Broder started in on him, kicking him. That was what it felt like. But he kept well clear. Whitey’s body thrashed and spasmed all on its own. Convulsions. They were tearing him apart.

  He bit his tongue, tasted blood, heard gagging noises. His body stopped flailing on the floor, but the poison was still in him, oozing through his blood. The growing pressure around his chest would crush him from the inside out.

  He became aware of the others, one in particular, the shivering girl with the dark hair. He reached toward her, though she was too far away.

  She whimpered, clinging to the other woman.

  The monster was scaring them. That was wrong. He pulled his arm back. His clutching hand turned into a fist, and he drew it tight against his aching chest so there was no chance of accidentally touching her. He nearly echoed her whimper, but shut it down. Show weakness, and Sonny would beat it out of him. The bastard could smell it.

  Gabriel couldn’t remember the beatings, but the monster did. The monster loved Sonny.

  The steely pressure on his chest worsened, slowly crowding out his lungs. He had to say something, say it quick before his air was gone. He gasped like a fish, trying not to cough.

  Where was she?

  His sought her eyes, willing her to—

  Look at me!

  He managed to croak her name. She looked up, and he put his last effort into it; desperation got him past the surface mask to the soul inside. Vital, but damaged, trying to heal, hardly able to limp from one day to the next—how could she live like that?

  I hurt you. I’m sorry…I’m sorry.

  But his lungs were crushed flat.

  He couldn’t get the words out. He never would.

  He stopped moving altogether. The feeling was much like his day sleep, his active mind trapped within a dead body.

  He heard weeping. That would be Nelly Cabot, crying in her mother’s arms.

  “It’s over, honey,” the older woman murmured. “It’s all over. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  It was true. The monster was gone.

  Gabriel was alone.

  HE drifted in the red shadows behind sealed eyelids.

  People were nearby, but he was detached from their concerns like a stranger overhearing a private conversation. It was interesting for the moment, but he had no real care for the goings-on around him.

  Someone put a hand on his throat, fingers resting on the pulse point for a long time.

  “He’s dead,” said Broder.

  Michael muttered a curse and walked away a few steps. His shoes crunched against broken glass, then there was the slosh of liquid. He choked on his drink and cursed again, and it almost sounded like a sob.

  No one spoke for a time. Gabe had the impression they were in some kind of shock.

  Mrs. Cabot broke the silence. “What was the matter with him? He go crazy? How could he move so fast?”

  “The drug did that,” Escott promptly answered. “Cocaine can be a very powerful stimulant.”

  “He used the stuff,” said Michael, his voice thick, “but not all the time. He kept it quiet. If you didn’t know to look, you just didn’t know. But the last year…he got bad. He’d go off on ‘fishing trips’ to shoot dope. That’s what he called them.”

  Mrs. Cabot snarled in disgust.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry. I thought he was only hurting himself. I swear, I did not know about your daughter. Broder should have told me.”

  “Why, so you can blame my girl?”

  “No, I—”

  “We don’t want nothin’ more to do with you. Just leave us alone.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I promise.”

  “One of you get us home, and that’s the end of it.”

  “I’ll drive them,” said Escott. He was over by the bar now.

  “What are you doing?” Mike asked.

  “Your brother has no need of it.” There was a rustle of shuffling paper. “I’m sure the ladies won’t mind a small monetary compensation for the hell they’ve been put through tonight.”

  Mike grunted.

  The door was opened. “Ladies, if you would? The green car just around the corner.”

  They shuffled past Gabe’s body. Cold outside air flowed over him.

  “Will you have sufficient time before I return?” Escott asked.

  “He’ll be gone,” Mike said.

  “You’ve made arrangements?”

  “You could say.”

  The door closed. Shortly after, a motor turned over. A car rattled past the front entry and faded.

  Mike must have been holding his breath. He choked out another curse and had another drink.

  “It had to be done,” Broder rumbled.

  “Why’d I have to be the one to do it?”

  “Just how things work. Stay here, get drunk. I’ll deal with him.”

  “It’s a two-man job. He’s my responsibility. You shouldn’t have kept quiet about this. Should have told me.”

  “Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “Him shooting the dope I could deal with, but not him hurting women like the old bastard.”

  “I kept an eye on him. If he stepped out of line, I was gonna—”

  “Kill him?”

  “Tried to. Would have saved you from it.”

  “But…he seemed to want me to do it. Did you see? At the end?”

  “Yeah, Mike. He knew. He was crazy-sick like you said. No cure for that kind of thing. It’s over now.”

  Neither spoke after that. Broder went outside briefly and returned, then Mike shut the lights off. The red shadows went black.

  They lifted Gabe’s body and carried him into the cold, dropping him heavily into…he wasn’t sure what until the trunk lid slammed down. The car grumbled to life, and they began moving. Start-stop, start-stop, they must be hitting every signal between here and…where were they going?

  Gabe couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. He floated within the boundaries of his skull and decided being dead wasn’t too objectionable. At least he wasn’t having those dreams. That might change when the sun came up, but again, it just wasn’t important. They hit a smooth road, and he drifted off.

  The car began to jolt and jounce, sometimes skidding.

  It was enough to wake Gabe from his long doze.

  His chest itched. So did his left shoulder. He couldn’t move to scratch either annoyance, though he tried hard to do so.

  Damned drug. He was bogged down in its sluggish flow.

  A sharp turn, and, though the car crawled along, the jouncing increased. His inert body slipped about in the trunk, unresponsive.

  They stopped, the motor died, its growl replaced by the sound of wind sighing through pine boughs.

  He was back in that dream of absolute peace and calm. He was safe. Here there were no monsters wearing his face to trouble him or anyone else.

  After an indeterminate time, he was taken from the trunk and carried a distance. They left him on his back on raw, bare ground. He floated in cold shadows while the others got on with their own concerns.

  None of it had to do with him, even when the first heavy wedge of damp earth slapped over his face.

  19

  FLEMING

  THE third night I awoke weak, cold, and shaking, with the hunger like a gunshot wound in my belly. It had never been this bad before.

  Dugan was upstairs snoring, a short, heavy rasp, as though even in sleep he breathed faster than normal. When I yelled his name, the snoring abruptly ceased. After a minute the springs squeaked, and he paced unsteadily back and forth.

  Last night he’d fallen into a pattern of first feeding me, draining away my blood to drink, followed by another feeding—four or five times. He kept up the assurance that this would speed his transformation, and it was clearly having an effect on him. Toward dawn he was unnaturally restless, with so much energy thrumming through him I thought his heart would give out. He took that as evidence his procedure was succeeding.

  I’d continued my dying act and hoped it would remain an act. He was careful to replace my lost blood, so when the sun rose, I was in reasonably good shape considering the situation.

  Plodding down the stairs, he put the light on, and it took time for my dazzled eyes to adjust. What I saw scared me.

  Now I looked at my left wrist, which was covered with many more thin welts where he’d cut me. The son of a bitch had been drawing off blood while I slept. That was why I was so sick.

  Dugan looked the way I felt. He was unshaved and drawn, his sweat-sheened skin had a yellow tinge, and that rotten-fruit smell was more pronounced. I wondered if he’d noticed. Though his wide-open eyes were not flushed wholly red the way mine got after feeding, they were bloodshot and muddy. His movements were jerky, hands shaking, fingers nervous. He looked exactly like an alky caught short on booze.

  My blood had to be killing him, consuming him.

  “I’ve kept up my end,” he said brightly, holding another milk bottle within my view. “Straight from the Stockyards—less than an hour old.”

  My corner teeth were out. I was hurting for it. I’d have taken anything then, including human blood from an unwilling donor.

  Solicitous as a nurse, he lifted my head, allowing me to drink from the glass he’d filled. I finished it quick, but the belly pain didn’t cease.

  “You’re draining me during the day,” I said.

  “Only to speed my transformation process. Have more, have all you want. I went to considerable trouble to obtain this for you.”

  I shut up and finished that bottle and the second one he fetched.

  Dugan had been careless, letting me know we were less than an hour’s travel from the Stockyards. That covered a lot of area, of course, but I filed the information away with other details I’d gleaned about my location, which was definitely the basement of a house. I was able to pick up certain noises unique to a home: the hum of a refrigerator, the rumble of an oil heater, the plumbing, and sometimes the click of an electric light.

  I heard no traffic, but being belowground might have to do with that. Earth and concrete make for great insulation from the outside world.

  Throughout the previous night, I’d paid attention to each sound, trying to distract myself from the constant pain, sometimes succeeding. Once he put on the radio to listen to a news show, giving a snort of disdain whenever he didn’t like what was said. The rest of the time he paced back and forth or was writing, to judge by the frequent scratch of his pen. If he had so much to say, why didn’t he just get a damn typewriter?

  As the blood saturated my body, the sickness slowly faded, but I demanded more.

  “Where are you putting it?” he asked, surprised.

  “Losing ground.”

  “What?”

  I glanced toward my mangled wrist. “You don’t give me time to heal. I need more than you take just to recover. More than that to stay alive.”

  He almost sounded defensive. “I didn’t do it that often.”

  The day feedings terrified me. If his thirst got the better of him, I might not wake up tomorrow night. “Enough to kill me if you don’t…oh, God…” I trailed off into a groan and submerged into my dying act.

  “I’ll get another bottle,” he said and left. He stumbled on the stairs on the way up, caught himself, and shot a quick, self-conscious look back. My eyes were mostly shut, so he was a blurred figure through my lashes, but I’d seen. This flash of insecurity was good. I had him worried.

  He let me empty the third bottle with a fourth standing ready before doing his little cut-and-drain operation. Tonight, he gulped the beakerful with alarming speed and relish. When his shuddering subsided, his eyes were fever-bright and much redder than before. The whites were nearly gone.

  Maybe he was turning into a vampire, just no kind I’d ever heard about. I fought to maintain listlessness.

  “I’m feeling so much stronger,” he said, swinging his arms around. “I’ve never been so energetic. I’d been looking forward to acquiring the ability to influence weaker minds, but it never occurred to me that my physical being would be so greatly augmented.”

  He sniffed at the untouched bottle of cow’s blood, took an experimental sip, and grimaced. Apparently it wasn’t to his taste yet.

  “I should be fully changed by now,” he said. “Perhaps you were right about it taking longer. I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to remain here. But I’m optimistic—today I had to go out, and though it was cloudy, I wasn’t at all comfortable in the light. That’s progress, though it is rather short of the comalike state you fall into.”

  How much of that was self-suggestion, I wondered.

  I mumbled for more blood. He cheerfully complied, chatty now, telling me about his goals once his little experiment was completed. He was excited about leaving Chicago and moving up in the world. First he’d have to deal with his criminal record. He was a wanted fugitive, and that had to be fixed.

  “The police and court papers should be easy enough to destroy. Then I shall talk with everyone concerned with the case. I’ll persuade them to completely forget me—even your English friend won’t recall anything of it. Neither will that woman whose deficient offspring I kidnapped. She’d be better off without such a burden, you know.” He sounded speculative. “So many things to do once I have your abilities. I shan’t waste them, though. The world is going to improve significantly because of me.”

  Oh, brother.

  But he could be right. Say he went to Washington and started doing an evil-eye whammy on anyone he chose. Though its influence wasn’t permanent, I’d read enough history to know that one man in the right place at the wrong time could change things. For good or ill was up to the man. In Dugan’s case, I couldn’t really imagine how bad things could get.

  How I hated his voice. I looked around for the other me. He was out of view. Dammit, I wanted his company. He could listen to the idiot; I wanted to hide in that summer day again.

  Maybe Dugan was only blowing hot air to entertain himself, but his plans were too detailed.

  Without referring once to it, I also understood he would kill me despite his promise to the contrary. I’d known that from the moment he first showed himself; this simply disposed of any lingering delusion. He couldn’t set up anywhere and feel secure with me running loose.

  I had a black moment, wondering how he’d carry it out. He could drain me completely by accident or do it on purpose. Or would he resort to the traditional stake and hammer, followed by a beheading just to be sure?

  Bobbi would think I’d walked out on her because of her going to Hollywood. She’d never know.

  Escott would think I’d gone off my head again and run away to kill myself.

  They’d never find me.

  My friendly doppelgänger appeared just then, scowling down. “You going to feel sorry for yourself or do something?”

  I’m open to suggestions.

  “You know what to do.” He talked right over Dugan’s blather.

  A better hint, please.

  He pointed at my right arm.

  It’s hard to pretend to be at death’s door while at the same time trying to observe what’s going on around you. I kept my eyelids at half-mast, looking straight ahead and unfocused, but still managed to see plenty whenever Dugan turned his back. Not that there was much to notice at the moment; my view was blocked by another glassful of blood, which I drank. I was feeling full now, but made no objection as Dugan poured another. While he was busy, I let my head loll to one side.

  The L-shaped rod was still in place, the handle pointing in the same direction, my arm a ragged mess around the wound. A glimpse was enough, then I straightened back so he wouldn’t notice.

  I finished the next glass. The milk bottle was empty.

  He gave me a long, considering look. “Tell me about that female of yours. How do you feed from her?”

  What the hell? “None of your damn business.”

  Dugan’s eyes flashed amusement, and I instantly regretted speaking. I shouldn’t have reacted at all. Dear God, if he went after Bobbi…I wanted to rip free and strangle him. At the last second I changed the expression of the impulse and out came that maniac laughter again. There was no humor in it, and it sounded even more disturbing than before.

  He backed away. Good, I’d scared him.

  I let the laughter die and shut my eyes. Let him think I’d passed out.

  He trotted energetically upstairs and slammed the door. Soon water was running, a lot of it, as though for a bath. The sound just might be enough to cover things if I ended up screaming.

  I checked my right arm again. Sometime during the day a miracle had happened.

  Healing had taken place, and the dried blood had concealed it. The skin was no longer adhering to the metal, trying to mesh to it, but had shrunk back from the rod. Not by a lot, just a fraction. It fit snugly enough, almost exactly the same as an earring wire through a woman’s pierced ear, but larger in scale.

  The important thing was that the wound had closed, and I was no longer bleeding.

  I’d had the right idea last night when I’d tried to rip free, just not the strength or a reserve of blood to draw on. It had been too soon. My body needed time to figure out that the metal wasn’t going away and had to be accommodated.

  Now I slowly lifted my arm, working it along the threads a little at a time. It was awkward, and my muscles cramped. I told them to shut the hell up.

  My arm couldn’t twist to the point of getting the bone over the angle, but I got enough leverage to start bringing the end of the rod around. It came reluctantly, one inch, two, then it gradually swiveled into place, pointing at my head.

  More twisting, and it burned like blazes, and suddenly I was pulling my arm off the damned thing.

  No need to breathe, but I was panting, half from pain, half from triumph. I kept looking at my freed arm, fearing it was another hallucination. The hole was ugly as sin. I wasn’t crazy enough to make up anything that bad; it had to be real.

  Moving was painful. I’d not done much more than shiver and twitch the last two nights. Every joint was brittle and popped, but I made myself roll over to the left. My other arm was still pinned, the skin sealed to the rod, but I had momentum going, mental and physical.