by Linn Chapel
Suddenly it seemed much easier not to take any action at all.
Letting her eyelids drift half-shut, she pretended to stare at the spinning silver watch. Holt’s free hand slowly reached over, shut the book, and removed it from her lap.
“Did I mention that I was born in the West Country of England?” he murmured. He withdrew the watch from her field of vision and she heard the cover click shut. “Legends say that King Arthur reigned in the West Country and that even before his coming, the Holy Grail had rested in Glastonbury, near my birthplace. Had my life been different, I would have wielded a sword in the service of Arthur’s legend. But I belong to a different legend, Tressa. A legend of the night.” His voice had changed, becoming haunted with emotion.
She heard the brush of fabric as he shifted closer to her on the sofa. The cushion dipped under his weight.
Billows of fog piled up against her thoughts, pushing inward, stronger than she had expected. She let her eyes close all the way and concentrated on freeing herself, for she was determined not to give up control of her own mind. She leaned back against the sofa as if she were fully mesmerized, hoping he’d believe his efforts were working.
“You shall remember only the pocket watch.” Holt’s voice was low and insistent. “Only the watch, and the lateness of the hour, and nothing else.” His words were hardly more than a whisper now. The faint, haunting smell of wood smoke reached her.
Tressa’s heart raced with fear when she felt him brush her long hair away from her face. Suddenly, she felt a stab of pain in her neck.
Panicking, her thoughts retreated into an avenue of shimmering colors. Feeling safer, her racing thoughts slowed and she began to paint a scene in her inner vision.
Soon, dappled green leaves hovered overhead and blue shadows deepened amid tall trees. Branches met above a narrow path that led through a forest and with a last touch of imagination, Tressa added the smell of spruce to the cool air.
More than ever, she was thankful she could enter such safe places, places where she could be free from all cares. When she was a child, she had thought that everybody could enter such “pretty places” until she had discovered otherwise. She wasn’t sure what made her scenes look and feel so real, but she had always chalked that up to having a touch of psychic ability, even though her talent at reading intentions seemed to have nothing to do with the rich and beautiful environments she could create at will. Now that she was older, she called them dreamscapes.
Somewhere out of sight, ocean waves dashed against a rocky shore. It was the only sound.
I’ll follow the path to the sea. Then I’ll return to the real world.
Coming around a bend in the path, Tressa felt a shock course through her, for up ahead, the trees thinned to reveal an unexpected clearing in the forest.
Approaching slowly, her eyes went to the middle of the clearing, where a stone slab lay half-sunk into the earth, surrounded by tall meadow grasses.
Upon the stone lay an open book with time-worn pages. Near the book stood a wineglass filled with some dark red drink.
As dark as blood.
Tressa felt a shudder pass through her.
Her eyes darted back to the open book. A page was slowly turning over, but there was no wind.
None of this is supposed to be here! None of this has come from my own mind!
Alarmed, she quickly made her way around the edge of the clearing, keeping her distance from the strange and unnerving tableau in the center.
She gave it one last look before she entered the forest again. Even as she gazed, another page of the old book slowly turned over, all by itself.
Tressa spun around and fled down the shady path, following its winding course through the evergreens. Her feet were running.
Fog drifted through the trees and filled the forest, becoming thicker as she ran. Just where she had planned to find the shoreline, she encountered only more trees and thicker fog – fog that smelled of wood smoke, instead of salt water.
Something was very wrong.
She let her dreamscape dissolve into a welter of colors, afraid of what she’d discover. Holt had not seemed like a killer, but maybe she had been wrong about him, and her strange state meant that she was dying of blood loss.
As her awareness returned to the living room, she resisted the temptation to open her eyes. Hoping that Holt would believe she was still mesmerized, she slowly took stock of her condition.
Her pulse was steady and nothing vital seemed to be amiss, she found to her relief. Tension was making her body stiff and uncomfortable, but aside from that, she felt strong and alive.
She could feel Holt shifting away from her. “Tressa... my conscience condemns me already. It wasn’t hunger – I could have resisted that. No, I had to have more of you than just a memory, something I could possess and take with me.” She heard him draw in a long breath. “At least you will never know. Your memories of me will be far better than I deserve.”
The old, threadbare sofa creaked. Holt must have risen to his feet, for his next words came from above her. “If only you had proved to be vain, or empty-headed – anything to rid me of my fascination with you. I cannot recall ever being so moved by a woman’s glance or her manner of speaking. The dress you are wearing tonight only made my troubles worse. I was barely able to drag my gaze away from you,” he added with a wry laugh. “I examined your books and personal articles instead, but when you began to read aloud, I could not stay away from you any longer.”
He must have moved on silent feet, for his next words came from some distance away. “You’ll never know about all the other times I’ve seen you from afar. Waiting outside of the hospital in the dark for a chance to enter had always been a tedious task, but my vigils were suddenly brightened – far too much – when you began to work there. Every time I saw you leaving at night, I wished I could speak to you.”
She had heard no sound of footsteps, but his voice came from the other side of the room, near the window, next.
“Your virtue was a wonder. Brash men dripping of wealth would follow you into the parking lot, but you shunned them all. If they had troubled you too greatly, I would have found a way to intervene, but you were always quick to enter your car and drive away.”
Tressa suddenly felt the cushion dip next to her. Holt must have crossed the room, for he was sitting beside her again.
“But tonight, when I found you alone on the street, you were in danger. I had no choice but to reveal myself. Coming inside your apartment was a terrible mistake, though.”
She felt his fingers run through the strands of her hair. “Something about you is different, Tressa Newman... something more than your rare beauty, more than your look of loneliness.” He lifted one of her hands and drew in a breath.
Her heart had already been thudding unevenly throughout his earlier revelations, and now its pace increased so much that it seemed to be hammering wildly in her chest. But to her relief, Holt returned her hand to her lap without any further speculations about her.
Then his fingers caressed her cheek, and she nearly gasped. Holt spoke again. “Yes, something is different, but I know not what it is.”
His cold fingers traced a path down her cheek, coming to rest under her chin. She tried not to shiver at the intimacy of the touch. “Lord Byron was an idiot,” he murmured, “but he penned a few good lines, I’ll grant him that. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that’s best, of dark and bright, meet in her aspect and her eyes.’”
Tressa felt him rise from the sofa. Next came the quiet sound of books being shifted in a bookcase across the room. A moment later, his voice came from the door.
“Goodnight, Lady Lost.”
She heard the door groan on its old hinges as he left, and the latch fell into place.
Tressa’s eyes flew open. Quickly she rose and went to the window, where she peered down at the street from behind the curtain.
A moment later, Holt exited
the building and made his way to his car. Her mind grappled with the speed at which he must have descended both flights of stairs.
She drew back, afraid he might spot her in the window. Outside, she heard the sound of him entering his car. The engine started up and then he drove off.
It’s over. My mission is over.
She should have felt relieved, but instead she felt shaken and hollow.
Slowly she crossed the living room and entered the bathroom. Using the mirror above the sink, she peered closely at her neck. The twin marks barely showed, she realized. Being preyed upon by a subject was never supposed to happen in a mission, but at least her wound was healing rapidly.
It was only after she had changed out of her evening dress and readied herself for bed that Tressa suddenly remembered the Operation tracking bead. It was still in the pocket of her dress, along with the other devices. How could she have forgotten to plant the bead?
She’d always known it was unlikely she’d ever see Holt again, but if she had remembered to plant the tracking bead on him, the other operatives would have been able to track his fate, at least for a while. She could have gleaned a few facts from the Operation’s files, but without the bead, she’d never know.
She settled herself unhappily into bed, but sleep was a long time coming.
Fear trickled down Tressa’s back as her gaze ran over the confining walls of a dark, unfamiliar alley. She must have wandered from her apartment during the night and ended up here.
Suddenly, she saw a crumpled body lying nearby. Blood stained the man’s collar and one arm was flung out on the grimy pavement, as if there had been a struggle.
She backed away, breathing hard. She remembered with a sudden, blinding shock that she had been preyed upon by a vampire just that evening. She must have become one of them and had lost control, killing her human victim.
Hugging her arms about herself, she could feel the coldness of her own flesh. A siren howled in the distance, becoming louder and louder until it was earsplitting. Someone must have called the authorities.
It wouldn’t be long before they captured and destroyed her.
Three
Tressa gasped and sat bolt upright. As the dim morning light filtered through her bedroom curtains, she realized that the blaring noise was not a siren after all, but her alarm clock.
She reached out to turn it off, then collapsed back onto the pillow.
There’d been no exchange of blood between herself and Holt last night, she reminded herself firmly. And even if there had been, she could never be turned. It wasn’t possible.
Rising out of bed, she changed into her white uniform and splashed her face with cold water at the bathroom sink. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to drop by Mrs. Bridges on her way to the hospital for her morning shift.
Checking the mirror, she saw to her relief that the wound on her neck was nearly invisible now. Pulling her long hair into a plain twist, she secured it with pins, then slipped on the pair of stage glasses she had borrowed from Peter’s studio. The heavy, dark brown rims made her look even plainer, which was just what she wanted.
Thinking about Peter made her wince. Whenever she saw him next, her brother would surely spend hours ranting about all her mistakes.
Shrugging her arms into a shapeless gray sweater, she gave a parting glance to her reflection in the mirror. All of her measures to fade into the background seemed to be helping. Especially the stage glasses. Ever since she had started wearing them a few months ago, the kind of unwanted attention she had always shrunk from had dropped even further.
After a short drive, she parked at the nursing home, and as she emerged from her car, the morning sunlight warmed her face and lit up the petals of the yellow tulips that filled the flowerbeds near the entrance. Passing through the doors, Tressa felt a wave of relief that the dark fate of her dream could never come true.
When she arrived at Mrs. Bridges’ room, she found her former patient sitting by the window in a wheelchair. “Tressa! You came, just like you said you would!” the elderly woman exclaimed in a thin voice. “My own daughter hasn’t come to visit me in months,” she sniffed.
Tressa gave her old patient’s hand a little squeeze. “Mrs. Bridges, you’re looking wonderful this morning! They must be treating you well here.”
“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Bridges frowned a bit irritably. “But the time passes so slowly. Are you going to read to me today?”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m running late this morning,” Tressa told her apologetically. “I need to be at the hospital soon.”
“Oh, the hospital! I’m glad I left that place.”
“Now, Mrs. Bridges,” countered Tressa, “they have the best surgery record in the state. I know that the way they manage their elderly patients could use some changes,” she began.
“Lots of changes!” snorted Mrs. Bridges.
Tressa sighed, for she agreed wholeheartedly. “Maybe they’ll finally listen to my ideas. You know how hard I’ve been trying.” Trying, but not getting anywhere, she reminded herself. But when she finished her online courses in Patient Care Management, she might have more influence at the hospital.
“You’re such a sweet girl, Tressa. Why aren’t you married?” Mrs. Bridges asked. “You should dress up and date some young men. Why, if I were young, like you...” she laughed, wheezing a bit.
Tressa shook her head. “It’s not that easy, Mrs. Bridges.” Going out to dinners and movies had only convinced her that she had nothing in common with any of the young men she had met so far. As for older men – they were trouble, pure and simple, and she avoided their advances at all costs.
Taking her leave of Mrs. Bridges, she drove to the hospital and hurried inside for her shift. Most mornings passed by quickly, but today she found herself tiring often as she recorded the vital signs of her patients and changed their bedding.
During her lunch break, she joined the laughing crowd that always filled the nurses’ lounge, feeling too worn out to pay much attention to the chatter of her coworkers. But when she heard Dr. Patterson’s name come up, she stiffened and set her sandwich down.
Apparently, the rumors about his next divorce were true. Dr. Patterson’s eye had already been roving for some time among the nurses, and despite Tressa’s heavy glasses and plain hairstyle, he had singled her out more than once for extra attention. Worriedly, Tressa wondered what would happen in the coming weeks.
Forewarned by the gossip, she took a different elevator than usual when her shift was over and exited the hospital from a distant wing. Walking to her car, she slipped her stage glasses into her shoulder bag. She cast a quick look behind her, but there was no sign of Dr. Patterson.
As she entered her car and started the engine, she couldn’t help taking a second look around the perimeter of the parking lot. Her eyes lingered on the tall shrubbery where Holt must have sometimes stood at night, hidden in the dense branches.
She gave herself a mental shake. Holt wouldn’t be there now, for at five o’clock in the afternoon, there was too much daylight. And it made no sense to come back and look for him in the middle of the night, either. From what she had learned in the Operation’s Handbook, she knew that any search for him in his usual haunts would be in vain.
Parking beside her apartment building a little while later, Tressa climbed the stairs slowly, for the fatigue that had been causing her steps to drag all day was even worse now. Once she was inside of her apartment, she went directly to her bedroom where she pulled the pins out of her hair and sank onto the bed, too tired to make any dinner.
As she lay in bed, her thoughts crept back to the strange events of the previous night. Silently, she sifted through her impressions, trying to make sense of them. Why had her mission been so different than she had expected?
Frowning to herself, she turned onto her side and pushed the pillow into a better position under her cheek.
How well she remembered the day she had come to a decision about taking an acti
ve role in the Operation. For too long she had stayed on the sidelines, helping Peter with maps and data at headquarters. Her help had been little more than office work, albeit work that was hidden from the public view by the most stringent electronic security features available.
Then one day, last January, her dissatisfaction with her job at the hospital had come to a head. First, she’d been chastised by the supervisor of Records for altering the format for patient updates. Everything would have to be revised, she had been told. Then later that same morning, she’d been assigned even more duties for the weekly staff meetings, and she’d known that the time and attention she could give her patients would have to be stretched even thinner.
Tressa’s sense of frustration had remained high as she had left the hospital that afternoon to drive across town for the funeral of one of her former patients, an elderly man she had come to know well. Death was always a sad event in the Geriatrics Department where she worked as a nurse’s aide, for every month they lost a patient or two. Until that January, Tressa had managed to cope with it.
But that month, everyone in her department had been feeling somber and dispirited, for an unusually long string of deaths had taken place. Even as she had left her wing of the hospital that afternoon, yet another elderly patient had been hovering on the brink.
When she had arrived at the graveyard for the burial service, the weather had been wintry and cold, and an icy wind had whipped through her hair. She could still remember how the ground had been covered with snow, and the dark recess of the open grave had seemed very black and deep in its frame of frozen white.
A cold sense of futility had seeped into her body as she had stood near the other mourners during the service, chilling her to the bone. Even after she had returned to her apartment later, the chill had remained.