Dark Changeling

by Margaret Carter

  He felt her harden in response to his coldness. She stepped up to him, so close he felt the heat of her body. “You know perfectly well I'm not talking about the case. Hayes mentioned that she was a friend of yours—that you found the body. Why didn't you call me?”

  Through the sunglasses he still wore, Roger stared past her, over her shoulder, to avoid meeting the blaze of her green eyes. “He had no right to give you that information.”

  “Don't waste my time with irrelevancies. Whether he should have mentioned it or not, he did.” She clasped Roger's upper arms, her nails denting the fabric of his jacket. “Take off your glasses andlook at me.”

  He reluctantly did so. When he looked her in the face, the intensity of her grief for him—for him!—awoke the agony he thought he'd buried.

  “Roger, why didn't you let me know? I thought we were friends.”

  He gave her the partial truth, that he had never thought of asking for her support. “I've lived alone all my adult life. I'm not accustomed to sharing my problems.”

  His remote tone made her back off. “Haven't you heard, Roger? That's what friends are for.”

  * * * *

  MONDAY'S MAIL included an envelope postmarked Los Angeles. A glance at the signature gave him a small jolt. Volnar's mention of Claude Darvell, Roger's half-brother, had slipped to the back of his mind. The letter read:

  Mon Frere,

  I'm delighted to be “allowed” to contact you at last. Don't let Fearless Leader get to you. True, we have to obey direct orders from him, but that “Council of Elders” is simply a collective label for all our people who've outlived their first millennium. It actually meets only twice a century or less. We're anarchists at heart; the only reason we have a Council at all is in self-defense against those teeming hordes of gregarious homo saps.

  Did Fearless Leader give you the standard cautionary lecture about “addiction"? I daresay he didn't mention the positive side— that if an ordinary feeding is like a decent French claret, an exclusive relationship is the equivalent of Dom Perignon. Having one ephemeral who's fully aware of what you are and can't wait to bare her throat for you every time you meet is not necessarily abad thing, n'est-ce pas?Think I wouldn't rather have that than a succession of vampire groupies who only want their fantasies fulfilled for one evening? Well, sometimes, depending on the phases of the moon.

  If any problems crop up that you don't want to discuss with Volnar, give me a ring. I'm usually in Los Angeles or Big Sur, sometimes London or Geneva.

  Good hunting—

  Claude

  * * * *

  AT THE BOTTOM of the page were four telephone numbers. The message had obviously been written before Claude learned of Sylvia's death. Roger decided that if Claude didn't share her high opinion of the Prime Elder, he liked his newfound brother already. He wrote a reply, summarizing his recent experiences and even mentioning Britt.

  When he received no call Tuesday night, Roger guessed that Sandor was still playing games, determined to make Roger “squirm” again. He didn't know how long he'd be able to stand the waiting.

  To make matters worse, the next morning Britt once more lay in ambush for him, this time with a folded newspaper in hand. The evening classifieds.

  As soon as the door was shut behind them, she marched to his desk and slapped it with the paper. “Tell me about this ad of yours in the crab wrapper.”

  He returned her hard stare. “What ad?”

  “Don't try to give me a runaround! The initials have to be yours. I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.”

  “You're studying the personal ads? What next, supermarket tabloids?”

  His sarcasm didn't deflect her. “They provide intriguing glimpses into the human psyche. I notice you don't deny it.”

  “Why should I? You've made up your mind.” He remained standing, hoping she'd take the hint and leave.

  “What's it all about? What do you know that you aren't telling the police? Not to mention me.”

  “There's nothing I can tell you.”

  Britt leaned across the desk. Her excited heartbeat thundered in his ears. “I didn't get around to filling you in on my library search for similar crimes in other cities. I ran across an outbreak in Boston this August. And guess who theGlobe mentioned serving as a consultant to the police?”

  Roger gripped the edge of the desk to keep from flinching visibly.

  “Do you know who the killer is?” He felt her insistence as a wave of tangible pressure. “What's the problem? Patient confi-dentiality?”

  Let her think that. Any alternative theory she might concoct would be worse for him. “I can't talk about it.”

  “Then at least let me in on whatever you can. When you meet the man, let me come along—or introduce me to him later. You know how much I want to be part of this!”

  He went cold with alarm. “Out of the question! If such a contact took place—and I stressif—it would be too dangerous for you.”

  She transfixed him with an icy glare. “Why for me and not for you? Don't be sexist.” Tapping the desk with the folded newspaper, she said, “Get this straight—I won't be left out.”

  Alone, Roger brooded over whether anything would happen for her to be left out of. Perhaps Sandor had insincerely proposed a meeting just to torment him.

  Wednesday evening, though, the anticipated call came.

  “Well, Doctor, are you ready to deal? I'm glad to see you showing some sense.”

  Roger schooled his voice to a dispassionate flatness. Fortunately the caller couldn't read his emotions over the phone. “Your excesses are threatening both of us. I won't have my hunting grounds spoiled.”

  “No guts, no glory, Doc.”

  “Why don't you come to my townhouse tonight, and we'll discuss it in detail?”

  A laugh rumbled over the line. “Do you think I've survived for almost a century by strolling into the tiger's lair? We'll meet on neutral ground, or not at all. What do you say to tomorrow night in the Tawes Garden, near the sundial?”

  “Next to the footbridge?” said Roger. “All right. What time?”

  “It'll be full dark by nine, and the place should be deserted.”

  “Agreed,” said Roger. The caller immediately hung up.

  Now Roger had to face the question he'd postponed, what to do with the killer when they met. He considered and dismissed the notion of a police stakeout. The carnage in Boston, when they'd tried to arrest the vampire, remained vivid in his mind. Roger mulled over a vague plan to use a blend of blackmail and threats to pressure Sandor into leaving Maryland.Yes, I'm supposed to destroy him, but how, when he's probably stronger than I am?

  He reviewed the weapons available to him. Garlic was out, as toxic to him as to Sandor. Showing up with a sharpened stake or a high-caliber pistol would destroy any pretense of peaceful negotiation. A cross might work against Sandor. Self-taught and mentally unstable, he might well share the religious phobia common to many young vampires. And despite Sandor's boasts, by vampiric standards he was very young.

  But so am I!

  * * * *

  RAPED. AT HOME Tuesday evening, Britt pored over Sylvia LaMotte's autopsy report. Because of that deviation from the pattern, Lieutenant Hayes conjectured that Sylvia's death was unrelated to the serial murders. Britt knew better. She had no doubt that the criminal had violated and murdered Sylvia to get at Roger.

  Why didn't he tell me about her?Britt asked herself for the hundredth time. That lack of confidence still hurt. Maybe she was wasting energy, trying to develop a personal relationship with Roger.No, I won't give up yet!

  Had he known all along that Sylvia was, to say the least, physiologically peculiar? Britt reviewed the post mortem results, vividly illustrated by the M.E.'s stark black and white photos of fractured cervical vertebrae and lacerated thoracic tissue. “The cause of death,” read the pathologist's concluding opinion, “was decapitation by an unidentified instrument. Mechanism of death was severing of the spinal c
olumn between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae, accompanied by massive hemorrhage. Manner of death was homicide.” Classic defense wounds on the forearms showed that Sylvia, unlike the other victims, had fought back.

  Even the killer's dentition, judging from the bite pattern, raised questions. Britt lingered over the other anomalies. For instance, the large volume of seminal fluid recovered from the victim's vagina. The M.E.'s staff had presumed gang rape, until their tests pointed to a single source. Doubting the results, they'd arranged for DNA analysis. As for the dried blood under Sylvia's nails, it didn't type consistently. Nor did the victim's own blood. Contaminated samples, operator error? Britt had her doubts.

  What would Roger say, she wondered, if she drew his atten-tion to Sylvia's oddly shaped molars, only two pairs in each upper and lower jaw instead of the normal three or four? Or the short intestinal tract? Or the unidentified compounds in the victim's saliva, resembling traces left in her wounds by the attacker's mouth? When Britt had suggested to Roger that the killer might not be human, she had been indulging in a flight of fantasy. Now it seemed downright plausible. But she didn't in-tend to reopen the subject with Roger until she found out how much he knew.

  Damn the man, I'm going to make him trust me whether he likes it or not!

  With some reluctance she put away her files on the murder cases. She needed to get plenty of sleep, for she had plans for the next evening or two. She only hoped she hadn't missed her chance tonight. She gambled that Roger and the unknown killer couldn't have gotten together this promptly.

  Wednesday evening she borrowed a friend's car, drove to Roger's neighborhood at the fall of twilight, and parked around the curve where she could barely see the front of his building. She watched for hours, keeping herself awake with tapes on the cassette player and making two quick dashes into the woods to relieve her bladder. Roger's Citroen did not leave the parking lot, nor did she notice any visitor walking up to the door she had identified as his. At one a.m., yawning and battling leg cramps, she gave up and went home.

  Had her stakeout come too late? Could Roger have made contact already? Or perhaps it was a waste of time watching the house at night; her associate could set up a meeting on his lunch hour. Well, he wouldn't be able to evade Britt's diligence in that case; he virtually never went out at lunchtime, so if he did, she'd know something peculiar was up. For that very reason, she con-sidered a nocturnal meeting more likely.

  Stifling the protests of her aching muscles and drooping eyelids, she determined to try again Thursday night.

  By Thursday night Roger still hadn't devised a concrete plan for dealing with Sandor. For freedom of movement he dressed in casual slacks, a short-sleeved sport shirt, and soft-soled shoes. He tucked a rosary into his breast pocket. That weapon might give him a slim edge over the enemy.

  After dark he drove past the Navy stadium and across Taylor Avenue into the parking lot between the angular, concrete and smoked glass District Court and Department of Natural Resources buildings. He took care to leave his car in deep shadow where it shouldn't attract notice. Though the Tawes Garden was open at no charge all the time, nobody visited it at this hour. While locking the Citroen, he heard footsteps on the pavement, crossing from the stadium. Whirling around, he scanned the shadows. He strained his ears. Silence. Whomever he'd heard must have veered in a different direction.

  He catfooted around the building to the garden, an unfenced panorama of trees, shrubs, and other plant life illustrating the various Maryland ecologies. The night felt crisp and cool, pleasant to him though a little chilly for most people. Behind him something stirred the bushes. Again he stopped to listen. Nothing. The wind? A dog? He sniffed the air, but the slight breeze blew from ahead of him. He followed the path around the pond, eliciting a rustle and a quack from a pair of sleepy ducks in the reeds. When he crossed the footbridge, the open, grassy area next to the sundial was still deserted.

  Could Sandor be responsible for the faint sounds he'd heard? Speaking the man's name in a cutting whisper brought no response.

  He scanned the silent garden for the outlaw vampire's ap-proach. Blast it, where was Sandor? Did he plan to break the appointment, keep Roger guessing?

  Suddenly a sense of presence impelled Roger to look up. A winged shape spiraled down toward the clearing.

  Good God, the man's not only a sadist, he's an arrogant, reckless idiot!

  The vampire landed on the grass and melted into human form. “Good evening, Dr. Darvell,” he said. Sandor proved to be a broad-shouldered barbarian with shaggy, copper-red hair and beard. His bushy eyebrows merged over the bridge of his nose. He wore jeans with no shirt or shoes. A cloud of carrion stench enveloped him.

  “Are you out of your mind, traveling that way in a populated area?”

  “Sounds like the voice of envy to me,” Sandor said. “A half-breed can't shapechange, right? Too bad.” He whirled around, alerted by a sound under the pines. Roger heard a gasp of astonishment, followed by the ragged sound of nervous breathing.

  Britt stepped from beneath the sheltering trees.

  Of all the harebrained, reckless—! She followed me!"Britt, you fool—” Roger stopped abruptly.

  Sandor bared his teeth in a wide grin. “You know this woman?”

  “Run!” Roger cried.

  He knew the futility of that command. Even if Britt had tried, she'd have been no match for Sandor's inhuman speed. Roger broke into a run, trying to intercept Sandor, but the pure-blood out-sprinted him. In a blur of motion Sandor surged across the intervening space and grabbed Britt. Dragging her into the open, he faced Roger with Britt pinned against his body. One hand clutched both her wrists, while the other grasped her neck above the open collars of her loose blouse and denim jacket.

  Recovering from the initial shock, Britt said mildly, “You don't have to hold so tight. I've been wanting to meet you.”

  “Then you've got your wish. But if you don't mind, I'm taking no chances.”

  “Let her go,” said Roger, taking a few paces closer to the pair.

  “Watch your step,” Sandor said, his clawed fingers stroking Britt's chin. “Surely you don't think you could get to me before I could rip open her jugular?”

  Roger read fear in Britt's aura, but she gave no outward sign of it. “You don't need her. I'll vouch for her silence, and we don't want the distraction.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” Sandor grinned. “She's just what I needed to complete this little party—a hostage for your good behavior. She means something to you, doesn't she?”

  Roger cursed himself for so obviously revealing his concern for Britt. “What do you have in mind?”

  Sandor glanced up at the sky and back toward the silent office buildings. “Getting out of this exposed spot, to start with.” He turned and hustled Britt ahead of him into the pine grove. Roger followed. Sandor shoved Britt down on a bench and sat beside her, giving her arms a gratuitous wrench at the same time. She set her jaw and didn't accommodate him with so much as a whimper.

  His right hand still lingering on her neck, Sandor said, “Now that we're more comfortable, we can have a little refreshment and talk over our differences.”

  Britt's face lit up with amazement that momentarily can-celed her fear. If they ever got out of this, Roger didn't know how he could possibly deal with her. “Look, Sandor, I don't want—”

  “Don't give me that, Darvell. I can sense your thirst the same way you sense mine.”

  What Roger felt emanating from the murderer, though, was not simple appetite like his own, but a violent lust that revolted him. He said wearily to Britt, “Now are you convinced? You won't get immortality from this sociopath; you'll get yourself killed.”

  “I'm convinced of that,” she said, her voice steady, “but not that he's typical of the breed.”

  “Quiet!” Sandor tightened his grip on her wrists, not forget-ting to watch Roger. He favored Britt with a caricature of a smile. “So you want the vampire's kiss? I haven't had one like
you in a long time. It'll be my pleasure to grant your desire—and you'll sure as hell get more from me than from the fangless freak, here.” In fact, Sandor didn't have fangs, either, except in his trans-formed shape, but the insult registered loud and clear.

  Beyond caring what the renegade said to or about him, Roger interrupted, “Will you stop wasting time? I came here to negotiate, not—” He couldn't say it, not about Britt.

  “Right. What kind of deal are you offering?”

  “The only deal I'll make with you is that you get out of my territory—right now. If you leave this county—no, better make that the state of Maryland and the D.C. suburbs—I won't pursue.”

  Sanders barked a laugh. “Don't you think I can see when you're lying? The only way I can be safe from you is to make sure you're in as deep as I am. Now, you listen to my terms. We're going to become partners. And you'll start by sharing this one with me.”

  The image of Britt writhing in the outlaw's clutches, blood spurting from her torn throat, hit Roger like a blow to the pit of the stomach. He struggled to mask his reaction from the enemy.

  “You want it, Darvell—why don't you admit that?” Sandor's fiery eyes flicked repeatedly from Roger to Britt and back again. “You've been wanting this one for a long time. Well, you can just wait your turn.” He drew a curved fingernail down the side of her neck. She winced as a thread of blood, luminous with life-energy, bloomed on her fair skin.

  A pang of yearning pierced through Roger's outrage. Britt's eyes met his for an instant, and he thanked God that he saw no fear of himself there.

  “You can work up an appetite watching,” Sandor continued. “I could make her want it, too—make her beg me for it. But I'm not going to cloud her mind. She'll feel everything when I bite into her. If you've never taken one fighting and screaming, you haven't lived. Believe me, after you've watched that, you'll be ready.”

  Roger's long-denied desire to possess Britt, not in terror but in mutual passion, surged up, to be swamped by the fear and an-ger that washed over him in frigid waves. Britt, thoroughly frightened now, leaped to her feet. Sandor shoved her down with casual roughness.