If she was wavering, this might be the moment to act. He could cross the room in a lunge so swift it would be only a blur in her sight. "If you truly believe I've mistreated you, we could discuss it at greater length. Tomorrow at my office would be far more appropriate."

He started to rise, holding out a hand toward her. "You really don't want to upset your family this way, do you?" When she made no immediate threatening gesture, he stared into her eyes, willing her submission to his mesmeric power. For a moment she was caught, melting beneath the force of his gaze. He tensed to spring.

He had overestimated her vulnerability. "No-I won't let you do that again!" Her finger curled around the trigger.

Absorbed in the attempted hypnosis, he couldn't dodge in time. The bullet seared through his right forearm.

Momentarily stunned by the pain and the deafening crack of the shot, he moved at no more than human speed. A sob tore from her throat. "Don't touch me!" She turned the muzzle toward herself and fired again.

As he sprang toward her, an instant too late, he automatically clamped down his mental barrier. Thus he escaped the direct experience of her agony. He reached her at the instant she squeezed the trigger. He clamped onto her wrist just quickly enough to deflect the barrel from her forehead. Instead the bullet drilled into her skull at an angle. Her blood splattered him. He recoiled, choking down nausea. Somehow he remembered to keep his thoughts blocked so that Britt wouldn't pick up his sensations.

Opening a minute crack in his shield, he sensed a blank where Alice's consciousness had been. Probing the body slumped in the chair, one side of her head streaming blood, he heard the thready sound of her pulse. She wasn't dead yet. Breathing shallowly to minimize the effect of the blood smell, he automatically folded his handkerchief and pressed it to the bullet wound.

Battling dizziness, he rushed to the door, opened it, and shouted, "Paramedic, stat!" He dodged out of the path of two emergency techs who sprinted from the waiting ambulance to the house.

To the police officer in charge, he said, "She shot me, then herself. She may live-too soon to tell." He turned to the Kovaks. "I'm deeply sorry." The words carried little conviction, even to himself. Mrs. Kovak collapsed into the arms of her husband, who glowered at Roger over her head.Roger continued down the sidewalk, shrugging off attempts to support him. Ignoring the clicks and flashes from news cameras, he leaned against the hood of his car. Britt shoved her way through the cl.u.s.ter of uniforms with her medical bag. "You're wounded.

How bad-?"

"Most of the blood is hers. I just got hit in the arm."

"Roll up your sleeve."

As he peeled off his jacket and fumbled with his longsleeved shirt, Peter Kovak stormed up to them. "I'm holding you responsible for this. Both of you." He flicked a glance at Britt, then returned his cold stare to Roger. "Especially you, Darvell. You'll hear from me." With the four splayed fingers of his right hand, he smeared the congealing blood on Roger's shirt-Alice's blood-into an elongated brand. He then marched up to the house, where a uniformed officer blocked the door.

"What do you suppose he has in mind?" Roger said wearily as Britt bandaged his arm. Though she didn't let it show, he sensed her distress at the sight of the entry and exit wounds. Luckily the bullet hadn't lodged in the flesh. A mental nudge from her reminded him to focus on the injury long enough to damp down the pain and start the healing process.

"Probably going to sue us," said Britt with false lightness. "About time we got something for those outrageous malpractice premiums." She snapped her bag shut and said in a lower tone, "Want to come home with me? First I'll have to talk to the Kovaks-you can go ahead and wait for me."

"Thank you, yes," he said, grateful for her offering without waiting for him to ask. He was touched by her consideration for his pride, little though he had left where she was concerned.

He watched Alice being carried to the ambulance, whose red light threw a lurid glow over the scene. Roger recalled a poem he'd once read, which compared that pulsing glow to the spurting of a severed artery.

One of the paramedics intercepted him as he was about to get into his car. "Doctor, you should have that bullet wound checked at the emergency room. I saw what it looked like when you took off your jacket."

"That's totally unnecessary," Roger snapped. His control of his overwrought emotions was rapidly slipping; he had to get out of public view as soon as possible.

"A nine-millimeter bullet drilling through muscle tissue is no joke."

"It isn't as bad as it looks." He tried to summon enough power to make a trained professional believe the lie.

"But you may need additional treatment-"

"Look here, young man, my a.s.sociate and I are both M.D.'s, and we've already determined that I don't require hospitalization.

What I need is to be left alone so I can go home and get some rest." To the policeman who'd just come up behind the paramedic, he added, "I trust you can take my statement tomorrow?"

Given a hard psychic shove, both of them backed off. After setting a time to report to the police station the next day, Roger headed for Britt's apartment.

He waited in the car, head down on the steering wheel, until she arrived to unlock the apartment door. Once inside her living room, she started to embrace him, but he held her off. "You don't want to touch me now." He glanced down at his bloodstained trousers.

"These clothes are a total loss. And I need a shower." Though he ached to crush her in his arms, he felt too much self-loathing to inflict himself on her.

"Be my guest," she said, reluctantly moving away from him. "What can I get for you?"

"Something highly alcoholic," he said over his shoulder on the way to the bath attached to her bedroom, already stripping off his torn, blood-soaked shirt.He stood under a scalding hot shower for five minutes, then ran it on full cold for an equal time. Emerging, he found that Britt had removed his clothes and laid out the blue lounging robe she kept for him. Tonight he was doubly glad of the convenience of storing a few clothes at her apartment; he wouldn't have to wear that outfit again.

Only while toweling dry did he recall that he shouldn't have got the bandage wet. He peeled it off, unsurprised to see that it was no longer needed. The pair of punctures looked half healed, though a muscle-deep soreness lingered. In the next few days, of course, he would have to wear a dressing in public to hide the inhumanly fast recovery.

He found Britt, draped in an emerald and gold caftan, waiting in the bedroom with a triple martini. Good choice-neutrally flavored and high proof. He drank it straight down. "May I have another? This is one time when I wish I could get drunk." He switched off the bedside lamp, leaving the room illuminated only by a pair of tapers she had lit on the dresser. Pacing to the window, he stared down at the dark, empty street.

"You can if you work at it," said Britt, standing close without touching him. "But that's not what I'd prescribe. You need something more substantial. No matter how it looks on the outside-" she touched the wound-"I know you can't finish repairing this without blood."

"I'm not hungry."

"Erase and correct, colleague. You are always hungry; that's axiomatic. What you mean is, you're determined to punish yourself for what Alice did. And I'll bet at least half your guilt comes from your own imperfection instead of concern for her-which makes you feel even more guilty."

"Granted." He slammed his clenched fist down on the dresser. "d.a.m.n! Ihateto fail!"

Britt patted his hand. "Easy, there-if you feel the urge to wreck furniture, do it at your house. In your boundless egoism, have you forgotten that Alice is officially my patient now? I own a hefty chunk of the guilt. Want to fight me for it?"

He was too sunk in misery to respond to her bracing tone. "If I'd stayed more alert or moved faster- For that matter, if I hadn't been so b.l.o.o.d.y arrogant, relying on my 'supernatural' powers, I might have exercised a modic.u.m of ordinary judgment." He closed the curtains, walked over to the bed, and sat down.

Britt sat beside him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. "Delusions of omnipotence. We aren't responsible for anyone else's choice. She had free will."

He gave her a bleak stare. "Oh, really?" He bowed his head on his clasped hands. "She shot herself," he said, "to keep me from touching her."

"Oh, Roger!" He heard tears in Britt's voice and struggled not to break down himself. "You shut me out. You didn't let me share it."

"Believe me, you don't want that memory." He felt chilled, though to him the midDecember temperature outside was merely bracing. "Why am I fighting the truth? I'm a monster. The human genes from my father don't change that."

"Quit being melodramatic! This is just another form of self-indulgence." For once her brisk tone didn't shake him out of his depression. He heard her opening a nightstand drawer and looked up, unwillingly curious. She leafed through a Bible and thrust it into his hands. "There. Read." Her forefinger jabbed the page.

"Psalm 104?" He wondered what she was getting at.

"Verses 20 through 22."

He read, "Thou makest darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep forth. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from G.o.d. When the sun rises, they get them away and lie down in their dens." He shut the book and returned it to her. "So?" "See, G.o.d loves nocturnal predators, too."

He smiled faintly at her effort, though it didn't have much effect on his mood. "How does He feel about predators who can't control their b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n appet.i.tes?"

She replaced the Bible in the drawer and put both hands on his shoulders. "Lie down and let me help you relax." He stretched on his back. Her hands stole inside the robe, ma.s.saging his chest, shoulders, and neck. Almost against his will he felt the clots of tension begin to dissolve. "You've had a shock, you've lost blood, and you're in pain," she said. "You need to drink from me."

"Later, perhaps." He still felt no physical hunger, only a fathomless yearning for her warmth.

"I didn't think you came here just to swill martinis and stare at the ceiling."

He reached up to put one arm around her. "I came to exploit and take advantage of you."

"Well, that's what I'm here for." She countered his harsh tone with such aplomb that he almost smiled.

"I don't want to be alone tonight. I want-need-to be held. But I won't be much good to you."

"Let me worry about that."

"The truth is, I feel I shouldn't even be touching you, after what just happened. I don't want to-taint you."

"For Heaven's sake, cut out that tripe." Her fingertips stroked along his jawline, soothing rather than exciting. "If you don't want my blood, let me take from you. At least it will distract you from all this self-pity."

"Yes, of course." That intimacy would make no difference to his physical condition, since the amount she could draw was negligible. Although he could revive the sense of total oneness anytime at will, it remained most vivid when the two of them were actually joined in blood-sharing. The communion refreshed him even when he gave rather than taking.

Britt folded back the robe to bare his chest. With one of her long, sharply tapered fingernails she inflicted a diagonal scratch just below the clavicle. It had taken her a while to learn how to cut deeply enough to draw blood, because she'd feared hurting him. He had eventually convinced her that he found a brief, minor pain like that stimulating rather than discouraging. In this case the frisson along the nerves provided a welcome diversion from the dull throb of the bullet wound.

Blood welled from the incision. She kissed him on the lips, then nibbled slowly down over his neck and chest until she was licking the droplets with mothlike flickers of her tongue. Roger knew most of her pleasure in this act came from sharing his pa.s.sion. What tasted to him like a full-bodied vintage wine was, to her, just a somewhat salty fluid.

Gradually, as he relaxed and opened up to her growing excitement, the heat of her lips on his skin took its usual effect. At the same time, her hands roamed over his body, stroking his chest in expanding spirals, running her nails up and down the insides of his thighs, playing with his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and teasing his p.e.n.i.s until it stood at attention.

He returned her caresses, skimming his open palms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then ma.s.saging her back as she pressed the full length of her body against his. Her warm weight upon him stirred him almost as much as the avidity of her kiss. She sank her teeth into his flesh as she reached fulfillment.

"Better now?" she whispered, still breathless, laying her head on his shoulder.

"Beloved," he murmured into the fragrant cascade of her hair. He preferred not to meet her eyes when using such language, for it still came awkwardly to him. His arms tightened convulsively around her. A moment later he said more calmly. "Yes and no.

You've succeeded in distracting me. But now you have to face the consequences."

"I told you that's what you needed," she purred. "Are you sure you're ready?" "Well-the hairs in my palms are vibrating, my throat's burning, every centimeter of erectile tissue on my body is rockhard, and my d.a.m.n teeth are tingling so badly I think I'll explode if I can't taste you rightnow ."

"Okay, you're ready."

"Don't act so smug about it." He rolled her over on her back and reclined across her. His lips and hands ranged over her body, first through the silky fabric of the caftan, then with no barrier at all. He traced the pathways of her tightly coiled nerves, melting the knots of soreness in her abdomen and thighs. He luxuriated in the double-exposure delight of feeling her sensations and emotions simultaneously with his own-the smooth curve of her breast beneath his hand, the touch of his hand on her skin, the contrast between his coolness and her heat, the delicious tightening in her loins when he kissed her.

About to pierce her throat, he drew back, shaken by the intensity of his thirst. She arched her neck with a frustrated moan. "Dear colleague," he said unsteadily, "how long has it been?"

She gathered her wits to produce a coherent answer. "An eternity. All of four days."

"My G.o.d, it seems like years. I'm starving for you."

"That's what I expected," she gasped. "Shock. Trauma.What are you waiting for?"

He kissed her throat, thrilling to the leap of the pulse under his lips. "I'm afraid of being-ungentle."

Her nails dug into his back. "Can't you understand that I don't care? Drain me, if that's what you need."

The words stabbed him with the sharpness of a tangible wound. "Don't say that-it terrifies me." His mouth captured hers, then moved down to her neck again. The radiance of her life flowed into him. He bathed in it, oblivious to everything but the blood thrumming in her veins and her pa.s.sion answering his.

For the rest of the night he didn't allow her out of bed for more than three minutes at a time. He ravished her over and over, urging her to one o.r.g.a.s.m after another, driving both of them to exhaustion and beyond. Whenever he relaxed, Alice's image and her parroted message invaded his mind, and he turned to Britt to banish the memory. Far from complaining, she encouraged his frenetic appet.i.te. Clearly she considered this mindless abandon the therapy he needed.

Around three a.m. she fell into a wrung-out, sated sleep, nestled in the curve of his arm. Lulled by the rhythm of her heartbeat and respiration, he drifted in and out of a semi-conscious doze. The candles on the dresser burned down to pools of wax and went out.

Just before dawn he coaxed her awake for a final, gentler interlude. When she got up afterward, he was dismayed by her enervated appearance. Nevertheless he pretended to ignore the faintness she tried to conceal. By now he knew better than to offend her with apologies.

BETWEEN DAINTY nibbles from a granola bar, Britt said, "Bet you didn't see this morning'sWashington Post, did you?" She unfolded the paper on Roger's desk. They were sharing a private lunch break at the office the day after the shooting. "Looks like our quarry finally got careless again." She pointed at a short article on one of the inside pages.

"Halloween Coming Late?" the headline quipped. The reporter gave a tongue-in-cheek account of a "giant bat" sighted over Rock Creek Park the previous night. As highly colored as the two separate informants' stories were, Roger didn't doubt Britt's conclusion.

"So we know he hasn't left the area," said Roger.

"If we didn't know already, from what Alice told you last night." Weariness from more than lack of sleep shadowed Britt's eyes.

Roger wished he had risked her ire and insisted she take the day off.

"There was always the chance he'd given her that message weeks ago," Roger said. "The 'bat' seems to settle that point." He frowned at the wrapper Britt was crumpling. "Is that your entire lunch?" "I had a cup of yogurt and a can of V-8," she said. "Look who's talking. You haven't eaten all day."

"You know I don't need anything. Not after last night." In spite of the worry that preyed on him, an echo of the pleasure they'd shared rippled through him.

"That's a lot of Taurus," said Britt. "If it were true, I'd be too weak to stand up. You do need additional nourishment. If I pour you a gla.s.s of milk, will you drink it?"

Roger spread his hands in a gesture of acceptance. As Britt got up to fetch the milk, the telephone rang.

"Lieutenant Hayes calling," said Marcia. "I know you don't like to be disturbed at lunch, but-"

"Put him on," Roger said.

"Doctor, I have bad news," said Hayes with his characteristic nervous cough. "I'm calling from the hospital downtown. Your patient who shot herself died last night. This morning, actually, just before dawn."

Roger leaned back in his chair, willing his heartbeat to slow down. Considering the severity of Alice's wound, he shouldn't be surprised. "I'm sorry to hear that. But where do you come in?"

"She didn't die naturally. I mean, not from the gunshot wound itself." Britt, overhearing, set down the styrofoam cup of milk and stared quizzically at Roger. After a pause, Hayes went on, "Somebody got into the intensive care ward and pulled the plug- unhooked her from the monitors, IV, and so on. Then he-well, this is one of the crazy parts. He cut her throat, severed the left jugular and carotid, with some jagged object, and the M.E. can't figure out what."

Claws. He tore her neck open with his fingernails-something no human a.s.sailant could manage.Nausea welled up in Roger's throat. When he had it under control, he said, "Why in the name of all that's holy are you just getting around to notifying me?"

"Give me a break, Doctor! I've been here since six thirty, interviewing staff, trying to figure how the perp got in without anybody catching him."

"I apologize," Roger said. "Lieutenant, howdid he accomplish that?"

"You tell me!"

Roger stood up. "I'll be right over." After Hayes hung up, he switched to Marcia and ordered her to cancel his one o'clock patient.

"Mine, too," said Britt.

"Certainly not," Roger said. "There's no reason for both of us to go."

She scowled at him in frustration. "I don't know if I should let you out of my sight."

"You know how you felt when I treated you that way," he said. When Britt conceded the point with a reluctant smile, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "You'll get every detail, don't worry."