Child of Twilight

by Margaret L. Carter

  [But doesn’t our freedom depend on keeping them ignorant of us?]

  [What kind of freedom is that, pussyfooting through life to guard yourself from your inferiors? This is freedom.]

  Immersed in the exhilaration of soaring above the trees, Gillian couldn’t produce a credible counter-argument.

  A few minutes later, they dropped to the ground and walked the rest of the way to the car, where Gillian retrieved her blouse and sweatshirt. “Listen, child,” said Camille as she started the engine, “what they witness doesn’t matter nearly so much as Volnar made you think. First, they won’t believe it. Their own aversion to the bizarre and impossible makes them reject the evidence of their senses. Second, if it comes to the crunch, we can always mesmerize them and revise their memories. Now we have to get out of here, before whoever owns this place drives by and wonders about this strange car parked in their lane.”

  After they’d traveled a couple of miles, Camille said, “That was just an appetizer. Now I need dinner.”

  What about me? Gillian thought but did not project. The energy drain of flying had sharpened her appetite.

  “Furthermore, we need to ditch this car,” her companion went on. “Roger probably knows about it. This time we’ll try a freeway rest stop. I’ve had good luck with them in the past.”

  Camille sang as they cruised Route 50, this time “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Gillian preferred the a capella entertainment to conversation. While the woman was singing, she might not notice Gillian’s ill-suppressed rebellious emotions. They didn’t stop on 50, instead turning north on Interstate 95. Gillian was having an increasingly hard time controlling her impatience by the time they pulled into a rest station.

  Camille dropped her off at the bottom of the ramp, before approaching the brightly-lit brick shelter that held the restrooms. “Wait here while I check out the prospects. I don’t want us seen together.”

  Gillian retreated under a tree and faded into the shadows. By now, she was confident that she could maintain the psychic veil; no ephemeral would see her unless she wanted him to. Since she hadn’t been ordered otherwise, she linked telepathically with Camille to watch the woman’s reconnaissance.

  After washing her hands in the ladies’ room, Camille got a drink and lingered by the water fountain to observe people passing between the shelter and their cars. She fixed on a young couple, an elfin-faced blonde in a fur-collared coat and a husky, chestnut-haired man who clasped the woman’s hand as they studied the Maryland map on the wall. Camille listened to their murmured conversation “—about another hour and a half to your mom’s, think we should call? Nah, we’re ahead of schedule, no reason she’d be worrying.”

  [Vacationers,] Camille remarked to Gillian. [We’ll take them. You’re going to serve as bait.] Through Camille’s eyes Gillian watched the couple walk toward a four-door compact in the parking lot. [Quickly, Gillian, get to the other end, where you can intercept them before they speed up at the on-ramp.]

  Still veiled, Gillian rejoiced to find she could sprint at better-than-human speed without losing her grip on her invisibility. When the target couple’s car accelerated out of the parking lot, she was ready for them. Out of direct sight of the other cars at the rest stop, she flickered into full visibility soon enough to catch the driver’s attention, but not close enough to let him be sure she’d appeared out of nowhere.

  The young man braked when she waved. Before he could change his mind and move on, she lurched to the car and leaned on the driver’s window. She made herself breathe hard.

  The man rolled the window down a few inches. He was cautious. Gillian silently ordered him not to notice the crimson pinpoints at the centers of her eyes. “Help me, please!” She injected a sob into her voice.

  “What’s wrong?” The man spoke in a rumbling bass that made her diaphragm flutter. Gillian felt his gaze on her. Once again she was fortunate to be without a coat, since she looked more pathetic that way.

  “Please get me away from here!” She gulped, as if choking down tears. She felt Camille mentally applauding the act. “I was hitchhiking, and this man—he—” She projected terror, drawing upon the memory of the frightful instant when Greer had seen her change.

  [Easy,] Camille reminded her. [Don’t get so carried away that you lose control and do it again.]

  Gillian’s simulated desperation had its effect on the woman in the car. “You poor thing! Frank, pull over!”

  Gillian stepped back to allow the car to park at the curb. The man, Frank, moved the gearshift to neutral, a good sign. The blonde woman scooted over to the center of the front seat. “Get in, you must be freezing. It’s a tight squeeze, but it’s warmer up here.”

  Gillian accepted the invitation before Frank could express his doubts. “I don’t know about this, Jan,” he said after Gillian closed the passenger door. “Sure, we should help, but—what happened, exactly?”

  “This man in a truck gave me a ride. When we stopped here, he tried to—And then I slapped him and jumped out. Please don’t make me talk about it!” The fewer details, the less her chance of striking a false note, Gillian thought. She focused on Jan, the more susceptible of the two.

  “Isn’t there somebody you can call?” said Frank. “I’d be glad to walk you over to the phone booth.”

  Gillian shook her head. “There’s nobody.” She clasped one of Jan’s gloved hands. When the woman’s face softened with increased pity, Gillian wrapped her arms around the woman’s neck.

  Startled, Jan stiffened for an instant. Gillian’s fingers stroked her hair so delicately she probably didn’t notice the touch, while Gillian murmured meaningless pleas for help into her ear. Exulting in her new power, Gillian felt the woman’s muscles relax as she returned the hug.

  Gillian heard a bewildered “Hey” from the man. She ignored it.

  “I’m so cold,” she whispered. And she was. She needed this woman’s body heat to alleviate a chill beyond the below-freezing outdoor temperature. She couldn’t help realizing that Jan had responded with kindness before the psychic compulsion had lulled her into a trance. And I’m just supposed to turn her over for Camille to drain? Gillian felt a wild impulse to drive off with these people this very moment, before Camille could interfere. With Frank and Jan’s hypnotically-induced cooperation Gillian could be at Roger’s townhouse in less than an hour.

  Then she heard a strangled gasp from Frank. Too late! A mental sting from Camille demonstrated that she’d sensed Gillian’s intent. Jan stirred, trying to look around at her husband. “It’s all right,” Gillian whispered. “Don’t worry, Frank is fine. I’m freezing—hold me.”

  Vaguely she sensed Camille ensnaring the man’s will and ordering him out of the car. She led him away from the curb to a cluster of pines, where she made him lie face up on the winter-brown grass. [Put the woman to sleep,] she told Gillian.

  Gillian obeyed, surprised at how easy the maneuver turned out to be. Jan’s sympathy and Gillian’s imbibing of her life-force, even without shedding blood, had forged a link that enhanced Gillian’s influence. The woman exhaled a long sigh and slumped against Gillian’s shoulder.

  Again Camille spoke: [You’ve been a big help, so I’m going to give you a treat. Join me.] She flung open the gates to her mind. Gillian plunged in. Her earlier immersion into those depths had horrified her, but hunger and curiosity dominated over fear.

  Her senses exploded. A rich stream of lust and power poured into her. The victim’s heartbeat and breathing sounded like the roar of the ocean; his aura incandesced behind her eyelids; the heat of his flesh licked over her skin like painless fire. She was drowning and didn’t care whether she ever touched bottom or rose to the surface again.

  Abruptly she was thrown out. She landed with jarring force in the heaviness of her own body. [Never share their death,] came Camille’s icy command. [You’re too young. It would devour your mind.]

  Gillian clung to her only consolation, the woman unconscious in her arms. Her mouth was
an inch away from Jan’s throat. The synthetic fur of the coat collar tickled Gillian’s nose. It would be so easy to fold back the collar and satisfy her thirst.

  [No, you aren’t ready,] Camille told her. Gillian sensed Camille releasing the man, whose life was seeping away into the frigid night, and walking back to the car. Slipping into the driver’s seat, Camille said, “I’ll take her now.”

  Gillian noticed Camille pocketing a handful of paper money. Putting an arm around the unconscious woman, Camille said, “Hand me her purse.”

  Chilled by the loss of her prey’s warmth, Gillian leaned over the seat to pick up the purse. Camille rummaged in it for a wallet, from which she extracted all the cash. She then placed her fingertips on Jan’s forehead. “Look at me.” Gillian felt the atmosphere grow turgid as Camille gathered her strength for an illusion. Lambent flames haloed the head of a glossy black panther with glowing eyes. Gillian knew the image she vaguely glimpsed would appear twice as real to Jan, who sat paralyzed beneath Camille’s dominance.

  “Forget you saw us,” Camille said. “You don’t know what killed your husband. It’s so terrible you want to forget it. Get out of the car and lie down under the trees. You want to go to sleep so you can forget.”

  At Camille’s mental command Gillian moved to allow Jan to obey. The woman staggered across the lawn, her eyes glazed, and stretched full length on the ground. Meanwhile, Camille extracted the car keys and unlocked the trunk. She pulled suitcases out and dumped them on the ground along with the woman’s purse. “No reason to clutter it up with identifiable items we don’t need. We may want the space for something else later. Hurry up, let’s go.”

  Gillian regretted the loss of the clothes in the hatchback. Now they’d have to buy or steal fresh supplies. Camille took as disconcertingly casual an attitude toward material possessions as toward her prey. An attitude Gillian still wasn’t reconciled to. “You killed him,” she whispered as they sped down the freeway.

  “You’re on that again? Don’t try to claim you’ve got some kind of purity, cub. You weren’t in any mood to stop me.”

  Shame suffused Gillian at this reminder of the thirst that still burned in her. “But this time it’s sure to be identified as murder. And what you showed the woman—”

  “Better than letting her have a good look at my normal appearance. Also, terrifying her out of her wits minimizes the chance of her telling a straight story. And it’s fun.” Impatient with Gillian’s persistent qualms, she said, “Granted, I took a risk killing the man. The elders would call it reckless self-exposure—as if I cared. So would you rather I’d have killed her, too, without even hunger for an excuse?”

  Gillian shook her head, more confused than ever. How much of this irregular behavior was justified in the name of self-defense? Camille’s attitude had an insidious sort of logic that undermined Volnar’s doctrines. Yet this time, as Camille herself admitted, she’d trespassed beyond all bounds. The elders would never accept her now. But Gillian couldn’t keep her mind on abstract questions. The mention of hunger reminded her of her own. Somehow she knew animals would no longer satisfy it. “When will I be allowed to drink human blood?”

  “When you prove yourself worthy.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE URGENCY THAT drove him had long since died, leaving Roger to pursue his quest out of a sense of duty. After cruising central Maryland for several hours he’d given up hope of running across Camille and Gillian. Nor did his vague notion of making himself a target in the conspicuous Citroen with the hope of drawing Camille’s fire make as much sense as it had at the start of the evening. She can find me at home whenever she wishes anyway. But why hasn’t she made contact yet? She must be planning to; why else is she hanging onto Gillian?

  Having worked through a wearisome assortment of motels and gas stations without a glimpse of the blue hatchback, he’d switched to rest stops. Just two more, he decided, and he would head back to Annapolis. Already he’d driven halfway to Baltimore with no idea of what direction his quarry had taken. Doubtless he was simply wasting time.

  Suppose Gillian calls again, and I miss her? Or Camille does, and she gets angry when I’m not there to answer?

  Driving north on 95, he took the off-ramp for the next rest stop. When he pulled into the parking area, he thought for a moment that fatigue and hope were making him hallucinate. A medium blue hatchback sat at the end of the row. Roger had to shake his head to clear the mental fog before he could check to confirm that the license number was the one he’d memorized.

  His heart racing, he parked beside the hatchback and got out. Already he’d seen that it was unoccupied. While he strode rapidly toward the restrooms, he extended psychic tendrils, searching for any hint of a nonhuman presence. He felt none. Well away from the car, he flared his nostrils and picked up no trace of Gillian’s scent. So they’d been here, but they had switched vehicles and fled again. Somehow, Roger wasn’t surprised to arrive too late once more.

  As soon as he’d reached that conclusion, he consciously noticed for the first time that a revolving red light was casting lurid shadows on the other end of the parking lot. He stalked toward the light and the babble of voices that surrounded it. Three police cars, two from the state highway patrol and one from Anne Arundel County, lined the curb at the beginning of the freeway on-ramp. A ribbon marked “Crime Scene—Do Not Cross,” stretched between a pair of sawhorses, blocked access to the grassy buffer zone between parking lot and freeway. Several uniformed officers were clustered nearby, one of them taking photographs. A plainclothes detective paced over the grass, occasionally pausing to make notes. Not Captain Hayes, Roger noted with relief.

  A faint effluvium of blood and death hung in the air. Roger’s night vision distinguished a crushed, darkened patch of grass where a body must have lain. His chest constricted.

  The police had apparently impressed bystanders with the need to stay clear of the crime site. The few people watching did so from a distance, hovering near the brick shelter. When Roger walked up to the barrier, one of the officers intercepted him. “You’ll have to stand back, sir. There’s nothing to see now, anyway.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Roger said. “I wondered if I might be of some help.”

  The rather illogical offer, in view of the conspicuous absence of an ambulance, won him a direct but non-hostile stare, which had been the object of the remark. “Thank you, doctor, but as you can see, the victim has already been transported to the hospital.”

  Roger didn’t touch the man for fear of triggering trained defense reflexes. The hypnotic process was working well enough without physical contact. “Who was the victim? Tell me what happened here.”

  “Between ninety minutes and two hours ago, a female Caucasian in her twenties wandered into the ladies’ room, traumatized and apparently delirious. Two women who were present persuaded her to sit down and called 911.” The policeman was conveniently suggestible; he recited the facts as smoothly as if delivering an official report. “Upon arriving at the scene, state police personnel found the body of the first victim’s husband lying under a tree. No obvious cause of death was immediately discernible. Questioning revealed that the couple’s car had been stolen. However, the contents of the vehicle, including the woman’s purse, had been left beside the road. Several hundred dollars in cash had been removed from the purse and the man’s wallet.”

  When the officer paused for breath, Roger interrupted the recitation. “How long ago did the assault take place?”

  “The wife was incoherent, so she wasn’t able to say what time she and her husband arrived here. The medical examiner’s initial estimate is that the man had been dead at least two hours.”

  Roger shoved aside the discouragement this information produced. “You say she was delirious and incoherent. What did she tell you?”

  “She was raving. Made no sense. Something about a monster with fangs. If not for the car and all their cash being missing, I’d think they’d been taking some kind of
crap that killed him and drove her out of her head.”

  Roger wished that explanation would hold up. How neat—while drugged, the couple had succumbed to a random robbery. Unfortunately the post mortem would reveal the absence of drugs in the man’s system. Camille was becoming reckless; she’d taken care to pump Greer full of liquor first.

  “Describe the stolen car.”

  The officer flipped open a notebook and reeled off the description, including license number. Roger guessed the woman must have carried that in her purse, for she could hardly have remembered it while delirious. Just then, one of the other policemen called, “Gonzalo, what’s going on over there?”

  Roger captured Gonzalo’s eyes to focus his wavering attention. “Thank you for your help. I offered my services, and you declined. You didn’t tell me anything of consequence.”

  Roger turned and walked away with a purposeful but outwardly unhurried gait. Behind him he heard Officer Gonzalo shout back, “No problem, just getting rid of a sightseer.”

  Having fed, Camille would probably go to ground. Roger had no heart for any further useless wandering tonight. He drove up the highway to the next exit and circled back toward Annapolis.

  Knowing Britt was at her own apartment, he went directly there. He found her dozing on the couch, while Claude sat across the living room flipping through the latest Tom Clancy thriller by the glow of a single dim lamp. Eloise had gone to bed. Britt, more than half asleep, silently greeted Roger when he walked in. [I’ve behaved myself, colleague. I haven’t so much as touched him once.]

  Roger commended her restraint in view of the urgent need Claude radiated. How can Eloise possibly resist that? Claude plopped the book down on the rug when Roger entered. “Bombed out again? I’m damn sorry about all this. If I’d reacted faster the other night, Gillian wouldn’t be in this fix to begin with.”

  “Apologizing?” Roger said as he hung his coat up. “That isn’t like you. And unnecessary—if Greer hadn’t succeeded in capturing Gillian, Camille might have still managed to lure her away.”