Part 3 (1/2)
”Well, we want to talk, and we could cruise at the same time. You know, hunt.” She put on a pair of sungla.s.ses whose large frames accentuated the informal look of her white, backless sundress.
”So soon?” he said.
”Why not? How often do you, usually?”
His chest tightened as he considered the question. Wrestling the car through traffic across the Charles River, he answered, ”Once every couple of weeks.”
”Good grief, how can you stand it?”
”That isn't the kind of thing one would want to do any more often than necessary. If it's necessary at all.”
”You still think I'm nuts, don't you?” She seemed unperturbed by that judgment.
”Frankly, yes. And I should either persuade you to go into therapy or refuse to see you again.” By ”hunting” with her, he was acting as an enabler, colluding in a bizarre codependence.
”You won't, though, will you?”
”No, G.o.d help me,” he said. ”I want to know more about you-no matter how much it sounds like complete drivel.”
”You don't have much time to dissect my brain, if you're moving soon. Or was that just an excuse you invented to get rid of me?”
”No, it's true. I'm planning to relocate to Maryland within a few weeks.” He wondered what his prospective partner would think of Sylvia. Dr. Loren had mentioned in her letters that she took an interest in psi phenomena and had once partic.i.p.ated in a series of ESP trials. Still, Rhine cards were a far cry from delusions of vampirism.
They'd almost reached the Bronsons' neighborhood before he nerved himself to question Sylvia further. ”You used the expression 'my kind.' Please explain.”
”I've been thinking it over, since last night, and I've figured out what you are,” she said. ”You're a changeling, brought up by ephemerals, ignorant of your real ident.i.ty. Roger, it's downright romantic!”
Sourly amused by her enthusiasm for her hypothesis, he said, ”It doesn't seem romantic to me, living it. Brought up by what?”
”Ephemerals. You know, short-lifers.”
”What does that make you? Immortal?”
”Close enough. We can't die; we have to be killed.”
”Oh, and I suppose you claim to be hundreds of years old.”
She laughed. ”Don't be silly, I'm twenty-nine, just a kid.” Signalling for him to pull over, she said, ”There's my car.” Sylvia's car, a white Mustang, sat unmolested where she'd left it, parked under a tree about a block from the site of last night's party.So that's the theory she uses to justify her behavior-she belongs to a higher species, Roger thought.Ingenious, if nothing else. ”Do you really expect me to believe there is a subculture of-of vampires-lurking in the shadowed corners of human society?”
”Believe what you like.” She seemed more entertained than annoyed by his skepticism. Since darkness was falling, Roger and Sylvia both removed their sungla.s.ses as they switched to the other car. She gave it a pat on the fender before slipping into the driver's seat and rolling down her window. ”As a matter of fact, there's another one in Boston right now. You wouldn't want to meet him, though. I've stayed away from him since I found out how rough he plays.”
”Rough?”
She said with a humorless laugh, ”Would you believe he's that serial killer the papers are full of? Leaving bodies around is strictly against the rules.”
Her flippant tone chilled Roger. ”You know who he is, and you haven't informed the police?”That settles one thing-I have to keep seeing her. If there's the slightest chance she really does know the killer, it's my duty to get that information for O'Toole.
She paused with her hand on the ignition key. ”Are you out of your mind?” He felt her outrage like a slap in the face. ”Never mind, you don't understand,” she said, revving the engine. ”You were brought up human.”
Roger didn't waste time insisting again that hewas human. ”If you think I'm one of your race, you should tell me about them.”
”It's not my place to give out information that might betray the group. I can answer general questions and tell you about myself, but not about anybody else.” Sylvia gave him a sidelong smile as the Mustang inched through the Cambridge streets toward the freeway. ”I've already said too much-for some reason you rattle me, Doctor. Maybe because I keep thinking you want to get me on your couch.”
For a second he suspected an intentionaldouble entendre, but her surface emotions carried no indication of that. Yes, he did itch to psychoa.n.a.lyze her, just as he wanted to worm information about the supposed vampire race from her.
”As for believing you are or aren't a vampire-” She held up a hand to cut off his automatic protest. ”Yeah, I know, you think the word is unscientific nonsense. But, heck, you even look like one of us. I noticed that before I picked up on the color of your aura.”
”How so?” He told himself he was humoring her to be polite. After all, he couldn't very well psychoa.n.a.lyze a person who rejected the whole idea of therapy.
”Your height, for one thing. You're-how tall? Definitely over six feet.”
”Six four,” he said.
”And lean-not an ounce of extra fat. Gray eyes, almost silver; aquiline profile; black hair with no sign of middle-aged baldness and only a dash of gray at the temples.”
Despite the roar of confusion in his brain, the tenuous nature of her ”evidence” amused him. ”Those traits could describe any of a hundred thousand men.”
”We all have hair of either black or some shade of red.” She stretched her right arm across the back of the seat to brush her fingers over his hair. ”I'll bet that distinguished-looking sprinkle of silver makes you a real lady-killer.”
Roger s.h.i.+fted away from her hand, his lips tightening in distaste at the pun.
She gave him a sly grin, clearly amused by his reaction. ”Not that you need it. Haven't you noticed how women gravitate toward you when you're hungry?”
He refused to admit aloud that he'd sometimes imagined they did. ”Sounds like blatant wish-fulfillment to me.”
”When you tried to feed on me, I felt your strength and the coolness of your skin. Along with the tint of your aura, that's plenty of proof for me that you're not human.”
He clutched the armrest, battling the sensation that he was sinking ever deeper into the quicksand of her delusional construct.
”Sheer fantasy.”
”Oh, yeah? Then how do you explain your hypnotic powers, your sixth sense for emotions, the way you can hear the slightest noises, even people's heartbeats-”
”If that last is anything more than my imagination,” he said, ”some neurological abnormalities involve hyperacute sensory perception.
I have an eidetic memory; the two conditions may go together, for all I know.”
”Aha!” She thumped the dashboard as if scoring a point. ”Photographic memory is another trait all our people have.”
”You're reaching, Sylvia.” How conveniently she mani-pulated every piece of data to fit into her world-view. ”For all I know, most of what I think I perceive could be imaginary.”
”Even seeing auras? You have confirmation from me on that.”
He flashed her a grim smile. If he could dissociate the topic from his own lifelong self-doubt, he could almost enjoy debating with her. ”That's a.s.suming I accept your testimony as reliable.”
”Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting. According to you, my elevator doesn't go up to the penthouse.” Once on the open highway, she weaved in and out of traffic until suburban congestion fell behind, leaving her a clear road. ”Roger, I have never met such a stubborn, rock-skulled-I give up! If you don't think you're a vampire, what do you call yourself?”
”A blood fetis.h.i.+st, of course, though I've never found a case in the literature exactly like mine.” Speaking that diagnosis aloud to another person for the first time in his life gave him an unexpected sense of relief.