Page 30 of The Undead

Sylvia Reilly laughed. She had a rich, deep laugh that had no self-consciousness to it, a very infectious and warming sound. I found myself smiling, too.

“My troubles aren’t female troubles, thanks. Maybe I should make it dear to you that I’m here to give you some information, not ask you for any.” She turned and looked at me, and her smile was cool and steady. Before I could think of anything to ask her, the elevator jerked to a halt—pong—and opened its doors. I led the way down the green-carpeted hallway, past several darkened offices, and unlocked mine.

The principal problem with my workspace is that it’s too small, I have room for my desk, three chairs (one of them for me), and a bookcase that’s crammed with references and journals and everything that I might possibly need at work, including the odd bag of Cheetos. It always smells faintly of old paper and older socks. Sylvia eased into one of the chairs while I maneuvered myself behind my desk. She took in the room at a single, comprehensive glance, smell and all.

“What kind of information?” I asked her bluntly. She returned her stare to me and tapped her short fingernails on the arms of her chair.

“Please don’t panic, Doctor, but I came to answer some questions you probably have about Adam Radburn.”

“Questions?” I echoed, thinking fast. She nodded.

“Adam and I had a long talk last night. He’s very disturbed—and he ought to be, for a lot of reasons. He’s put himself at risk for you, and I don’t like that. You know too much, Doctor. I have to satisfy myself about you.” Sylvia pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Last night you followed Adam and watched him. Without any doubt at all, you know who and what he is.”

“And that is?” I managed. She regarded me steadily.

“A vampire. Did you think you were crazy? Well, so did I, once. I’ve known Adam for—oh, God, it must be twenty years now. He saved my life once, just as he’s done yours. Adam is not an evil person.”

“Jesus, he’snota person at all!” I snapped. Sylvia leaned forward, spearing me with those mesmerizing eyes. “Areyou?”

“A person?” She laughed. “You haven’t done your homework, Dr. Bowman. Vampires can’t stand daylight—not that we have all that much time before sundown. I’ve been waiting for you for hours. And no vampire would kill you here after having been seen with you. They have a very strong self-protective instinct: never kill when you can be discovered as a result of it. The flip side of that is what’s bothering Adam—about you. See, self-protection demands that he make sure of you, one way or another.”

Sylvia was carrying a rather large purse. I noticed it with a cold shiver down my back, and tried to imagine what kind of deadly weapons might be concealed in it. Anything from a derringer to an antitank gun; knives; hell, she might be carrying the proverbial blunt instrument. I eased my chair back a little and tried to look casual. It probably wasn’t convincing.

“Adam isn’t going to hurt you. I came to tell you that. He was deeply disturbed by his failure of control last night—by drinking from you, he violated his own rules, and that hasn’t happened for a very long time. He’s in your debt now, because of what he did to you, and he’ll pay that debt; he’s a very honorable man.”

I found myself staring at a framed picture of Maggie that perched on the corner of my desk atop a scramble of papers. She smiled out at me in vibrant black-and-white. Maggie … a flash of pain went through me like heat lightning.

“Am I going to become like him?” I asked, very quietly. It leaped back tactilely to my mind; his lips touched my bleeding hand in a parody of a kiss, and they were cold, cold and hungry—sweating, I wrenched myself away from the memory and looked at her challengingly.

“It isn’t that simple,” she told me, matching my quiet. “Adam and I have been doing research for years to discover the actual mechanisms of the condition, but we’re absolutely sure that it’s a two-step process. The initial blood exchange simply creates a potential for change.”

“Very scientific. Blood exchange” I let my distaste show. “What’s the second step? The vampire sucking the blood out of the corpse? Is that why Adam works in the morgue?”

“He works in the morgue because it’s a job and he needs money, just like you and me. What I’m speaking of, in the second blood exchange, is the victim drinking the vampire’s blood, not vice versa.” She said it gently enough, but my skin went cold all over. “Even then, it’s by no means certain. The vampire himself has to be strong enough to drag his offspring back from the dead—and you, as a doctor, know how difficult that can be. It just doesn’t happen very often under the best of circumstances.”

“I’d like to know how in the hell you know these things,” I said, and got up to look out my tiny window. The overcast was deceptive, but I thought it was getting dark early. “Did you just wake up one day and believe in vampires, Sylvia? Or did all this come to you gradually?”

“Fairly suddenly,” she replied coolly, but there was amusement lurking under that cool voice. “Dr. Bowman, I’ve known Adam a long time. Most marriages don’t last as long as our friendship. I can promise you this: Adam is a predator, but he’s not cruel and he’s not capricious. And he doesn’t kill needlessly. That’s one of the things I love best about him.”

I didn’t say anything. In the parking lot, yellow sodium lights blinked on, and by contrast the sky had gotten very dark. So did her voice.

“One final thing: if you hurt him, Dr. Bowman, whether you cause him to be discovered or you injure him yourself, I can promise that you’ll have two of the deadliest enemies a human can have. Adam—and myself.”

The lady knew an exit line. She got up and went out the door. I’m not going to follow her,I told myself sternly, and counted to about ten before I caved in. I followed her. The elevator had already started down by the time I reached it, so I took the stairs and came out the doors just as she was opening the door of a small green compact car. She didn’t look surprised to see me—just a little harassed.

“Hey! I promised Adam I’d keep quiet. Why did he send you?” I demanded angrily. I was breathing hard from my headlong run down the stairs, and on top of the haggard post-surgical exhaustion I suppose I looked pretty frightening. She looked me over silently. “Doesn’t he trust me? Jesus, he has to. Hehasto!”

Because if he didn’t, my wife would end up dead—before me, or after.

“Adam does trust you. But I don’t,” Sylvia finally said after a moment, and got in the car. I knocked on the window. She ignored me and started the car. I whacked the window harder in frustration and tried the door handle. Locked. She mouthed words at me through the thick safety glass.

He doesn’t know I came here.

She hit the gas and left me in a trail of exhaust. I stared after her for a moment, then turned and went back into the hospital.

I got in the elevator and fumbled my keys out with shaking fingers. It took me two tries to get the passkey into the panel, and another to turn it to get the elevator to fall. I pushed out of the doors before they were fully open and slammed into the morgue doors as if I were imitating Foster, or at the very least denying my own fear. They flew back on well-behaved hinges, and I was suddenly the center of attention.

Three pathologists looked at me with raised eyebrows. I stared back, stunned into silence, and my brain caught up with my body in a belated rush. Daytime. It was still day shift, and Adam wasn’t here. Wouldn’t be here for two hours yet, probably.

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