Dark Changeling

by Margaret Carter

  At that moment the scratch of a key at the door deflected her attention. Peter's head poked in, along with the muzzle of the gun. “Comfortable, Doc? I hope your partner gets here soon so I don't have to call him. Waiting could make me nervous, you know.” He waggled the revolver. “You'll never guess what my sister told me about him. Unless maybe she told you the same thing. She said Darvell was a vampire. Can you believe that?”

  Groping with her embryonic ESP, Britt couldn't tell, through the murk of his grief and hate, how seriously he meant the derisive comment. “No, I can't, and I don't believe you could, either.”

  “Yeah? Well, I'm about to find out.He told me how to check on it. Maybe your friend's a nut case who thinks he's a vampire. Or maybe he's something worse. Whatever, he's gonna pay.”

  Alarmed, she passed on the information to Roger. “Peter's serious about punishing you for Alice's death. He more than half believes her vampire stories, and he plans to test the theory on you. Colleague, I don't want you to end up with a stake through the heart.”

  “I'll try to avoid that.”

  * * * *

  WHEN ROGER turned onto the winding, sparsely developed road, he went cold with the fresh realization of how isolated the duplex was. Too far from the neighboring houses to be visible, it was also sheltered by the woods that surrounded it on three sides, with the riverbank beyond. He drove further on, parked just around the curve, and walked back. Britt's car, he noticed, no longer sat in front of the house. Peter had thought to hide the evidence.

  Before approaching the house, Roger cast a psychic veil over himself. Thus rendered invisible, he glided soundlessly through the neatly trimmed front yard and around to the back. Trees pressed close, leaving only about twenty feet of grass on each side. The dismantled vehicles still occupied the space in front of the detached garage. He noted a sports car in one of the two driveways.

  Roger surmised from his previous visit that the master bedroom and bath had to be at the rear of the building. In confirmation, Britt pulled aside a curtain to stare out into the darkness. Though she couldn't see Roger, she doubtless felt his nearness despite the concentration that kept him from calling to her.

  Scanning the windows of the room next to her prison, he noted that the drapes had been removed. Strangely, both the bedroom window and the smaller, frosted one that must belong to the bathroom were festooned on the inside with strings of white, bulbous objects.

  Fresh garlic, he decided.Good grief, the man really does believe in vampires.

  What was the point, though? Garlic intended to keep Roger out would decorate the whole building, not just two rooms.

  Where was Peter? Roger heard no one moving inside except Britt. To search for the kidnapper by extrasensory means, he would have to drop the illusion of invisibility; he hadn't learned to do both at once. Allowing the psychic shield to dissolve, he probed for any life-energy other than Britt's. The back of his neck prickled.

  It took him only seconds to sense the man lurking in the trees behind him. As Roger turned, Peter said, “Wasn't expecting you so soon. Don't try anything—vampire.” He aimed a flashlight and a .38 at Roger.

  Maybe I should reconsider my opposition to gun control.Roger held up his hands and surveyed Peter, who wore a silver cross around his neck, gleaming against the sweatshirt. “Don't tell me you've adopted your sister's delusion,” said Roger in a conversational tone that he hoped sounded confident. “No sane person believes such things.”

  “Don't give me that. I just saw you appear out of thin air.” He glanced at the woods behind the garage, then back at Roger.

  “It's a little dark to be sure what you saw,” said Roger.

  “Well, I can see that arm from here—not a mark on it, where you were bleeding from a bullet wound last week. Maybe I wasn't sure before, but now I think Alice might've known what she was talking about.He explained it all to me.” At the mention of his sister, hate flared in his aura. “You're here to pay for what you did to her.”

  “What do you think I did?”

  “We'll talk about how you screwed her over later.” Peter gestured with the gun. “Go on—in the house.”

  Roger contemplated his chances of safely rushing the man. Not good—in Peter's strung-out condition, any threat would goad him into shooting. The thought of taking another bullet filled Roger with an aching weariness. He obeyed the order, saying as he walked ahead of his captor, “What about Dr. Loren? Now that you have me, you don't need her.”

  “Don't be funny.”

  Well, we all know “crazy” doesn't equal “stupid."

  Peter escorted him into the other side of the house and down the hall, shoving him into the master bedroom—judging from the car posters on the walls, the one Peter himself normally slept in. Roger listened to the deadbolt on the outside of the bedroom door snick into the locked position. How long did Peter imagine he could keep two people jailed in his house, even in this location? The window grill looked effective, though; Roger almost wished he had taken his chances with the gun outside.

  Like the room Britt occupied, this one, too, had been stripped bare of all useful—or harmful—objects. Here even the closet stood empty, with its doors removed. Not only that, as Roger had noticed from outside, the curtains were gone. Garlic festooned the doorjamb as well as the bedroom and bathroom windows. Between its reek and the excessive heat from the forced-air system, the room stifled him. Experimenting with baseboard vents, he managed to shut off most of the hot air. He still felt queasy from the garlic, though.

  Contact with Britt came as a welcome distraction: “I'm not sure letting yourself get captured is such a hot idea” she told him.

  “I couldn't leave you alone in the villain's clutches, could I?”

  “In the immortal words of Princess Leia, this is some rescue!”

  “Colleague, your faith in me is an inspiration.”

  He heard laughter in Britt's thoughts before she continued more seriously, “Peter really believes it, doesn't he? Crosses, garlic, the whole package.”

  “I can't imagine how he arrived at that conclusion. He's hardly the imaginative type.” Roger scanned the windows. “If he thinks garlic is an impassable barrier, he's in for a shock.”

  “Not to mention what he doesn't know about you and crosses. That glass looks pretty thick. Could you break it?”

  Roger walked over and tapped on the window. “Probably, but what's the point? I couldn't rip out the bars.”

  “Then we have to trick our way out. Any ideas?”

  “Not at the moment. It would help if we were in the same room.”

  “Right, better chance of dividing his attention. I'll work on it.”

  Her resolutely optimistic tone touched Roger. “Britt, are you all right?”

  “So far, sure. I've dealt with violent patients plenty of times. Nobody can get through residency without that. But I need to rest now; concentrating this way makes my head ache.”

  They broke contact except for the wordless bond uniting them continuously. Roger prowled around the room, rechecking every detail in search of a weakness. Fifteen or twenty minutes brought him no closer to finding one. Moreover, the aroma of garlic made him feel suffocated. He lay down, closed his eyes, and breathed slowly, turning his attention inward. Britt had fallen asleep, whether from fearlessness or an impulse to withdraw. Either way, he approved of her conserving energy.

  Some time later, the key turned in the deadbolt. Roger stood up, instantly alert. Peter stood in the doorway, brandishing the gun. “Stay back, and you won't get hurt—yet.”

  “How long do you think you can keep this up?” said Roger. “We'll be missed tomorrow, and that threat you made was probably overheard.”

  “A couple hours of sunlight should be plenty for what I've got planned. And I don't care what they do to me, after I get you for Alice.”

  “What, exactly, do you accuse me of?”

  “She said you're a vampire, and I don't think she was making it up. She couldn't
invent stuff as—as dirty as what she told me.”

  Little do you know the imaginations of young girls.

  “She said you drank her blood,” Peter went on. “I know she shot herself because you contaminated her.”

  A bit of reality testing seemed in order. “When am I supposed to have done this foul act?”

  “September.”

  “Then why did she wait so long before attempting suicide?”

  Peter looked uncomfortable. “I'm not sure about that.”

  “Then how can you be sure enough to accuse me of being a mythical monster?”

  “That's why you're in here,” Peter said. “Like I told Dr. Loren, either you're some kind of pervert who bites women, or you're the real thing. When the sun rises in the morning, between that and the garlic I'll have my proof.” His voice rasped with hatred. “But that's not the worst. Why'd you have to kill her? Were you that scared she'd tell somebody what you did?”

  “What in God's name are you talking about?”

  Tears glistened in the young man's eyes. “She was lying there in a hospital bed and youkilled her—in cold blood! Who else could've gotten in, or wanted to?”

  Good God, he blames me for what Sandor did!Knowing denial would make no dent in Peter's belief, Roger said nothing.

  “For all I know, you might've killed those other women I read about in the papers. If you'd do it to Alice, you could do it to anybody.” Peter backed out of the room. Just as the door closed, he added, “Think about sunrise, Darvell.”

  So that explained the bare windows. Roger did not care to think about how uncomfortable the room, with its off-white walls, would become after daybreak. But if Peter expected Roger to disintegrate into dust at the first rays of dawn, he'd be disappointed.

  “He can't expect that,” Britt pointed out. “He knows Alice saw you during the day.”

  “True, but he's hardly thinking rationally.”

  “What's his plan, I wonder? Get “proof” that you're a vampire, then come on with the traditional stake?”

  “Probably. I'm more concerned about what he plans to do with you. After this he can't just let you go, but he can't reasonably accuseyou of killing his sister.”

  “As you said, reason doesn't have much to do with it. Never underestimate the power of positive paranoia. He considers me negligent because I tried to convince Alice you weren't dangerous.”

  “I haven't decided whether to keep maintaining he's deluded or play the vampire role to the hilt.”

  “The latter, I'd think. He may assume you're more vulnerable than you really are.”

  Roger tabled the question and inquired how Britt was feeling.

  “Fine, honestly. I'm not the one who's stuck in a room decorated in Early Produce Department. I think I'll try to rest again. Captivity is duller than I'd have expected—nothing to read in here but old issues ofHouse Beautiful."

  Her thoughts dissolved into an amorphous cloud as she drifted into sleep. Roger spent the next several hours alternately lying on the bed, leafing distractedly through a copy ofCar and Driver , and pacing off the dimensions of the room. He couldn't sleep at night in any condition other than surfeit or absolute exhaustion. Though he knew he shouldn't waste energy, boredom combined with anxiety made him restless. Britt was right; captivity was numbingly dull.

  When she woke up and addressed him again, the first hint of gray was lightening the sky.

  “I wonder if Peter's planning to starve us to death,” she speculated.

  “If he has any sense left, he'll take care of you. He should realize you're the only reason I haven't tried to kill him.”

  “Roger, you wouldn't” she thought dubiously. “You're too civilized.”

  “A domesticated wolf is still, at the deepest level, a wolf. It's in the genes. If you were attacked, I'm sure I could get my human half out of the way long enough to react accordingly. As far as I'm concerned, the man deserves death already. He's committed a capital crime.”

  “What?”

  “He threatened you.”

  “Oh, Roger, stop talking like an idiot.” The tenderness in her tone contradicted the words. “You know, in spite of everything, I feel sorry for him.”

  “So do I, on one level,” Roger admitted. “But not enough to let him hurt you.”

  Britt returned to the immediate practical problem: “I think I can persuade him to put me in with you. The Brer Rabbit trick.”

  “Please don't throw me in the briar patch?”

  “Right. If I don't lay it on too thick, I should be able to make him curious about what terrible thing I expect to happen if we're together.” Her tone became lighter. “We wouldn't have to go through all this if you could change into a glowing mist and ooze under the door like Dracula.”

  “Remind me to work on that. But it would be too late even for the Count; the sun's almost up.”

  “What time is it?”

  He checked his watch. After five. For the next few minutes he watched the gradual paling of the sky and tried to conceal his uneasiness from Britt.

  Shortly she told him the kidnapper was unlocking her door. “He's actually remembered to feed me. Looks like a ham and cheese sandwich.”

  She said to Peter, “I heard thought I heard footsteps through the walls. Do you have Dr. Darvell here?”

  Peter held the gun on her. “Why, do you want to see him?”

  She pretended to accept the taunt at face value. “Not if there's any truth in what you claim.”

  “Thought you didn't believe in vampires.”

  “Not in the sense you mean. But, as you implied, there've been cases of people who imagined themselves as vampires and behaved as such. Maybe—maybe I should have listened when Alice claimed Dr. Darvell drank—attacked her.” She feigned disgust with the last sentence.

  “We'll find out soon enough,” said Peter with a self-satisfied smirk. “It's almost day.”

  “If he does imagine he's a—a vampire, he might react violently at sunrise. I'm glad I won't be near him then.”

  Peter gave her a speculative look and withdrew. Roger had little time to compliment Britt on her acting, for soon after Peter locked her door, he opened Roger's. “Getting hungry?”

  “On your assumption,” said Roger, “if I were, I'd turn into a wolf and rip out your throat. But to answer your question, I'd like a glass of milk.”

  Peter glanced at the window. “It'll be light soon. I can't wait to see what happens to you.”

  Roger was mildly surprised when the requested milk appeared a minute later. Still taking no chances, Peter served it in a plastic cup with a Budweiser logo. After watching intently while Roger drained the cup, Peter disappeared again. If he assumed vampires lived solely on blood, he must be confused.

  Daylight seeped in through the window. For another hour Roger was able to avoid direct sun by keeping to shadowed corners. Soon, though, the glare began to cause discomfort. He retreated to the bathroom, trusting the frosted glass to filter out some of the rays, but the unrelieved white of the walls and fixtures made the smaller room no better. Roger lay face down on the bed, huddled to expose as little surface area as possible. He wished he had worn a jacket.

  When he heard Peter's tread in the hall, he stood up, unwilling to appear at a disadvantage. The kidnapper looked the worse for lack of sleep but smiled at the sight of Roger. “Having fun?”

  Roger licked his parched lips and said nothing.

  “Make it easy on yourself. Admit what you are, and I'll kill you quick.”

  “Go to Hell,” said Roger. He immediately regretted the lapse.

  Peter's grin broadened. “After you, Doc.” He relocked the door.

  He circled around to the other bedroom to gloat over Britt. “You should see your Dr. Darvell. I think he's weakening.”

  Roger sensed Britt's heartbeat quickening in alarm, even as she assumed a defiant tone. “He's not ‘my’ Dr. Darvell. Look, Peter, if you give me some evidence that you're right, I'll be on your side. I wou
ldn't care to work with a homicidal maniac.”

  Peter greeted this remark with a skeptical snort and left her alone. She turned her attention to Roger.

  “Colleague, how are you, really?”

  “Not good. Could be worse, though. The trees do help a little. If only they were closer to the building.”

  “That lunatic is going too far,” she fumed. “We have to do something.”

  “I am open to suggestions.”

  The effect of prolonged direct sunlight on him resembled heat exhaustion. His throat felt raw, not from blood-need, but from dehydration. Water quenched the thirst for only a few minutes, after which he had to take another drink. The short-lived relief was almost not worth the strain of getting up repeatedly. Britt maintained wordless contact with him, suppressing her anxiety to offer him comfort.

  In about an hour Peter checked on Roger again. Roger made no attempt at concealing his condition this time. Let the idiot classify him as a vampire; the effort to convince him otherwise was getting nowhere. As before, Peter went straight from Roger to Britt. “I think I will let you see him.”

  “Wait a minute—you don't mean—?”

  “The sun's really getting to him,” said Peter. “I wonder what would happen if he had a chance to—uh—build up his strength?”

  “I can't believe you're saying this,” said Britt in a convincing simulation of outrage. “You think he's some kind of blood-thirsty monster, and you want to—to feed me to him?”

  “You got it,” said Peter. “It's what you deserve, after you wouldn't believe Alice. If you'd listened to her, she might be alive now.”

  “You're out of your mind!”

  “When he bites you, that'll be all the proof I need. You'll be convinced, too, and if you're lucky I might save you in time so you can help me the way you said.” He waved the gun. Britt didn't move. Tossing her the windbreaker she'd worn on the way over, Peter grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the door. “Come on, we haven't got all day!”

  She tugged and squirmed in his grip. The man was lucky, Roger thought, that Britt was only pretending to resist; she could fight much harder. In the corridor she yielded to the temptation of inflicting a few scratches on Peter's arms. His fingernails dug into her wrist, and he pressed the muzzle of the .38 into the hollow of her throat.