"This looks like what happened last time" Sheriff Oates confided to Beverly .."I remember that the women we found lying on the snow had small wounds on their throat… These wounds are larger.. And Lawson tried to tell me that he did not think it had ended, that it was still going on… but I was sore at him and hung up on him… Maybe if I had listened he would told me what he found… and maybe that's why it led him to Midler…"
Beverly sighed "You did not know it would get him killed"
"Still if he had told me I would have kept him alive. He went and tried to rope Amos Benchley into it.. I do not know why…."
Beverly knew more of what happened and why but the mental hold that Amos had on those he fed on kept her from telling him that… and she began to be afraid. The wounds in the throat like Amos did, but larger, still bleeding… taking too much…
What Amos getting out of control?
"Sheriff I know the man that Ernest Cole worked for. I can ask him take a look at what is happening."
"You think he will come?"
"He is going to be intrigued by it."
"Please contact him. And I hope he has the answers"
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"I did call Professor Romney. Of course I could not tell him about Amos. Just that the events that Ernest Cole had studied had sequels, and he might want to look into. I figured out that once he came I could make hm suspicious of Amos and DO something."
"And in the meantime Charlie kept talking about the pretty lady that his father was painting all alone at night. He repeated it to anyone who would listen…. And that included Dinah."
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"I should have paid attention" Amos said. "I did feel her fear and shock but I did not pay attention to the feeling. Too caught in my own situation to think of her."
Heather sighed. Now he would go on a rant blaming himself instead of concentrating on what he could do.
"Well, whoever it is, he must feed again. If he chooses someone you feed on you can know it. And get there on time."
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"Honestly, he did not think of it. "Heather said "The show got it right, all those soliloquies of how awful things were and and badly he felt they are almost verbatim from the speeches I had to listen to. In any case he DID pay attention this time. And he felt the fear and pain of someone he knew and flew to where she was."
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"Do not hurt her." He told Raft as he held her.
"I must feed." Raft said, blood staining his mouth.
"But you do not need to harm. Take enough and leave her. No need to cause pain and fear. No need to take too much."
"But that is the point, really…. You do not know what is going on, do you?
"There may be a way to reverse it. I cannot do it but maybe you can. The woman who is with me, Heather Mattox thinks she has a way to make you human again."
"You do not know the first thing." He dropped the woman on the ground. "You think you do but you do not."
He flew away, leaving Amos alone with the woman. Scared, weak, bleeding, who tried to fight off Amos as he lifted her.
"I will take you to the hospital, don't worry."