Part 9 (1/2)
”Not by force, the second time.” He clenched his fists at his sides to combat the impulse to shake sense into her. ”And I apologize.”
”Not good enough. I don't know much about how human boys are trained, so I can't imagine what you picked up in prep school.
But I was taught not to tease. And that's exactly what all this-this heavy petting amounts to.”
Her anger felt like an iron band tightening around his forehead. ”I simply don't see what you could expect to gain from such an exchange.”
”That's exactly it. You don't understand. You never will understand, unless you trust me and take that step. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll try to explain. Not with your skeptical, a.n.a.lytical, super-rational-oh, forget it!”
When she tried to retreat, Roger pinioned her arms with his own. The desperation in her voice knifed through him. He couldn't refuse to a.s.suage it. ”If that's truly what you want, I'll cooperate.”
Fierce need flamed in Sylvia's aura. With no preliminary caresses, she sank her teeth into Roger's throat. Though the pain made him wince, he didn't fight. He endured the initial gush of blood in pa.s.sive silence. After a few seconds, however, his vision misted over, and he felt as if his life were pouring away into a black hole. Sylvia's thirst seemed to turn him inside out, sc.r.a.ping him hollow, like a starfish dissolving and absorbing its prey.
Then he felt her creeping, oozing into his mind. No-ripping into it. Tearing out his consciousness by the roots, to clear s.p.a.ce for her own.G.o.d, she's inside me!
”Get out!” He didn't know whether or not he screamed aloud. He threw her out in a convulsion more like a visceral heave than a voluntary act. At the same instant, he tore free of her hands and teeth. He found himself looming over Sylvia as she knelt on the couch, her mouth smeared with crimson.
She staggered to her feet, automatically wiping her lips on her forearm. ”Monster-human?-you're colder than any of us!”
He reached for her, the gesture dying halfway through.
”Go away!” she gasped. ”Go-and stay away!”
He went out into the night.* * * *
SHADOWED BY a gnarled two-hundred-year-old tree, Sylvia sat on a bench next to the pond in the Public Garden and waited for Rico. The doorman's suspicious glances had convinced her to stop inviting the boy to her apartment, but she couldn't make herself stay away from him. Well aware that the more times she drank from Rico, the worse she became hooked on him, and painfully conscious of his pale skin, violet-smudged eye sockets, and growing fatigue, she couldn't stop. Only night before last she had met him here, determined to send him away once and for all, and yielded to his begging for yet another rendezvous.
Sylvia raised her eyes from the reflection of the moon on the pond and scanned the park. Her night vision picked up no sign of human life. Why was Rico late? If anything, she would expect him to show up early, as he had for their last meeting. The thought of his naive ardor brought a smile to her lips despite her worry. He'd be shattered when she broke off with him, as she had to sooner or later.It had better be sooner, if I want him to survive. She'd never killed a donor and never intended to.
Her skin p.r.i.c.kled, not from chill, but from nervousness. Folding her arms across her bosom, she got up and started walking slowly around the pond on the footpath. Disturbed by her pa.s.sage, a duck quacked under a bush. No other sound. Sylvia raised her head to sniff the air. The night breeze s.h.i.+fted, carrying a trace of a scent that sc.r.a.ped on her nerves. Following it, she turned away from the pond and catfooted along a winding walkway. Now she heard the murmur of a man's voice on the far side of the pond, mingled with a wordless coo in a woman's tones.Tourists, she thought. Locals knew better than to walk here after dark. After a second to a.s.sure herself that the lovers weren't headed in her direction, Sylvia continued on her course.
Approaching the boundary of the park, she heard harsh breathing. When she slinked closer, a bearlike growl rasped on her ears.
She caught sight of a feeble glow at the foot of a tree. Residual heat, distinct from the pale blue auras of insects and frogs. At the same instant, the smell filled her nose. Blood-dead blood, but freshly spilled.
A shape loomed above the heap of cooling flesh. A lurid aura, the crimson glow of vampire eyes, and a mouth smeared with red.Neil!
She broke into a trot. The attacker vanished into the night. No point in pursuing, for he'd veiled himself and sprinted out of her reach. Huddled against the tree trunk lay Rico's body. Sylvia needed no touch to tell her he was dead. The last vestiges of warmth seeped out of his flesh. There was a dark gash under his chin. Her stomach churned with the scent of his blood.
So this is what Neil meant!
Much worse than attacking her directly! He'd violated her property rights, slaughtered her human pet, and branded her with the same stigma of violence he wore.
Sylvia threw back her head and wailed.
AFTER RICO'S murder, Sylvia half expected Neil to show up at her door again to gloat over his revenge. That didn't happen.
Instead, when she alighted from the elevator on the ground floor of her building the following night, she found a young man strange to her arguing with the doorman. The latter threw a hara.s.sed glance at Sylvia.
”Miss LaMotte, I been trying to tell this punk you don't want to see him.” He turned back to the intruder. ”You leaving, or do I have to call the cops?”
The visitor, who looked around twenty years old, wore jeans and a leather jacket. Along with the black hair that grew below his collar, the clothes reinforced the ”punk” stereotype the doorman had pinned on him. Though this boy stood taller and broader than Rico, Sylvia saw something in his profile that reminded her of her murdered ”pet.” Chest heaving, the young man said, ”Oh, so that's her! Lady, I've got a few things to say to you!”
The doorman grabbed his arm. ”That does it, you-” Sylvia hurried over to them. ”Wait a minute.” The two men froze. ”Who are you, and why do you want to see me?”
”Rico ever mention his cousin Tony?”
”Yes, he told me about you. I'm terribly sorry about what happened-I saw it in the paper.” Catching Tony's eyes, she focused her hypnotic power. If she could calm him here and now, he might leave without creating further trouble.
Tony relaxed in the doorman's grasp. Only for a second, though; then he stiffened again and said, ”Yeah, I bet you're sorry! He told me some of what you did to him.”
”We were friends, that's all.” She brushed her fingertips over his arm, trying to reinforce the compulsion of her gaze.
Jerking away from her, Tony said, ”That's not how I heard it.”
Hopeless, Sylvia decided. To have any chance of manipulating him, she had to work on him in private. Here, depending on how much Rico had remembered and pa.s.sed on, Tony might blurt out the word ”vampire” within earshot of the doorman and anyone else wandering through the lobby.
”It's all right,” she said. ”Tony can come up to my apartment. You'd like that, wouldn't you?” she said to the young man. ”We can talk about Rico.”
”That's what I'm here for.” With a defiant glare at the con-fused doorman, he rubbed his arm and followed Sylvia to the elevator.
Upstairs she let him into her living room, bolted the door, and turned on the overhead light. The prosaic atmosphere didn't calm her uninvited guest. Tony reeked of grief and hate, as well as a more palpable miasma of nervous sweat. He feared her, Sylvia realized.
How much of the truth had he gleaned from Rico? She wished her advisor were here to help.Dark Powers, I wish anybody were here-even Roger, the idiot! She hadn't spoken to him again before his departure from Boston, and now she regretted cutting herself off from that comfort, inadequate though it was.
Stop that! I'm too old to expect constant protection. Powers of night, I'm practically a mature woman!
”Can I get you something to drink, Tony?” she said, deter-mined to seize control of the situation. ”Maybe I could make a pot of coffee.”
”I wouldn't drink with you if I were dying of thirst.” He planted himself on the couch like a soldier defending a hill.
Her attempt to treat this intrusion as a normal social call wasn't working too well. ”Listen, Tony, I liked Rico. It was a ter-rible shock to read about his death. Why should you be mad at me?”
”Don't give me that bull!” Tony's voice was hoa.r.s.e with stifled tears. ”He got his throat ripped up-I had to go ID him!”
”What do you think that could possibly have to do with me?” She sat on the couch, as far from Tony as possible.
”I know d.a.m.n well you had something to do with it. I seen Rico go nuts over girls before. He didn't get sick and sleep all day and hook school-or come out with this jive about drinking blood.”
So Rico had started to remember. Sylvia tensed, prepared to pounce if Tony made a threatening move. ”That simply doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting I tore his throat to get his blood?” She feigned a tremulous laugh, as if the idea were too silly to mention.
”Look at me-a skinny girl is going to kill a guy with her bare hands? Anyway, haven't you read about all the other murders like this? Rico was just another victim.”