35

I made a fine home for myself in the cellar. I rearranged things under the stairs and in the dead of night I brought scraps of wood and things in to make a private space, a close, comfort­able, personal place. I built a place where I could escape from the worries of light, of discovery—where the gleaming ivory flesh of my face would not attract attention as I slept in the shadows. I built a box.

My wardrobe improved as I scavenged here and there—I found great pleasure in roaming the halls of the homes I infiltrated. I enjoyed the closets, the cellars, and the children of the occupants, rearranging the furnishings a little bit until they were more to my liking, resting and enjoying a book, sometimes, in the den, after breakfasting.

None was so fascinating to me, however, as the family that lived upstairs. I dared not harm them, they were too close, too precious. My nightly visits to them became routine. I enjoyed the woman with a touch of perverse jealousy. She was so beautiful, so warm and complete, and she enjoyed an active and satisfying life with her mate in the sunshine. I enjoyed toying with her, and sometimes with him, learning about men and women, learning about what made them run. Particularly intriguing to me were their sexual responses, for this is what drives humans to reproduce.

I would sit by the side of the girl child and smooth her hair back from her gently rounded forehead and give her nice dreams as I watched her breathe, watched the flickering of her eyes under the thin lids. In my mind, I gave her the name of Diana, Moon Goddess, goddess of the hunt, of all that is sacred.

The boy I called Daniel, for he seemed fearless to me. Always he was on his guard, sleeping lightly, his consciousness sinking only when I played the music for him. I examined Daniel, as I did all the occupants in the houses I visited—except Diana, of course. Diana was purity inviolate. Daniel, I examined every night, touching, probing, watching his reactions, his responses. The music changed automatically, anticipating the necessities of his dreams, keeping his consciousness in a deep trance.

I enjoyed this music nightly as I toyed with his flesh, and his sleeping smiles and soft moans of pleasure were counterpointed melody to my ears. Such symphonies we created together! I learned to play Daniel’s body like a musical instrument, and through his unconsciousness, we grew very close. I knew that he knew me; I had invaded his dreams and he knew me.

Eventually, his trance deepened even as I entered his room. Automatically, his body responded to my presence, which was a delightful turn of events.

And I thought that if he knew me, he loved me.

Night after night I resisted the temptation to waken him; I longed to sit and talk with him, to just be together, in the darkest of night, our secret society of two, just discovering each other and being together.

I should never have succumbed, but the loneliness became too great, this lifestyle of utter isolation. Ultimate control over my victims left me without companionship of any kind. A new feeling was growing in me, a different kind of hunger, a starvation for someone who was like me, or could be like me. I wanted someone I could share with, for even though I was a creature of the night—one whose will had turned toward the dark—I still felt, aspired, wanted.

There were others of the night. I had seen them—moving shadows. Whether there were others like me, I have no idea, for I shunned them all. I wanted nothing of what they had. I wanted only the warmth, and the living ones, the ones with the succulent flesh, were the only ones who could give me the warmth. I doubt companionship with any of the myriad night compulsives would have sated my appetite for conversation.

I knew that the time would come when I would meet someone I could teach, someone who saw in me something of his own aspirations, and I looked at this boy child and wanted it to be him; I wanted so badly to roam the streets with him, to teach him all I had learned, sharing my life. One night, the temptation, the desire for companionship, overturned all my sensibilities, and I wakened him.

I did it slowly. My control was absolute. I could, with a run of a scale, put him back to sleep; I wanted him to become accustomed, perhaps gradually, over several nights, to my being there, with him, in the flesh.

I felt his consciousness rise; my heart pounded in excitement. I was to awaken my lover, I was to actually be with him, converse with him, truly, in real life as I had so often in my fantasies.

I sat next to him, my legs dangling off the edge of his top bunk, and I trailed a finger through the familiar light hairs that grew in a line downward from his navel while I brought his consciousness up, slowly, level by level.

He would be so surprised to see me at last; the girl of his dreams, his nocturnal partner, the one who had spent such erotic moments with him. He would be so pleased. I could hardly wait. The anticipation jittered my internal organs until I thought I would have a seizure. This was him, this was the one, this was my life partner. Surely this child would choose me.

His eyelids fluttered, and then opened, unfocused. They closed again, as I swirled the music at a semi-conscious state. The bedroom was dark; the moon was new, there was little for him to see in the dimness.

He opened his eyes again, and saw me. I relaxed my vigil, waiting for the first sleepy smile, the recognition of a loved one, but his reaction held none of the intimacy I expected. His mouth opened in horror as he saw me; he filled his lungs, ready for a shout; his brown eyes grew huge in terrified madness. In my surprise, I hesitated for a moment, not knowing what to do; my first impulse was to smother the brat with his own pillow, but his bouncing would throw me right off onto the floor.

The music. I brought it up, loud, powerful, and he lost consciousness immediately.

Sweat poured from me and my limbs shook. He would remember this; I could not erase my simple-minded act. What a fool I was.

There were no others like me.

I stayed there, next to him, until I felt the tug of dawn. I stroked his back and played deep, dark tones of restful sleep for him, hoping he would awaken sleep-drugged and mistake my blunder for a simple night terror.

Or I could kill him.

No. This house must be kept sacred, no one must search the cellar for clues in this house.

The dawn drew near and I patted my Daniel on the cheek, then jumped lightly from the bed. I pulled my dark green cloak around me and slunk, feeling lonelier than ever, to the cellar, to crawl into my dirty, makeshift box beneath the stairs and lie, quietly, waiting for the next evening.

When I next awoke, a crucifix hung from the stairs directly over my box.

I had felt the change coming over Wilton. Interesting, a town under siege. First I smelled the paranoia that lay like thick fog over the streets and around the homes. No one walked the streets after nightfall; no children played in the pleasant spring evenings; doors were locked and curtains drawn. The whole town retreated into a private sort of mourning.

Then the police came out, and the vigilantes. I walked the streets without fear of them at first, for they noted my silhouette and deemed me ineffectual. But as my nightly raids continued, as the pitiable victims continued to open their locked doors to their doom, the men began to gather their fear into groups, and some ancient memory in me awakened and began to fear them. I would see them, standing in groups or roaming the streets, silently, unobtrusively armed. Their black silhouettes backlighted by streetlight or starlight reminded me of villagers in torchlight. Through a growing sense of eternity, mixing past with present with future, my eyes saw frantic fathers, brothers, and grand­fathers, grief-stricken and worried, but my mind’s eyes saw witch hunters, lynch mobs, and angry, outraged gatherings turning monstrous themselves.

I danced around them, darting behind trees, bushes, around the corners of houses. I danced around their impotency, knowing that my time in Wilton was shortening, yet drawing it out past all limits of good sense. I should have left Wilton a month ago, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t bear to leave my Diana, my Daniel. My home, my soil. I would be more careful.

And then I awakened Daniel, like a fool, and the next evening I found a crucifix dangling over where I slept.

It had been Daniel’s work, I knew it in an instant. He loved me too much to give me away to the mobs who would rip me apart; he knew too much lore. No, it was clear he hoped to immobilize me with his puny effort, so as to talk to me, to control me—his very own succubus that lived in his cellar. His secret. The one secret among many that my Daniel and I shared.

I unhooked the crucifix and examined it while listening to the sounds overhead. It had, no doubt, belonged to his mother. I considered waiting for him, but then I knew that he would never come down while his family was awake; he would wait until they were all asleep. We would rendezvous in the darkest of the night. I had time to leave and return.

I slipped out the door and felt the light misty rain falling around me. The land had turned green in the past few weeks, and the fresh smell of damp earth and the rotting spoils of winter decomposing floated lazily on the air between the raindrops. The town’s paranoia swirled about my feet like a hungry cat, and I smiled to myself, knowing that adrenaline adds spice.

There was a new scent on the air this night, though, and it was fear. One single, sharp, acrid note of fear wafted clearly though the obstacle course of the mist. Someone was outside and afraid. Someone close.

I swung my cloak over my shoulder to keep the rain out and started off.

“At last Angelina and I were in the same town at the same time. She was in Wilton, all right. Murdering children. Murdering defenseless children. God!

“I knew she was in Wilton, but I didn’t know where. We worked with a silent desperation, the mayor and I. I tried to stay in the background until I’d assessed all the information—I couldn’t stand having her slip away again.

“The town was a panic-stricken mess, but at last I felt that my net was closing in on her. I tried to take things methodically, the way one does on a hunt. They were impatient. I had no authority, though, so while I collated information, they set a trap for her.”