"Beck?"
"Yeah, boss."
"Where are you?"
"Prefecture of Police Department of Records."
"Am I wrong, or is it six-fifteen in the morning?"
"s.h.i.t, they"re gonna be opening this place up in an hour. We gotta get moving."
"But how the h.e.l.l did you get in there? That"s what I want to know."
"They got a lotta skylights in this town."
SIX.
Martin Soule Miriam had done her screaming and her weeping, and now sat in a little cafe seeking with increasing urgency for a victim for Martin. She had called Sarah again and again, and still had not gotten an answer. But she could not let this problem, as disturbing as it was becoming, intrude on her urgent mission. She did not know exactly what had happened to Martin, except that he was starving, and it was the most horrible thing she had ever seen.
Patience was essential on the hunt, no matter whether you were in a hurry or not. The trouble was, you could not easily imagine the prey to be dangerous, and in an emergency like this, your instincts screamed at you to just grab one, drag it off by the hair, and give it to the poor sufferer immediately.
She forced herself to sit still, to appear seductive. The waiter was admiring her and so were some of the male customers. But n.o.body moved, n.o.body did did anything. anything.
She sucked in warm smoke from her cigarette, drew it deep into her lungs, then blew it out with a carefully manufactured seductive pout. At least they had reasonably good cigarettes here. This Gitanes reminded her of a Bon-Ton. American cigarettes were awful now.
Why were these stupid men ignoring her? Had customs changed so much? When she had last taken a victim in Europe, everything had been different. There had been an immediate flirting response, a quick seduction. That had happened on a quiet day in Clichy, in a little bar full of b.u.ms and Americans.
She was contacting men"s eyes, but they wouldn"t take it farther. She did not intend to let Martin starve, or any Keeper she could help, for that matter. As to why this had happened to him, she did not yet know. She could well imagine, though - something awful that had to do with human oppression of the Keeper. She sucked the cigarette hard, blew out a furious stream of smoke.
The temptation was growing ever stronger to just go off down the street and do what instinct urged. To some Keepers, the finest of all meals came from a sudden, spontaneous impulse to just s.n.a.t.c.h a victim, tear it open, and drink. That was her instinct, always. She"d been drawn to America in the first place by the easy, rambling life it offered her kind. She"d guzzled her way across the wild frontier. You could go a few miles on horseback and pluck your fruit along the trail without the slightest worry. People disappeared out there all the time.
She"d finished her cigarette and was just starting another when she realized that a young male was heading her way. She said in French, "Can you help me? May I have a light?"
He moved past her toward the loo. Could this be a h.o.m.os.e.xual bar? No. Clearly not. Owning a club in New York as she did, she could tell the s.e.xual orientation of a place at a glance.
From the bar, another man said,"You speak the French of Voltaire, lady. All those "thees" and "thous." "He raised his voice, mocking her," "Cans"t thou render me a.s.sistance? Mays"t I take a flame?" We call it a "match," now. New word! Where are you from?"
"The past," she snapped. She got to her feet. To h.e.l.l with the French, if they were no longer interested in a pretty girl.
"Oh, mademoiselle, please, I am just making conversation! Don"t be so quick.You must be an American.You learned your French in school.Well, you had an old teacher. d.a.m.ned old, I"d say! But that can"t be held against you."
He was plump. The back of his hands revealed the telltale blue streaks that suggested that the drinking veins would be nice and big. The flow of the carotid would be delightfully powerful.
She gave him a slow, careful smile, the kind that made the males pant. She had practiced smiling for years, and she considered herself an artiste. As soon as she showed her rows of perfectly believable but entirely artifi-cial human teeth, he came to her table.
Finally. She responded with practiced indifference. Smile too eagerly, and he would back off . . . at least, that used to be their way.
"You are not telling me to go?"
She shrugged.
In a lower voice, he asked, "Is this going to cost me?"
"A little." Meaning everything you value the most - your breath, your blood, your very life.
"Then you"re for real - a wh.o.r.e staking out the rear table in a cafe. It"s so - I don"t know - charmant charmant. So "old Paris!" And that language and the ancient suit. You are are from the past. Look, I don"t mean to spoil the effect, but I have only a couple hundred francs." from the past. Look, I don"t mean to spoil the effect, but I have only a couple hundred francs."
"How sad."
"Do you take credit cards?"
How could he ask something so profoundly stupid? A wh.o.r.e who took credit cards, indeed. She sucked in smoke, let it drift slowly out.
"I wish you wouldn"t do that."
"Excuse me, my sir?"
"I gave it up. Bad for the chest." He tapped his breast, expanded his lungs, let the breath out. "Bet you couldn"t manage that."
She could hold her breath for an hour. Keepers could drown, but it was not an easy death. For them, in fact, there were no easy deaths. The very body, every bone and sinew, was fanatically devoted to life. Man had the immortal soul, not his Keepers. Man could afford to die. Keepers had to stay alive forever, if possible.
Miriam put out her cigarette.
"You have the loveliest hands," he said, watching her.
She lifted a hand, bending her wrist delicately. When he kissed it, somebody over at the bar went, "Oh, my."
"Be quiet, you f.u.c.king gorilla!" the victim roared. "Never mind him, he has the manners of an animal."
She lowered her hand, touching his with the tips of her fingers: possession. "Good sir, I cannot stop with you the day long."
"Your French is advancing. Now you sound like somebody from about 1896."
"I have a pleasant room, and two hundred francs will be a good price."
She strolled with him down the Rue de Bobbilo, then crossed the Place d"Italie into the Avenue des Gobelins. It was raining, and she leaned in toward him to be under his umbrella. As they crossed the street, she stumbled against him. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, frowning slightly.
It had been a costly slip: he"d noticed her weight. Keepers had dense bones and muscles like rock. Inch for inch, they were twice as heavy as the prey.
The smallest slip would sometimes be all it took to spook a victim. Like most predators, Keepers were successful only about a third of the time. The myth of the vampire as a creeping, unstoppable supernatural force was just that, a myth.
They were pa.s.sing a small hotel. He started in.
"No, not here."
"Where the h.e.l.l is it, then? This is the only hotel around here."
"Just a little farther, good sir."
His pace slowed. She could feel him glancing at her again. Archaic language, excessive weight for her shape and size - he was not understanding, and that was making him nervous. She had to brush up on her d.a.m.n French. Back in 1956, n.o.body had commented. But then, she hadn"t fed here, either, only gone to Chanel for a thorough reoutfitting. She"d spent thousands. They would never have commented on her French.
She gave him a carefully rehea.r.s.ed look - eyebrows raised, gray eyes gleaming - that was meant to disarm him with a combination of girlish sweetness and womanly experience. This look had worked since she had first developed it, back in the days when one"s only mirror was a pond.
He went, "hmpf," "hmpf," like a slightly shocked horse. Then he grew silent. His tread became determined, even dogged. like a slightly shocked horse. Then he grew silent. His tread became determined, even dogged.
She had him, by heaven! That was a wonderfully effective look. It had set the hook along the Via Appia and Watling Street, in Ur and Athens, in Venezia and ancient Granada.
"This isn"t - oh, Christ - what the h.e.l.l do you want to go in here for?"
"You"ll see."
"Not for two hundred francs I won"t. A blanket on the floor of an old wreck like this rates no more than fifty, sweetheart. No way you"re gonna cheat Jean-Jacques. No d.a.m.n way at all."
If she accepted his offer, he"d decide that she was probably diseased and that would be that. She had to waste time bargaining.
"Upstairs is very nice. You must pay a hundred and fifty." "The h.e.l.l -"
"But only when I conduct you to the chamber, and if you are pleased." She lowered her eyes.
"If I ain"t pleased?"
"Then I am desolated. I will do it for your fifty, and fulfill your pleasure, for one hour of the clock."
"Now we"re back to the ancien regime. Your French is fascinating." He looked up at Mother Lamia"s old palace, the gray limestone, the sharp peak of the roof, the tiny windows in the tower. She knew what he was thinking: Dare I go in there with such a strange woman? Dare I go in there with such a strange woman?
"I have my domicile within. It isn"t as it appears."
He smirked, but followed her through the door into the cavernous s.p.a.ce. He stopped, looked up into the high shadows. "My G.o.d, what a place!"
"Come with me." She moved deeper within, toward the stairs at the back of the enormous, dark room.
"That stairway"s a deathtrap!"
She thought, Don"t make it hard, not when I am so frantic! Don"t make it hard, not when I am so frantic! She said, "But, my sir, this is the way to my chamber." She moved toward the stairs, swinging her hips. She said, "But, my sir, this is the way to my chamber." She moved toward the stairs, swinging her hips.
""My sir!" "My chamber!" you"re weird, and I"m not going up there with you no matter how pretty you are. Anyway, you probably taste like a d.a.m.n ashtray, you smoke so much."
Then the d.a.m.n thing turned and strode toward the door. She sucked in her breath, turned also.
It had moved fast. It put its hand in the ring, started pulling it. She leaped with all her might across the s.p.a.ce between them. At the last instant, it saw her, raised a hand. For the split of a second, their eyes met. She fisted the crown of its head, doing it in precisely the right place and with the exact force necessary to knock the thing senseless. It dropped with a sodden thud.
"Martin," she said. "My dear, look what I"ve brought you." He"d been watching from behind one of the old tanning vats. He came out, moving with the slow, dragging gait of a very weak Keeper. He smelled like dry, old flesh and rotted blood. His eyes were glimmers inside their sunken sockets.
She watched him lay his long gray form upon the cushioning body of his prey, watched him stretch like a lounging panther. Some of the old Martin could be seen in those easy movements, his grace, even a little of his power.
He laid his jaws on the neck, in the traditional spot. Keepers sometimes took their food from under the leg, or even, if they were particularly hungry and had really strong suction, from the main artery itself, which could be reached by a ferocious penetration of the small of the back.
It was decadent and cruel to take the blood from a small vein, but this was done as well. The victim knew, then, for it would remain conscious for most of the feeding. Awful, mad fun that was. Children did it, and Miriam could remember a few Egyptians she"d tormented that way, when she was still a little slip of a thing. She and that boy Sothis, the son of Amma, had experimented with all sorts of ghastly and peculiar ways of consuming their prey. Playing the role of child prost.i.tutes in the seedy backstreets of Thebes, they"d often sucked their customers dry right through their erect p.e.n.i.ses, leaving nothing but a skeleton tented by skin ready for the tanner. Children can be so awful.
Martin"s body began to undulate. His esophageal peristalsis was quite strong. The prey woke up and shouted out something, "Oh, s.h.i.t," or some such thing. He began to toss and turn, and Martin, who was far from a normal weight and strength, started to slip off.
He needed all the nutrition he could get, so she most certainly could not kill the prey to prevent it struggling. Dead blood made a poor meal.
The thing heaved. There was a pop and a gooey, declining hiss. Martin"s suction had broken. It heaved again, and this time he slid completely off. The creature sat up. Its neck was red, but there was no blood flowing. Miriam had the awful thought that Martin might be too weak to feed.
"What in the name of G.o.d is this?" The creature looked down at Martin, who was sliding across the floor, looking very much like a great beetle. "What in the name of G.o.d! G.o.d!" It scrambled to its feet.
Martin grabbed an ankle. The creature shrieked, its eyes practically popping out of its head. It kicked him away.
"Jesus in heaven, what"s the matter with that guy?"
This creature was surprisingly self-possessed. Miriam did not like this. She stepped forward, grabbed one of its wrists.
It kicked upward with its knee, directing the blow expertly toward her forearm. That was well done; that would have shattered a human bone. She didn"t know what she had here. Stars forbid it was another d.a.m.n cop.
Its free fist came plunging straight toward her face. She caught it, stopping its forward motion so suddenly that the animal"s jaws snapped with the shock. She began to squeeze the wrists. It writhed and kicked again, this time getting her right in the midriff. Her muscles were far too hard for the blow to be painful, but it pushed her off her feet, forcing her to let go her grip. Instantly the creature recoiled from her.
"What are you?" it shrieked. "Aliens?"
That again. That was a recent bit of human myth that the Keepers ought to start using. They hadn"t been aliens to the earth for fifty thousand years.
Martin had risen to a sitting position, was ineffectually dusting his tattered waistcoat. When she looked back to the human, it was already starting to make once again for the outside door. With a quick leap, she put herself in its way.
"G.o.d in heaven! That"s three meters!" It showed its teeth, displayed the palms of its hands. "Look, we can work this out. I"m a family man. I can"t go to Pluto or whatever it is you want."
Pluto was the human name for Nisu, the farthest of the planets. Beyond that was only Niburu, the wanderer.
"Child, you must give up your life. You cannot escape us."
That would get the mind racing, the blood speeding.
"Don"t be absurd. That would be murder! And look at you; why, you"re just a baby in your mother"s old clothes! You mustn"t do something so terrible. You"ll regret it forever, child child."
Behind him, Martin had come to his feet. He began to stagger toward the victim, his shoulders slumped, his jaw gaping. The sound of his shuf-fling caused the creature to turn around. And now a moment occurred that did not happen often: a human being saw a Keeper naked of disguise, as he really looked.
It drew in its breath. Then silence. Then a burst of wild, panicked shrieking. But it stood rooted, mesmerized for the same reason that the mouse is mesmerized by the snake.
The deepest unconscious of the human being, the depth of the soul, knew the truth. It bore an imprint of that face from the days when Keepers kept them in cages. They had been pure animals then, without any conscious mind. So the terror they had felt had been imprinted on the unconscious and pa.s.sed from generation to generation as raw instinct.
Too bad that the free-range human had made so much nicer a meal than the caged variety. Inevitably, they"d begun to run them in packs, then in herds, letting them make their own cities, have their own history. Inevitably, the Keepers had taken to living in the cities, and what fun that that had been. Still would be, if they hadn"t all gone into hiding. had been. Still would be, if they hadn"t all gone into hiding.
It was so unnecessary. Miriam had probably done a thousand kills in New York City since the creation of its police department, and she hadn"t had a bit of trouble there. In fact, she"d had almost no trouble at all, not until this last little lapse.