before the panel.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes,” Eloise said. “I guess that’s enough time.” Now that she didn’t have an audience to perform for, she let her voice quaver with fatigue.

  Roger decided to follow up that suggestion himself. He couldn’t watch the panel discussion on Bigfoot, since Greer might notice him, nor could he return to the bedroom, which Britt would need later for her hypnotic session. With various con activities diverting fans in all directions, a dark corner of the bar might afford as much peace as he could hope to find in this setting. Once Britt and Eloise were safely ensconced in a booth in the lounge, he came in, took a corner booth on the other side of the room behind a hanging fern, ordered a brandy, and leaned back with his eyes shut to follow their conversation.

  ORDERING A SOFT drink for herself, Britt watched with concern as Eloise asked for a gin and tonic. “Should you—”

  “What possible difference could it make now?”

  The flat tone of voice worried Britt. “I was only thinking that you still have a long night ahead of you, and you’re already stressed.”

  Eloise shrugged. “I’m okay.” After the drinks came, she said, “You can really do this? Hypnotize the guy as well as Roger could?” She kept her voice down, and Britt had made sure to choose a booth in a sparsely occupied section of the bar.

  “Almost. I’ve been practicing for years. It helps with patients—I’ve reached the point where I can even tell when they’re lying or evading. I used it on a murder suspect at the state hospital just the other day.”

  “Wish I could do something. I feel so useless.” She swirled her drink, making the ice tinkle. “What do you think I should do about Claude—our relationship?”

  At least she’s willing to talk, Britt thought with a loosening of tension. “Whom do you want, the sister or the shrink?”

  “A little of both, I guess. You know what worries me? I don’t have anything to hang onto. I’m beginning to wonder if any of the love I thought we shared was ever real.”

  Britt kept her tone even, concealing her distress at this statement. “You do love him, don’t you?”

  Eloise gave an impatient toss of her head. “Sure, if you mean do I feel the emotion. But did I have a choice about it? You know what he is. He could have made me feel any damn thing he wanted me to.”

  “Do you believe he did that?” Britt asked softly.

  “That’s just the point, I don’t know what to believe! How can I trust any of my own perceptions? Look, you know how we met, don’t you?”

  “Parts of it. You’d been corresponding about your work, and he’d tentatively agreed to use your Varney script for a film he wanted to finance. And then you met at some horror awards banquet, right?”

  “Right.” Eloise sipped her drink, her mouth twisting as if it tasted bitter. “I’m a pushover for that lethal charm like everybody else. There he was in the black cape and the whole nine yards, my fantasy in the flesh. He took me up to his hotel room to discuss the script and—well, I don’t have to draw you a diagram, of all people. He made me forget it completely.”

  Britt started to understand Eloise’s belated misgivings. “Do you remember it now?”

  Eloise shook her head. “Not long after that I accepted his invitation to his place in Big Sur, and while I was there, he told me the truth. Before that, he did it again—the first night, while I was asleep. Those were the only times—or so he claims. Since then, he’s tried to reactivate the memory of our first night together. But it hasn’t worked. Frankly, I don’t think he’s really trying.”


  “Can you blame him?” said Britt. “He may consciously believe he wants you to remember, but on an unconscious level he’s probably holding back. Once he discovered he loved you, he could very well have been ashamed of taking advantage. They’re not immune to those emotions, you know.”

  “They aren’t? How do we know, really? Maybe Claude’s not capable of love—he didn’t have Roger’s human childhood. Maybe what he and I share is just mutual addiction. Since he’d already had me before I fell in love with him, how can I ever know?” She gulped her drink, shivering as the cold liquid went down. “He might even think he really cares for me, but how can he know? Maybe I’m nothing but a convenience. A drug.”

  Britt inwardly shuddered at the labyrinth of doubt layered upon doubt that Eloise unfolded before her. She reached around the scented candle in the middle of the table to clasp her friend’s hand. “How can any of us be sure of our feelings? Or our lovers’ feelings? Eloise, when it comes down to it, we simply have to have faith.” Doing great, Doctor, keep feeding her the trite truisms.

  “I know. But I seem to have mislaid mine.” Eloise checked her watch. “Good grief, I’m one minute late for the panel already.” She scrambled to her feet. “Thanks for trying. I’ll think about it—honest.”

  Britt followed her down the hall to the conference room designated for the Bigfoot panel. Finding a seat near the front, she watched Eloise take her place at the long table with Greer and three science fiction authors, two women and one man. In the back of her mind, Britt felt Roger silently absorbing everything she perceived. [I’m really beginning to worry about Eloise, colleague,] she told him.

  He expressed agreement. [How is Claude supposed to defend himself against that kind of charge? How can he prove his love if she won’t believe he knows his own mind on the subject?]

  Britt mentally shrugged. [I hope the sheer passage of time will convince her. She’s not in a normal state right now.] Britt turned her attention to the moderator’s introduction, already in progress.