Dead Heat

by Sharon Green

  "Nonsense, Regis," Boughton responded, that very faint smile visible again. "From what I hear, you're entitled to the best available. Congratulations, old fellow, I knew you had it in you."

  "I wasn't quite as sure, but your constant support helped enormously," the man Regis answered, and his own smile went beyond warm all the way to grateful. "I intend to say as much when I present my paper, so save your breath trying to talk me out of it. There are people in our community who deserve to have their noses rubbed in the truth."

  "They won't take what you say as truth, Regis, not any of them," Boughton countered, that faint smile now gone. "They insist on seeing me as nothing but a monster, and that does happen to be their privilege. Instead of arguing, allow me to present the lady in whose company I happen to be this evening. Miss Jane Bell, I would have you know my very good friend Dr. Regis Arnold."

  "Ms. Bell, I'm delighted to meet you," Regis said with a wide smile as he offered his hand to me as well. "Zachary is a tad old-fashioned, so I do hope you'll forgive his use of an outdated means of address. You really do need to know, old man, that these days ladies prefer the title of Ms. rather than Miss."

  "That's perfectly all right, Dr. Arnold," I answered with my own smile as I shook his hand, using just as little strength as he was doing. "Being in the company of an old-fashioned gentleman is refreshing enough that a minor matter like an old title is completely unimportant. It's a pleasure to meet you as well."

  "This one is definitely a keeper, Zachary," Regis said with an even wider smile once he took his hand back. "If you happen to go completely insane and decide against continuing in Ms. Bell's company, please make sure she knows that I'm entirely available before they cart you away to a padded cell."

  "Carting me away has been tried before without much success, Regis," Boughton returned with a smile that was actually wide enough to see easily. "Next time will be no different, especially since I have no intentions of going that insane. I'm hoping that Ms. Bell will continue to honor me with her company during the rest of these receptions, which will certainly prove to be far too few."

  That was a really nice thing for him to say, but before I could accept his request there was a less pleasant interruption.

  "I see, Arnold, that you're engaged in tarnishing your immortal soul again," a stiff voice said from the left, making us all turn in that direction. "You'll certainly regret your cavalier attitude the moment you come face to face with your Maker."

  The man speaking was an inch or two taller than Regis but not quite as tall as Boughton, clearly older than fifty and definitely on the thin side. He had the narrow, ascetic face of most religious fanatics, and his brown hair was precisely cut and combed. The look in his dark eyes was very cold, a perfect match to the tone of voice he'd used.

  "And I see, Harold, that you're being your usual tiresome self again," Regis said before turning to me with a smile that had no amusement in it. "Dr. Marmon over there has decided that Zachary is the devil's emissary, and anyone who associates with Zachary is in danger of damnation. The attitude comes about from Zachary becoming so much better than Harold in Harold's own field that jealousy has eaten away whatever common sense he originally came equipped with. Just ignore him, my dear, and perhaps he'll be kind enough to go away."

  "'Evil flourishes when good men do nothing,'" Marmon stated in a way that made it clear he was quoting. "If you expect me to stand idly by while that abomination spreads his rot to the innocent, you're destined to be disappointed. Young woman, your God will turn his face from you if you continue to remain in that demon's company now that you know what he is. He is a vampire, young woman, and hateful in the sight of your God."

  "What's a lot more hateful in the sight of my God is a man who presumes to tell my God how to think," I said as I felt Boughton go rigid beside me. "For someone who's supposedly so concerned with doing right, haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'Judge not lest ye be judged?' People like you who consider themselves fit to tell everyone else how to live aren't far from the top of that list of evil I'm sure you have at your fingertips. My advice to you would be to mend your ways before your God gets the chance to demand some answers about your conduct."

  Marmon's expression had darkened with everything I said, and by the time I was through he was nearly apoplectic. Apparently no one had ever countered him in just that way before, and the man hated my effort.

  "The young lady has seen you for what you are, Harold," Regis put in kind of gently as soon as I was done. "Please take your spite to another part of the room and don't bring it back near us again."

  The man muttered, "Even damnation is too good for them," as he turned and stalked off, probably on the way to harass someone else. The words had been too soft for Regis to hear, but the rest of us weren't that lucky.

  "Twenty years ago that man was a bit stiff-necked, but nothing like what he was just now," Regis said to me with sadness in his soft brown eyes. "Back then Harold seemed on the verge of a breakthrough almost every week, but the breakthrough never came. Disappointment is able to do cruel things to those who come in contact with it again and again… And unless I'm mistaken, you don't seem terribly disturbed by what you were told about Zachary."

  "About Zachary?" I echoed, pretending I didn't quite understand what he meant, then I let the light dawn. "Oh, you mean about his being a vampire. But why would you expect me to be disturbed when I already knew?"

  "Ms. French told you," Boughton said, and the relief in his blue eyes was almost painful to see. "Of course she did, of course. She would hardly ask a friend a favor without giving that friend all the necessary details. And you agreed to let me escort you even so."

  "Dr. Boughton, Zachary, vampires have been citizens in the world for more than half a millennium," I said, giving him a quizzical look. "Did you think everyone looked at the matter in the same way that that … person does?"

  Boughton had begun to look faintly suspicious, but my question erased the look immediately. The man hadn't asked me if Allison had told me about him, so I hadn't had to lie and claim she had. If Boughton found out now that I'd been hired to be his date, our pleasant evening - and the rest of the planned evenings - would almost certainly be at an end.

  We went back to chatting in a pleasant way while the room filled with even more people - and several other vampires. Quite a lot of those newcomers came over to speak with either Boughton or Regis or both, and just about all of them congratulated Regis. It wasn't hard to figure out that Regis had made some kind of breakthrough himself, but no one went into details. I had the impression that most of the people congratulating Regis didn't really understand what he'd accomplished, so it wasn't surprising that no one went into details.

  After a short while Boughton was dragged into an argument of some kind by people who did go into details. I had no idea what they were talking about and Regis looked just as lost, so Boughton excused himself for a few minutes and took the people he argued with to one of the circles of chairs. But he didn't leave until he'd gotten Regis's agreement to look after me for those few minutes.

  "You have no idea, my dear Jane, what an extraordinary act Zachary just performed," Regis said once we were alone again. "Let's claim these two chairs ourselves, and then we may actually survive this shindig."

  He'd gestured to the chairs he meant, ones that stood only a couple of feet away. I took the one that let me keep Boughton in sight, while Regis sat down with his back to the group Boughton was part of. Eric hadn't been part of any of the conversation, of course, and now he'd positioned himself so that he wasn't far from the man he was guarding.

  "What extraordinary act did you mean, Regis?" I asked once we were sitting. "Were you talking about the way Zachary kept switching technical languages with almost everyone he spoke to?"

  "Not at all," Regis answered with amusement. "Speaking the jargon of half a dozen different disciplines is nothing but everyday for Zachary. The part that shocked and surprised me was the way he asked me to look after
you, and then actually excused himself. At every other reception he and I have attended together, he's simply left the lady he was escorting to fend for herself until he was done. I think it's safe to say you've made a very positive impression on him."

  "Considering that he is a gentleman, how can you think that what he did is all that surprising?" I asked, making sure not to mention that Boughton's previous female guests were hired. "Excusing himself was just part of him being gallant."

  "I think you need to know more about Zachary before you can judge his actions properly," Regis said slowly, as if making up his mind. "I wasn't able to learn about this personally, you understand, but I looked into the matter in order to understand Zachary better. He's been my mentor for many years, and I admire him enormously."

  Regis paused to sip at his drink before continuing. I had a drink too, but mine was a Virgin Mary. Regis had gotten a Tom Collins, and Boughton had accepted a glass of artificial blood.

  "When Zachary finished his undergraduate work, he took some time to marry his high school sweetheart," Regis went on, his stare inward. "He did love Alice in his own way, but he married mainly so that he'd have a comfortable home while he worked for his doctorate and taught undergraduate classes. Everyone knew that Zachary was a genius, you see, and as soon as he had his advanced degrees he began to prove it.

  "Alice, I'm told, was one of those very rare people who can be blissfully happy supporting and living in the shadow of the person they love and admire. She kept their house spotless, handled all emergencies and raised their children alone, and never spoke a word of complaint or lost her lovely smile. It didn't even bother her when Zachary buried himself in his work for days at a time, forgetting that he even had a family. She knew he wasn't being unfaithful, you understand, just the genius everyone knew him to be.

  "Then, about a month before his fiftieth birthday, Zachary experienced two shocks one after the other. He came up for air one day after the latest of his burying times, and when he looked around he suddenly noticed all the new disciplines cropping up in every direction. This was fifty-four years ago, so we already had computers and the help those devices were able to give. There were fascinating new sciences being discovered or investigated all around Zachary, but he was barred from participating in any of them because of his age. He had, at most, another twenty years or so before his mind began to weaken, assuming he actually lived that long.

  "And just as he was mourning the fact that he would never see the beautiful buds of new sciences blossom into lovely flowers, he got a call from the local hospital. It was his oldest son calling, a grown man he hardly knew, obeying his mother's last wish that he tell his father that she was gone. Alice had been diagnosed with cancer, but she hadn't told Zachary because she hadn't wanted to 'disturb' him. And Zachary hadn't even noticed she wasn't in the house, not when she'd arranged for a cleaning and cooking service before going into the hospital."

  Regis paused to take another sip of his drink, and then he shook his head.

  "The double shock was almost too much for Zachary. As I said, he did love Alice in his own way, and suddenly she was gone out of his life never to return. His children respected him because Alice had raised them to feel that way, but he was a stranger to them and they to him. He was suddenly all alone in the world with nothing of friends, nothing more than colleagues. He was about to reach the downslope of his life, and would soon even be unable to justify his existence by helping humanity."

  Regis sighed, and the pain he felt as he told his story was thick enough for me to feel.

  "I'm told that Zachary was so depressed he actually stopped working for a time. He never said anything aloud, but those who knew him were certain he considered suicide. In a way they were right, of course, but instead of really killing himself he decided to change his existence so that at least humanity would continue to be served. Alice had considered his work more important than anything else in the world, so he gave up his 'life' in order to honor her point of view."

  "And once he had control of himself again, he must have gone back to school to learn all those other disciplines," I said when Regis fell silent. "But that still doesn't explain the comment you made. How does what you just said relate to your claim that I've made an impression on him?"

  "Until now, Zachary hasn't let anything distract him from his work," Regis answered with a faint smile. "He always has an attractive woman on his arm for these affairs, but the women have only been 'wife-substitutes' for professional get-togethers. The very fact that Zachary excused himself tells me that you aren't the same in his mind. He's actually seeing you as an individual, and an individual he's found interest in."

  I studied Regis's wry expression for a moment, distantly wishing that alcohol still had an effect on me.

  "To tell the truth, Regis, I'm hoping very hard that you're wrong," I finally said, letting out the sigh I felt on the inside. "I'm not interested in a relationship of any kind, and certainly not one where I'd be expected to do what Alice did. I have a career of my own, and that career calls for traveling all over the country. If I had to settle down in one place I'd probably go insane."

  "I was afraid you would see things in that way," Regis answered with a matching sigh. "In many ways Zachary still lives in the past, which means he considers a woman's career as something she wastes time with while waiting for a man to make her his wife. What kind of career do you have, by the way?"

  "You might say I'm in public relations," I answered, having considered the point before starting out tonight. Just in case the subject came up. "My partners and I are very good at what we do, and we like to think that we're also serving humanity. I'm afraid that's all I can discuss about the matter."

  "To guard against industrial espionage, I assume," Regis said with a nod. "Being a scientist myself, I know what that's like. So what are we going to do about Zachary? Letting him down easy probably won't be possible."

  "I've already made that assumption, so there's only one thing we can do," I said, trying to sound as if I'd decided to be noble. "I'll continue to accompany him to these receptions for as long as I can, and then I'll just leave. Sending him a note thanking him for some lovely times ought to let him know how I feel without going into details. Do you have a better idea?"

  "Not really," he said, back to sighing. "And a few days of happiness is better than none at all, I suppose. Now let's you and I talk about more pleasant things."

  I smiled and went along with the suggestion, reflecting that Zachary Boughton would probably be outraged when he found out the truth about me. That would take care of any feelings he might have fooled himself into believing he had, solving the problem the easy way. Besides, it wasn't as if I would ever get involved with a vampire, even one who had dedicated himself to helping humanity…

  Regis and I chatted about nothing, keeping it light, and the time was mildly entertaining. I would have enjoyed myself more doing something interesting, like attending a knife or gun show, but I wasn't at the reception to enjoy myself. I was on the job, so to speak, but at least I got to sit down. Eric had stayed on his feet the entire time, playing the alert bodyguard, especially when the crowd got thicker.

  The argument Boughton had gotten involved with seemed to be winding down after a while. Actually after a long while, during which time both Regis and I took advantage of the servants circulating with food and drink trays. I was almost finished with my second Virgin Mary while Regis nursed the same Tom Collins as he nibbled on snacks, when a small oddity caught my eye. A servant with only a single glass on his large tray was obviously heading for Boughton, and that wasn't right.

  I'd noticed that none of the servants walked around with a single glass or a lone canapé on the bigger trays, not at any time. If someone ordered something special, the item was brought on a small tray, not on one of the larger trays meant to hold multiples. It was also a way for the guests to know that something on a small tray was a special order so it wasn't up for grabs. Boughton had helped himself
from a tray of artificial blood once, but he hadn't ordered anything.

  And now a servant was bringing a glass of artificial blood on a big tray directly over to Boughton. I was half a breath away from standing up and saying something when Eric beat me to it. I'd thought about his "playing" bodyguard, but he quickly made it clear that he wasn't playing.

  "Just a minute," he said to the servant, having moved fast to get between the man and Boughton. "Where did you get that glass you're about to offer to Dr. Boughton? Who told you to bring it over here?"

  "Why, one of the other guests told me to bring the glass," the servant answered, suddenly looking confused. "He said to wait until the rest of my tray was empty, and then bring the gentleman this refill. It was special stock, and not meant for just anyone."

  "I'll bet it's special stock," Eric said, a peculiar expression on his face. "You may not be able to tell that there's something wrong with the contents of that glass, but I certainly can. Now I'd like you to look around and point out the guest who gave you this glass."

  The servant turned and began to look over the guests who were still in the room, but he seemed to be having trouble finding the person he was looking for. Big shock, that. Boughton had looked annoyed when Eric first stepped in to stop the servant, but as soon as he heard what Eric and the servant had to say he stood up and reached for the glass on the tray. Boughton started to sniff at the glass, then quickly returned it to the place it had come from.

  "What's going on?" Regis asked after having turned in his chair to see what I was looking at. "Why do Zachary and that other man look so disturbed?"

  "That other man is Zachary's bodyguard," I explained, knowing that Regis wouldn't have heard the exchange even if he'd known it was going on. "He stopped the servant from giving Zachary that drink, so there must be something wrong with it."

  "And drinks at a party like this one don't 'accidentally' have something wrong with them," Regis said, his tone grim. "I think we'd better go over there."