What would it take to crack her sh.e.l.l? Or would it be more like peeling an onion?

"I grew up in Nevada," she said. "Wonder why Mrs. Bronson shoved us together? Maybe we shouldn't disappoint her." She punctuated the sentence with a sly smile, inviting him to conspire with her against their hostess.

Enough-why am I pretending I have some Svengali power over women? She's living proof that I don't. Good G.o.d, Darvell, at least try to maintain a nodding acquaintance with reality!He retracted what he thought of as psychic tendrils and responded to Sylvia's flirtatious gambit: "Ah, but are you Catholic? If not, it would never work."

For the first time she looked disconcerted. "I don't go to church." Her eyes slid away from his.

Roger smoothed the awkward moment with the remark, "Unfortunately, we're not likely to meet again anyway. I expect to be moving out of state within a month or so." He broke off the conversation and resumed his original course. As he shouldered his way to the front hall, he felt Sylvia's eyes upon him.His pulse quickened at the thought of Meg unknowingly waiting for him. Her cold virus wasn't serious enough to incon-venience Roger. He never succ.u.mbed to minor infectious diseases. Moreover, her condition would disguise any aftereffects she might suffer from the "donation."

But she wouldn't suffer; he would see to that. He would exercise caution, rein his appet.i.te-and reward her with deep, peaceful sleep afterward. Better than any over-the-counter drug.

Oh, why don't you stop rationalizing? What you're doing is bad enough, without lying to yourself in the bargain!

He reached the deserted upstairs hall un.o.bserved. Striding silently along the carpeted floor to the dark, unoccupied guest bath, he ducked inside and stood, listening. His hyperacute hearing confirmed that he was alone on this floor, except for the sleeping girl.

Emerging into the corridor again, he followed the rise and fall of her breath to her closed bedroom door. After one last look around, he opened the door, stepped through it, and soundlessly closed it behind him.

He leaned back against the wood panel, struggling to slow his own respiration. The girl in the bed didn't stir. The satin sheet, tangled around her legs, left her upper body bare except for a b.u.t.tercup-yellow cotton gown, damp with sweat. Her platinum hair spilled over the pillow. Except for an automatic precautionary glance at the window, he didn't bother noticing any other details.

Being able to see the unconscious object of his quest was enough.

Where did he get his keen night vision? For that matter, where did the rest of his anomalous abilities come from? For all he knew, they might be delusions. He might be as disconnected from reality as the narrator of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart," who imagined he could hear his victim's pulse reverberating through-out the house.

As Roger could hear Meg's pulse now.

Reality or delusion, he was past caring. The sound set his own heart racing, and his throat went dry. Swallowing the excess saliva that flooded his mouth did nothing to alleviate the distress. He moved to the bedside and sat down.

He laid a hand on Meg's warm forehead. Immediately she sank from normal sleep into a trance from which she wouldn't wake until he released her. He planned to rouse her just enough to evoke a dreamlike erotic response, the emotional nourishment he needed for full satisfaction. Afterward he would lull her back into the dreaming phase, with no memory of his visit.

As he bent over the girl, the door opened.

He sprang to his feet. Sylvia LaMotte darted in and shut the door.

They glared at each other. In his alarm Roger thought he glimpsed a red spark in Sylvia's eyes but dismissed it as an optical illusion.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered. His heart raced, making him lightheaded. He fought off the threatened panic.Got to take the offensive-I can't let her guess what I'm up to.

"What do you think? I a.s.sumed you wouldn't mind sharing."

"What in the name of-"

She said with a puzzled frown, "Maybe I read you wrong, downstairs. Whatare you in here for?"

Pa.s.sing over Sylvia's incomprehensible babbling, he said in a more normal tone, though still keeping his voice low, "I have a right to be. I'm not only a relative, I'm a doctor. Why shouldn't I check on my cousin?"

"Didn't I hear somebody say you're a psychiatrist? And what would Mrs. Bronson think of Cousin Roger 'checking' on her daughter in the dark?"

Roger's head throbbed with tension, but he fought to keep his voice steady long enough to placate and dispose of the intruder. "I wouldn't want to disturb Meg unnecessarily. But that's none of your business. What's your excuse? Are you a debutante kleptomaniac, perhaps? Or just a garden-variety snoop? Don't try to claim you were looking for the powder room." His throat felt clogged with fear.She's not buying it; I can't control her.

Her mind was no longer unreadable; its surface roiled with anger. Yet she suppressed her rage and spoke quietly. "Deal, Roger- let's both go downstairs and forget this happened. I won't tell if you won't. I don't mind keeping your guilty secret."

"I don't make deals in circ.u.mstances like this. Shall I call Mrs. Bronson and tell her I caught you rummaging in Meg's jewelry?

Which of us do you think she'll believe?" An imperfect solution at best, for anything that drew attention to his presence in this room risked exposing him.

"d.a.m.n you, Dr. Darvell-" She scurried across the room to him, her natural grace hampered by her narrow skirt. "I don't know what you want, but I don't see why I should leave you alone with her when it's obvious you're lying."

"You're in no position to speak-you certainly aren't inno-cent." Why was she gazing down at Meg instead of looking at him?

Sparing a glance for the girl in the bed, Roger noted that the trance he'd imposed on her still held firm.

Suddenly his attention was diverted by masculine footsteps in the hall. "Now look what you've done," Sylvia whispered.

"What I-!"

A tap sounded at the door. "Meg? You need anything?" Mr. Bronson. Sylvia clutched Roger's sleeve in unthinking appeal. The man's voice continued, "I thought I heard something in there. Not keeping yourself up with the radio, are you, Honey?"

Roger heard a hand close on the doork.n.o.b. "Closet," he mouthed. He ducked into the walk-in closet, not caring whether Sylvia followed. She was right beside him, though, and they had the door shut before Meg's father entered the bedroom. They listened to his puzzled muttering as he checked the sleeping girl. After he'd walked down the hall and descended the stairs, Roger said, "It's not safe to stay here now. I'm leaving, and you are coming with me." Frustration displaced his fear. Sylvia's oddities no longer mattered. She was available, and she would d.a.m.n well compensate him for what she'd interrupted.

"If I don't want to?" she whispered as they crossed to the bedroom door.

"I can still inform on you to the Bronsons. They know me a lot better."

He felt Sylvia's smoldering anger, but she docilely followed him out of the house. She balked only when he led the way down the circular drive to his black Citroen. "I'd rather take my own car."

His hand clamped onto her arm. "You can pick it up tomorrow. I'm not letting you escape until we have this out." He sensed her debating whether to fight him and rejecting the idea. Though she was tall for a woman, he was taller and outweighed her. He shoved her into the pa.s.senger seat, then got in on the driver's side and leaned across her to fasten her belt and lock the door. She watched him speculatively as she accepted these indignities. He sensed her anger yielding to curiosity.

He roared out of the driveway in a shower of gravel. Beside him, Sylvia wedged herself against the far door, subdued by his display of temper. After skirting the perimeter of the M.I.T. campus, he headed north out of Cambridge. Thankful for the late-night dearth of traffic, he didn't slack off the accelerator until they came to a scenic turnoff on Route 1A several miles out of town. The car swerved off the road and squealed to a stop.

Sylvia gave Roger a wary look. "Are we getting out?" She scanned the marshland beyond the low wall of unworked stone, as if evaluating its suitability as a refuge. Roger gripped her shoulders and jerked her around to face him. "What is this, rape?"

"Not exactly." His inflamed thirst left him with no patience for hypnotic seduction. He'd rely on physical force and wipe her memory later. He came down upon her.

Her resistance astonished him. Rather than overcoming her easily, he had to use all his strength to keep her immobilized. She kicked and squirmed in his grasp, twisting her neck away from his mouth, her own teeth bared as she tried vainly to retaliate. But she had no chance against him. Pinning her legs with one knee, he bit into her throat with a roughness unusual for him.

When her blood began to flow, she relaxed, not cooperative, but resigned. The taste was cool and tart, not the hot richness he expected. Despite Sylvia's residual excitement, satisfaction eluded him. He felt no outpouring of vitality from her, only an emptiness like his own. Baffled, he finally drew back, still unappeased.

She gazed at him, heavy-lidded, and pressed her palm to the oozing gash on the side of her neck. "What's the matter with you?

Don't you know we can't get nourishment from each other?'

His rage dissipated by the struggle, Roger offered her his folded handkerchief, resisting the impulse to apologize for the red flecks staining her gown. "What do you mean, 'we'?"

Sylvia wearily dabbed at her wound. "You mean you don't know? That's impossible." Her eyes probed his.

He sat up straight on his side of the car. "What are you raving about?"

"Come off it! With that strength, and your psychic power-you have it, I felt you trying to manipulate me-and those teeth? You're my kind. I wasn't sure until just now, because you feel somehow human, too, but you are."

He stared through the windshield, his fingers cramping on the wheel. He felt overheated in his suit jacket, stifled by the knot of his tie; he envied Sylvia's lightweight clothes. "Human? What else could I be? What do you mean, your kind?"

Again she projected bewilderment. "Maybe I did read you wrong. You don't feel right-but you don't feel human, either."

The woman is schizophrenic, and I'm listening to her."Are you saying that you're not human?"

She forced a humorless smile. "You don't believe me."

"Do you expect me to?"

What about the things she mentioned, though? Especially the quasi-telepathy?

Well, what about it? Some educated and otherwise rational people did believe in auras and paranormal perception. Stipulate that the power was more than delusion, that he did possess an empathic pa.s.skey to other people's emotions. If he met a woman who shared not only that power but the same perversion he suffered from, it made sense that they would be drawn to each other.

Perhaps the power to read emotions predisposed to an obsession with blood. That didn't mean he had to accept Sylvia's proposedfolie a deux .

"Can't you decide about having me committed later?" she said. Her shoulders twitched, and he glimpsed the tautness of her nipples through the ripplingcrepe de chine of her dress. She hugged her arms to her chest. "You've got both of us needing it in the worst way."

His own nerves vibrated in sync with the thirst she projected. Regardless of her mental balance or lack thereof, she certainly shared his obsession. "What do you suggest?"

"Drive," she said through clenched teeth.

He pulled onto the highway and floored the accelerator. After a few minutes she said, "Better slow down, or you won't be able to stop in time."

He noticed her eyes darting from window to window in a restless circuit of the visual field. "What are you looking for?"

"Hitchhikers."

"At this hour?"

"You'd be surprised." She didn't pause in her scan of the roadside. Over twenty minutes pa.s.sed before she pointed to a figure standing on the shoulder. "There. Pick her up." Roger slowed to a stop next to a teenage girl in a denim jacket, holding a crayoned sign that read "Cape Cod." "She's a bit young, isn't she? And what's the matter with her? Doesn't she know she's begging for a.s.sault or murder?" he said to Sylvia.

"Yes, isn't it lucky for us that people are such idiots?" she replied. Opening the door, she leaned out and beckoned to the hitchhiker.

When Sylvia slid to the middle of the seat, the girl hefted an oversized backpack and climbed in. "Gee, thanks, I never thought anybody would stop this late."

Sylvia patted the girl's hand. "Aren't you worried about what could happen to you on the road at night?"

"Well, sooner or later we're all going to die of living, aren't we? Anyway, I'm careful. Like, I knew it was safe to get in this time, because you're here. What could happen with another woman in the car, not much older than me?"

"Right, we women have to stick together," Sylvia said with her ice-water laugh. "But I'm older than I look. See, it's all in the way you use makeup." The pa.s.senger automatically turned to look at Sylvia's face. Sylvia's long, sharp-nailed fingers curled around the girl's chin. Within seconds of feeling that touch and meeting Sylvia's eyes, the victim lapsed into trance. Sylvia's free hand unsnapped the jacket, while she murmured, "You don't need this, it's much too hot. You must be tired after standing for so long- just close your eyes and relax-that's it." Her hand wandered over the front of the girl's blouse, while her mouth grazed the parted lips.

After a minute or two Sylvia said in a strangled tone, "She's ready. Pull over."

Not waiting for a legal stopping zone, Roger complied. He stared straight ahead as Sylvia completed the seduction she'd begun. He might as well have watched, since the lapping sounds of Sylvia's tongue and the soft moans from the victim tied his stomach in knots. On top of the bloodl.u.s.t, his head reeled with the illusion that he'd stepped into a falling elevator that would never hit bottom.She's actually drinking blood. And she does it exactly the same way I do. What in G.o.d's name is she?

When Sylvia turned to face him, licking her lips with catlike daintiness, the girl was slumped with her head lolling against the leather- covered seat back, her eyes closed. Sylvia climbed over the girl's lap and pushed her toward Roger. Embracing the limp body, he found that it still quivered with semiconscious response at the light touch of his lips. He drank. His flesh quivered with echoes of the victim's arousal.

A few miles further on, they woke their pa.s.senger and let her out. Though groggy, she had nothing to show for her unwitting donation except a neat, painless quarter-inch cut that, given Sylvia's mind-clouding influence, she probably wouldn't even notice before it healed.

Watching the girl's shambling gait, Sylvia remarked, "You really were hungry, weren't you?"

Roger switched on the ignition and eased the car onto the highway again. He felt as if a hurricane howled around him, with gusts of hundred-mile-per-hour winds that threatened to knock him flat. It was all he could do to reply in a steady voice. "Hungry? You make it sound like a legitimate biological need."

"It is," Sylvia said with a contented stretch of her slender arms. "We'd better start back to Boston. I don't know about you, but I need to get some rest."

"Don't tell me-you sleep during the day." He took the next turnoff and circled around to return the way they'd come.

"Whenever possible. Don't you? How else are vampires supposed to live?"

She isn't just play-acting. She believes this nonsense!

"I do dislike sunlight, and I do find it almost impossible to sleep after dark," he admitted. "But that word-Sylvia, it's sheer tripe.

Superst.i.tion. I wouldn't insist you're laboring under a delusion, not on such short acquaintance. But you have to admit that vampires donot fit into our culture's consensus reality." "So much the worse for consensus reality. There are plenty of things it doesn't know. Consensus reality used to believe the sun revolved around the earth." She bared her teeth in a feral grin.

"You don't look like a walking corpse, and I certainly am not."

"I didn't say either of us was. But can you think of a better word for a night-prowling creature that lives on blood?"

THE WOMAN WAS psychotic, no doubt about it, Roger told himself when he awoke the following afternoon. If she'd been referred to him for treatment, he would have diagnosed her with an encapsulated delusional disorder, mildly paranoid. He imagined labeling her with a code from theDSM III, the therapist's "bible" of diagnoses: Psychotic disorder, NOS II, R/O Borderline Personality Disorder. Peculiar, how a person who embraced such an elaborate and systematic delusion could function so well in daily life.

To his own dismay, on some level he longed to believe her. Perhaps that was why he had no intention of losing touch. Dropping her at her apartment, a high-rise in downtown Boston not far from his own, he'd made an appointment to meet her there tonight.

Since this was Sat.u.r.day, Roger detoured to his church, a Gothic structure in the North End, on the way to Sylvia's place. He saw no reason to break his lifelong habit of frequent con-fession, no matter what this new generation of priests advocated.

Now, kneeling in the third pew, with the stained gla.s.s windows muting the glare of the setting sun, he was bludgeoned anew by the fact of his cowardice. His bloodl.u.s.t was either a sin to be repented and abandoned or a disease to be cured. Seeing it mirrored in Sylvia brought that truth home to him. Yet he knew he would never turn himself in. As usual, he mentally rehea.r.s.ed the confession he planned to make, translating his predation into coded terms intelligible only to himself and the Almighty: "I s.e.xually abused one of my patients." "I picked up a young girl on the highway and used her to satisfy my l.u.s.t." "I tried to molest a friend's daughter."

Whether the absolution he received for these incomplete admissions was theologically valid, he couldn't be sure.

Attempting to soothe himself with the familiar smells of varnished wood, dusty carpet, and leatherbound missals, he waited until the other penitents had left before taking his turn in the old-style confessional. This relic was one reason he'd chosen this parish. As often as he deceived people to feed his bloodl.u.s.t, he drew the line at looking a priest straight in the eye and lying by omission under the seal of a sacrament. A barrier between them made the lie marginally easier. He knelt, crossed himself, and began in a rapid, uninflected voice, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was two weeks ago...."

Chapter 3

TWILIGHT WAS closing in when Roger arrived at Sylvia's apartment. She met him in the lobby and introduced him to the doorman, whom she favored with a sultry smile before walking Roger around to the parking garage where he'd left the Citroen. "I want to drive this time," she said. "Let's swing through Cambridge for my car, and I'll drive you back to pick up yours before we go home."

"What are your plans for the night?" he asked as he held the car door for her.