Authors: Lee Killough
Garreth counted two possible flaws in the story. Three o’clock lay on the edge of the limits given by the ME for Mossman’s time of death. He would have had to die very soon after leaving Lane’s apartment. And would a man careful enough to leave his keys and extra money and credit cards hidden in his hotel room ignore the offer of a cab and walk down a street alone in the middle of the night?
They turned the corner. Once around it, the traffic thinned and the noise level dropped dramatically.
Garreth asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
She sighed sheepishly. “The usual reason: I didn’t want to be involved.”
“
The autopsy found puncture wounds in the middle of the bruise on Mossman’s neck. How did they get there?”
“
Punctures?” She stared down at him. “I don’t have the slightest idea. They weren’t there when he left me.”
Garreth said nothing in response to that. Instead, he waited, curious to see what more she might say. But unlike most people, who felt uncomfortable with silence and would say anything, often incriminating things, to fill the void, she did not rise to the bait. She said nothing as they turned another corner.
Now almost no traffic passed. Garreth found himself preternaturally conscious of the near empty street. Here on the back side of the block, they seemed a hundred miles from the crowds and lights.
He asked, “Did you ever meet a man named Cleveland Adair?”
Her stride never faltered. “Who?”
“
Cleveland Adair, an Atlanta businessman. We found him dead two years ago with a bruise and punctures just like Mossman’s. A woman matching your description was seen in the lobby of his hotel shortly before his estimated time of death.”
He expected denial, either vehement or indignant. He was even prepared for her to try running away. Instead, she stopped and turned to look him directly in the eyes. “How many deaths are you investigating?”
Her eyes looked bottomless and glowed like a cat’s. Garreth stared into them, fascinated. “Two. After all, it looks like the same person killed them both.”
“
I suppose it does. Inspector,” she said quietly, “please back up into this alley.”
Like hell I will, he thought, but found he could not say it aloud. Nor could he act on the thought. Her eyes held his and his will seemed paralyzed. Step by step, as commanded, he moved backward, until he came up short against a wall.
“
You’re here alone.” Her hands came up to his neck, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. Her hands felt cool against his skin. “Have you told anyone where you are or about my little love bites?”
Yes, he thought, but he spoke the truth. “No.” Should he have admitted that? He could not find concern in him; all he cared about at the moment was staring into the glowing depths of her eyes and listening to her voice.
“
Good boy,” she crooned, and kissed him gently on the mouth. She had to bend down to do it. “That’s a very good boy.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think you should ever tell.”
He barely heard her. Her voice reached him from a great distance, like all sensation at the moment: the rough brick of the wall at his back, the chill of the evening, the increasing rate of her breathing. Somewhere deep inside, uneasiness stirred, but listening to it seemed too much trouble. He found it easier to just stand passive and let her tip his head back against the wall.
Her lips felt cool on his mouth and cheek, and her fingers on his neck as she probed to one side of his windpipe. His pulse throbbed against the pressure.
“
That’s a nice vein,” she whispered in approval. Her breath tickled as she spoke between kisses. “You’ll like this. You’ll feel no pain. You won’t mind a bit that you’re dying.” She kissed him harder and he felt the nip of her teeth. Her mouth moved down over his jaw to his neck. “You’re a bit short for me so this will be awkward unless you stand very still. Whatever happens, don’t move.”
“
No.” It emerged in a sigh.
“
I love you, Inspector. I love all men of power.” Her teeth nipped harder, moving toward the spot where his pulse beat against her fingers. “You don’t have money or position like the others, but you have knowledge...knowledge I can’t afford to have spread around, so that gives you more power than most of my lovers. Still, I have more. I have the power to take yours. I love doing that. I am become Death.”
She bit harder. A distant sensation told him her teeth had broken his skin, but he felt no pain, only a slight pressure as she sucked.
“
What — ” he began.
Her finger brushed across his lips, commanding him to silence. He obeyed. All desire to talk had left anyway. A wave of mixed warmth and cold moved outward through his body from where her mouth touched him. He shivered in pleasure and moved just a little, straining toward her mouth.
Yes. Nice. Go on. Don’t stop
.
Presently, though, he wondered if maybe she should. He felt very weak. He needed to sit down before he collapsed. His knees buckled, but her hands caught him under the arms and held him against the wall. She must be very strong, came a languid thought...certainly stronger than she looked, to be holding up someone of his weight so easily. The maiden was powerful, just like
I Ching
said.
But with that thought lassitude disappeared. Fear rose up through him like a jet of ice water. Two men the singer knew had died of blood loss. Now she kissed his neck in the very spot where the other men had punctures and bruises and he felt himself weakening, too! With a profound shock of horror and revulsion, he realized why. Lane Barber was sucking his blood!
He shuddered and tried to pull loose, pushing at her shoulders with his hands. His body obeyed only sluggishly, however, and when she noticed his effort, her body pressed harder against his, pinning him to the wall.
Use your gun, you dumb flatfoot
.
But her hand easily kept him from reaching it.
Abandoning pride in favor of self-preservation, he opened his mouth to yell for help. Her hand clamped across his mouth, silencing him.
Garreth’s breath caught in fear. He no longer had the strength to fight her. Only her weight against him held him upright. She was killing him, as she had killed Adair and Mossman — were human teeth really sharp enough to bite through skin into veins? Where had she learned such depravity?
Do something, man! Fight her! Stay alive!
In desperation, he bit at her hand to make her let go of his mouth. He sank his teeth in deep, using all his fading strength. Skin gave way. Her blood filled his mouth, burning like fire. Convulsively, he swallowed, and his throat burned, too...but with the fire came a surge of new strength.
Lane jerked the hand to free it, but he bit harder, making the most of the opportunity to hurt her. More blood scorched down his throat. He managed to bring both hands up to her shoulders and push her back.
But it was too little effort coming too late. She tore loose from him, her hand from his mouth and her mouth from his throat. He felt her teeth rip through his flesh. As she backed away from him, he fell, collapsing to the ground.
The pain of striking the ground barely reached him. He only saw, not felt, the blood streaming from his torn throat to make a crimson pool around his head. A suffocating fog muffled all sensation...touch, sound, and smells.
“
Good-bye, lover,” a distant, mocking voice said. “Rest in peace.”
Her footsteps receded into the darkness. Garreth tried to move, to drag himself to the mouth of the alley where he might find help, but a leaden heaviness weighted him down, leaving him helpless. He could not move, only stare into the growing pool of blood draining from him. He cursed his stupidity...for coming after her alone, for not letting someone know what he had found out, but most of all, as his breathing and heartbeat stumbled, faltered, and faded, he cursed himself for underestimating her...just what
I Ching
warned against. How could he explain this to Marti when he saw her?
See the idiot cop
, he thought bitterly.
See him bleeding to death . . . dying alone in a cold and dirty alley
.
Passage
1
Rest in peace. Like hell. Death was not peace. It led not to Marti, nor to any kind of heaven . . . not even to oblivion. Death was not that kind. Death was hell.
It was dreams...nightmares of suffocation and pain, of restless discomfort, of aches impossible to ease, of itches impossible to scratch. It was hallucination invading the void, playing blurrily before half-open eyes unable to focus or follow...imaginary hands on him, patting him, then lights, footsteps, sirens, voices.
Oh, God! Call the watch commandeer.
I didn’t kill him, Officer! I’d never kill no cop, and anyway how could I do that to him? I just took the gun and stuff out of his pockets. Would I show you where the body was if I’d done it?
Garreth?
Easy, Takananda.
Garreth! Oh, God, no!
He hasn’t been dead long; he’s still warm.
Are there loose dogs in this area
?
Death was hell, and hell was dreams, but mostly, hell was fear...panic-stricken, frantic. Were all the dead aware? Did they remain that way? Was this to be eternity...lying in twilight and nightmares, throat aching with thirst, body crying for a change of position, mind churning endlessly? Did Marti lie like this in her grave, insane with loneliness, begging for peace, for an end? No, not for her...please, no.
He hated giving up life, but accepted that in the jungle, death was the price of carelessness, of error, and he errored badly. Surrendering life to rejoin Marti would be welcome. He could even accept oblivion. This, though...this limbo? The thought of having to endure it for eternity terrified him.
He screamed...for himself, for Marti, for all the dead trapped sleepless and peaceless and tormented in their graves. He screamed, and because went unvoiced, it echoed and reechoed endlessly down the long, dark, lonely corridors of his mind.
The horror escalated. A sheet over him blocked the vision of his eyes; temperature had become all one to him, unfelt; and the lack of breath prevented him from smelling anything, but he knew he lay in the morgue. He had heard its cold echoes on arriving, had felt them park the gurney, and heard the freezer door close. Now he heard, had lain listening for countless time, the hum of refrigeration units while he dreamed nightmares and wished Lane had thrown him in the bay, too. Better to be fish food than lie in this hated purgatory of cold and steel. He prayed for his parents to be spared seeing him here.
That was when he thought of the autopsy. His heart contracted in fear. What would it be like? How would it feel to lie naked in running water on cold steel, sliced open from neck to hips, shelled out like —
Heart?
His mind held its breath...waiting. Yes, there it was! His heart squeezed again. A slow ripple moved outward from it along his arteries. He felt almost every inch of them. A long pause later, his heart squeezed again, then again...settling into a slow but regular rhythm.
He listened in wonder. If his heart beat, he could not be dead. His body lay leaden, held unmoving on the stainless steel the surface beneath him, but a silent cry of joy banished the darkness inside him. Alive!
He drew a breath...slow, painfully slow, but a breath nonetheless. He swore his breath and heart stopped in that alley. He had felt — how he had felt! — the silence of his body. What miracle caused the heart and lungs to resume function? He could not imagine, and at the moment, overjoyed with the sound and feel of them, he did not give a damn why.
But he remained in a morgue freezer, naked under the sheet. Unless he found a way out, the cold would kill him again. Could he attract attention by pounding on the gurney? Calling out?
He tried, but the weakness that held him motionless the past — how many? — hours persisted. He still could not move. Could not speak.
Could he survive until they came to take him out for the autopsy? He felt less cold now. Perhaps if he kept alert, he could fight off hypothermia.
He wished, though, that he could change position. His body consisted of one continuous, unrelenting ache, stiff from neck to toes. By concentrating and straining, he finally managed to move. Like the first heartbeat and the first breath, it came with agonizing slowness. Still, by persisting, he managed to shift his weight off his buttocks and turn on his side. Not that it helped a great deal. He still felt uncomfortable, but at least the position of the aches changed.
He tried again to call out but managed only a whisper. He would just have to wait for them to come for him.
He fought his way onto his stomach to change the pressure points once more and felt the sheet slide sideways. Slowly, painfully, he managed to turn on his side again and pull the sheet back over him. Little protection from the cold as it was, it was better than lying bare-assed.