Once bitten

by Stephen Leather

  "The fewer people who know, the better," added Hooper.

  "Know what?" I asked.

  "That is, as they say, the $64,000 question," said Sugar.

  "Why don't you sit down," said Hooper. He walked by me and rested his hand on the back of the chair in front of Canonico's desk.

  "Then we can shoot the breeze," said Sugar, leaning back in Canonico's chair.

  "Chew the fat," added Hooper.

  "Have you two been working together long?" I asked.

  They smiled. "A while," said Hooper.

  "Does it show?" asked Sugar.

  I sat down and Hooper went around the desk and stood next to Sugar. He put his hands behind his back and looked for all the world like an undertaker paying his respects. He looked at me with his green eyes like a cat wondering whether to eat a mouse or toy with it for a while. "We, Mr Sugar and I, work for an agency in Washington which is connected, you could say, with national security. But we also liaise closely with our equivalents in other countries. Our task is to spot individuals who may at some point pose a threat to national security."

  "To nip them in the bud, as it were," said Sugar.

  "I still don't follow you," I said, but I had a pretty good idea where they were heading.

  "Terry Ferriman," said Hooper.

  "Terry Ferriman," repeated Sugar.

  "Ah," I said.

  The three of us said nothing for almost a full minute and it was Sugar who eventually broke the silence.

  "What can you tell us about her?" he asked.

  "In what way?" I replied.

  "You've been making a number of enquiries about the lady. About her background, finances, circumstances. We'd like to know what conclusion you've reached."

  I nodded. "She was originally brought in as a suspect in a murder enquiry. She was bailed and as far as I know there isn't much of a case against her," I lied. After last night's conversation with her I knew exactly how much of a case there was against her and her friend. Had she told me his name? I couldn't remember, she'd given me far too much information to digest at one sitting. I needed to talk to her again.

  "We know that," said Sugar patiently.

  "You extended your own enquiry beyond a simple grading of her mental state?" asked Hooper.

  "Yes, that's true."

  "Would you mind telling us why," said Sugar, smiling.

  "She intrigued me."

  "There was something unusual about her grading, something shown up by the Beaverbrook Program?" asked Hooper.

  "No, it was personal."

  "Personal?" asked Sugar.

  I had the impression that the two men in suits knew exactly what my feelings for Terry were, and what I'd found out. They knew and they were testing me, probably to ascertain whether I was with them or against them. What I wanted to know was who the hell were these two men from Washington and how they knew that I'd been investigating Terry Ferriman. De'Ath maybe, or perhaps Rivron. Or maybe the data bases De'Ath had been accessing had triggered something in Washington. But why?

  "You had a relationship with her?" said Hooper.

  "You could say that, yes," I said.

  "A sexual relationship?" asked Sugar.

  I hesitated, but then nodded. I had a hunch that lying, at least obvious untruths, would do me more harm than good at this stage.

  "Did she tell you much about herself?" asked Hooper.

  "Pillow talk, as it were," added Sugar, grinning.

  I ran my hand through my hair. "I'm very much in the dark here," I said. "I think I've only got a small part of a very big picture, and it's causing me some confusion. Could you give me some sort of briefing first, so I get a rough idea of what's going on?"

  Sugar linked his hands together behind his head. "You mean we show your ours and you show us yours?"

  "A sort of quid pro quo?" said Hooper dryly.

  "It would be a help," I said lamely.

  Hooper and Sugar looked at each other and then Sugar nodded. From the body language I guessed that he was the higher ranking of the two.

  "There are more than four billion people on this planet," said Hooper slowly. "Thousands are born every hour. The vast majority are like you and me. We are born, we marry, have children, and eventually we die. The species moves on. That applies to 99.999999 per cent of the population.

  But every now and again, in something like one in a hundred million births, something happens. A mutation. An alteration at the DNA level, inside the chromosomes of the cells. The mutation can take several forms, but the end result is something which is not human. Something which can be less than human, or, in some cases, more than human."

  "You're talking about monsters," I said.

  Hooper shook his head slowly. "Not monsters," he said. "Mutants. Born of completely normal parents. In the old days they might have been called monsters, and many of them passed into folklore, tales told around the campfires."

  "Folklore?" I said. "What do you mean specifically?"

  "Vampires," said Sugar, and he wasn't smiling now. "Vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters.

  That was what they were called, and the definitions still work as labels, though there are not especially accurate."

  "If you're saying such things exist, why isn't it common knowledge? Why are they still regarded as fiction?"

  "Statistics," said Hooper. "Such mutations are a very rare occurrence. Even today with a population of four billion there are probably no more than one or two a year born around the world.

  A hundred years ago it would have been one every ten years or so. And it's only recently that we've had the capability of keeping track of people. Before they could move around and conceal their identities. Now everything is on computers. There's nowhere to hide."

  What he said made sense. It also went some way to explaining how they knew I was involved.

  God knows how many computerised trip wires De'Ath had gone blundering through while he was chasing up Terry's background. "How many does your organisation know of?" I asked.

  Hooper looked at Sugar for guidance and Sugar nodded.

  "We know of seven what I suppose you'd call vampires. Four in the United States, two in the Soviet Union, one in Eastern Europe. We suspect there are some in China, but the authorities in Peking aren't especially forthcoming. There are no werewolves or shapeshifters in the States, but there are three in the Soviet Union, two in India and one in Albania. Again we are in the dark about China."

  "You don't really mean vampires and werewolves, do you?" I asked him.

  Hooper shook his head. "Not as you'd see them in movies, no. The vampires we're trying to track down don't wear black cloaks and turn into bats. They can eat all the garlic they want, you can see them in mirrors and they have no problems crossing running water. They don't have sharp incisors like Christopher Lee, either. But they are virtually immortal. The gene which causes aging is missing and their cells continue to replicate ad infinitum. They usually have an allergy to bright sunlight. They are very strong, very intelligent, and they need blood. The gene mutation leaves them unable to synthesise certain essential amino acids which they must therefore obtain by other means. Blood is the easiest source of supply, though blood-rich organs such as heart or liver will also do."

  "And they live forever? Is that what you're saying?"

  Sugar shrugged. "There seems to be no limit on the number of times their cells divide. We know of one who is more than two thousand years old. You'd never know it to look at him. He's little more than a boy. Even carbon-dating doesn't help date him. But under hypnosis, we've gone back with him to ancient Rome."

  The mention of carbon-dating made me wonder if they knew about my trip to UCLA, and if they'd been told about my enquiries. I had a nasty feeling that the men belonged to an organisation whose tentacles were spread throughout the world's scientific community. No, tentacles weren't a good analogy. A spider's web, maybe, thin filaments running back to their headquarters waiting for the slight tremble that would
suggest that somebody, somewhere, was asking the sort of questions you'd ask if you were on the track of a vampire.

  "And the werewolves and, what did you call them, shape-shifters?" I asked.

  "They're more complex, and even rarer than the vampires," said Sugar. I've never seen one, though I've seen a video of one of the Russian examples undergoing transformation. Pretty heavy stuff, I can tell you."

  "What's it like?"

  "To be honest it's not as impressive as the sort of special effects you see in movies like The Howling, but it's a whole different ball game when you know it's the real thing."

  "What if the film you saw was faked?"

  Sugar snorted. "The sort of guys we liaise with don't play games like that, Dr Beaverbrook.

  They're not exactly selected for their senses of humour, you know."

  I shook my head in disbelief. Vampires. Werewolves. Things that go bump in the night. Part of me expected Canonico and his colleagues to come bursting in through the door with wooden stakes and mallets screaming "April Fool" but the two men in grey suits were too serious for it to be a joke. This wasn't a set up. It was for real. It was for real and I was frightened for Terry.

  "So," said Sugar, stretching his arms above his head. "Enough about us. I think you've gathered by now that we suspect that this Terry Ferriman is one of these mutants."

  "It's possible," I said.

  Sugar scowled and brought his arms down hard on top of the desk, making me jump with the ferocity of the movement. Hooper didn't even flinch, he just kept looking at me with his cold, emerald eyes. "Don't fuck with us, Beaverbrook," said Sugar. "In terms of operational powers we rank way above the country's law enforcement agencies and anti-terrorist organisations. CIA, FBI, any group of initials you want to come up with, we're head and shoulders above the lot. We answer to only one man, and he reports directly to the President. We can make you disappear, Beaverbrook. We can take you to the sort of places you haven't even conceived in your worst nightmares and we can talk to you there. But if we have to do that, you won't leave. Ever. You're either with us, or you're against us. And if you decide you're against us you give up any rights that you might have. Am I making myself clear, Beaverbrook?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "I can't hear you."

  "Yes," I said, louder this time.

  "Good," said Sugar. "Now, you've been making enquiries about Ms Ferriman. What conclusions have you drawn?"

  "She isn't Terry Ferriman," I said slowly. "The real Terry Ferriman died more than twenty years ago. She took over her identity. She's rich, very, very rich. She seems to have access to tens of millions of dollars in a bank account with no real means of accounting for it. She owns a big apartment block but pretends to live in a tiny apartment there." I figured that De'Ath had probably already told them about the money in the bank, and it wasn't much of a step to have found out about the building. I didn't mention the basement because I hoped that they might have missed that. I told them about finding Greig Turner's picture, and about my meeting with the former film star because De'Ath knew about that, too. It was important that I appeared to be co-operating.

  "What about her personality?" Sugar asked. "How did she seem to you?"

  "She was fine on the Beaverbrook Program, and that would show up if she was lying or being evasive. But she seemed to know a lot more than you'd expect for someone of her age."

  "Her apparent age," corrected Hooper.

  "Her apparent age," I agreed. "She could speak several languages, yet didn't really explain how she'd learnt them. She was amazingly confident, too. As if she knew exactly what she was doing.

  As if she was in control."

  "What about physically?" asked Sugar.

  "I guess the first time I met her I reckoned she looked younger than her age." I caught Hooper looking at me. "Than her apparent age. I'd have put her in her teens. And the way she spoke was often like a teenager. Yet she seemed to know so much. It was as if…"

  "As if she was acting young. Pretending," Sugar interrupted.

  I nodded in agreement.

  "What about her body?" asked Hooper.

  "Like a teenager's," I said.

  "Did you see much of it? Her body I mean," asked Sugar.

  "A fair bit," I said, unsure what he was getting at.

  "Let me be a little more blunt, Dr Beaverbrook," he added. "Were you lovers?"

  I was about to protest but I saw Sugar's eyes harden so I thought better of it. "Yes," I said. "At least, we went to bed once. Just once."

  "Did you use any form of contraception?"

  The surprise must have shown on my face because Sugar grinned at my discomfort. "I'll explain later," he said. "Just answer the question."

  "No, we didn't. She said she wouldn't get pregnant. I assumed she meant she was on the Pill or something."

  Sugar and Hooper looked at each other and something unspoken passed between them. Sugar looked back at me. "Did she bite you?" he asked.

  "No," I answered, emphatically. I felt a sort of tremor of anticipation run along my spine because if she had asked me, I'd have let her. No doubt about it.

  "Did she take blood from you in any way?"

  "No," I said, equally emphatically. Then I suddenly remembered the night she'd taken me to The Place, how the mugger had cut me and how she'd licked the wound clean. Sugar must have seen something in my face because he asked me if I was sure. I told him what had happened.

  "Did she tell you why she was doing it?"

  "She just said she was cleaning it."

  "Did she ask you to take blood from her?" Sugar asked.

  I laughed out loud but could see that he was serious. "Why on earth would she do that?" I asked.

  "Is that a yes or a no?" he pressed.

  "No. Never," I said. He nodded as if he believed me.

  "Did she ever ask you to do anything for her?" asked Hooper.

  "Lots of stuff. Everyday things, you know. What do you mean? What do you think she might have asked me to do?"

  Sugar got up out of his chair and walked over to the window. He stood and looked out, his hands clasped behind his back. "You have to understand, Dr Beaverbrook, that these people usually want something from the people they get close to. They tend to keep to themselves, because the more people who know them, the more chance there is of them being discovered. They don't age, and after five years, perhaps as much as ten, it becomes noticeable. If they do get close to someone, it's because they want something."

  "We met by accident," I said. "I was called in to examine her, that was all. We got on well together."

  "You hit on her?" asked Hooper.

  "No," I said angrily. "I'm a professional. It would have been totally unethical for me to have done that."

  "So," said Sugar, still with his back to me. "She hit on you?"

  I had to think about that one. She'd turned up at my house late at night, dragged me out, and yes, at the end of the night she'd seduced me. It had been all her doing. I hadn't realised at the time, it had felt so good, but I hadn't had to do anything. "Yeah. You could say that."

  Sugar turned round and smiled. "And why do you think she did that?"

  "What do you mean?" I asked, feeling defensive.

  "Why do you think a pretty girl of her age – her apparent age – want to get involved with someone so much older?"

  "I'm only thirty six," I said, and realised how weak that sounded.

  "You look older," said Hooper, unsympathetically.

  "Thanks. But we're only talking about an age gap of ten years or so. That's not unusual."

  "The girl is beautiful," said Sugar. "And very rich, as you say. She could have any man she wanted. So why did she choose you?"

  "Maybe she wanted me," I said.

  Hooper made a sort of snorting noise and put his hand over his mouth. I glared at him, but they were making me think.

  "Did she ask you about your work?" asked Sugar, sitting down again.

  "Of course."

/>   "Did she ask about vampires, things like that?" he pressed.

  "Never."

  "She never asked if you knew where they were held?" he said.

  "I don't follow."

  "Is it possible that she was hoping that you would tell her where the rest of her kind are? The ones we know about."

  "But I don't know where they are being held. Until I met you two I had no idea that they even existed."

  "Yes, but she wouldn't have known that," said Hooper.

  "Wow," I said.

  "Wow," agreed Sugar. "Wow is right. It could be that you've had a very lucky escape."

  "You think I was being set up?" I asked.

  "Sounds like it," said Hooper.

  Sugar drummed his fingers lightly on the desk top. There was no tune, no rhythm, just random tapping. "Dr Beaverbrook, it's important that you understand something, that you don't allow yourself to get too attached to her." He spoke quietly, his head thrust forward to close the distance between us, as if he was drawing me into his confidence. "These people, these mutations, are different from us, they don't form emotional attachments. They are loners, complete and absolute loners. They only get close to other people when they need something – when they need blood, for instance. Or information. This might sound trite, but they don't fall in love. You must not imagine that it possible for her to, how can I say this, have feelings for you. Do you hear what I am saying to you?"

  "Yes," I said, but I felt that he was lying. I knew the strength of her feelings. And I knew that I loved her with all my heart. With my soul.

  Sugar looked at me intently as if trying to peer into my mind and for a brief moment it almost felt as if he was probing through my synapses like a burglar rooting through a bedroom closet. And the valuables he was looking for were my true feelings.

  "They don't even form attachments with their own kind," Sugar continued. "They meet occasionally, they help each other, but generally they keep away from each other."

  "For safety?" I said. "So they can't give each other away?"

  "No. Because they prefer it that way. They can't help themselves. How good is your biochemistry, Dr Beaverbrook?"

  I shook my head.

  "Ever heard of a hormone called oxytocin?"