Chapter 19
For the rest of the night I sat in the darkness, shivering in my wet robe. When I felt the rising of the sun, I threw off the garment and stood naked by the window, my hand on the curtains. How I longed at that moment to open them, to see for the first time in over a hundred years the colors of dawn. I remembered the other times I had been caught by the sun’s rays, the agony of burned flesh, the weeks of painful recovery. This time there would be no recovery, if I exposed myself I would not retreat, but allow the sun to burn away all traces of my life.
My hands trembled as they reached for the cords, then jerked away. They moved forward again. “Coward,” I whispered. For I was afraid; not of my contemplated death, nor even the pain. That was the easy way out; that was the cowardice. No, I was frightened of where my life would lead.
With a conscious effort I turned away from the window. I would see this through, I decided, and even though I could very well be dead at the end of this day, it would not be by my own hand. Mitch would return, I was certain, for answers or justice. Or both. And I knew that if his justice meant that I must die, I would let him kill me.
Oddly enough, my mind was eased by this decision. I went to the bedroom and dressed in jeans and a shirt, nothing fancy or sexy to distract him from his purpose. I cleaned the blood from the bathroom floor; combed my hair and brushed my teeth, but applied no makeup. No need anymore to pretend to be human; no need to disguise myself. He would see me as I really was.
Halfheartedly, I began to straighten up the room. I started to make the bed, and when I picked up the pillow on which he had slept, I held it to my face. The case smelled of him and I closed my eyes for a moment and remembered the love we had shared. Then I set the pillow back down and covered it up.
When the phone rang, I was removing the liquor from the refrigerator. The sound shocked me and one of the bottles slipped from my hands and shattered on the floor. As I went to the phone, there was a pounding on the door. “So soon, Mitch?” I said softly, then picked up the phone.
“Hold on a minute, please,” I said before the caller had a chance to say anything, walked across the room and unlocked the door. He was there, as I knew he would be, and I motioned him in.
“Hello, Mitch, I was expecting you.”
“I’ll bet you were.”
“Look, I’ve got a phone call, I’ll be with you in a minute. Sit down.” From the tone of my voice, he could tell nothing of my excitement or my fear. It was as if he was paying a social call and my attitude caught him off guard. He went to the couch and sat down while I returned to the phone.
“Yes?”
“Miss Griffin?” It was the daytime doorman. “There’s someone on his way up to see you. I know you don’t usually have visitors, but Frank said that lately you’ve been seeing this guy and, well, I hope it’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” I said calmly and I could hear his relieved sigh. “I was expecting him. Oh, and could you please send up some coffee and danish?”
“Right away.”
I hung up the phone and turned to Mitch. “I’ve ordered us some breakfast. Have you eaten yet?”
“No.” He gave me a strange look. “Have you?”
I shook my head. “Just coffee for me, of course. The danish is for you.”
“Thank you.”
“I have a mess behind the bar to clean up. Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead. We can talk when the coffee gets here. I didn’t sleep real well last night and I could use the caffeine.” He ran his fingers through his hair in the gesture I had learned he used when tired or confused. I smiled at him for a moment then ducked behind the bar.
“I hope you won’t want a drink anytime, Mitch. It was the scotch that fell.” I sopped up the liquor with a few paper towels and pushed the broken glass aside. When I stood up again, he was staring in my direction.
“So, how did you sleep?”
I laughed. “I don’t sleep much at night, Mitch. I thought you had figured that out by now.” There was a discreet knock at the door. “Coffee’s here,” I said and went to collect it. Setting the tray on the bar, I looked over at him. “Cream and sugar, right?” At his nod, I prepared a cup for him, poured one for me and settled down in a chair facing him. He took a sip of his coffee, and I jumped up. “Did you want a roll?” I asked and moved toward the bar to get him one.
“Damn it, Deirdre, this is not a social call and you know it. Quit playing the hostess and sit down. We need to talk.”
“Sorry.” I sat back down, cross-legged, and took a drink of my coffee. “Now I guess you can read me my rights and get on with it.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“For the first three murders, I would guess. Even though I had nothing to do with them, I must be a prime suspect now that you know.”
“I know nothing, except that you need help.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Help? Why would I need help? Any help I received now would only be about a hundred years too late.”
“Deirdre,” his voice was soft, reasonable, “I know that you think you’re a vampire. But there are doctors who specialize in this sort of sickness. You could take treatment and be cured of this obsession after a while.”
“Obsession? Sickness?” I laughed. Even to me it sounded hollow and hysterical. “You know that I only think myself a vampire? Oh, Mitch, that’s priceless! After last night, after everything you’ve discovered about me, you still won’t believe.”
“How could I believe it? I’ve spent time with you, made love to you. Damn it, even after last night, I’m still in love with you. But you’re human, you’re real; I can touch you, see your reflection in a mirror. Just because you’re disturbed, and believe in legends and folklore, doesn’t mean that I have to.”
Suddenly I was angry at his lack of belief. “Ever the skeptic, aren’t you, Detective? What if I could offer you proof?”
“And what sort of proof would that be? Can you change into a bat or a wolf? Dissolve into a mist? Crawl down a wall?”
“No, but I can give you proof even you cannot doubt.” I got up from my seat and knelt in front of him. Taking his face in my hands, I looked into his eyes and kissed him slowly and passionately.
He did not pull away from me, instead he held me for a moment. “What was that for?” he asked, almost smiling.
“Because you won’t want anything to do with me in a few minutes. And because I love you.” I gave his cheek a final caress and stood up. “Now stay there and pay attention.”
He folded his arms with a smug expression and watched me. I looked around the room and saw the broken glass by the bar. I picked a piece of it up; it was long and jagged and glinted in the light. He looked alarmed and reached for his gun.
“Don’t move,” I commanded and he dropped his hand. “Proof number one,” I said harshly. “Regenerative powers.” I quickly slit both of my wrists with the glass.
“Deirdre, no!” Mitch gasped as he saw the bright blood flowing down my hands.
“No doubt, you have seen more than a few suicide cases.” He was still riveted to the couch by my command but he nodded and I held my arms out to him. “These would be fatal wounds, wouldn’t they, if I didn’t get prompt attention?”
He looked away from me. “Let me call an ambulance, please. You didn’t have to do this. Let me help you.”
“Look at me,” I ordered and he did. “I do not need help with this.” I rubbed my wrists on the side of my jeans and held them out for his inspection again. The blood had congealed and the cuts, although obviously recent, were already healing. “Touch them,” I said gently and moved toward him. He ran a trembling finger over the wounds. “By tomorrow,” I said matter-of-factly, “there will only be small scars. Within a few days, there will be no sign that this ever happened.” I turned my back on him and went to the window. “You see,” I said bitterly, “I have tried this little trick before.”
When I looked at him again, his face was ashen, the expression in his eyes, bleak. “Deirdre, I’m so sorry, I had no idea . . .”
I smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay, Mitch, it really is. Now, if you’ll let me continue.”
“No more, please,” he interrupted. “I believe you.”
“No, Mitch, I don’t want you to have any doubts at all. We’ll do this my way.” I stood back and opened the heavy draperies about an inch. “Test number two,” I said, taking a deep breath, “sunlight.” I thrust my hand into the ray streaming into the room. It began to smoke immediately, but before the smell of burning flesh became overwhelming, I withdrew my arm and shut the drapes again. “Damn,” I said, walking to him. “That really hurts.”
He reached up to me and gently took my hand. “Will this heal, too?” he asked in awe as he surveyed the damage. The skin was blackened and withered in the small area that had been exposed.
“Yes, in a day or two.” I pulled away from him and sat back in my chair. “Now just let me rest up a bit and we’ll go for number three.”
“Is that really necessary?” His voice now reflected fear and although I could not determine if he was afraid of me or for me, I could see the belief in his eyes.
I responded with a weak smile. “I had hoped it would not be. The next one is the worst of all.”
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Mitch spoke again. “Deirdre, I hate to ask, but I have to know. What’s test number three?”
“Oh, that,” I said disparagingly. “It’s the test of immortality.”
“How can you prove that?”
“Quite simply, I take your revolver and shoot myself through the heart.” I shuddered slightly and went on. “It hurts like hell, but only for a little. As long as the bullet goes clear through there are no serious complications.”
He stared at me in horror, then dropped his face into his hands. The minutes ticked by, seeming like hours. I made an attempt to clear our cups, but found that my hands were shaking, so I sat back down again and studied his body for some sign of what would happen next. Eventually, he raised his head. “Oh, God,” he said quietly, then wiped his eyes and looked into my face. His expression was strangely composed, his voice calm and confident, as if knowing the worst about me had strengthened him in some way. “Thank you. This explains so many things for me. And it must’ve been hard for you to tell me all this.”
I nodded. “At least now you don’t think I’m crazy. Of course, I am crazy,” I gave him a little smile, “for telling you this. I could have let you believe what you wanted to believe. But I thought that you would try to drag me off to see a doctor this morning and that would not only have killed me, it would have been a shock to your comfortable theory. So now instead of killing me accidentally, you can be fully aware of your actions.”
“Kill you? Why would I want to do that?”
I laughed again. “I can think of several reasons, offhand. I am an inhuman monster who should be exterminated. I am a damned soul who should be released. I am a drainer of blood, a leech on mankind. And then you have your three murders.”
“No,” he said with a sidelong glance at me. “I have four murders.”
“Four? But surely Gwen doesn’t count in that number? Larry should account for her death.”
“No, I wasn’t counting her.” He gave me a curious look, partly surprise, partly relief. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Last night there was another murder. Like the first three. And the time of death has been pinpointed during the time that you and I were, ah, otherwise engaged. So, even if I suspected you, which I did not, you would be free on this.”
“Why don’t you suspect me? I could have left quietly and come back, you never would have known.”
“No.” He looked at me sharply. “I would have known. Besides, you may be a, well, what you are, but you are not a killer. You have lied to me about many things, and now I know why you did. You are secretive and crafty, but I know you, maybe better than you think. You could not kill anyone, not like this. Oh, you might be capable of murder, in passion or anger, most people are, but not in cold blood and not repeatedly.”
“Thank you. What will you do now?”
“Damned if I know. This is all a little hard to take. And to believe. Oh, I do believe you,” he said quickly. “You don’t have to give me any more proof. But all along, I’ve been believing that the person we wanted was deranged. Now I’ve learned that he may be a true vampire,” he winced as he said the word, “how on earth am I going to catch him or make anyone else believe what we are looking for?” He glanced at me in an appeal for help.
“I do not know, Mitch. If the question had arisen one month ago, I would have denied the existence of others of my kind. In all my years, I have only had proof of one other, the one who made me what I am. However, I’ll be more than happy to help you any way I can.”
“Why would you help? Isn’t that against your code or laws or something?”
“I have no code or laws for dealing with others. I’ve never met anyone like me. But I want this one.”
“Why?”
“Because, if he is the one who changed me, I want him dead. If not, I would like to ask him some questions. You see, I was changed into what I am by accident, I believe. I had no one to guide me, no one to teach me what I needed to know to survive. Somehow, I blundered through and lived.”
“How long?” He looked at me sadly for a minute. “How old are you?”
“I was born in 1832, changed in 1860. I’ve stayed the same since.”
He laughed. “You’re over a hundred years old? I can believe a lot of things, but not that.”
“Truly, Mitch.” I walked into the bedroom, and retrieved Larry’s scrapbook from the closet where it had been hidden. I came back and handed the book to Mitch. “My life story, or almost, as compiled by Larry Martin.”
His hands shook as he took it from me. I poured myself another cup of coffee and watched him read. There were no sounds in the room but the rustle of slowly turned pages.
When he had finished, he looked over at me with regret in his eyes. “You haven’t had it easy, have you? All that moving about, for fear of discovery. All the things you’ve seen, war, poverty, the deaths of people you’ve known.”
“Living forever is not exactly what it is cracked up to be. But short of taking a long walk in the sunlight, there’s not much I can do about it.”
He rifled through the pages again, pausing with the book open to the photograph on page one. “Where did you get this?”
“The night that Gwen died, I left your place and broke into Larry’s apartment.”
“But it was under surveillance. No one saw you go in.”
“Of course they didn’t. I climbed up the back wall and went in a window.” I smiled at his expression.
“But there’s no way in, in the back. The fire escapes are on the sides of that building.”
“I know. I climbed the back wall.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you could do that.”
I laughed. “Actually, it was the very first time I had ever tried. It was amazingly simple. Larry wasn’t there, but you know that. I found the book, borrowed some of his private stock, and left.”
He nodded, putting the missing pieces in place. “We found the other blood and your note. But we didn’t know who it was from. We couldn’t figure that one out, or how the lock on his door got broken. I guess you did that, too.”
I nodded.
“But there were no prints.”
“I have been dating a detective, remember? I wore gloves.”
“Oh, of course, you’d been printed that night.” He stared at me for a second. “And you knew he had killed Gwen, but still you went to meet him. Obviously, he knew what you were and he came prepared to kill you. I still don’t understand why you didn’t let me help you.”
“Be reasonable, Mitch. I didn’t want you to find out about me; he would have told you then and there and been happy to do it. And I really thought I could handle him. But he surprised me; he was much stronger than I would have thought.”
“And the marks on his neck?”
“The bite marks are mine.” I said it softly, but he shuddered anyway. “Larry wanted me to transform him. I finally managed to convince him to let me close enough to him so that I could take his blood.” Mitch’s face paled and I continued quickly. “You see, when I take blood, I’m able to plant suggestions. I hoped to take enough to weaken him, and then wipe away any remembrance of me and what I am. After that was accomplished I planned to let him go; you would have caught him eventually and my secrets would have been safe.”
“What went wrong?”
“Everything went wrong that night.” My voice lowered. “I discovered that I was not as invincible as I thought. It was a sobering experience.”
He sat and thought for a while. Then he got up and poured himself another cup of coffee and took a danish. “Want one?” he said, holding out the plate.
“Not really, Mitch. You forget that I don’t need to take food. In most cases, I can’t even swallow it.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s easy to forget.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I just can’t think of you as what you are; I guess I should be frightened or horrified. And I am, a bit. But mostly, I feel sorry for you. Does that make any sense at all?”
“Perfect sense, to me. I’m still the same person I was yesterday and you and I are bonded together, to some degree.”
A sudden flare of anger entered his eyes. “You mean you can control me, control my feelings?”
“No, Mitch.” I walked over and took his hand in mine. “I don’t control you, nor would I want to. I’m not sure that I could; you’re very strong in your own right. And I haven’t taken your blood.”
His free hand went to his neck in a protective, involuntary gesture. He dropped it with an embarrassed look when he realized what he had done. Averting his eyes, as if in the presence of some perversion, he asked softly, “Why didn’t you take any blood? Don’t you have to?”
“Not always.” I smiled reassuringly at him. “And I wouldn’t take yours. But that first time we made love, well, do you remember the bruise on my shoulder?”
“Yeah,” the realization of the situation dawned in his eyes, “at first it wasn’t there. I knew it wasn’t. And then it went away much too fast.”
“Exactly, and now you know why. I did that to myself. For so long, the taking of blood has been the only intimacy I’ve had, the only one I thought I needed. I can’t fully explain the feelings I get when I’m feeding; there’s the survival factor, the needs satisfied, but there is also a union with my victims, however unwilling they may be. There is a sexuality apart from sex, a power and a fulfillment . . .” I broke off as he dropped my hand and gave a shudder of distaste. “But you’re different.” A note of pleading entered my voice. “You touch a part of me that has been repressed for over twenty years. I couldn’t sully that experience by taking your blood. So I turned my head, and drew my own.”
“And the other times?”
“I fought the urge. I don’t want to hurt you, Mitch. For what it’s worth, I love you. So you’re in no danger from me in that respect.”
He left my side, went over to the window and peeled back the drapes slightly to look outside. Although I was out of reach of the sunlight, I instinctively jumped back. Lost in his own thoughts, Mitch took no notice and went on, quietly as if to himself. “Shit, I really can pick them, can’t I? The first woman I’ve allowed myself to love for years and she turns out to be a . . .” His voice broke and he turned back to me with an odd pleading look in his eyes.
“You can say it, Mitch. I don’t care much for the word myself, but in this case it is appropriate. And you have used it before.”
“But not about you. And not for real. I don’t want to say it. Jesus, I don’t even want to believe it. Right now I need to get out of here, away from you. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.” He walked to the door.
I found I could not move toward him. “Mitch,” I said in a soft, choked voice.
His name stopped him and he turned to me. Quickly he gathered me in his arms and held me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“So am I, Deirdre.” He kissed me gently and held my face between his hands. “I’ll be back,” he promised and walked out into the hall.
I stood against the door after he left, until I heard the elevator close and start its journey downward. Then, bearing the weight of many years, I locked the door and went into the bedroom.