FLEMING
THE third night I awoke weak, cold, and shaking, with the hunger like a gunshot wound in my belly. It had never been this bad before.
Dugan was upstairs snoring, a short, heavy rasp, as though even in sleep he breathed faster than normal. When I yelled his name, the snoring abruptly ceased. After a minute the springs squeaked, and he paced unsteadily back and forth.
Last night he'd fallen into a pattern of first feeding me, draining away my blood to drink, followed by another feeding-four or five times. He kept up the assurance that this would speed his transformation, and it was clearly having an effect on him. Toward dawn he was unnaturally restless, with so much energy thrumming through him I thought his heart would give out. He took that as evidence his procedure was succeeding.
I'd continued my dying act and hoped it would remain an act. He was careful to replace my lost blood, so when the sun rose, I was in reasonably good shape considering the situation.
Plodding down the stairs, he put the light on, and it took time for my dazzled eyes to adjust. What I saw scared me.
Now I looked at my left wrist, which was covered with many more thin welts where he'd cut me. The son of a bitch had been drawing off blood while I slept. That was why I was so sick.
Dugan looked the way I felt. He was unshaved and drawn, his sweat-sheened skin had a yellow tinge, and that rotten-fruit smell was more pronounced. I wondered if he'd noticed. Though his wide-open eyes were not flushed wholly red the way mine got after feeding, they were bloodshot and muddy. His movements were jerky, hands shaking, fingers nervous. He looked exactly like an alky caught short on booze.
My blood had to be killing him, consuming him.
"I've kept up my end," he said brightly, holding another milk bottle within my view. "Straight from the Stockyards-less than an hour old."
My corner teeth were out. I was hurting for it. I'd have taken anything then, including human blood from an unwilling donor.
Solicitous as a nurse, he lifted my head, allowing me to drink from the glass he'd filled. I finished it quick, but the belly pain didn't cease.
"You're draining me during the day," I said.
"Only to speed my transformation process. Have more, have all you want. I went to considerable trouble to obtain this for you."
I shut up and finished that bottle and the second one he fetched.
Dugan had been careless, letting me know we were less than an hour's travel from the Stockyards. That covered a lot of area, of course, but I filed the information away with other details I'd gleaned about my location, which was definitely the basement of a house. I was able to pick up certain noises unique to a home: the hum of a refrigerator, the rumble of an oil heater, the plumbing, and sometimes the click of an electric light.
I heard no traffic, but being belowground might have to do with that. Earth and concrete make for great insulation from the outside world.
Throughout the previous night, I'd paid attention to each sound, trying to distract myself from the constant pain, sometimes succeeding. Once he put on the radio to listen to a news show, giving a snort of disdain whenever he didn't like what was said. The rest of the time he paced back and forth or was writing, to judge by the frequent scratch of his pen. If he had so much to say, why didn't he just get a damn typewriter?
As the blood saturated my body, the sickness slowly faded, but I demanded more.
"Where are you putting it?" he asked, surprised.
"Losing ground."
"What?"
I glanced toward my mangled wrist. "You don't give me time to heal. I need more than you take just to recover. More than that to stay alive."
He almost sounded defensive. "I didn't do it that often."
The day feedings terrified me. If his thirst got the better of him, I might not wake up tomorrow night. "Enough to kill me if you don't... oh, God..." I trailed off into a groan and submerged into my dying act.
"I'll get another bottle," he said and left. He stumbled on the stairs on the way up, caught himself, and shot a quick, self-conscious look back. My eyes were mostly shut, so he was a blurred figure through my lashes, but I'd seen. This flash of insecurity was good. I had him worried.
He let me empty the third bottle with a fourth standing ready before doing his little cut-and-drain operation. Tonight, he gulped the beakerful with alarming speed and relish. When his shuddering subsided, his eyes were fever-bright and much redder than before. The whites were nearly gone.
Maybe he was turning into a vampire, just no kind I'd ever heard about. I fought to maintain listlessness.
"I'm feeling so much stronger," he said, swinging his arms around. "I've never been so energetic. I'd been looking forward to acquiring the ability to influence weaker minds, but it never occurred to me that my physical being would be so greatly augmented."
He sniffed at the untouched bottle of cow's blood, took an experimental sip, and grimaced. Apparently it wasn't to his taste yet.
"I should be fully changed by now," he said. "Perhaps you were right about it taking longer. I'm very sorry, but you'll have to remain here. But I'm optimistic-today I had to go out, and though it was cloudy, I wasn't at all comfortable in the light. That's progress, though it is rather short of the comalike state you fall into."
How much of that was self-suggestion, I wondered.
I mumbled for more blood. He cheerfully complied, chatty now, telling me about his goals once his little experiment was completed. He was excited about leaving Chicago and moving up in the world. First he'd have to deal with his criminal record. He was a wanted fugitive, and that had to be fixed.
"The police and court papers should be easy enough to destroy. Then I shall talk with everyone concerned with the case. I'll persuade them to completely forget me-even your English friend won't recall anything of it. Neither will that woman whose deficient offspring I kidnapped. She'd be better off without such a burden, you know." He sounded speculative. "So many things to do once I have your abilities. I shan't waste them, though. The world is going to improve significantly because of me."
Oh, brother.
But he could be right. Say he went to Washington and started doing an evil-eye whammy on anyone he chose. Though its influence wasn't permanent, I'd read enough history to know that one man in the right place at the wrong time could change things. For good or ill was up to the man. In Dugan's case, I couldn't really imagine how bad things could get.
How I hated his voice. I looked around for the other me. He was out of view. Dammit, I wanted his company. He could listen to the idiot; I wanted to hide in that summer day again.
Maybe Dugan was only blowing hot air to entertain himself, but his plans were too detailed.
Without referring once to it, I also understood he would kill me despite his promise to the contrary. I'd known that from the moment he first showed himself; this simply disposed of any lingering delusion. He couldn't set up anywhere and feel secure with me running loose.
I had a black moment, wondering how he'd carry it out. He could drain me completely by accident or do it on purpose. Or would he resort to the traditional stake and hammer, followed by a beheading just to be sure?
Bobbi would think I'd walked out on her because of her going to Hollywood. She'd never know.
Escott would think I'd gone off my head again and run away to kill myself.
They'd never find me.
My friendly doppelg
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