Child of Twilight

by Margaret L. Carter

That discouraging hypothesis harmonized with Roger’s own fears. “Even so, I have to find her.”

  Britt, cuddling into the circle of his left arm as they sat together by the fire, murmured agreement. “Do you really think it’s safe to level with Hayes? Or pretend to, rather?”

  “A selected piece of the truth should convince him I had sound reasons to be evasive in the past.” Disengaging from Britt, too preoccupied to respond to her pang of disappointment, he paced across the living room and back. “It’s not midnight yet. I suppose I could call the captain at home without destroying whatever rapport we have left.”

  “Since you won’t settle down until you’ve done it,” she said crisply, “you’d better go ahead.”

  He retired to his office to make the call. The sleepy grumble in which Captain Hayes answered the phone wasn’t encouraging. When Roger identified himself, Hayes said, “Yeah, what now?”

  “I have another vehicle I’d like you to check on.”

  “Can it wait till Monday?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Roger described the hatchback Camille had been seen driving.

  “Do I have to remind you, Doctor,” said Hayes in a long-suffering tone, “the Anne Arundel County Police Department is not a private detective agency? Especially not for free. I don’t go an inch farther with this until I hear an explanation. And make it good.”

  Roger commenced his embarrassed pillar of the community act. “I assure you, I have vital reasons not to discuss my—what’s behind these inquiries.”

  “Your reasons don’t mean diddly-squat if you’re not prepared to explain them. And don’t give me that confidential bull again. If you’ve got a patient who’s a danger to the public, or you two are covering up a crime—”

  “Damn it, Captain, that’s not it!” Roger allowed a tension-laden pause before continuing. “This matter is strictly personal.”

  “Yeah?” The officer’s voice carried no sympathy.

  “My daughter, who is visiting from out of state, has disappeared.” Roger used a hesitant tone that made it clear how much he detested volunteering that fact.

  “Daughter? I didn’t know you’d ever been married.”

  “I haven’t.” Roger growled the words, as if angered by Hayes’ obtuseness.

  “Oh.” A hint of interest crept into the officer’s voice.

  “Dr. Loren knows, and that’s all. Surely you can understand that I don’t want the matter publicized. I value my privacy.”

  “For Christ’s sake, if you think the girl’s been kidnapped, are you going to let that stop you—”

  Roger cut off the indignant protest. “No, I don’t think she was abducted. That is why I haven’t reported it officially. She ran away of her own free will.”

  “With that Adam Greer? Why haven’t you reported her as a runaway? Or brought charges against him for contributing to the delinquency of a minor?”

  “That’s irrelevant, because to the best of my knowledge, she’s no longer with him. Listen, Hayes, I came to you because we’ve worked together many times. I hoped you would understand.” Hesitancy, with an underplayed note of paternal anguish. “The girl and I aren’t—close. I can’t make an official report and send the authorities after her. One glimpse of a police uniform would send her running in the opposite direction. And she’d never trust me thereafter.”

  Hayes heaved a sigh. “So what do you want from me?”

  “Just the information Dr. Loren and I are asking for. If Gillian is found, I want to confront her in my own way.”

  “The kid’s name is Gillian? Hang on, let me get a notepad.” So he hadn’t even bothered to write down the data on the car! Roger heard rummaging sounds on the other end, and murmured words of reassurance, apparently from Hayes to his wife. “Okay, give me her age and other statistics.”

  Roger described Gillian. “I think she’s now traveling with a woman, first name Camille—unless she’s adopted an alias—tall, pale, dark-haired.”

  “Alias? You know of any crime this woman’s committed?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Say, what does this have to do with that earlier question about peculiar deaths in the Maryland-D.C. area?”

  Roger sidestepped the question. “I’d appreciate it if you would follow that up, too.”

  “Hell, I should know better than waste time trying to get a straight answer out of you. Tell me the license plate of that blue hatchback again.”

  After Roger had given all the details he felt safe in revealing, Hayes said, “Damned if I can figure out how you know so much but don’t know where your daughter is. I’ll get right on it. Unofficially.”

  Roger gave him an effusive and completely sincere speech of thanks. He only hoped Hayes would keep the inquiry unofficial, treating seriously the plea to refrain from sending uniforms in pursuit of Camille and Gillian.

  Finding Britt half-asleep in his bed, he sought distraction by giving her a massage for the nagging ache in her legs. “I should know better than to run the perimeter of the Academy after skipping so many days,” she said.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been jogging in this weather.”

  “Why not? For goodness’ sake, the sidewalks are clear. Especially on Navy property.” Lying on her stomach, she raised her head to give him a drowsy smile over her shoulder. “You give a fabulous aerobic workout when your heart’s in it, but it can’t substitute for a five-mile run.”

  The teasing remark augmented the delicious frustration of stroking her when he’d promised himself to abstain from anything more intimate. He pointedly changed the subject. “You listened to my conversation with Hayes?”

  “Uh-huh. Wonderful. You’re becoming as good an actor as Claude.”

  “Not entirely an act. I am worried about Gillian, and I was reluctant to tell him about her.”

  “Do you think she’ll come back to you?” Encroaching sleep slurred Britt’s voice.

  “Questionable. She hardly knows me, and God knows what ideas Camille has been feeding her.”

  Britt turned on her back, her eyes drooping shut. “That really upsets you.”

  “Yes, now that you mention it.” Roger was bewildered by his own reaction. “Yes, if she rejected me, I would be hurt. Strange.”

  “Another of the hazards of being human,” said Britt. “Try not to worry. Physically, she’s bound to be okay. If Camille actually is trying to corrupt the kid, she’ll pamper her, not abuse her.”

  “I’m trying to keep that in mind.” He stroked Britt’s hair back from her forehead. “Go to sleep, beloved.”

  He left her to rest undisturbed, while he faced the yawning void of a night of inactivity.

  Hayes’ return call came at five a.m., just as Roger was considering trying to snatch a bit of sleep before church.

  “You have some information for me?” Roger said, injecting the proper note of strained urgency into his voice.

  “Trivia first,” said the detective. “That hatchback you mentioned? It was reported stolen yesterday. The owner, thirty-seven-year old office worker on a trip to—” Roger heard pages rustling. “Well, you don’t care about all that. Guy stops at a Seven-Eleven to pick up coffee and doughnuts. This was approximately six thirty a.m. yesterday, Saturday. He exits the store and passes out—apparently. He can’t remember a thing until he woke up—get this—in the back seat of a rental car he’d never seen before.”

  Since Hayes appeared to be trying for a dramatic pause, Roger interjected an impatient, “Well?”

  “The precinct contacted the rental company and determined that the car was signed out to your friend Greer. Tried to track him down to ask why he hadn’t reported the vehicle missing, didn’t have any luck. Now here’s the punch line.” Another pause. “About an hour ago, Greer’s van was found totaled at the bottom of a ravine under a Route 50 overpass.”

  “Good God Almighty.”

  “Waiting on the autopsy, of course, but we strongly suspect DUI.”

  “I see.” Rog
er didn’t have any thoughts on the subject that would be safe to share with Hayes.

  “Are you sitting down? There’s more.” Further rustling of pages. “You and Dr. Loren asked about unexplained deaths, especially of—how did you put it?—people who wouldn’t be missed. The D.C. police got a report of a body, black female, age thirteen, no obvious marks of violence. Discovered around noon yesterday, next to a Dumpster in an alley. Girl lived in one of those downtown welfare hotels with her aunt, who’d last seen her when they had breakfast at a soup kitchen a couple of blocks from the death site. The aunt assumed the girl had run off with her new friend, so the aunt just went on to work, waitressing on the early shift at a diner.”

  “What drew your attention to this death? You said no obvious marks of violence.” Roger wondered about less than obvious marks, such as a small incision on the neck or arm.

  “Autopsy indicates massive loss of blood. No sign of internal hemorrhage, no wounds other than a scratch on the neck.” Weariness competed with suspicion in Hayes’ voice. “Dr. Darvell, this sounds awfully familiar, and I hate déjà vu. What do you know about all this?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s only vague conjecture.” He wished he had the detective face to face, where he could use his paranormal influence to derail the conversation.

  “Well, one thing makes me real curious. The dead girl’s new friend, who ate breakfast with her at the soup kitchen, was a skinny redhead who called herself, Gillian. No woman with her, dark-haired or otherwise, by the way.”

  “Oh, my God!” Roger scrambled for the proper response. “I’m sorry for the other girl, but thank the Lord, Gillian didn’t run into the murderer, too.”

  Hayes’ tone softened. “I can imagine how worried you must be. Don’t you think it’s about time to file a formal missing child report?”

  “No!” Forcing himself to speak calmly, Roger repeated his earlier argument. “She wouldn’t cooperate with the police. She’d just lose herself permanently.”

  “I can’t force you,” said Hayes, “but I think you’re making a hell of a mistake.”

  Roger feared the officer might be correct, but not in the way he meant. Perhaps it had been a mistake to mention Gillian at all.

  As Britt remarked when Roger discussed the situation with her on the way to church, at least confessing about his illegitimate child had elicited the detective’s help. Roger tried to wipe the whole mess from his mind and cast his thoughts into a proper frame for worship. Since Britt always attended Mass at St. Mary’s with him on Christmas Eve, he reciprocated by joining her at St. Anne’s, the restored Episcopal church in the middle of the historic district, on the fourth Sunday of Advent. At this early morning hour, they managed to preempt a parking space on State Circle across from the capitol building, a short walk to St. Anne’s on Church Circle. In the foyer they separated, since Britt had duty as a chalice bearer this Sunday.

  Roger preferred the early service, not only because it left more of the day free for sleep, but also because it was less crowded and featured fewer hymns. For his hyperacute hearing and perfect pitch, congregational “singing” meant minor torture. The prayerful (or at least groping toward prayerful) concentration of the worshipers, most of them elderly, cushioned the discomfort a vampire invariably felt in large groups of people. Unlike Claude, with his religious phobia, Roger found this kind of service restful and nourishing. As compensation for the lack of Britt’s presence within arm’s reach, he enjoyed watching her in the white lay reader’s robe and listening to her read the lessons in her rich alto. Though she couldn’t carry a tune, she had a sensuous speaking voice.

  When the priest descended into the aisle to read the Gospel, Roger deflected his thoughts from the inappropriately carnal detour Britt’s voice had lured him into and made a sincere effort to listen. The familiar reading from the first chapter of Matthew described St. Joseph’s dilemma, whether to marry his pregnant fiancée or divorce her quietly. All his life, Roger had been taught to revere the Blessed Virgin’s spouse as the paragon of earthly fatherhood.

  Quite a standard to live up to. Faced with the crisis, Joseph had made the divinely inspired choice to embrace responsibility for the child he could have repudiated. Fine, but I haven’t heard an angel speaking yet. Nevertheless, Roger knew he couldn’t evade his duty; the natural light of reason he’d learned about from his parochial school teachers decades ago offered guidance he couldn’t ignore.

  He heard little of the sermon, which he gathered dealt with the topic of faith and risk. I’ve got more risk than I can handle, thanks, but I could use an extra portion of faith. By the time the rest of the congregation filed to the rail for communion—which he was too much of an unreconstructed pre-Vatican II Catholic to partake of—that natural light shone upon him with dazzling clarity.

  The vampire community’s attitude toward fatherhood ought to make no difference in his behavior. To hell with their customs—I have to live by what I’ve been taught. In this respect I’m human, and I have to act like a human father. Gillian belongs to me, too, and I won’t lose her without a fight.

  He made a mental note to drop in at his own church later and light a candle to St. Joseph.

  INSIDE A CABIN like the one where she’d been imprisoned by Greer, Gillian was screaming. Roger raced to the door. Suddenly at his feet, a serpent appeared—at least twice the length of a man’s height, emerald green, with glistening, golden eyes. Its coils blocked the doorway. Raising its head to hiss at him, it displayed three-inch fangs.

  Roger grasped the thing’s head in both hands and squeezed. Its coils whipped around him. His accustomed strength melted away. The snake’s body compressed his lungs, suffocating him.

  Gillian shrieked his name. The snake disappeared, and Roger rushed inside. On the cabin’s scuffed hardwood floor lay Gillian and Britt. The serpent stretched across them, daring him to advance closer. The suffocating pressure paralyzed him again. Gray fog thickened before his eyes—

  He was jolted awake by the telephone jangling next to the bed. His hand shook as he picked up the receiver. “Yes?” His own harsh breathing rasped in his ears.

  “Roger, this is Gillian. Please come and pick me up.” She spoke low and rapidly.

  He had to tame his heartbeat before he could listen to her over its pounding. “Yes, of course. Where are you?”

  “At a motel off Route 50 near Bowie, with Camille. I don’t feel—right—about her. She kills.” A long, indrawn breath, followed by an explosive rush of words. “She called Professor Greer to her last night, met him in a restaurant, and made him kill himself. I’m not sure how.”

  “I have some idea,” Roger said. In view of Hayes’ information, he could visualize Camille pouring alcohol down the professor and commanding him to drive off an overpass. Even if the man had survived the crash, with luck he would have been incommunicado long enough to ensure her safety. “Gillian, give me the precise location of that motel. I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  Gillian rattled off the directions. “Please hurry. She’s still asleep now, but—” A gasp, a muffled shriek, and the telephone connection went dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  GILLIAN FELT THE lash of Camille’s rage a second before the door of the phone booth opened. She barely had time to cry out before Camille simultaneously clamped a hand over her mouth and slammed the receiver into its cradle.

  Wedging her against the wall of the booth, Camille whispered between ragged breaths, “We’re going back to our room now. You will appear to come with me of your own free choice.”

  Gillian nodded. Camille’s nails gouged her forearms, and the woman’s wrath made her head throb with pain. Grasping Gillian’s left wrist, Camille led her from the parking lot of the convenience store where she’d made the phone call, across the street to the motel. Aware of Camille’s adult strength, Gillian didn’t try to wrench her arm free. Nor did she consider screaming for help. Camille’s mature powers would swamp the will and cloud the mind of any bysta
nder who might venture to interfere. Worst of all, the volcanic heat of the woman’s anger terrified her into paralysis. Inside, she writhed in humiliation at her own impotence.

  I was certain she’d sleep longer. It’s only four thirty in the afternoon! Perhaps an intuition of Gillian’s absence had penetrated Camille’s day-sleep.

  Camille hustled her into the elevator and up to their room. Once she’d bolted the door, Camille flung Gillian onto the nearest bed. “You treacherous little beast!” The woman’s eyes glowed in the shadows of the heavily curtained room. “Ungrateful brat! I thought you appreciated what I’ve done for you. I thought you were loyal to me.” With her fingers curled like talons, she pounced on top of Gillian.

  Gillian’s struggle didn’t last long. She flailed her arms and flexed her legs like a cat trying to disembowel an attacker, to no avail. Within minutes Camille had her pinned to the mattress, her legs trapped by the woman’s, both her wrists shackled above her head by one of Camille’s hands. Camille’s breath blew hot in her face. The woman’s flesh scorched wherever it touched Gillian’s skin.

  What does she want? What is she going to do to me?

  The bared teeth answered Gillian’s question a second too late. They slashed the side of her neck. While vampires were immune to the anesthetic in their own saliva, Camille could have reduced the bite to a nearly painless sting. She didn’t try. Gillian’s back arched as the pain ripped through her. Camille’s mouth scalded her throat.

  She can’t kill me—she wouldn’t destroy a child of her own race—Dark Powers, no!

  The suction at the wound went on and on, until Gillian felt the marrow was being drawn from her bones. Uncontrolled energy coursed through her, as her body tried to deal with the trauma by transforming. At last the pressure slackened. Rubbing her wrists, she opened her eyes. Camille, sitting astride her legs, stared down at her. Gillian hesitantly covered the incision with one hand, afraid any movement might set off her attacker.

  The woman peeled off her shirt. Braless, she now wore only a pair of knit slacks. Sometime during the fight, she had kicked off her shoes.