PART 3
PREY
Chapter 11
October 21, 1971 - Thursday
Collinwood
Coterie served dinner for four at Collinwood.
Veronika arrived. Roger, in a quirky mood brought on by emotional exhaustion, had requested Harry's tantalizing champagne chicken, served with herb-roasted carrots and hot buttered rolls. ("Nothing red, please," he had told the chef emphatically.) A plain green salad and light wine rounded out the dinner. Though the diners approached the table without much appetite, the heavenly odors of the food soon stimulated their flagging senses. They devoured the meal.
"Having those two in the kitchen," Roger confessed, "has turned me into a Sybarite, I suppose. I finally feel like a man of wealth."
"They're gifted. I love to eat at Collinwood," Elliot had to agree.
Sitting back from the table, Veronika sighed at her empty plate, then looked around, her lovely eyes shining. "It's the best dinner I've had since I can remember," she laughed.
Barnabas related a comical article he and Julia had seen a while back, and got the group laughing. It felt like a long time since any of them had relaxed and enjoyed themselves.
Feeling replenished, they repaired to the drawing room to delve once more into the black topic.
"Discussion," Elliot began. "Let's have it. Which one are we after?"
Veronika heard Elliot's opening salvo with resignation. She still couldn't imagine a vampire mooching around in the woods. She lightly massaged her temples.
"There are two remaining," Roger chuckled in exasperation. "Let's hope that both of them aren't vampires."
"Yes," Barnabas said. There were brown smudges below his eyes. "We thought we had a duo just now. But I'm satisfied as to Lars, and now Tisa. She put on that little sterling cross before they left."
"Why the cross, I wonder?" Roger asked. He settled himself on the sofa and turned to Elliot. "It's foolproof against monsters on film, but what makes a true flesh-and-blood vampire scream in repugnance when confronted by it? How does a cheap piece of metal hold power over a demon? Maybe if it were dunked in holy water first, but crosses and crucifixes are churned out by the gross by manufacturers, tiny pieces of stainless steel. Why would such a thing protect one from a vampire?"
Veronika grimaced at the term flesh and blood vampire but kept her mouth shut.
Elliot took him up. "As I see it," he rumbled, "the cross is the unbearable reminder that the vampire is separated from God. I'm only a hit-and-miss believer," he warned, looking around at them, "I always have to try to prove things. But three of us witnessed last April the effect of scripture on an evil being. It happened in this very room. I would assert that any sentient creation yearns to know its creator, and for the vampire, the cross represents a permanently locked door. Cast out, it lives with neither hope nor mercy, forever unable to journey home to the one who authored its original beginning."
Barnabas inwardly shuddered.
"Though a vampire has in a sense 'risen from the dead,'" Elliot reflected, adjusting his vest a little so that he felt more comfortable after dinner, "it's a false rising. It's not the freedom from death promised by so many religions, but abandonment into the void. In a sense," he said more slowly, "the vampire yearns for love and forgiveness in a universe that utterly rejects him. There's a good deal of jealousy, similar to what Lucifer and his legion felt for mankind. People can hope for an afterlife or reincarnation. A vampire, who is not a person, cannot. It lives for no one, loves none. It can only look forward to a hideous death, and beyond that, all stop."
"I see," Roger said after a queasy little silence. "Well. I was certain that Tisa was responsible until she was touched with the cross, and that was because of her proximity to Liz. My sister was bitten right away; then Julia, who is here round the clock. But the point that drove it home for me was Angelique. She is never at Collinwood. Not having been here in at least six months, she comes last night to pick you up—and is immediately assaulted. You can see where my thoughts went. But it wasn't Tisa."
"Proximity doesn't really matter," Barnabas ventured. "I could be a vampire here in Collinsport who wanted to bite someone who had run off, let's say to Nepal—I would simply force them to return to Collinsport by mesmeric influence and dreams." He shifted his eyes to the observant Elliot and said carefully, "It happens every Saturday in David's monster films. I suppose it is based upon truth."
There was a second of silence.
"It is," Elliot said softly.
Veronika spoke.
"If I may draw your attention away from demons materializing all over the place," she said coolly, "I think that it is only fair to say that I might be forced to go to the authorities soon in my capacity as a physician. You are holding these women against their will. This is kidnapping. Angelique is six months pregnant. The women need to be at Collinsport Hospital, not in cold storage on the outskirts of the graveyard. How about you let me hypnotize one of them so that she can tell you herself that there is no such thing as a vampire?"
Roger bounced out of his chair. "Veronika, you are going nowhere near that crypt! I can't lose you as well!"
"Wouldn't work, I'm afraid," Barnabas attested. "Hypnotism has no effect on a vampire's chosen one. Oh, you could probably put them under, but they still can't reveal the vampire's identity. They are in the thrall of the beast."
Veronika snorted lightly, and Elliot wondered how Barnabas happened to know these facts.
Into the silence that followed, Barnabas blurted, "Why women?"
After a hesitation, Roger cautiously said, "Our victims? Whenever there's something like this going on, it's always women who are attacked. Just like four years ago," he growled. "Why would it not be women? The madman's attracted to them, wants them."
Barnabas stirred. "Well, I have been thinking this over. Looking at our victims, we have two little boys and three females. Why?"
Silence.
"A victim is a victim," Roger responded. "You mean to say that there is a discernible pattern in this?"
"What if the vampire is female?"
Roger stared. Elliot sat silent, envisioning possibilities.
"Can't be!" Roger said with a short laugh. He glanced quickly at Elliot. "We're fresh out of female suspects, if you've forgotten what took place this afternoon. Seriously, to your question, I don't see how it could be at all likely. The boys were only children. But a creature stalking women will surely be masculine."
"I rather think not," Barnabas disagreed. "Not always, anyway."
"But why?
"A vampire," Barnabas began cautiously, "will drink where it must, but still has its preferences. Our vampire is racking up female victims. Does this indicate something that we haven't guessed at? It would be easy to view the monster as male, but let's consider how, say, homosexuality might affect the situation. Let's overlook the children for the moment. Would not a lesbian vampire select only feminine victims? It isn't called 'bloodlust' for nothing, you know. Drinking someone's blood involves getting extraordinarily close, leaning in for a kiss and so on. A woman does not allow an unknown man so near. However," Barnabas continued, "women let other women get terribly close to their bodies. A whispered confidence, adjusting one another's clothing."
He looked somberly at Elliot. "I know Angelique. She would hardly let an unfamiliar man come so close as to bite her throat! Elizabeth wouldn't let a strange man so near, right into her personal space. Nor would Julia." He trailed off.
"What are you getting at, Barnabas?" Roger asked, bewildered. "You just said it doesn't matter who has been in whose vicinity."
"I offer the idea that our vampire isn't automatically male just because our victims are female. It seems to me that active selection is going on. Is the fact that there are no adult male victims actually a clue?
"And so I ask again," he finished quietly. "Could the demon we seek be a woman?"
This time, the silence spun out.
"Either that," Roger finally responded, "or a male vampire who is not a stranger to the women. And that gives us Devlin."
"Angelique had never met him before," Barnabas pointed out.
There was a silence. Elliot wondered just for a second how close Angelique would actually have allowed the handsome Burke to come to her in a hypothetical situation. Close enough to put his lips to her throat? He closed his eyes and forbad the images.
"The way you present it," he agreed, "a female vampire is a perfectly possible explanation, and one that we had better keep in mind. I would like to add another angle to the discussion that I feel is important."
"Very well," Roger urged him when Elliot paused.
"The child victims of the vampire are deceased. Our women are not. Why is that?"
"Well, because the vampire took every drop of blood from the boys," Roger offered. "Of course they're deceased. What do you mean? Oh, dear God," he gasped as clarity struck. "You mean they weren't, er, they weren't left to linger as slaves, as Liz and the others are." Roger made a fast involuntary movement. "Are these boys going to rise from their graves?"
Elliot gave Roger the information Julia had shared with them from the coroner's office.
"The Collinwood victims are alive," he finished. "When we heard what had happened to the children, we wondered if their deaths could somehow be considered a mercy killing on the vampire's part. Insofar as the boys could not rise again and themselves be vampires. That struck us as merciful." Elliot leaned forward. "That same mercy, if anyone in their right mind could call it that, has not been extended to the Collinwood victims. Why? What does it mean?
"Let me also mention that those boys were found in the woods surrounding Collinwood. Elizabeth and Julia were bitten here. And Angelique, who has entered this house only twice this year as you have pointed out, comes and is instantly taken. It is always Collinwood. And so my question is—why here? Why this house?"
"Why don't you just tell us what you think of it?" Roger asked in frustration.
Elliot paused. "Very well. Is our vampire punishing Collinwood? Is this someone who considers themselves a victim of the Collins family, and is deliberately targeting the Collinses and those associated with them? Looking at the child deaths as mercy killings, is the life-in-death illness with which our women are afflicted intended as a punishment on this house?"
After a second of silence, Roger scoffed. "Do you mean that some sort of hobgoblin of whom we've rid ourselves in the past has reanimated itself and come back to clean our clock? Or that its mate has sworn revenge on us? Oh, this is too preposterous to listen to, it sounds like the plot of a Godzilla movie."
But he thought to himself, who but Burke Devlin would have a vendetta against my family?
No one spoke for a moment. Then, Veronika threw up her hands.
"You cannot go on with this," she choked out, staring at them one by one. "Somebody is going to get hurt. You're going to cause someone's death, and you'll all be put in prison.
"Listen to me. A vampire cannot exist. If there is a roving criminal out there, it is a matter for the sheriff, not this—comitatus of cracked vigilantes. Each of your suspects has been seen in broad daylight. You've flung crosses at them. I don't see how you can continue with this train of thought."
Roger rubbed his face. "Have we seen everyone in the daytime? The first time I ever saw Kim Jansing was around eight in the morning, and David and Hallie spent time with him in the afternoon. Tisa went to breakfast with you, Elliot. She's been present at lunch and dinner. Castlewold came to the house in the daytime."
He met Elliot's eyes with impact. "If the traditional vampire reacts to the cross as you insist, it shouldn't be able to bear the sun. But what if this is a new strain of vampire altogether, one somehow immune to sunlight, who can defy the cross and operate by day? Could that be possible?" But Elliot was already shaking his head.
"No," he said warningly. "Some occult new super-vampire? Roger, no. Our strongest guide is still to put these people before the cross. Never have I read anywhere of a vampire that can turn natural law on its head, although I was nearly ready to entertain the notion this afternoon. But no, a vampire cannot withstand the light, cannot bear the sight of God's cross. These are the rules of the game."
"Well, it lets Jansing out," Barnabas said, looking around unhappily. "At least four people have seen him by day."
Veronika gave a harsh laugh. "There goes your suspect," she muttered. "Listen to yourselves."
Elliot sighed. "Jansing has been seen by day, I grant you. He's given us no cause for suspicion—which, perversely, deepens my suspicions of him—but there is something about the man that I want to examine. I want to see his reaction to the cross. And yet, with these three people having been repeatedly seen during daytime hours, it would appear we are down to one last possibility." Elliot said nothing about the private conversation he'd had with Kim, and the red flags it had raised. He wanted to query the man privately on the matter.
Roger slammed down his glass, cracking it.
"Dammit, yes," he breathed, his eyes alight with anticipation.
"As far as I can see, you've just knocked out your last candidate," Veronika observed. She sat back in her chair, weary. "Let the women out of the crypt before one of them hits you with a lawsuit. Let the sheriff handle the rest."
"You don't follow us, Dr. Liska," Elliot said, looking at her compassionately. Though she'd said nothing, he felt he knew a thing or two about Dr. Liska and the private trials she had undergone this week. "Roger and Barnabas and I feel that we have our answer."
"Some crossbred vampire monster, you mean, excuse the pun, who skips about in sunshine," Veronika said tartly. "Watch that he doesn't sue you. I should sedate each of you this minute. Your vampire doesn't exist, you've exhausted every avenue." She rubbed angrily at the bruise on her forehead.
There were a few seconds of silence.
"No, my child," Elliot said softly. Veronika gazed at him uneasily, feeling a need to defend herself against the concern in his eyes.
"We are saying," Elliot told her gently, "that we are almost certain that our vampire is Burke Devlin."
She rocketed out of her chair before she was aware of it.
Elliot left his seat and approached, made as though to put his arms around her. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Roger's searing glance, Barnabas' bowed head.
"Doctor," Elliot said in a low voice, but Veronika jerked away from him.
"You're making a mistake," she choked out. She was so enraged that she doubted her ability to speak, but she went on. "How dare you. I know what this is about. Burke Devlin is a man you've exploited in the past, and this current mess gives you yet another chance to hurt him, doesn't it, Roger? It is your jealousy that has driven you to this."
Roger glanced at her, and now his eyes glistened with pain. "Veronika," he said, wounded.
"Rafael is my patient," Veronika gasped, feeling herself beginning to babble. She still had difficulty referring to Rafael by his real name. She gazed with wild eyes at Elliot, whose expression told her that he saw too much. "He's not well and I am doing my best to take care of him, but Roger simply can't let it rest. You can't leave him alone, can you?"
She had a flash of angry inspiration. "Do your friends know what you did to Burke Devlin before he went away?"
Roger was on his feet, his face slack and sick. Elliot watched Veronika gravely; Barnabas looked from Roger to the doctor, not certain what was happening.
Roger said in a small voice, "Veronika ... don't. I beg you. I promise you that this is not personal. Elliot and Barnabas have reason to believe that Devlin is the one." He approached and gently grasped her arms, and she resisted the urge to shove him. His blue eyes were wet and pleading, the muscles of his face clenching. "I don't like the man, I admit it. Dammit, you know it upsets me to think how David loves him. And then ... he was there to save you Monday and I wasn't." Roger lowered his head. Veronika's mind cleared, and she caressed his hair and put her face against his, shutting her eyes.
What am I doing, she asked herself. I knowingly betrayed this man I love; I have no right even to be in his house. But I can't let them destroy Rafael.
Her mind returned to last night, the sweetness of it. Rafael's hungry mouth on her throat. He had kissed her and devoured her and, yes, bitten her here and there, but that had been sexual passion. She had done much along those same lines herself. But he hadn't broken her skin and sucked her blood, she was certain of it.
She was certain.
She was.
For a moment, she thought she was losing her mind. Had Rafael bitten her?
They had been delirious in bed together. There had been sucking and kissing. It was why she couldn't be intimate with Roger for a few days, as the marks needed time to clear.
The marks.
She seized onto her fluttering sanity. No. Those kisses had been sexual fervor, not blood-sucking. Rafael had been forceful and gentle, and normal.
There were no such things as vampires.
Restored to herself again, she cupped Roger's face, kissed him on the mouth. He dragged her closer to him and kissed her feverishly.
As they drew apart, Veronika remembered one last thing to save Rafael.
"I saw him in the daylight," she declared, eyes widening, turning especially to Elliot. "Rafael. I mean, Burke, the day he saved me in the roadway. It was early afternoon. And the next day we had lunch in the coffee shop—daylight again!" she cried. She silenced the sudden memory of certain things Rafael had said.
I arrived here in town about midnight.
I was out all night. Couldn't sleep.
Ran into a spook, I guess.
There are beasts no one describes because no one can. And they like to bite.
She stepped away from Roger and ran her arm across her hot face.
"If you think that Rafael is your vampire," she said wearily, "you couldn't be more wrong. Ask him and let him clear himself. He'll think you're out of your minds, but at least talking to him will end this madness."
"You're sure?" Elliot asked her sternly. "You saw him during the day? If you have, you're the only one who seems to have done so."
She wanted to shout at him. "Ask the police; they took down an accident report. Ask Warren at the Collinsport Inn, and the waitresses. You have made a terrible mistake."
"We'll see," Roger murmured. "If this is some sort of ungodly new type of vampire, daylight doesn't matter anyway. Lars and Tisa were confronted by the cross and nothing happened and we let them go. If we can believe that the thing works, we need now to confront Kim and Burke with the cross."
"The cross works," Elliot told him with finality. "We didn't find Kim at his studio the other day, but why don't we go to the Inn tomorrow and see if we can catch Mr. Devlin? Walking about in the daylight, as Dr. Liska says."
Elliot accompanied Veronika out to the foyer. Barnabas watched Roger striding back and forth from sheer nerves, running his hands over his hair. His dark eyes trained on his cousin, he asked, "What did she mean, Roger?"
Roger halted, then turned away from Barnabas and squeezed his eyes shut.
In the space of one second, he fought the battle of his life. And then, heart thudding, he spoke.
"She means Devlin," he told Barnabas. He kept his back turned. "Fifteen years ago I did him a wrong. He served a term in prison that I should have served, for manslaughter. We were younger then, stupid drunken fools. I testified under oath that he'd been driving … when it was me. I married his girlfriend and sent him to prison. And there is nothing on earth I can do to take it back."
He lifted unseeing eyes to the ceiling, the lost, empty years flashing upon him.
"The man was my best friend," he said softly.
In the foyer, Elliot said, "A moment, doctor."
Her back to him, Veronika leaned tiredly against the foyer table, barely registering its bumpy surface beneath her hands.
"What now?" she half-laughed bitterly. It had been an endless day; she knew her clothes were wrinkled. She just wanted to go home and collapse.
She felt him touching her shoulder, her neck, and she stiffened. He was speaking.
"Come here, doctor. Let me see."
Concerned, Veronika made quick brushing motions on her opposite shoulder and shook out her hair. "What is it?" she cried, frightened that something was crawling on her. "Is it a spider? Oh, God ..." She swept aside her hair, fingers exploring.
And he pressed a cross just below the nape of her neck.
He stuck his head into the drawing room once more. "I've thought of something else; I'm going to bring my niece in for a moment."
Roger lifted a ravaged face. "Where's Veronika?"
"I told her to go home."
"She went home?" Roger stood quickly. "She's—is she—Elliot, you—"
"She's safe," Elliot assured him in a low voice. "I gave her a cross. Nothing will get her."
"And now you're going to bring Tisa down here?"
"Roger," Barnabas reminded him gently, "Tisa's left the house. He means Hallie."
"Yes," Elliot told them tiredly. "I want to question Hallie about something." He disappeared, and moments later returned with the girl.
Hallie looked uncertainly at the men around her.
She sat beside her uncle.
"Hallie, this will seem odd, but I want to ask you about the night that Dr. Liska and her friend came to the door, remember? His name was Rafael."
Hallie smiled. "Yes. Mr. Nunes was very handsome. They said they were here to see Mr. Collins and Mrs. Stoddard." Hallie blushed, realizing that Roger was studying her. "You weren't home yet, Mr. Collins, so I let them in and told Mrs. Stoddard that they were here."
"Yes," Elliot commented, looking at her hopefully. "This'll sound ridiculous, but can you remember exactly what you said to them at the door?"
Confused, Hallie told him, "I don't think I said anything, Uncle Elliot. I've answered the door to Dr. Liska before," she said, misunderstanding.
"You're right. But how did you greet them? How did you ask them to come in? Don't think about anything else. Nobody's in trouble," he promised, his heart sore, "I'm just interested in your exact wording, and it's really important."
Hallie was bewildered. "They were at the door, and Dr. Liska smiled at me and so did he … she said Mr. Collins was expecting them, and … I suppose I said, 'please come in.' "
She paused, not certain what else he wanted.
"This is your best recollection of that night? You're sure that these were your exact words?"
Hallie was firm. "I said, 'please come in,' or 'please do come in,' and they did."
Elliot turned his eyes to Barnabas and Roger. "That was Tuesday evening, the night before Elizabeth was … discovered. That was an invitation for the man to cross the threshold. He was in the house that night."
As the men ruminated, Hallie asked wonderingly, "did Rafael steal something?"
Elliot patted her hand. "Not at all. Don't worry."
"He's not the only one who was bidden to enter Collinwood," Roger said, rubbing his eyes. "They all were. I told Kim Jansing to come anytime. David invited Castlewold, and Elizabeth herself asked you and Tisa to come in, Elliot. If those two are cleared, that leaves Devlin and Jansing."
Hallie let her thoughts wander. She experienced a refreshing sensation of dewy air, saw in her mind the twilit shrubs of the terrace. The garden, the black iron gate.
"There was a lady who came that evening, too," Hallie said suddenly, cutting into an observation of Barnabas', "but she didn't come in."
Discussion halted, and she found her uncle had locked his eyes on her.
"Of whom are you speaking, child?" he asked in a friendly voice that contrasted with his interrogative look.
Hallie gently scratched the side of her leg and thought. "There was a beautiful woman in the back, while I was on the terrace."
"There was a woman back there?"
"She called to me from outside the gate," Hallie remembered. "It was just a young woman from downtown. She has a shop called The Moon in Gemini, which is such a pretty name. She gave me a business card." Hallie absently felt about herself for the piece of paper, then remembered it was upstairs.
"She asked me to let her in, and I told her to go to the front door, that I'd meet her there. She was going to come in the house. But she went away. I waited, but she didn't come."
"You did ask her in?" Roger cried.
Hallie crossed her arms before her defensively and cupped her elbows, looking apprehensively at Roger. "I did. She was a little strange at first, looking like she was mad at me. She asked whether I lived here." She hesitated. "She said she'd heard about me, but after thinking about it, I bet it was a lie. Who in town would be talking about me? The lady said, 'You, do you live here?' … but she said it in a strange way. I think she said, 'are you living here?' When she put it that way, it was like ... like she thought I was boarding here. Staying temporarily? As if I didn't belong here."
Biting back other questions, Elliot requested a description of the woman.
"Well, she has loads of long hair. It's the first thing you notice. Light brown. You think her eyes are black but they're blue. Thick eyelashes. A dimple in her chin. She's little, and pretty, but she comes off as angry. She has a high voice."
Roger frowned. "I know of no one answering that description. And there is no such shop, at least not an independent one. Perhaps she's renting space somewhere."
"That's a fifth stranger in Collinsport," Barnabas sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "And she was invited into the house, and she's a female. Do we realize that?"
Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose. "A young woman trying to hustle for business might not be anything. But I admit that I'm concerned about this invitation to enter Collinwood, none of us knowing her. Was it dark out when you met this girl from the moon shop, Hallie?"
Hallie started. "Why, yes," she admitted.
Once Hallie had left them, Elliot summed up.
"Five people now, with carte blanche invitations into Collinwood in time for the first attack. Liz was assaulted within the house; we don't know where Angelique and Julia were caught, but each woman had been inside Collinwood immediately before. All of our suspects had had the standard vampire 'invitation to cross the threshold'. All have been reported impervious to sunlight—except for the Breck Girl at the back gate, about whom we know nothing. Two of them have now faced the cross and been eliminated."
"Tonight we can do nothing, except prepare for sunrise. Everyone must wear a cross from this moment on; I've brought plenty to share. Roger, this includes your staff, the children—everyone under this roof. And it must be done tonight, without a moment to be lost."
Elliot looked at them so soberly that Barnabas felt a thrill of dread along his spine.
"Devlin was the one at the house the night Liz was attacked. He will be our focus. Let us agree that at sunrise we will meet here at Collinwood, and proceed to the Collinsport Inn. We will either go and meet Mr. Devlin there, up and around like anyone else, or it may be that we will find him in a dark sleep.
"We are hunting him."
Veronika sat in her LeMans for a long time, thinking of what Elliot had told her as he had delicately looped the chain about her neck.
My present to you, until we can get you a Star of David. Whatever happened between you and the gentleman in question, you needn't let it devastate you. We take our joy where we can find it. And as to the other matter, we'll know either way come sunrise.
Her thoughts turned back to when she'd fallen in love with Roger.
She had never been tempted to get personal with any of her patients, but he'd seemed different, more important. Who can say what makes a person fall in love? It was as though Roger had been standing under a sign only she could see, which read, "I ache for love, I'm alone and lost, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you know about it." And it had stood out like a beacon.
Rafael had touched her similarly. But he was so different, nearly Roger's opposite.
Alone in the dark of the chilly car, Veronika looked deep into the rest of her life and knew that she was going to do everything she could to keep Roger's love.
She sat, gently fingering the cross. Then she folded her arms on the steering wheel and rested her head on them.
Hours later, everyone had gone home. Roger was ready to douse the lights and lock the house when there was a sound out front.
When he opened the door, the young woman was gazing over his head at the stone fretwork that graced Collinwood's front door archway; then she lowered her chin and looked at him.
He didn't know her. She was beautiful, with pale cheeks and an innocent mouth, and eyes of a blue so dark it could have been black. The lightest hint of a dimple in her chin. Bountiful brown hair fell in waves like a mantle over her shoulders and gleamed in the faint light from the foyer. Her lips rose in a smile but her eyes were severe.
He had a notion that he had seen her before, a long time ago, though he knew he hadn't. Looking into her eyes a weird poignancy overcame him, the need to help her, as though she had just made her way to his door from a shipwreck.
In that moment a space, blue and unlit, opened up inside his mind and his chest as naturally as if it had always been there, and in the space he was with this girl, this woman, lifting her against him. He wanted to spend hours lingering his mouth on her cheek in a long, hazy, sleep-filled dream of a hot room with no doors. He would give her all she needed from him, and beg from her just enough love to allow him to survive. The urge to take her to him was so enormous that he was momentarily rocked with the need of it. Where was he? As if she had twined a hand into his heart, right through his chest, he was hers.
The girl was silent, and Roger scrabbled to gather his wits. Maybe he was coming down sick, what was wrong with him?
Then her forbidding eyes took his, and she addressed him.
"Hello, are you living here?" she asked. "I would fain speak with Elizabeth, please."
The request sent a small bolt of pain into Roger's chest. His sister was not available, locked in the family crypt, awaiting deliverance.
And what an odd way to ask for somebody. Weary, standing in his shirtsleeves in the gathering dark, Roger surveyed the girl. Actually, she was more than a girl; perhaps in her twenties. That hair; those eyes, the dark blue of an evening sky before utter blackness. He realized that this must be the young woman Hallie had invited inside Collinwood, the one from the moon shop.
She continued to fix him with a stabbing dark gaze that held no softness. These feelings he had for her, where did they come from? She was stern and hard, and his yearning for her began to falter.
"My sister is away from home," he said as evenly as he could. "May I help you?"
"Oh," she said. His words did not faze her; she seemed to have expected his answer. She spoke again, and he felt, unaccountably, that she was reading from a script.
"I would fain converse with Julia Hoffman."
Roger drew his brows together. "Julia is not here presently. Would you care to tell me who you—"
"Then perhaps I might see Angelique," she undercut, her words slow, again with that odd air of carelessness, as if Roger's responses to her questions did not matter.
With a shock, he understood.
She knew that those she asked for were not at home. Nobody outside of Collinwood was aware of the calamity that had befallen them, and here was this person, asking for the victims one after the other.
He stared at her, a shiver of fear streaking down his back.
"Who are you?" he asked quietly.
In the uncertain light, she lifted her hand from her side. In her fist was a long silken jet of delicate silk. A woman's scarf. She had obviously been dragging it along the ground.
Her voice remained soft, but the look in her eyes might have been spite. "This cloth is the property of Angelique," she told him. "I know, because I have seen her wear it these many weeks. This house is not her dwelling place, but she visits here. I thought to leave it for her here, and Elizabeth the person to give it to. But you say Elizabeth is not within."
"What is your name?" Roger asked. "What do you know about all this? Do you have something to do with these dreadful happenings?"
She took a deliberate step away from him and threw the scarf in a limp crumple at his feet. "See that Elliot receives it," she warned, lifting sulky lips into something that wasn't a smile. She whirled away from him, her long hair striking the door as it flared around her, and was gone.
Roger took one step after her, but every instinct he had screamed at him not to follow. She had left behind her a miasma of menace; he could feel it boiling cold in his chest.
He quietly closed the door and locked it.
"The girl Hallie told us about—Elliot, I just now had her at the door."
"She returned? What happened?"
Gripping the telephone, Roger shook the blue silk scarf in his other fist.
"She mentioned Liz, Angelique, Julia, asking for each one, knowing damn well they're not here. It was as if she were reading from cue cards! She was teasing me. I felt that she asked for them just—to hurt us."
"Did she say anything more?"
"Elliot, she looks just the way Hallie described. A lovely, nasty little thing, but she gave me a terrible feeling. At least—when she came to the door, I'm ashamed to say that I was overcome by the appeal of her. I wanted to do something for her. I don't know, take her in my arms. The next minute, I felt nauseous and, well, frightened of her. I can't explain.
"And her speech is odd, like someone out of the Regency period. She used the word 'fain,' as in, 'I would fain speak to Elizabeth.' And some other odd phrase I can't remember." Roger rubbed his face. "She left something she says is Angelique's, a blue silk scarf like a watercolor, which she called a 'cloth.' She said she knows it was Angelique's because Angelique's been wearing it this autumn. I wonder if that's an indication that this woman has been watching the house." He let the thing drop limply onto the foyer table. Then he realized that there was no response on the other end of the wire.
"Elliot? Are you there?"
"The blue Givenchy scarf? Angelique's scarf?" Elliot blurted. "But I only gave it to her last night …" his voice trailed off. Roger fumbled at the receiver and pressed it closer to his head.
"I was to bring it to you; she mentioned you by name. And listen to this: I've—"
The voice surged back in a rageful roar over the phone.
"Then that is our demon! She told you she saw Angelique wearing it this autumn? She certainly did, if she is the one who assaulted her! Angelique had not had the scarf more than five minutes before she disappeared! It was misplaced last spring, and we've been looking for it ever since, and I found it in the sleeve of my coat only last night. Roger, that young devil is our vampire—and came to the door to say so! The attraction you felt when she appeared, and the sick feeling afterwards, that's satanic charisma. It all fits. And how can she have mentioned me by name except having heard it from Angelique or Julia or Elizabeth? That little devil is the one! She attacked Angelique and, and ripped off the scarf when she …" Elliot's voice crumbled into a stricken growl.
"Wait a moment," Roger asked, confused, "where does that leave Devlin? Aren't we still hunting him at daybreak? He's not been crossed off the list just because this young porcupine comes to the door!"
"Oh, we'll still go tomorrow and see whether Devlin is doing anything vampiric. Who knows? Perhaps he and the harpy are leagued together."
"Listen to me for a moment," Roger said, staring unseeingly at the opposite wall of the foyer, "there's something else. I've seen that girl before but can't remember where. I saw her recently, but I think I also know her from long ago."