Gillian rode with the window open, enjoying the wind in her face. Doubts still nibbled at the back of her mind, though. “Now I remember,” she said when they pulled onto the freeway. “Lord Volnar has mentioned your name. You had a brother, Neil. Roger—destroyed him.”
A flare of anger from Camille, instantly quenched. “Yes.” The word was nearly a hiss. “He killed one of our race. That is the kind of creature he is.” She shot a smile at Gillian, her mental barrier so strong that Gillian couldn’t sense the underlying emotion. “But you needn’t be like that.”
“Lord Volnar said your brother—that is, he’s spoken of as a renegade.”
For a moment, Camille’s fingers tightened on the wheel, and her breath came shallow through gritted teeth. Once she’d calmed herself, she said in a neutral tone, “Many of our people reject Volnar’s judgment. Even some on the Council of Elders. Don’t believe everything you hear, Gillian.” After a while, she took an off-ramp toward downtown Washington. Apparently having forgiven Gillian for broaching the offensive topic, she began to sing again:
“It was a hell of a war as I recall, parlez-vous,
It was a hell of a war, as I recall, parlez-vous.
It was a hell of a war, as I recall,
But still it was better than none at all—”
She turned to look at Gillian, who shyly stared at her. Humming along with an opera tape was the only musical self-expression Volnar ever indulged in. Camille said, “You don’t know this song, do you? Want to learn it?” Gillian nodded. “Fine, repeat after me: Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous...”
The car crawled through a section of Washington Gillian had never seen on her visits with Volnar. Rows of graffiti-marked brownstones, many boarded up, lined the streets. Camille and Gillian rolled up their windows to shut out the stink of garbage. The setting reminded Gillian of the street where the boys had attacked her a few nights ago. Noticing her nervousness, Camille inquired the reason, and Gillian recounted her experience.
“This time I’ll be with you,” said Camille. “And soon enough, you’ll have the strength to handle a minor challenge like that on your own.”
“Losing control was the worst part. Will you help me work on my transformation?”
“Of course. Didn’t I promise to train you?” Camille’s tone seemed to reproach Gillian for doubting.
“You can do it without the blood-bond?”
“As I said before, the Prime Elder’s way is not the only way.” Since Camille seemed impatient with the questions, Gillian dropped the subject. Instead she surveyed the neighborhood they were traversing. A few people were afoot on the cracked sidewalks—a stout black woman at a bus stop, three boys in their late teens a block farther along. Picking a moment when nobody was in sight, Camille turned into an alley and switched off the motor. “Parking here is probably illegal, but we won’t be gone long, I hope—and anyway, the penalty would be a ticket, not a tow, and the car is rented in Greer’s name.”
Gillian got out and stretched while Camille locked the car. “Why here?”
“I notice a soup kitchen a block up the street.” Camille tucked the keys into the Velcro-zipped pocket of the tightly-fitted silver-gray slacks she wore. “Not that locking it will do much good if someone decides to smash the windows. Well, let’s go.”
Dodging patches of dirty ice, Gillian followed her along the sidewalk. “What do you want me to do?”
“By this time, people should be lining up for free breakfast.” The night had flown faster than Gillian, in all the excitement, had realized. The sky she glimpsed between buildings was fading from black to gray. “I plan to send you in as a decoy. You look very young in human terms and vulnerable because of your thinness.” She paused to clasp Gillian’s elbow and look her over. “It’s a good thing we didn’t stop to get you some clean clothes. A veritable waif. Exploit that appearance as long as you can. You’ll outgrow it all too soon.”
Sure enough, five people were clustered on the concrete steps of the two-story building with the wooden, white-painted, green-lettered sign announcing three meals a day for all comers. A few more shabbily dressed customers drifted up as Camille and Gillian watched from half a block away. “I don’t want to be seen,” Camille said in a muted tone, hardly more than subvocalizing, audible only to another vampire. “Let me think—that one looks like a good prospect. Undernourished but still basically healthy. You can pass for about her age.” With an unobtrusive gesture she indicated a black girl with corn-rowed hair, bony arms sticking out of a red sweatshirt torn at the elbows.
Though Gillian didn’t know much about human growth patterns, she suspected the girl was under sixteen, Volnar’s prescribed minimum age for victims. This didn’t seem the right time, however, to mention Volnar to Camille again. Watching the girl hug herself, shivering, Gillian marveled at how delicate, how susceptible to ordinary weather variations, these ephemerals were. “What do you want me to do with her?”
“Approach her in your own way,” Camille said. “I’d like to see how you work. Cut her out of the flock and bring her to me—the details are up to you.” Camille sidled into the nearest alley out of any casual passerby’s sight.
Gillian’s heart raced with excitement. She focused inward for a few seconds to slow it. Only ephemerals let their emotions rule their physical reactions. Ambling over to the group by the front steps of the mission, she congratulated herself that no one paid special attention to her. She must have imitated the appropriate body language adequately. When she joined the others waiting in the predawn cold, she did provoke a couple of curious glances, which she decided sprang from her being the only light-skinned person present except a bearded man who reeked of smoke and alcohol.
Falling into place beside her target, Gillian ventured a tentative smile and a “Good morning.”
The other girl, petite in height as well as overly thin, dubiously looked up at her. “Yo. Ain’t you cold?”
“Not very.” Gillian decided it was too late to fake shivering.
The other girl scanned Gillian, her eyes lingering on the designer jeans. “You on the wrong side of town, girlfriend. You run away or what?”
“Yes. My name is Gillian.” She offered her hand.
The black girl hesitated long enough before accepting it to tell Gillian the gesture had been out of character. “Bonnie. This my Aunt Loretta.” She jerked her head to indicate a middle-aged woman leaning against the railing nearby. “This your first time here, right?”
“Yes. Is the food good?”
Bonnie laughed. “Who cares? They give you plenty, anyway. But you don’t want to go in there without no adult.” She stressed and drawled out the first syllable of adult. “They call the child welfare on you, for sure.”
“Then what can I do?” Gillian was reluctant to entice Bonnie away from the group with her aunt standing by. The woman would surely interfere. Maybe if she flocked inside with the others, she could sneak out with Bonnie unnoticed during the meal.
The girl shrugged, then tapped her aunt on the arm and spoke to her in a rapid undertone. While Gillian had trouble following the dialect, she gathered that Bonnie was telling Aunt Loretta about her. After a whispered discussion, Bonnie turned back to Gillian. “You can be our guest.” She grinned at her own joke. “We say you my girlfriend staying with us.”
“Thank you very much.” Standing in line with the growing crowd of ephemerals made Gillian uncomfortable. Except under Volnar’s protection, she’d never mixed with large groups of them. Their cold, hunger, and low-level fear battered her imperfectly developed psychic shield. She found herself edging closer to Bonnie to immerse herself in the relative cordiality of the girl’s aura. The sign announced that breakfast started at five thirty. Gillian had no watch and hadn’t checked the time recently enough to be able to estimate it now. She felt the pressure of Camille’s attention.
Finally, the door opened and the line of people filed in. The cafeteria-style room smelled of disinfectant a
nd stale cooking aromas. The rectangular Formica tables were adorned with potted poinsettias. Homemade posters of butterflies, crosses, and slogans such as God don’t make junk relieved the starkness of the whitewashed walls. Over the background odors Gillian smelled eggs and some kind of frying meat.
The preoccupied woman at the window between kitchen and dining hall didn’t question Aunt Loretta’s claim to be Gillian’s escort. When the three of them had collected their trays, Gillian made a stab at separating Bonnie from her aunt. As the woman headed for a table in the center of the room, Gillian said, “Bonnie, why don’t we sit near the window instead? We can see out while we’re eating and have some fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” the girl hooted. “You some kind of Eskimo, or what?” On reflection, Gillian thought the proposal sounded rather weak herself, but she’d managed to get Bonnie staring into her eyes. On this young and totally unsuspecting victim Gillian’s new-fledged power worked like the flick of a switch. “Sure, why not? You crazy, but I like you.” She relayed their intention to her aunt, who mumbled something about eating her breakfast where icicles wouldn’t sprout on it.
At a table against the front wall Bonnie dug into her scrambled eggs and two slices of ham. Gillian had accepted a tray rather than arouse suspicion by refusing the meal she’d waited for. She slowly drank the milk that came with it. After Bonnie had gobbled her food, Gillian pushed her own plate over. “You take this. I can’t—I am allergic to eggs.”
Bonnie’s shock at this prodigality shifted to delight. “You sure? Thanks!”
Nervously checking on Aunt Loretta, Gillian was glad to see the woman lingering over a cup of coffee. Gillian forced herself not to fidget while waiting for Bonnie to devour the second breakfast. As soon as the other girl wiped her mouth for the last time, Gillian said, “Let’s take a walk. It’s no fun sitting here.”
“Walk? Girlfriend, do I gots to keep telling you it’s freezing out there?” When Gillian reinforced the suggestion with a light touch on the girl’s hand, Bonnie said, “Okay, whatever. Aunt Loretta, she sit there drinking coffee until they throw her out.” After dumping their plates in a bin up front, the two girls strolled out to the sidewalk. Gillian made no attempt to rush her companion for fear of attracting attention.
A block from the mission, Gillian gently took Bonnie’s hand. Bonnie started to jerk loose, but when Gillian gazed into her eyes, she forgot her qualms. “Girl, you weird,” she murmured. “Thought you say you not cold—you feel like ice.”
“I know somewhere we can get warm without having to stay in that roomful of people.” Questing with her psychic perception, Gillian sensed that Camille had moved farther up the street. Approaching the alley where they’d left the car, Gillian sensed the vampire woman’s presence. “Come along, Bonnie, I’m to meet someone here. She’ll be glad I’ve brought you.”
“She? Huh?” Bonnie’s vague doubts were no match for the hypnotically-induced trust she felt toward Gillian. She allowed Gillian to lead her into the alley.
Warmth flowed through Gillian from the clasp of the other girl’s fingers. Somehow the idea that food she had provided, indirectly at least, was even now nourishing her prey gratified Gillian. She soaked up Bonnie’s friendliness, however artificial, like a plant’s roots groping for water.
When Camille stepped out of the car, the red glint of her eyes startled Bonnie. The girl let out a squeak of alarm and tried to pull away from Gillian. “It’s all right, I know her,” Gillian said. “She’s a friend.”
Before Bonnie could decided whether to believe, Camille’s mature power drowned her will. The black girl wobbled on her feet. Camille scooped the victim up in her arms and, crooning, bent to her throat.
Gillian felt an irrational urge to protest when Camille claimed the prey she had captured. Bonnie’s mine. She likes me. For the moment it was easy to forget that the liking was largely her own creation. Shaking her head to throw off the confusion, Gillian reminded herself that she was too young for human blood, and that she’d only been acting as a decoy for her new mentor. I’m not even hungry. I’ve fed well.
Once Camille paused in her feast to glance up at Gillian, licking her red-stained lips. “Wonderful. You’ve primed her perfectly.” Placing the half-conscious girl on the hood of the car, Camille leaned over her to drink deeper.
After a while Gillian had to stop watching. If she wasn’t hungry, why did this spectacle make her feel hollow inside? Finally Camille said, “That’s all. We’d better dispose of her and get clear of the area.”
“Dispose?” Gillian glanced around the alley. Not a visible speck of blood on the pavement or the car; Camille was as neat as any adult vampire ought to be. But Bonnie—For a moment Gillian couldn’t accept what the girl’s fading aura proclaimed. “She’s dead!”
“Dying,” said Camille in an indifferent tone. “Amounts to the same thing. She won’t regain consciousness.”
“You killed her,” Gillian whispered.
“Accidents do happen.” Laughing, Camille shifted the body for easier carrying. “Don’t tell me you have scruples? Surely Volnar wouldn’t let you pick up silly ideas like that. Considering the life she was probably headed for, I did her a favor. Not that I meant to drain her, but she tasted surprisingly good. And I’ve had a strenuous night.” Camille trotted to the far end of the alley. Gillian watched her deposit her burden in the shadows next to a Dumpster.
“But it’s forbidden to kill—”
“Conspicuously. There’s no way this death will be identified for what it is, much less linked to us. Come along, we’ll go back to that roach motel and get a good day’s sleep.”
Gillian kept quiet during the drive, glad Camille didn’t start a conversation either. What the woman said made sense, from a certain point of view. Yet Gillian knew what Roger or even Claude would have said about this night’s work.
Chapter Ten
WHEN ROGER AND Claude got back to the convention hotel, Britt and Eloise waited together in the latter’s top-floor suite. “Manning the barricades?” said Claude. “Any fans lay siege to you?”
Eloise shook her head. “The hotel is nice about protecting your privacy, thank goodness. The room number doesn’t seem to have gotten around. We watched Silence of the Lambs in the video room, then made it up here with no problem.”
“Good research,” said Britt, “but you’d have found holes to pick in it anyway, colleague.”
“Precisely why I haven’t cared to see it,” Roger said. He surveyed the sitting room for something to drink.
Guessing what he wanted, Claude detoured into the bedroom for a bottle of brandy, from which he served all four of them—generous glasses for Roger and himself, single shots for the women. “Good decision. Eloise dragged me to the blasted thing, and it gave me nightmares.”
On the basis of what he’d heard about the story, Roger found that puzzling. “I wouldn’t expect you to be squeamish about flayed corpses, particularly when they’re just special effects.”
“It isn’t that.” Claude sat on the couch near Eloise, carefully not touching her. “It’s the incarceration scenes. I thought I had no imagination, but it was painfully easy to visualize myself in that fix.” He sipped the brandy as if to counteract the vision. “Our ultimate nightmare. If you’re confined and fed, yet deprived of human prey, you go raving mad. Only a matter of time.” He stared into space for a moment, then shook off the image. “So. You two observed what we found?”
“Britt did,” said Eloise, “and she told me. I’m surprised you didn’t try to follow Camille and Gillian.”
“Good thing Roger didn’t go charging after them. Yes, I know you wanted to,” Claude said to Roger. “By the time we’d finished with Greer, they could have vanished in any direction. And if by chance you’d run across them, suppose Camille had decided a threat of death—or torture—against Gillian was the perfect way to bring you into line?”
“I see what you mean,” Roger said. “Have you any suggestions?”
>
“Other than waiting for Gillian to come to her senses and flee that woman like the proverbial pestilence?” Claude said. “Considering you don’t even have the license number of the rented car she appropriated, finding her presents a problem.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Britt. “The light hit the plates at the wrong angle for me to make it out. I have these inconvenient human limitations.”
Roger, in a chair next to hers, said, “Probably just as well I wasn’t following Greer myself. Camille would certainly have noticed a vampire watching her.”
Claude nodded. “Too true. Your attention on her would have been like shooting up a flare— Here I am, let’s fight! Think you could enlist that police captain friend of yours?”
“Not much he can do for us at the moment,” said Britt, “especially since reporting Gillian as kidnapped is out. I’ll call him again and drop a few hints, though.”
“Is she kidnapped, really?” Eloise mused. “After what Greer must have put her through—like what you mentioned a minute ago, Claude, she must’ve been terrified—a woman of her own race would have been the answer to her prayers. If vampire kids pray.”
“Yes, we considered that,” Roger said. “If she’s using Gillian, somehow, to get at me, corrupting the child might be part of her plan.”
Britt said, “I think we made a strong impression on Gillian in that brief time, though. Maybe she’ll weigh the alternatives and come back to Roger.”
“Which is one of many reasons why we should return to Annapolis as soon as possible.” Roger polished off his brandy and set down the glass, wearily contemplating the prospect of another hour’s drive. At least it would all be in darkness.
“Guess you’re right,” said Britt. “Not really anything else we can do here.” She stifled a yawn.
“Perhaps you should report to Volnar,” Claude suggested to Roger.
“I don’t have a contact number for him. Juliette might, if she’s still in New York—I’ll consider getting in touch with her.”
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