Dark Changeling Part 14

Roger flushed. He did feel the need for blood, d.a.m.n it, and it made no sense. After Sat.u.r.day, he shouldn't have felt the craving for close to a week.

"What's the matter with you?" said Volnar with that same irritating trace of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Nothing. I shouldn't need-" He sipped the brandy. "I don't enjoy discussing it."

"Well, I won't waste time catering to your sensibilities. After the stress you've undergone tonight, including exposure to fresh blood, naturally you want to feed." He didn't comment further on Roger's distaste for the blunt language. "We'll deal with that later. What would you like to know?"

The dozens of questions spinning in Roger's head receded into the background. Before he realized what he intended to say, he blurted out, "I want to know what you're going to do about Sandor."

Seated in the other chair, Volnar took a thoughtful sip of his drink before answering. "What do you expect me to do?"

"According to Sylvia, you hold a position of authority in your group. Isn't it your job to stop Sandor from killing, if only to protect your secret?"

Volnar's eyebrows arched as if in surprise at Roger's on-target a.n.a.lysis. "Quite right. Indiscriminate, conspicuous killing attracts attention. How do you expect me to catch him?"

"Confound it, from the way Sylvia talks, you're some sort of blasted demiG.o.d! You're telling me you can't find him, as reckless as he is?"

Volnar held up a conciliatory hand. "There's no need to ex-cite yourself, Roger. Episodes like this are always self-limiting."

"Episodes? Is that all this string of pointless deaths means to you?" Roger cut his tirade short, uncomfortably conscious of how his outburst sounded against Volnar's cool control.

"As a matter of fact, I'm catching a plane for London in a few hours. Neil's twin sister, the only person he is likely to listen to, presently lives in England. If I can find her, I hope she may be in contact with him and can persuade him to turn himself over to our Council of Elders."

"Persuade? That's your solution?"

"We'll discuss 'solutions' later. Why don't you begin at the beginning and tell me about your acquaintance with Sylvia and your clash with Neil? Omit no detail. We have time."

The sudden change of emphasis jolted Roger into relative calm. "Didn't Sylvia tell you? Or haven't you talked to her? Does she even know you're in town."

"No, with so little time to spare, I wanted to devote my full attention to you," Volnar said. "I spoke to her by phone last night, and she told me parts of it-from her viewpoint. I want yours."

Beginning at Mrs. Bronson's party back in August, Roger narrated the high points of his friendship with Sylvia and the tangle of events that had followed. He omitted only the more intimate moments, especially that night she had tried to drink from him; that incident was too agonizing to relive.

When he wound down, gulping the brandy to soothe his dry throat, Volnar stared at him for half a minute before saying in a cold, measured voice, "Do you realize how close to catastrophe you came, how many times?"

"I think so," Roger said, bristling at the contemptuous tone.

"I doubt it. If you'd had any inkling of what it meant to betray one of your own, you wouldn't have considered doing so. Didn't Sylvia warn you about that?"

"She mentioned it. I stand by what I told her then-I see no reason to shield a murderer."

Volnar let that pa.s.s without comment. "Furthermore, your dietary habits need revision. By abstaining so long between donors, you set yourself up for impulsive acts that lead to disaster."

"I don't intend to be careless," Roger said.

"Good intentions don't suffice, in your present state of ignorance."

"Look here, sir-" The honorific spontaneously slipped out, despite Roger's indignation.

Volnar overrode him. "I'll give you as much instruction as I can tonight. It's not the ideal situation, but it will have to do. Later you should spend a few weeks at our headquarters in Nevada, meet some of the others."

"Nevada? Oh, yes, Sylvia mentioned that she grew up there."

"Off and on. Even solitary predators sometimes need the company of their own kind. A benefit you lacked all these years."

"What are you talking about?" Roger burst out. "d.a.m.n it, I don't believe-"

Volnar leaped up from the chair. "You don't believe what you are? Well, I'll show you." He grabbed Roger's arm. Roger bared his teeth in a snarl, then relaxed when he remembered the futility of his earlier resistance. He allowed Volnar to pull him to his feet and guide him to the dresser.

"There," said Volnar. "Throw away your preconceptions, open your eyes, and look!"

Side by side with the older man, Roger gazed into the mirror. The room still lay in darkness except for street lights shining through the window. In the reflected image, Volnar's eyes glowed red like smoldering embers. And so did Roger's.

Roger lurched back to the chair. He sat with his head bowed on his hands until Volnar gave him a refilled gla.s.s of brandy.

"You actually avoided noticing that, all these years."

Roger looked up, to find Volnar seated opposite him again. "I don't make a habit of staring into mirrors in the dark." He congratulated himself on the steadiness of his voice. "How can I be-what you are? I don't have Sylvia's range of powers."

"Listen carefully. I am going to tell you a story." Volnar got out a pack of cigars and offered them to Roger, who empha-tically refused.

"I'd expect you to be immune to nicotine addiction."

"I am," Volnar said. "Therefore I can indulge without fear of consequences." He clipped the end of his cigar, lit it, and moved his chair next to an open window. "Now, pay attention." He took a couple of thoughtful puffs. "Consider a nonhuman species living secretly in the midst ofh.o.m.o sapiens. These creatures are phenomenally long-lived-virtually immortal, unless destroyed by dismemberment or cremation. They have a variety of talents that would appear supernatural to the average mortal. But they also have weaknesses, such as sensitivity to sunlight and a highly restricted diet. Where their existence is believed at all, they are feared and loathed.

"A female of that race lived in a French village in the nineteen-thirties. She 'fell in love'"-Roger could hear the quota-tion marks-"with a human male. Now, erotic liaisons between the two species are not uncommon, even those lasting for some time. But deep attachment on the part of the-vampire-is rare. Some of our people were outraged when Claudette actually married her human lover. They thought she debased herself by making such a contract with an ephemeral. Among us marriage does not exist, because our females are s.e.xually receptive only once every few years, and fertile even less often. When it became known that Claudette had not only committed herself in this unprecedented way, but had entered estrus and allowed herself to conceive by an ephemeral, some of the elders demanded that she be ostracized.

"As her advisor, I argued on the other side. Though legends told of such conceptions, none had been confirmed within living memory. The scientific possibilities were boundless. I maintained that if the pregnancy came to term, the offspring should be nurtured and carefully watched. So I kept in touch with Claudette, and she did indeed give birth to a live infant with mingled traits of both vampire and human. Certain indications-aversion to sunlight, rapid healing from minor abrasions-suggested the dominance of vampire genes.

"There were complications beyond our control, however. The war's effects reached even the remote village where Claudette and her husband lived. Suspicion, taken to paranoid lengths, became the norm. Anyone who seemed peculiar was at risk. What had once been outmoded superst.i.tion became plausible again. Claudette knew she was suspected of vampirism and placed the child in the temporary care of her husband's cousin, with instructions to contact me in case of disaster. The couple planned to flee the country, picking up the infant at the last possible moment. Before they could get away, they were caught by the local populace and murdered."

Roger was stunned by this dry recital. "My parents."

"Exactly," said Volnar. "This was 1940, and you were slightly over a year old. I got you out of France and found a middle-aged, childless couple delighted at the chance to adopt a 'war orphan' on my terms. One condition was that you keep the name you were originally given."

"Why?" Roger said. "It made things even more difficult for me." His birth certificate read "Roger Sean Gallagher Darvell." Until high school graduation he had used "Gallagher," his adopted parents' name. In college he'd begun to hyphenate the two. After his father's death, in a small gesture of rebellion, he had switched to the simpler alternative of "Darvell" without the hyphen.

"I see you're using your birth names now, however," said Volnar. "By the time your parents were murdered, you'd had fourteen months of life to get accustomed to 'Roger Darvell.' It isn't unusual for our children to remember experiences from that age. I didn't want you confused by suddenly having your name changed."

"Kind of you. Too bad you didn't give a second thought to all the rest of the confusion."

Ignoring the sarcastic tone, Volnar said, "Did you remember anything of your pre-Boston life? When I brought you to the United States, you were already speaking three-word sentences in French."

"No, no memories of infancy." Something did spring to mind, though. "Interesting-when I studied French in high school, it seemed to come naturally to me, as if I'd heard it before." He resorted to the brandy again to cushion the shock of Volnar's "story." "So I actually had."

The elder vampire nodded. "I'd hoped that keeping your ori-ginal name might trigger more substantive memories, help you realize your true nature when the time came. Worth a try, even though it didn't work." He drew deeply on the cigar. Even with the window open, its smoke made Roger feel suffocated. "I kept watch over you, from a discreet distance, until you completed your medical training. Thereafter I heard nothing until Sylvia met you."

"You engineered that?"

"Only in the sense that I introduced her to Mrs. Bronson," said Volnar. "I expected Sylvia to encounter you, but she was quite honest in claiming to know nothing about your background. I needed to witness your reactions to each other, untainted by any prior knowledge on your part."

"But what was the point?" said Roger impatiently. "Why wasn't I brought up by-as you put it-my own kind?" "An experiment," said Volnar. "We wanted to see how much about yourself you would discover on your own, how well you'd adapt to human society without direct guidance. We needed to know whether a human-vampire hybrid was viable in a social as well as a physical sense."

"Experiment!" Roger stalked across the room, refilled his gla.s.s, drained it without pausing for breath, and glared at Volnar. "Good G.o.d, if you knew how many times I've contemplated suicide, thinking I was some kind of psychotic-! What gives you the right to experiment on human lives?"

The older vampire regarded him coldly. "You aren't human, remember? I am your advisor-guardian and mentor, you would say-just as I was your mother's. I'm also the oldest of our race, the head of our Council of Elders."

Roger poured himself another shot of brandy. "How old?"

"Older than you could imagine. I've outlived most human civilizations."

"I'm supposed to believe all this on the strength of your word?"

Volnar's eyebrows arched. "Why would I bother to lie to you?" The top layer of his mental shield dissolved, allowing Roger to glimpse his sincerity.

Unless he's so powerful he can project a lie, Roger thought. With only Sylvia to judge by, how could he know what Volnar might be capable of? "If you're unimaginably ancient," he said, "I suppose you've come here to offer me the wisdom of the ages."

"That is a human concept. We adopt all cultural elements from the societies around us-including language. We're prag-matists.

Philosophy, like art, literature, science, and technology, istheir specialty."

"I don't necessarily accept seniority and brute force as valid reasons for you to hold the power of life and death over me," Roger said.

Volnar seemed more amused than outraged by his defiance. "Young man, you have two choices. Either accept my authority, or be cut off from our people. You won't be persecuted-as long as you do nothing to attract dangerous attention-but no one except other outlaws will a.s.sociate with you. And believe me, you wouldn't like most of them."

Thinking of Sandor, Roger believed that. He sat down, poised on the edge of his chair. "What does accepting your authority entail?"

Volnar laughed softly. "Nothing onerous or degrading. When I give direct orders, I'll expect obedience, but they'll be rare, and always for your own good."

Roger wasn't precisely rea.s.sured, remembering how, in childhood, he'd reacted to commands delivered "for his own good." But if the alternative was to be cut adrift from his mother's race, he could swallow his pride. "I accept, then-provisionally. Only because I do want to learn what I am."

"I've seldom heard a more halfhearted pledge of loyalty," said Volnar. "Good enough-if you were too submissive, you wouldn't be one of us. I acknowledge that I may have misjudged in your case, carried the experiment too far. Perhaps I should have told you the truth earlier. When your adoptive father was killed, all doubt about your status was removed."

Roger shifted position irritably. Why must the man speak in riddles? Drinking from the almost forgotten gla.s.s in his hand, he said, "What do you mean?"

"You were in the car as well; you almost died in that accident. Or so it appeared. What do you remember?"

"About the accident itself, nothing. But they told me I shouldn't have survived the crash to begin with," Roger recalled. "I was comatose for over forty-eight hours, and except for the EEG all vital signs ceased. Permanent damage was expected, if I ever regained consciousness at all. Yet when I did, the attending physician said I looked as if I'd been healing for weeks." Volnar nodded. "Not a typical human pattern, is it? The incident confirmed that you inherited your mother's nearly indestructible const.i.tution and her rapid healing ability. Therefore, almost beyond doubt, her extended lifespan. Have you ever had an infectious disease?"

Roger's awestruck silence answered the question.

"You see, while you share some outward characteristics ofh.o.m.o sapiens , essentially you are a vampire."

"Why must you use that word? Can't you come up with anything more accurate and less-vulgar?"

"As I told you, we borrow our language from the human population we live among, and of all the terms available, 'vampire' fits us best. It is, in fact, the most 'accurate'-for you as well as the rest of us."

Hearing the word applied to him by this dominant figure forced Roger to face the implications head-on. "You're saying I may live- how long? Forever?"

"For millennia, at any rate, a.s.suming your capacity for healing is a reliable indicator."

"You don't really know, though," Roger said. "You don't know anything about hybrids."

"So far, observation suggests that you are typical of our species, except for your inability to transform, which Sylvia mentioned to me-and minor details such as your greater tolerance for sunlight and ability to consume solid food, which are actually advantages.

You should live on indefinitely unless your carelessness gets you killed first. You can't even starve to death. You'd simply lapse into suspended animation until a food source became available."

Roger tried another drink of the Courvoisier and found it was making him queasy. He set the gla.s.s on the table. "Suppose I'd never discovered my-special needs-on my own? You had no right to abandon me."

"How did you discover those needs? How old were you?"

"The first stage must have occurred in my early twenties," he began. "I discovered that when I was-intimate-with young women-'heavy petting,' in the argot of the decade-I no longer needed masturbation to be satisfied. In fact, I'd become incapable of ejaculating." He felt himself blushing but forged on, over-riding his self-consciousness. "Their pa.s.sion satisfied me by itself. That just fortified my growing conviction that I was abnormal."

"You never suspected it signified something more than simple deviance?" Volnar asked.

Roger irritably shrugged off the question, similar to the ones Sylvia had frequently badgered him with. "How could I? The possibility didn't exist in my consciousness. As far as I could see, I'd become impotent for no reason whatever. I didn't seek treatment; the prospect was too humiliating.

"After that my development remained static until I finished medical school and entered residency. You probably know that a future psychotherapist has to undergo a.n.a.lysis himself. That brought on my crisis. For months previously I'd been-unwell." Roger felt his neck and shoulder muscles tighten at the memory of the blood-drenched nightmares and the constant, gnawing hunger that no amount of raw steak appeased.

"On top of that change, the twice-weekly sessions with Dr. North were an almost unbearable strain. I censored everything I told him, naturally, but maintaining the censorship was stressful in itself. Trying to compensate by siphoning increased amounts of energy from my off-duty companions-of whom I didn't have many-didn't help. North was bright enough to suspect I was holding out on him, and he insisted on hypnotizing me.

"I agreed, confident I could override his will." He recalled his brief contest with North, no battle at all, culminating in his swallowing up the therapist's resistance like a shark engulfing a minnow. The small conquest had quenched Roger's superficial psychic thirst while activating a deeper layer of appet.i.te whose object bewildered him."Five minutes into the session, I had him in deep trance. Wondering what to do with him, trying to concoct a screen memory to make him leave me alone from then on, I stared into his eyes, absent-mindedly fingering his wrist." Roger heard his own breathing quicken as he relived the moment. "Instead of planning my strategy-I'd never tried such comprehensive mind-control before-I found myself listening to his heartbeat and respiration, background noises I usually filtered out. I'd long since pigeonholed that ability to hear sounds other people couldn't as more of a nuisance than an advantage."

Volnar took a long drag on his cigar. "With all that going on, how could you still a.s.sume you were an ordinary man?"

Roger thought of the webs of rationalization he'd woven to keep himself from falling to pieces. "Those abilities could have been a delusion. Since I didn't dare mention them to anyone else, I had no reality test. Now I caught myself enjoying the sound of North's heart and the tactile sensation of the pulse in his wrist. Suddenly I realized I wanted to lift his hand and touch my lips to that spot.

"I'd long suspected my mental balance was shaky, and this bizarre urge seemed to confirm that. While the a.n.a.lytic part of my mind was reviewing cases I'd read, searching for one that matched my symptoms, I was already raising his hand to my mouth. The office walls seemed to close in on me-my senses contracted to that point where my lips touched his skin. Warm, damp, salty-" The memory made him salivate. He took a long swallow of the brandy. "I certainly didn't bare my teeth on purpose. I didn't know my incisors had grazed the skin until I tasted-G.o.d, I couldn't believe what I was doing. It disgusted me, but I couldn't stop with that rush of energy flooding-"

"Enough," said Volnar. "Don't be so graphic. You are upsetting yourself."

"I went lightheaded, saw sparks behind my eyelids. Like lightning bolts in a night sky. Believe it or not, the first thing I thought of was epilepsy.Pet.i.t mal does manifest itself in peculiar ways. On the other hand, I could hardly have suffered that for years without noticing. I considered alternative explanations the whole time I kept drinking. Defense mechanism-if I didn't think about the act, it wasn't really happening. When I finally surfaced and checked my watch, almost twenty minutes had pa.s.sed. Good thing the man was healthy for his age. I wasn't up to concocting an elaborate tale for him. I gave him a generalized suggestion that I was mentally sound and he didn't need to waste time with me."

"You started late," said Volnar. "Most of us acquire our psychic talents in our early teens-as you did, didn't you?-but start needing human blood soon thereafter, around sixteen."

"Children don't?" said Roger. He'd had trouble visualizing an infant or toddler feeding on a human adult.

"Of course not," Volnar chuckled. "Babies are born with two needle-like teeth-the only time we have those absurd rattlesnake fangs beloved by Hollywood-to feed on the mother's blood as well as her milk. You didn't, thanks to your human half. At weaning, three or four years old, we lose the fangs and switch to raw meat, milk, and animal blood."

"Makes sense," Roger said. "Growing children would need the calories in solid food."

"In early adolescence the ability to digest it disappears, when we lose our wolf-like incisors and canines, to be replaced by a more human-appearing set for drawing blood inconspicuously. It's a good thing you didn't undergo those changes, or you could never have pa.s.sed for human."

"I'm still baffled about the way you manipulated me. Why this 'experiment,' leaving me to flounder through those develop-mental stages alone? Why did you care whether a hybrid was 'viable'?"

"Quite simply," said Volnar, "because we aren't replacing ourselves. Long-lived predators have to breed slowly in comparison to their prey, to avoid overrunning the food supply, but in recent centuries our low reproductive rate has become a crisis. Females more often than not go into estrus without conceiving. The incidence of miscarriages has increased, too."

Roger set down the brandy and stared at him. "You're looking for new blood, aren't you?"