PART 2:
ENTRY
Chapter 2
October 19, 1971 – Tuesday
The Old House
It was Barnabas' turn to cook breakfast, so he was messing around in the kitchen when he heard Julia cry out in the front room.
He came, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
"Julia? Is something—?" he said, and nearly collided with her as she rounded the entryway of the kitchen, clutching the morning newspaper against her.
"Look," she said, giving the paper into his hands and standing beside him to stare down at it. "Oh, Barnabas, look there."
Barnabas read:
. . . . . . . . . . Missing Children Found Slain in Woods
. . . . . . . . . . 10/19/1971, by John Sweeter
. . . . . . . . . . The bodies of two Collinsport children reported missing on Monday evening were found in a wooded area near
. . . . . . . . . . the Collinwood estate at dawn today.
. . . . . . . . . . Grant Kelly (9) and Alexander Thurmond (8) were discovered after a ten-hour search. Both children exhibited
. . . . . . . . . . double puncture marks at the throat and had been entirely exsanguinated.
. . . . . . . . . . Collinsport Sheriff Amos Luke commented that certain leads are being followed. "It is a grim situation," he told this
. . . . . . . . . . reporter. "Everybody is heartbroken. We have not had such an awful event in Collinsport for more than a year."
Gripping the doorjamb with one hand, Barnabas lifted his eyes from the print to stare unhappily into space. Julia lightly shook his arm.
"It's another vampire. Dear God."
"Dear God," Barnabas echoed. "Julia, let's sit down for a moment. Coffee's nearly ready—I was just about to put the—"
"Yes," Julia cut in absently, taking his hand and leading him into the front room of the Old House, where they sat together. He dumped the newspaper onto the table, and she leaned into him in response to the anguish she saw in his face.
Julia this morning was a study in forest green. A bouclé sweater of that color, with skirt and suede pumps of a darker green, and a flimsy scarf of khaki and blue completed the ensemble. Brassy round earrings lent a touch of elegance. Her hair was a shining cap of lengthening curls in the loose style Barnabas referred to as "romantic." The emerald engagement ring he had given her last spring twinkled on her hand.
He, formal as always, wore a cream cotton shirt and a navy vest of satin, a navy tie patterned with thin yellow threads, and navy trousers. A kitchen apron was looped over his shoulders and tied about his waist. His suit jacket reposed over the back of the couch. His hair was well brushed, lustrous.
"Nobody in Collinsport would be at the bottom of this horrific business," he breathed. "I can't imagine anyone here—Julia, we know nearly everyone in the area. Let's try to think."
He put his arm around her.
He and Julia were seven or eight weeks away from their wedding day. After a few fits and starts, Veronika Liska and Roger Collins had also chosen December, and would marry the week before Julia and Barnabas did.
Barnabas hazarded, "Could this … be a revisitation of what we faced last spring? Some influence from that hellish dinner party?"
Both were silent, remembering that awful night when the devil himself had shown up one night at Collinwood and had been thoroughly routed, but who had promised to return. Julia shivered.
"I don't see how it can be," she said slowly. "The devil wanted Quentin, but he didn't get him, we all saw to that. And Quentin is fine, isn't he? No signs of possession or satanic influence in him anymore."
"No, I shouldn't imagine it would have anything to do with Quentin. What about that situation a few months ago, with the breach into parallel time?" Barnabas suggested.
Anyone listening to this conversation might well have thought the pair had lost their minds; but 1971 had been an eventful year for Collinwood.
"I can't see that, either," she responded. "That was nothing to do with vampirism, at any rate. Certainly we would have known, and everyone at Collinwood would have known, if an intruder had come in through that ... that portal in the east wing. This has to be somebody new."
Barnabas thought hard. "There is a new man in Collinsport of whom David told me last night, Lars something. He is opening a skating rink that has been shut for years." He shook his head angrily. "It sounds ridiculous to me. Why would a solitary stranger come and open Collinsport's arena? That is a matter for local people to decide." He glanced at Julia.
"It seems unlikely," she admitted, studying her fiancé's beautiful eyes, "for a stranger to come to town, open a skating rink, and begin murdering the local people ... "
"Children," Barnabas reminded her. "It could be that he is here for the children. Vampires have their pockets of preference, you know. Children were killed, and perhaps this man Lars is using the rink like a comic book store to lure young people. And if he is a vampire," he continued, "he needs a cover story or explanation for being in town, and here he has one. His story is that he is some sort of scout or coach for some national hockey franchise. Being the only man with the keys to a huge, deserted arena, if that is indeed the case, gives him limitless places to stow a coffin. He merely has to block off portions of the arena from the public so that nobody stumbles upon it while he's sleeping. If he has a coffin. If he is a vampire! We don't know.
"Julia," he broke off unsteadily, turning to her urgently, "you do realize that those children will rise from their graves?"
She ducked her head in anguish.
"This new person, this Lars skating-rink person!" Barnabas went on. "He is the only new man we've heard of in the town, and the moment he appears, there are two vicious murders. I think we need to go and get a look at him."
"Well," Julia said cautiously, "we had better ask around. There could be someone else new in town that we haven't even heard of. Had David not mentioned the arena to you, we wouldn't even know about this Lars. Do you want to go to the rink today and look at him?"
"Yes," Barnabas confessed. "The sheriff will probably beat us to it, but he doesn't know the subtext as we do. I want to talk to David before we do anything, however. He might know when the rink is opening."
"It opens tonight," Julia said. "Maggie told me that lessons at the rink begin this evening. And that it will be open only at night, operating into the small hours of the morning. For children only."
Collinwood
"Say something."
"How can I?" Hallie asked.
"I know she's your cousin and you're trying to be nice to her, but what she's doing is lousy," David urged. "Do you want me to say something?"
"No."
They were in the breakfast alcove. David was fetching the oatmeal and the brown sugar, Hallie the butter and orange juice. Morning light slatted in from the windows where numerous houseplants, small and large, waxed under Mrs. Johnson's solicitous attention. David wore a new pair of dark jeans and a rust-colored sweater which emphasized, Hallie thought, the brilliant brown of his eyes. Hallie herself wore a tangerine-colored dress bordered in pink. She was unaware that a spiff of her long hair plumed upwards, as though something had been snatched from her head.
"I might, anyway," David threatened. "How would you feel if you weren't home and some weird girl was pawing through your closet? Those are Carolyn's things, and it's not fair to Carolyn. Tisa's supposed to be a grown-up woman and she's acting like a kid, and I don't like the way she treats you."
"Yes, but—" Hallie looked at him, compassion and unhappiness fighting in her eyes. "David, she hasn't got any clothes."
David snorted. "You mean she showed up naked yesterday, pounding on the front door? Glad I wasn't around."
"Don't be stupid, David. She can't go around dressed up like a nun, and besides, all her nun clothes are gone. She has nothing but a couple of long, ugly skirts somebody's grandmother would wear, and some gray sweaters that are all worn out. I saw her things."
"Yeah, I saw them too. She looks like a witch." As fair and just a fellow as the next, David scowled. "Tisa practically ripped that headband right off your head because she wanted to wear it herself. Maybe my aunt needs to guide her a little bit. And maybe my aunt needs to be warned, too! What if Tisa comes clomping down the stairs dressed up in Aunt Elizabeth's jewels?"
At this, Hallie half-turned, stricken, orange juice in hand, as though she meant to race back upstairs to Tisa. Tisa, who was taking inventory of the drawers and closets of every female in the house.
"I hope she tries it with Maggie! Maggie'll give her what she deserves."
"She wouldn't," Hallie moaned, referring to Tisa rather than Maggie. "Oh, this is bad."
"Make her go clothes shopping," David demanded. "Send her off with Mrs. Johnson! Can you imagine the dresses Tisa and Mrs. Johnson would pick out together? Yow! Or maybe you and Maggie can take her sometime this week, or Tisa can go with Aunt Elizabeth. She won't have any time to worry about Mr. Olivo if she has to watch Tisa."
Cary Olivo, currently traveling abroad, had been Elizabeth Stoddard's beau for six months. He was a millionaire several times over. Cary had been Bill Malloy's cousin and had inherited Malloy's stocks and interests in the Collins Companies. He was also Malloy's executor, and after years of probate issues, had arrived in Collinsport last spring. Elizabeth had been perplexed as to why a wealthy business tycoon would be interested in the relatively insignificant cannery, and alarmed when her attorney had described Olivo as a man with a violent past. The entire Collins family had been prepared to rise up against him; yet, when he had presented himself, he seemed only interested in getting to know Elizabeth. Romantically.
Roger, Quentin and Barnabas had suspected the worst, but they'd all been wrong. Cary was a gentleman, looking only for somewhere to belong. He'd fallen in love with Elizabeth by proxy after reading Bill Malloy's personal journal. Warm, handsome Cary was now an indispensable part of Elizabeth's life.
"Mr. Olivo is coming home Friday or Saturday, I think," Hallie said.
David chortled, not to be deflected from the subject at hand. "I wonder what Cary'd make of Tisa's behavior—he'd probably pop her right on the chin. All I know is that she'd better not act up on my birthday tomorrow, because I'll sock it to her. And lock up my presents if you know where they are, okay? I don't want her finding them and saying they're hers!"
Hallie sat at the table. "David, honestly. Turn off the kettle, will you? Be careful with the brown sugar, remember what happened last time."
But David was off on a new topic. "Poor Dr. Liska. My father practically did the Mexican Hat Dance when he heard."
"Heard what?"
Both children turned. It was evident that Tisa had been into someone's perfume, using several scents together rather than just one. David's nose crinkled, and Hallie held her breath, looking Tisa up and down.
Slim and lovely, Tisa had a complexion of a magnolia paleness. Before she'd left her religious order, a lay sister had taken her to a boutique so that something could be done about a hairstyle. Tisa's plentiful hair had been worked into a popular, attractive style of petal-shaped layered locks that flowed forwards over her head and tousled over her ears. Her gray eyes were somber, secretive, not altogether happy. But it was her clothing that arrested Hallie's attention as well as David's.
Tisa wore an electric-blue V-neck sweater, a pink velvet miniskirt dotted with little white roses, a pink headband, and high-heeled white summer sandals. The sweater and headband belonged to Hallie (Tisa had not asked permission), the rest of the ensemble to Carolyn. A little too big for her 15-year-old cousin's clothes, Tisa's swelling breasts were graphically outlined in the snug fabric. The skirt fitted even more tightly than the sweater, if that could be imagined, for it belonged to Carolyn. Of average height but notoriously slender, Carolyn was smaller than Tisa, so the diminutive skirt looked to have been painted onto the former nun. The shoes were for summer and a wrong choice for October. It was apparent that Tisa did not quite know how to dress herself, and this thought wrung Hallie's heart with sympathy.
"Who's Dr. Liska?" Tisa asked.
"Doctor Liska," David said, his eyes on Tisa's bare legs, "is going to marry my father."
"Want some oatmeal, Tisa?" Hallie asked.
"I only take black coffee for breakfast," Tisa said after a moment, staring at one, then the other of them. "Has either of you got a cigarette?"
"You smoke?" shrieked Hallie.
For some reason, David leapt to his feet. "I can steal some of Mrs. Johnson's for you," he offered, "or I'll go to town with you right after breakfast—or right now—anytime you want!—and we can get some at the Collinsport Inn or at the tobacconist's. What brand do you smoke?"
"Oh," she said, shrugging one shoulder and looking away. (She had never smoked a cigarette in her life.) "The … the long ones. I can't think of the name just now." Her slight shrug had incrementally lifted the bottom of her sweater, exposing a tiny strip of smooth ivory midriff. David's eyes went there. Hallie's eyes remained on David.
Collins Cannery
"Kim Jansing!" Roger shouted, "are you home? I've brought my sister to see you."
Elizabeth stepped uncomfortably into the gloom of the upper floor of the cannery. Crumbs of refuse gritted beneath the soles of her high-heels. The place was cold, dirty.
"Roger, it's awful up here. Mr. Jansing isn't in, he's gone out, perhaps to have breakfast. We should have asked first."
"Oh, nonsense!" Roger cried, cheerily aware that the Collinses, and not Kim, owned every inch of this space. "He said he'd be delighted to meet you."
"Yes, but over drinks at Collinwood, surely! Not up here like this, unannounced."
Roger had insisted on bringing Elizabeth to meet Kim before starting his office work. He had had some time to rethink giving Kim permission to paint up here and wanted to reassure himself by bringing Elizabeth and Kim together. He wanted his sister's approval. Now he gazed around at the derelict rooms, shuttered, letting in no light at all from the outside. The place was like a mausoleum. Roger squinted at the further end of the room and saw shrouded canvases.
"Let's take a look, shall we?" he proposed, stalking towards the canvases.
Elizabeth frowned helplessly at Roger's back as he picked his way carefully toward the easels.
"We don't have permission to look at his work, Roger, honestly!" Liz protested. "He is going to be very cross when he realizes that someone has been up here helping themselves, uninvited."
"Liz, why does a painter paint if he doesn't want people to look?" Roger approached one of five covered canvasses and pulled aside the draping. " … Ah," he said in confusion.
"That is not a seascape," Elizabeth observed crabbily, feeling as though she had been brought to these terrible quarters under false pretenses. "I understood that Mr. Jansing was here to paint the local coastline."
The canvas was probably three feet by four feet. Against a background of waving green fields and turbulent gray sky stood the figure of a young woman in eighteenth-century dress. She had slightly pouting rosebud lips, with a straight, short nose and heavily lashed, very dark blue eyes. A slight flush colored her cheeks and there was the faint suggestion of a dimpled chin. Her face was pensive and lovely. Chestnut brown hair, extraordinarily long and unbound, waved around her patrician forehead and past her shoulders, to her elbows, grazing her hips. There was a spatter of lace on each shoulder. In her fingers, she barely clasped the brim of a wide hat against her dress of oyster-colored silk. The gown was beautifully worked, the buttons dully gleaming in the uncertain light of the cannery loft.
"She is quite a beauty," Elizabeth observed, carefully making her way closer to her brother. "I wonder why he chose an eighteenth-century subject? And why a portrait?"
"Artistic exercise!" Roger said heartily, though really he had no clue as to what Kim Jansing's motives had been. "Well! Perhaps the next one is a seascape, and maybe the one after that a still life. Who knows? Really, this painting is abominably good. He has the touch."
On closer study, Roger felt that the lady in the gown of oyster silk looked rather melancholy. He drew his eyes away.
"Let's see this next," he proposed in a quieter tone.
Elizabeth said nothing. Why try to stop Roger? When he meant to do something, Elizabeth could not always deflect him. She was aware of a strange feeling inside her, a sudden depression of spirits.
"Roger, I would like to leave," she said softly.
He threw off the covering from the next canvas.
The same young woman, beside an upright stone edifice, a well with a bucket dangling. Sunshine gilded her dark locks. She leant against the stones, her lovely eyes scanning the skyline as if for salvation. The thick dark lashes made those eyes seem shadowed, and emphasized the tender hollows beneath them. Her hands were loosely clasped before her. She wore a simple gown of dark red and a rough pinafore, as a milkmaid might. The clothes were tightly molded to her figure.
Roger moved to a third easel and drew off the sheeting, and there she was again, this time staring straight out of the canvas at them. In this depiction she wore a snug-fitting bodice of peach, delicate tapestried bands of fabric blocking the deep, square neck. Reclining on a rough seat, her hands clenched loosely in the lap of her voluminous skirts, she simply gazed at the viewer. The pastoral setting was given in multiple luscious tints of green, yellow and brown beneath a spanking blue sky. The woman's long, tousled hair, remarkably thick, was at play in the wind and tumbled about her, gloriously free. The sun transformed her dark tresses to running gold.
"Perhaps a Parisienne, a model Jansing is fond of?" Roger wondered. "She looks like him. I have often noticed that, even though people may not exactly choose with whom they fall in love, when they do, usually they fall for someone who resembles them. They're attracted to themselves. For example, well, look at … look at …" Roger faltered, helpless. "What I mean, is that a dark-haired man with large, dark eyes will usually fall for a brunette woman with great, dark eyes. I've seen it happen countless times. Why—take Barnabas and Julia."
"Barnabas and Julia look nothing alike!" Liz shrilled. "He's tall, dark-eyed and black-haired, and she's a small green-eyed redhead! Perhaps you mean to refer to yourself and Veronika, as both of you have narrow eyes, narrow lips, narrow—"
"What rot!" Roger shouted, unwittingly shooting down his own theory. "Liz, she's a redhead! Do I look like the most beautiful redhead on earth?"
"You do not. But you both have the same sort of eyes. Oh, Roger, this is all nonsense. Do you mean to assert that I look like Cary, or that Quentin resembles Panna? It's all rubbish."
"I'm talking about the movies and Hollywood people, Liz," her brother replied coldly. "Farley Granger and Ruth Roman in Strangers on a Train, for example—or take Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. They were both blonde, weren't they?" Then he craned close to the portrait and muttered, "There's a signature down in the lower center. Why isn't it in the corner? That doesn't say Jansing, does it? What is it doing there, I wonder?"
Liz leaned forward to see. Roger struggled to pronounce the name.
"Scearlat," he read.
Was that perhaps Mr. Jansing's real name? Perhaps it was the model's name. Elizabeth felt that she could not bear these dust-choked apartments a moment longer and pleaded, "Let's get out of here."
As they made their way to the rough stairs, Roger complained, "I thought he would be here first thing in the morning, surely. Where can the man be keeping himself at this hour?"
Downtown
Veronika nodded to the desk clerk. "I am here to see Mr. Nunes. Could you ring his room, please?"
"Dr. Liska!" Warren exclaimed with a smile of pleasure. In the bright afternoon light at the reception desk, Dr. Liska looked radiant, her skin flawless (except for that forehead bruise), her lips lush and red. Warren had had trouble getting her out of his thoughts last night, and was relieved to see her looking so healthy now. "You look like a million bucks. Gee, how do you feel?"
She smiled and rested her medical bag on the check-in desk. "I'm quite well, thank you, Warren. If you could please let Mr. Nunes know that—"
Fast, persistent clunking down the steps behind Warren's reception desk made them both raise their eyes. The maid Denise was scrambling down the stairs, stricken.
"Mr. Paxton," Denise said, "I think you should come up. That Mr. Nunes is in his room, yelling."
Veronika sent her glance back and forth between the two young people. "Mr. Nunes?" she said quickly.
Denise nodded at them wildly, black hair bouncing, apprehension in her eyes. "The 'Do Not Disturb' sign isn't on his door, so I was going to go in and change his towels, yeah? But he started hollering before I even got to the door, and I didn't dare use my key. I think something's the matter."
"Good Lord," said Warren resignedly, passing his hand through his hair. He shot a glance at Veronika. "Dr. Liska, would you run up with me, just in case?"
"Of course," Veronika said with alacrity, moving around the desk. "Go!" They both hurried to the stairs and began to climb, Warren dismissing Denise.
The upstairs hallway was dusky and peaceful, but as they neared Room 30, a long, strangled groan caught their attention. Warren Paxton stopped so suddenly in front of Nunes' door that Veronika crashed into his back.
"You know what?" Warren moaned. "I'm not being paid to do this sort of thing."
Veronika quickly reached around him and tried the doorknob, but it wouldn't give. It was locked.
"Rafael!" she called, hitting the door with her fist. No answer, but both of them could hear sounds beyond; it sounded like someone thrashing against bed sheets. Then another eerie, coughing growl. Veronika decided in a split second.
"Open it," she directed.
"Well, Dr. Liska, I can't just—"
"Open it, I am his doctor. Open this door on my authority."
"You're his doctor? You know him?"
Gasping in vexation, Veronika replied, "Yes, since yesterday, I am Mr. Nunes' physician of record. Unlock the door, Warren!"
He quickly bent to the lock and twisted his key, cracking open the door on a darkened room.
Pushing past him, Veronika thrust her body through the gap and turned to close the door, edging Warren back out into the hall. "Thank you," she said hurriedly, "I will take care of things from here. I'll call if we need you." Before she pressed the door shut, she caught the look of gratitude on the desk clerk's face.
She tossed her purse and medical bag onto a chair and peered through the gloom toward the bed. The blinds were drawn as though it were nighttime. There was Rafael, sound asleep, stretched out on his back with his arms loosely extended from his body. He wore nothing but pajama bottoms. He looked strangely abandoned, as though someone uncaring had dropped him there. His head moved against the pillow, but his eyes were shut. He was fast asleep. Before she could make it from door to bed, another sick, strangled scream began in his throat.
Veronika crossed the distance in a moment and bent over him. "Rafael," she called, "Rafael, wake up. Wake up now." She lightly patted his cheeks.
His eyes didn't open, but he quieted. Veronika sat herself beside him on the edge of the bed.
In a moment, he woke and looked at her, dark eyes connecting unblinkingly with hers for what felt like a long time. She knew he was trying to focus, to think who she was. In that space of time, Veronika saw terror, confusion, and rage leap in his eyes. Then it was gone.
He cleared his throat. "How'd you get in here?" he whispered. "You're the James Bond girl doctor from yesterday."
Veronika blinked at this, and colored. "I am, and I didn't mean to hijack your room, but we were concerned. You were making noises in here, so the desk clerk let me in."
After a silence, he grunted. "Making noises? Was I yelling in my sleep? Yeah, folks have caught me doing that before."
"Why are you in bed in the middle of the day? Are you all right?"
Rafael lay, tanned chest rising and falling with his breathing, staring at her with a soft expression. Then it was as if a curtain descended, shutting her out. He rubbed his face with one hand and gave a smothered laugh.
"I was out all night," he said. "Couldn't sleep." With a fast flex of hard muscle he was sitting up, turning his back to her. He sat on the opposite side of the bed from Veronika and lowered his face into both hands.
Veronika's eyes had adjusted to the low light in the room.
A hardened, seasoned physician, in her time as a practitioner she had seen much. But she openly stared at his back. It was latticed with multiple long, thin slashes, now healed, that could only have come from a whip. So many marks meant that he must have been whipped mercilessly, repeatedly.
Rafael was quiet, breathing into his hands. Without turning, he said, "You're looking at my back."
"I am," she said, trying to keep the falter out of her voice. "Rafael, what happened to you? Who did this?"
Silence from her patient. Then he lowered his hands and turned to look at her over his shoulder.
"Used to wrestle alley cats at ten cents a pop," he said with a faint grin.
Before she could open her mouth, he stood and shambled to the bathroom. She watched him critically: the stiff gait (well, he'd only just woken up), the way his feet shushed listlessly over the carpet. He was long, lean and elegant, really a beautiful figure of a man. At the same time, he was so drawn, tense. First those scars beneath his hair, now the marks of a whip on his back. Dear God, what had Rafael gone through?
He snapped on the bathroom light and shut the door. She heard him relieving himself into the bowl and automatically looked away to give him some measure of privacy, though they were separated by a closed door. Then she heard him turn on the sink tap and begin splashing.
Veronika bit her lip. She felt strongly drawn to Rafael and wanted to help him. She found him interesting and honest (when she could pull a straight answer from him), a man of natural appeal. She was also very aware that she found him sexually enticing as a male, but—that was extraneous. She could keep that to herself, buried miles below her daily life. Veronika was engaged to Roger Collins and irretrievably in love with him. Being attracted to a stranger was biologically natural and of little consequence.
Rafael had said that he knew Roger, Elizabeth, David, and a number of others associated with Collinwood. Veronika herself had never heard his name mentioned. She dismissed this as unimportant, reasoning that her fiancé could hardly name everybody he'd ever met for her to check off a list. If Rafael knew Roger, well, she'd see them reunited. But last night at Collinwood, before she'd driven home, she had mentioned Rafael Nunes to Roger, who, perplexed, had said he did not know the name. They had agreed to invite Rafael for drinks at Collinwood tonight so that Roger could get a look at him.
Roger had been frantic at the news of her car accident. Veronika had perceived that he had also been a little jealous. He was thankful that someone had been there to help her, but that someone had been a man who had held her, carried her, taken care of her. She could see her fiancé struggling to smother his feelings.
While she was thinking these things, the door opened and Rafael reappeared.
He reached for a shirt that rested on the back of a chair and slid his arms into it. My God, he even had scars on his chest and stomach that she hadn't noticed a few minutes ago. She stood.
He smiled at her, both arms up, putting his collar right.
"Do you want to call down to what's-his-name, tell him to get some coffee up here on the double?" he asked her. His smile continued as she approached, but then he drew his breath against his teeth as she laid the flat of her hand on his naked collarbone.
"You've had a broken clavicle," she said softly. "The break came up through the skin, didn't it?"
Rafael lowered his arms and took her wrist. Locking his gaze on her, he gently rotated her wrist so that the underside of her left forearm was exposed.
"I see you've had an injury as well," he said. Veronika tugged her arm away and absently covered the tattoo with her fingers. "What camp?" he asked quietly.
She cleared her throat. "Auschwitz and one or two others," she said, looking at nothing. "It's a long time ago, and gone."
"You're not an American?"
"Am now," she replied, "but I was born in Poland."
He studied her for a moment. They were standing too close together. She met his eyes again, began to understand what she was seeing there, and slowly crimsoned.
Rafael turned away to button his shirt. She kept her eyes on him.
"Look, doc," he said in a gravelly voice, his back to her, "I know how this might sound, but I think it's just fair that I ask you to leave, or watch your step, or something. You're a bloody attractive woman, and you're engaged to friend Roger, so I don't want—I don't want to make a mistake here in my room."
Veronika felt a sudden warmth at his words. She wondered what it had cost a man like him to say them. In spite of herself, an unexpected thrill of delight burgeoned within her.
"Nothing like that is going to happen," she said. She tried to make her voice level. "Nothing silly is going to happen. I'm going to be your friend, I—I feel that I am already. What I'd like you to do is tell me how these injuries came about."
He turned back to her with his rehearsed smile. She stepped up close to him, and he allowed her. She looked deeply into his eyes.
After a minute, his sunny face shut against her.
"You're staring, doc."
"You've been ill," Veronika pronounced, causing Rafael to turn away once more with an exasperated grunt. "I can see it in your sclera and conjunctiva."
He ripped a crumpled necktie from the desk and gave her a fast glance. "Okay, and what the hell are those?"
"Parts of your eye," she said absently. "Please tell me what it was. You're new in Collinsport, and it's quite possible that you need to be on medication. I must know your medical history. Unless we come to some sort of doctor-patient understanding, I'm going to have a difficult time helping you in the ways you most need."
That sideways slash of a grin again. "A business arrangement, huh? Well, I'm nothing if not a businessman, and I appreciate your candor. All right, you're on. I'll tell you what I can. But you're gonna have to take me as I am, doc, I'm not gonna give you all ten thousand pages of my life, and I'm gonna—" he paused, groping for a word "—ob—obfuscate a little here and there for fun. Nobody shows his hand all at once."
Veronika blew out her breath, feeling some of this go over her head. She was a direct and plain woman. Roger didn't play with words. When he felt or thought something, he came right out with it; either that, or he grumped and fussed, subconsciously inviting her to interrogate him. Rafael seemed in an entirely different league. He must have been a talented professional man, intuitive, adept at manipulating circumstances, pressing advantages.
Perhaps he also manipulated people.
She brought herself back to the moment.
"Do you really want coffee up here, or would you rather go downstairs?" she asked. "You've still got to change out of those pajama bottoms, so I'll leave you to it. I don't suppose—" she began, breaking off.
Rafael glanced at her. "What?"
"Look here," she said firmly, taking up her medical bag and purse, "I want you in my clinic. You can't wander around Collinsport without medical care, and we did agree that I'm your doctor now. I want you in for the whole thing—blood, urine, history, physical. Will you please do it?"
He drew back and pretended to study her, and she knew he was going to refuse.
"Okay," he conceded roughly. "Just not now, huh? I really need some coffee and some breakfast, or lunch, and then I want to visit the old stomping grounds. It's a long damn time since I've been home."
Veronika halted. Since he'd been home?
"Rafael," she asked, "what were you dreaming when I came in?"
He looked at the wall. Stopped buttoning his shirt. Lowered his head.
"I dreamed that I was trapped," he murmured.
"Trapped?"
"I could either go to a revival meeting with two old ladies, or submit to an interview with the IRS." He lifted his head and crinkled a smile at her, raising his eyebrows when he saw her expression. "Give me time, Veronika," he said. He took a pair of trousers from the foot of his bed and once more entered the bathroom.
Collinwood
Hallie, in her bedroom. Tisa, standing at the dresser, her back to Hallie.
The younger girl stopped uncertainly. Tisa hadn't reacted to the sound of her entrance.
"Tisa?" she asked. She moved towards her cousin, who was utterly still. "Hey, Tisa. Do you want to go out clothes shopping? Mrs. Stoddard's home from town."
Close enough now to touch her unmoving cousin.
Tisa moved, and in after hours, Hallie would replay this moment over and over.
She turned her body fully to Hallie. Her mouth was bloody. Bright red blood ran down her chin in stripes and dripped in rivulets down her neck.
Hallie screamed.
With a clumsy spring, Tisa was on her.
In the drawing room, Elizabeth jerked violently at a volley of shrieks upstairs.
She tore into the foyer to see Hallie emerge into the upstairs entry and run for the stair-head.
"Mrs. Stoddard," Hallie choked, beginning to stumble uncertainly down the stairs—and Elizabeth saw that the teen took the stairs one by one as a little child would, hands gripping the stair rail, stepping down and not proceeding until she had both feet on the same tread and only then dipping down with one foot to the next riser. It was as if she did not trust her own locomotion. "Elizabeth, Mrs. Stoddard, help, help Tisa—"
Elizabeth grasped the balustrade and quickly mounted the steps to the teen. "What is it?" she cried.
Hallie's eyes were large and unfocused with terror. There was blood on her neck in the soft spot where neck and shoulder joined.
"I think she fell, I think—" Hallie began, and Elizabeth touched Hallie's face, then swept past her, upstairs, up the hallway towards Tisa's room. Passing Hallie's open door, she stopped abruptly.
On the floor of Hallie's room knelt David in his bathrobe, beside Tisa, who was stretched out on the rug, eyes closed. The boy gently supported Tisa's head. He looked up at his aunt, grief-stricken.
"Tisa's hurt," he said. "There's blood all over her mouth and on her teeth."
"David heard Hallie cry out and ran to the bedroom," Elizabeth told Julia Hoffman an hour later. "Thank God Barnabas has finally installed a telephone at the Old House, I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't reach you. David was just out of the shower, because tonight he's going to some hockey meeting—" Elizabeth slowly lifted her hands and began to drag at her hair.
Julia watched her with concern. "Liz," she said softly, "Calm down. Everybody's okay."
They were together in the drawing room. Elizabeth sat bolt upright on the sofa, Julia beside her. Tisa rested upstairs in bed.
Elizabeth slowly lowered her hands. "Hallie's terrified, she said Tisa jumped on her. My God, Julia, what am I to make of that? Can that be right?"
Julia's instincts warred with one another. She knew that there was a vampire hunting in Collinsport, but in her professional opinion, Tisa was merely an unsteady young woman. Despite the alarming event that had just taken place upstairs, she refused to believe that Tisa was a bloodsucking ghoul.
She thoughtfully pursed her lips and replied, "Tisa has undergone a very upsetting experience. She's left a life she's lived for nearly ten years, and everything here is strange and perhaps threatening. She doesn't really know any of us and is trying to carry on as though she hasn't had a breakdown. How does a girl like Tisa suddenly navigate in 1971, having been a nun since 1963? She's in a frail emotional state and needs our guidance and support. That's all it is, I'm sure. And I doubt she's been eating very much, and I suppose all of it caught up with her. Tisa explained to me that she fell in Hallie's bedroom and struck her mouth against the bureau. She got up, felt she was going to collapse again, and tried to reach out for Hallie. The girls frightened one another pretty badly."
"Does she need to be in the hospital?" Liz asked.
"No, we just have to make sure she eats her meals. She needs fresh air and comfort, and maybe some friends. Keep her quiet and reassure her. Liz, I'll be glad to arrange for her admittance to Windcliff if you wish, and I think she'd do well there. But I also believe that another removal, another change of place, would not be very good for her just now."
"That blood on Hallie's neck—" Liz whispered.
"Yes," said Julia. "Hallie isn't hurt. It looks as though Tisa's teeth just scraped Hallie's skin. An accident, Liz, nothing more."
Arondel Cottage (home of Elliot Stokes)
Angelique sat elegantly arranged on the divan, staring at the back of Elliot's head. He sat comfortably at his escritoire, paging through an old volume.
The fire spat and crackled in the hearth. Angelique lowered her eyes, then raised them.
"This child," she said into the silence.
Elliot fumbled his book down onto the desk and turned to her at once with a smile of pleasure.
"Yes?" he said encouragingly. He leaned towards her. Several times he had tried to engage her in conversation about their coming baby, due late in January, but in response Angelique usually simply turned away her head. They couldn't even agree on the child's last name.
Angelique Bouchard and Elliot Stokes were not married. Apart from an occasional visit from Elizabeth and Hallie, Angelique had been largely left alone by those who dwelt at Collinwood. Not many people felt comfortable with her. She knew that the inmates of Collinwood were far more friendly towards Elliot.
Angelique disliked Elliot Stokes because she didn't know what to make of him. She despised his ugliness, his intellectual brilliance, his girth, even his courage. On that tumultuous night last April, he had done the incredible, what no other man in any of her lifetimes had ever dared: risked himself to save her. It was certainly more than Barnabas had ever been willing to do. Standing up to the most fearsome adversary humankind has ever known—Satan—Elliot had placed himself in mortal danger and had spoken in her defense. He had damned the devil and driven Satan from Collinwood almost singlehandedly. He'd rescued her.
One of the other men present that night had helped as well, a man named Chris Jennings. Angelique felt herself go off-focus and weak when she thought of that beautiful young man. Jennings was a devastating example of male physical excellence. Nothing in himself, of course. He was some sort of bumbling ex-architecture student who now did absolutely nothing but read books with Elliot and attend university. Carolyn Stoddard, of all people, had carried him off. Her ire rose at the thought. Runty Carolyn, with her flowing blonde hair and wimpish loveliness, winning a man of Chris's attractiveness.
And what did Angelique have? She had Elliot.
Something trembled within her. She remembered her anguish that spring night, after Elizabeth's dinner party at Collinwood, once the devil had been chased from the door, condemning her to life as a mortal. She had undergone complete collapse at her near escape. Back at his cottage, she had clung to Elliot and wept in his arms. Now that she was just a base human like everybody else and no longer a powerful witch, what was she to do, how to live? After a time, in the dark, as Elliot shushed and comforted her, she had finally—outrageously—begun to devour his mouth in wild kisses, caress him. Elliot had responded, of course; how could he not? They had made love twice, fiercely, in his bed.
She chortled inwardly at the thought that he might have been a virgin before that night.
But there was something beyond all this dissatisfaction, something Angelique was afraid to touch with her mind. Elliot legitimately loved her. Half of her spirit rose up against the other half at this thought. She didn't want him, he was disgusting! Her mind glanced off the word, for she knew that even if she ransacked her every memory and impression of him, she would not be able to prove him disgusting in any way. But—he was awful. She wanted Barnabas!
Yet Barnabas hated her. Barnabas would set off fireworks on her grave if she were dead! His unremitting coldness toward her shocked and maimed her. In contrast, this man, Elliot? Vigilant of her safety, supporting her, encouraging her—
In this, Elliot had hurt her. She would never forgive him for putting her first, for loving her. Never.
Black feelings fought in her breast. Angelique shut down her thoughts and returned to the topic at hand.
"I have thought of names," she said, "several names. I have some suggestions."
Delighted, Elliot gave her his full attention.
"For example," she began, trying to sound uncertain, "If the last name is Stokes, and if it is a girl—"
"Yes," Elliot breathed, "if we have a daughter? What names do you like? I've thought of several, myself. I confess that I've made a list! And you know, my dear, we can use Stokes or Bouchard, or both, just as you wish—"
"Well," Angelique resumed, obliquely watching Elliot despite her downcast eyes. "If the last name is Stokes, I thought, for a girl—"
"Yes?"
She lifted her face. "Roanoke."
Elliot stopped on a breath. After a moment, he tried it out. "Roanoke Stokes," he said. He looked softly lit from within, envisioning his baby. "Roanoke," he whispered. Angelique almost laughed.
"Or, again," she continued demurely, running a thumbnail lightly under the lace collar at her throat, "something elemental. A name from nature. For a girl, I thought … Smoke."
Smoke Stokes.
Elliot kept his eyes on the rug, ruminating. Angelique fought to stifle the laughter in her lungs. She shifted and leaned closer.
"For a boy," she continued, staring at him. "Loki Stokes. Or perhaps Oak Stokes."
Elliot lifted his eyes then, and in them, she read a challenge accepted.
"Smoke for a middle name," he offered, "But her full name could be 'Holy Smoke Stokes.' Or, how about Baroque Stokes? That's feminine. Now, if the baby is male, perhaps … Roque Stokes. Bolingbroke Stokes?" He leaned closer to her. "Or there's always … Engine Stokes."
Angelique felt a twist of irritation. She had meant to hurt Elliot, not engage him in play.
Elliot brought his rolling desk chair nearer to her couch. "We could use the last name Bouchard, and then we might call a girl, let's see ..." He stroked his chin a moment. "Leotard Bouchard? And for a boy … En Garde Bouchard."
He regarded her with twinkling eyes. "How about this one, possibly it could do for either sex." Putting his face close to hers, he whispered, "Fouchard Bouchard."
"Honestly, Elliot," Angelique said shortly.
He slid back his chair and turned to the desk. Grasping some papers, he rose and smiled at her. "Let's talk about this more over dinner, shall we? We'll go out, or send in for anything you like. I am off to the Old House to pay a visit, would you like to come?"
"You should know that I don't feel like seeing anyone who lives at the Old House," Angelique said peremptorily.
"Very well, my dear. I'll see you later."
He left. She chewed at her thumb for a moment. Little did Elliot know, but he wouldn't be choosing any names. Since the moment of its conception Angelique had known both the name and sex of the child. At that thought, she began to smile.
The Old House
"Well," sighed Julia, dropping into a chair, "at least we know that our new telephone is in working order. Barnabas, make certain Elliot has our number, would you? I had a frantic call from Collinwood."
"Good heavens," Elliot said with a frown, "nothing serious, I hope." He took a notepad and pen from his breast pocket, but still, Julia could see that he was uneasy. That was his niece—both his nieces—up at Collinwood.
Barnabas screwed his eyes shut, visualizing his very first telephone number, and recited it in a drugged fashion, like somebody under heavy hypnosis. "Collinsport Five, four-nine-six-eight," he brought out, with effort. He had been repeating it several times a day, checking himself against the scrawled number on a slip of paper in his pocket, all in hopes of searing it into his memory. Elliot wrote and grunted.
"Everything is fine," Julia continued, smiling from Barnabas to his friend. "Just a minor mishap, nothing to concern anyone." Peripherally, she eyed Barnabas, and was hit by a random gush of love for him. These feelings hit her all the time. How delighted she would be to marry him on the tenth of December!
Barnabas frowned along with Elliot Stokes. "Elliot, Julia and I wanted to discuss these troubling deaths. These children, robbed of their life's blood."
"And I wanted to discuss the same with you," Elliot rumbled. "I know you'll allow me to be direct. Those deaths were the work of a vampire. Small punctures on the throat of each child. Fantastic blood loss, though none of it shed, as there is no blood on the children's clothing nor in their vicinity. The blood purposely removed. What comes next? Shall I tell you?"
He didn't have to.
"No, Elliot," Julia said, her spirits falling. "Barnabas, sit down. Why don't we do this: let me ask around the hospital—someone there received the bodies. Surely the coroner couldn't have released them yet. Oh, my God. If we have to, I can get us into the autopsy room. I'll have to figure out how we can—how we can ..." she trailed off.
"I'll speak to Amos Luke," Elliot said, moving uncomfortably on the sofa. "I'll ask him whether ... well. I'm not sure what to say to him. I didn't know the Kelly child, but I do know the Thurmond family." He scrubbed his chin with his hand, his mind bounding into the future. Would anyone in this room be able to drive a stake through the heart of a little child? He briefly closed his eyes.
"And yet," he offered, hope springing in him and making him open them again, "there has been nothing further on this. No reports of the children having, ah, reanimated, yes? How long does it take for the victim of a vampire to rise? Then we've got to factor in that these are children. Does youth hasten the process, or slow it, or does it make no difference?
"Let us take courage," Elliot advised. He watched his friends with concern. Barnabas looked pale around the mouth. "Talk. Think. We will act soon, but first let's strike at the heart of the matter. Who has done this evil?"
Barnabas sat. Swallowing, he leaned over to caress one of Julia's hands. She looked at him with stricken eyes.
"Come, people," Elliot prodded. "Is there anyone in Collinsport we could possibly suspect?"
"Well," Barnabas said thickly and cleared his throat to go on, "David Collins has told us of a stranger just come to Collinsport, a man named Lars Castlewold. He is coaching and teaching school-aged children at the skating rink, which he somehow got the town to open and repair for him. He is the only stranger we have heard of, and almost the same moment we hear of him, we have two terrible child murders."
"A stranger, and instantly we suspect him," Elliot muttered in spite of himself. "Poor man. It almost sounds like the Salem witch trials. But yes, Collinsport has had no trouble like this for a long time. This man's advent coincides with a vile tragedy, and so, we are concerned." He bent his glance at them. "I would like to meet him. Have you met him yet? No? Then I suggest we go see him right away. Do we know where he lodges?"
"As far as anyone knows, he's sleeping at the rink," Barnabas said. "The skating lessons will take place evenings, apparently, to midnight and beyond. The rink will not be open at all during daylight hours." Barnabas looked burningly at Elliot.
"Convenient," Elliot muttered. "But let me tell you something else. Roger has arranged for a painter to use rooms above the cannery as an art studio. That is an additional stranger. I know this, because Roger has asked me to drinks this afternoon so as to introduce me to this artist, whose name is Kim Jansing."
"How long has the man been in Collinsport?" Julia asked.
"Who knows? Thus we have a second stranger to examine."
"And a third, unfortunately," Barnabas put in. "Roger told Julia and me of yet another outsider. Yesterday, Veronika Liska was struck by an automobile—barely a bump, no harm done—and a strange man carried her out of the street and brought her to the Collinsport Inn. He's staying here in town."
"Another stranger?" Elliot asked. "Could the man who assisted Dr. Liska have been this Kim Jansing, or this Lars Castlewold?"
"No, that wasn't the name," said Barnabas. "He gave his name as Nunes. His first name is Rafael, I think."
Julia leaned back in her chair. "Three newcomers. Yet, if we're honest, we really have four new people in town and not three. We have Tisa."
Elliot looked at Julia, and she was startled at the anger in his expression. "Julia, if you mean to suggest that my niece—"
She lifted her hand. "Let me tell you what just happened at Collinwood. Hallie found Tisa in her—Hallie's—bedroom, and approached her. Tisa's mouth and chin were bloody. Hallie says Tisa then made a leap at her. Now, before anyone becomes alarmed, let me say I don't believe this was anything. Tisa is undergoing a great strain trying to acclimate to new, stressful circumstances. Her story is that she fell, banged her chin on a piece of furniture, and had just regained her feet as Hallie entered. She staggered toward her cousin for help, and fell again. She's in bed, Elliot, and she's unhurt; merely a cut on the inside of her lip. Hallie, however, was quite shaken. She says Tisa threw herself at her, and that Tisa's teeth touched her neck. Again," Julia stressed as Elliot twisted in his seat and Barnabas hissed, "my professional assessment is that the girl is emotionally exhausted, dehydrated, and a little intimidated by the people at Collinwood. She needs rest and reassurance. I do not at all view this as a vampire attack or anything like it."
Elliot rubbed his cheek with one hand. Barnabas blew out a breath. "Dehydrated!" he muttered, at which Elliot shot him an ugly glance.
Julia was about to speak again when Elliot suddenly said with resentment, "How could Tisa possibly be a vampire? How could there even be a chance of it? Don't you people know where she's been for the past eight years? Tisa has been constantly surrounded by crosses, crucifixes, and holy water! If my niece were a vampire in such a setting, why, she'd have long since exploded in a puff of smoke! This is the most idiotic, the most hateful thing I've ever heard!"
"Elliot!" Julia cut in wonderingly. "I just finished saying that I think what happened was perfectly innocent. I didn't say—"
"And did you perhaps think to examine Tisa's neck?" their friend asked, slightly calmer. "I trust your professional assessment, Julia, but have we ascertained that Tisa herself hasn't been bitten by this roving monster?"
"Come to mention it," Julia said, "I did get a good look at Tisa's neck and throat. She was wearing a V-necked sweater. Elliot, there wasn't a mark on her."
"Very well," Elliot said, wiping his mouth and trying to rally. "Forgive my outburst. I suggest the two of you accompany me to cocktails at Collinwood with this Mr. Jansing. I can't imagine Roger and Elizabeth not letting you in, and we can all take an estimate of this man. Then, tonight when the rink opens, let us be on hand to evaluate Mr. Castlewold. Let's ask at the house whether we can have the honor of driving David to the rink; frankly, I don't want him out of our sight down there, in the circumstances. Let me go home to change and ask Angelique whether she wants to come along with us to meet this painter."