On a Darkling Plain (3 page)

“I’m Mattie Purvis,” she replied. “Mr. Bronson’s assistant. Of course I was glad to come when the police called, but I can’t imagine how there could be a dead body inside the building. How could anybody
get
it inside without setting off the alarms?”

“Beats us,” said Ryan wryly. “All we know is that an anonymous caller phoned 911 and said you had a corpse on the premises. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred it was a crank call, but we’ve got to check it out anyway. So if you could please let us in?”

“All right,” said Mattie, lifting the jingling key ring in her hand. She unlocked three locks, then ushered the policemen through the door and into the hallway beyond.

The corridor was far darker than the moonlit night outside. Though Forbes was as sure as Ryan that this call was bogus, for some reason a chill oozed up his spine. For a moment he nearly believed that something terrible might be waiting in the lightless rooms and passages ahead. Then Mattie threw a wall switch. Down the length of the hall, fluorescent lights pinged and flickered on, and his momentary trepidation dissolved.

Forbes grinned sheepishly. He was a day person. He’d always hated the graveyard shift, even before he had a relationship for it to disrupt, and he guessed it was getting on his nerves again. He was glad Ryan apparently hadn’t noticed his jitters. His partner would have kidded him mercilessly.

“Let’s get to it,” Ryan said.

They worked their way through a series of hallways, checking cramped offices and storerooms full of janitorial supplies, bundles of promotional brochures and barrels of fish food. They didn’t find a body.

“Let’s move on to the part of the building where the public goes,” said Forbes at length.

Mattie conducted the cops to the atrium inside the main entrance. When she turned on the lights, Forbes saw that the floor was decorated with a tile mosaic of teeming undersea life. Similar frescoes adorned the walls. Beside the exterior door was a kiosk with books on ichthyology and bright cloisonne jewelry fashioned to resemble tropical fish on display. A map and directory had been mounted on the wall to guide patrons to the various exhibits, including
Florida’s
Rivers,
Wonders of the Reef,
and Manatee
Encounter

Mattie pointed to one of the arches along the wall. “This way?” she suggested, the statement garbled by a gaping yawn.

Ryan shrugged. “Whatever. We’re going to have to check out every inch of the place before we’re through.”

Mattie led them through another series of chambers. Whenever she switched the lights on, driving the darkness deeper into the building, the illumination revealed countless amberjacks, skates, eels, groupers, clowns, angels and gars, swimming sullenly back and forth in the blue-green world beyond the plate-glass walls.

To his disgust, Forbes felt his jitters creeping back. His mouth was dry and his stomach, queasy. Even though he knew how stupid it was, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fish behind the glass were staring at him. Or perhaps it was some presence lurking in the shadows that always hovered ahead of the searchers, no matter how many lights Mattie turned on.

Snap out of it!
he silently ordered himself. But the uneasiness didn’t go away.

He and his companions entered yet another room. It was no different from the one they’d just exited — merely an octagonal space with windows for walls and two long, backless wooden benches set in the otherwise bare linoleum floor — and yet his anxiety intensified.

Finally yielding to the feeling, he said, “Call me crazy, but I think there
might
be a body around here somewhere. Or some kind or problem, anyway.”

Mattie gaped at him. Ryan’s eyes narrowed quizzically. “Why?” he asked.    '    ’

Forbes shrugged helplessly. “Intuition. Something in the air. Can’t you feel it?”

Ryan grimaced. “Frankly, no. You sure you didn’t just get a bad burrito at Pablo’s?”

“No,” Forbes admitted. “I’m not sure of anything. But my instincts are telling me that something’s wrong
here.
Right in front of us.”

Ryan gestured at the largely empty space around them. “If there is, you’ll have to show me, because I sure don’t see it.”

Squinting, stooping low, Forbes scrutinized the surfaces of the benches and the floor. Behind the walls sea creatures drifted and darted, some as beautiful and delicately shaped as butterflies, and others as dark and grotesquely formed as the denizens of a nightmare.

Forbes didn’t find any bloodstains, or anything else suspicious. In the face of Ryan’s skepticism he was feeling increasingly like a fool, yet his nervousness still wouldn’t go away.

“Well?” said Ryan. “Ready to move on? I’m sure Ms. Purvis would appreciate it. If we hurry, she might have time to go home and catch another hour or two of sleep.”

“Okay,” said Forbes reluctantly. He straightened up and trudged toward the entrance to the next room in the chain.

so

But as he did, he glimpsed another peculiar form floating behind the glass. He couldn’t make it out clearly, not from the corner of his eye, but he sensed a wrongness about it. His heart jolting, he turned.

The shape was the nude body of a little girl. Her wide brown eyes peered sightlessly through the glass, and her mouth gaped in a silent scream. An octopus had wrapped itself around her ankle, the ceaseless writhing of its tentacles mimicked by the stirring of her floating black pigtails. A cloud of small orange fish flickered around her, nibbling her flesh.

Forbes gasped and lurched backward. Sick with horror, he wondered vaguely why he and his companions hadn’t seen the corpse right away. He supposed they’d been too intent on checking the rooms to pay much attention to what was on the other side of the glass. Or perhaps they’d unconsciously resisted the sight of anything so ghastly.

Mattie and Ryan turned. “What’s wrong?” the black officer asked. His throat still clogged with revulsion, Forbes pointed at the little girl. Ryan cursed, and the woman squealed and wrenched her gaze away.

Ryan swallowed audibly. “Chalk one up for intuition,” he said, moving closer to the window. Straining to reestablish a cop’s properly stoic demeanor, Forbes followed him. The little girl’s white hand brushed against the glass as if she were feebly knocking on a door.

“Do you think she drowned?” Ryan asked. “Hm, maybe not.” He pointed. “Check out her throat.”

Peering, Forbes saw that the child had twin punctures in the side of her neck. The marks looked like a vampire bite in a movie. In another situation such a ridiculous notion might have amused him, but now it only served to make his discovery seem even grislier.

“Let’s call this in and seal the building,” Forbes said grimly, reaching for the radio clipped to his belt. He turned. “Ms. Purvis, you might want to phone your boss—”

He faltered in bewilderment. The woman had disappeared.

Forbes guessed he must look as shaken as he felt, because Ryan gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t get rattled,” he said. “I’m sure she just left the room while our backs were turned, so she wouldn’t have to look at the kid. Can’t say as I blame her.” He raised his voice. “Ms. Purvis! Are you there? Answer me, please!”

The shout echoed hollowly down the lighted chain of rooms through which they’d come. No one answered. Forbes couldn’t help feeling that his companion had bellowed in the wrong direction, that someone or something had dragged the plump woman into the stygian chambers ahead.

“I guess she panicked,” said Ryan, a subtle tremor in his voice. “Ran all the way out of the building.”

“Or the guy who killed the girl is still here,” said Forbes. He could feel his pulse beating in his neck. “And he grabbed her.”

“Without making enough noise for us to hear it six feet away?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” said Forbes tensely. He knew the idea didn’t make sense, but his instincts were shrieking that it was true — they hadn’t been wrong so far.

Ryan grimaced. “I guess it could happen. So we’d better go look for her.”

Forbes radioed the dispatcher to describe their situation and request backup. Then he and Ryan drew their .38 automatics. Since they no longer had Mattie, who knew where all the wall fixtures were, to guide them, they took their pencil flashlights out of their belts. Thus equipped, they crept warily into the dark.

The flashlight beams slid back and forth, illuminating a nurse shark and a starfish behind the glass. Forbes could hear Ryan’s quick, shallow respiration and smell the sweat that had begun to soak his partner’s shir!'.

The policemen slunk around a corner, moving from one exhibition area to another. Now the massive gray forms of manatees, their backs grooved with white propeller scars, floated beyond the glass. Forbes’ flashlight beam picked out another light switch. He moved tow
^r
ard it, and then a nearly inaudible tapping ticked through the blackness.

Forbes froze, reflexively holding his breath, waiting for the sound to reoccur. It didn’t. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“I thought I heard
something,”
Ryan answered. “I’m not sure.”

Forbes abruptly realized what the noise had sounded like. “I think it was w'ater dripping,” he said.

“Maybe the killer got wet when he threw the body in the tank,” said Ryan, sweeping his flashlight around the room. The beam revealed only the placidly drifting sea cows and empty space.    .

“If we are hearing him, he must be close,” said Forbes. “Let’s be really caref—”

Ryan’s gun boomed. The roar was deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet cracked into the linoleum.

Yelping, Forbes spun around. His hand shaking, he shone his light on his partner. Ryan stared back at him with wide, stricken eyes. The black officer dropped his pistol and flashlight, then made a gurgling sound and clutched the side of his neck. His knees buckled, and he fell face down on the floor.

Forbes felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare. It wasn’t possible that Ryan had been attacked. He’d swung his light around the room only a moment before and, except for the cops themselves, there hadn’t been anyone there.

But possible or not, it had happened, and now, Forbes suddenly realized, the assailant might be creeping up on him. His heart hammering, he frantically swept his own light around until it flew across a round, inhuman face. He almost snapped off a shot before he realized that he was looking at one of the manatees.

The light didn’t reveal the attacker.

Forbes flipped the wall switch and felt a wave of relief when the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered on. Surely, if he watched his back, no one could sneak up on him now!

His own safety presumably secured, it was time to assist his partner. Forbes knelt beside the injured man. His knee landed in a spreading pool of blood. The coppery scent of the liquid rose to mingle with the tang of gun smoke drifting in the air. Ryan’s breathing was a labored wheeze.

Forbes winced. It was obvious that his partner needed immediate first aid. With a pang of renewed trepidation, he set his .38 on the floor and took a folded white handkerchief out of his pocket. He pressed it against the twin punctures in Ryan’s neck, wounds like the dead girl’s, struggling to stanch the bleeding. In half a minute, the makeshift compress was red and sodden. The flow of blood wouldn’t slow.

Forbes awkwardly used his left hand to switch on his radio. Static crackled. “This is Forbes,” he said. “I have an officer down. Repeat, Officer Ryan is down. We’re in the manatee exhibit. Get an ambulance.”

“Understood,” the tinny voice of the dispatcher replied. “Help is on the way.”

After that, the minutes crawled by. Despite Forbes’ best efforts, Ryan kept bleeding. Every few seconds, Forbes looked over his shoulder or glanced at his pistol to make sure it was still lying where he’d put it.

The murderer heard me radio for help,
Forbes told himself. So
he must have run away by now. I'm not in danger anymore.
But he was having trouble believing it. Perhaps the phantom he’d been chasing wasn’t afraid of a new contingent of cops. After all, the bastard hadn’t had any trouble neutralizing the first wave.

Forbes looked around again. No one was behind him. Panting as if he’d run a marathon, his eyes stinging with unshed tears, he returned his attention to the dying Ryan. When he lifted his gaze again, only a moment later, he saw a smear of reflection on the aquarium window before him. It was barely visible, but seemed to possess a human shape.

Terrified, Forbes snatched for his gun. At the same instant, powerful hands grabbed him, jerked him to his feet, and thrust him toward the glass. With a burst of pain, his forehead slammed against the window. His shooting hand clenched convulsively, and the automatic blazed. Somewhere in the room, glass shattered and water gushed.

Forbes’ assailant yanked him back from the window and pulled him against his body. A powerful arm wrapped itself around the policeman’s chest and fresh pain ripped into his throat. His wife’s face shone before Forbes’ inner eye; then the world went black.

♦

Pallid and slender, her waist-length raven hair seeming to shine even now that the moon had set, the vampire paced along the eight-foot stucco wall, psychically sensing what lay on the other side. Her diaphanous white gown, her only garment, rippled in the night breeze, and the cool, dewy grass kissed her feet.

After a minute an image of guard dogs, stocky black animals with cropped tails and ears, entered her mind. Despite her anxieties, she smiled for an instant. She’d always found animals even easier to manage than she did humans. She stepped away from the wall and then bounded over it, noticing as she did so the alarm strip embedded in the top of the barrier.

She landed lightly, her lovely, inhumanly powerful legs soaking up the shock of impact. Before her extended a broad expanse of exquisitely manicured lawn, its flower beds planted with red and yellow roses and orange hibiscus with magenta eyes. To her sight, the colors shone as brightly by night as they would by daylight, and she could smell the sweet scent of the rose petals from fifty feet away.