On a Darkling Plain (34 page)

Though he’d already pored over every page of the files the police had assembled, Elliott took some of the autopsy reports and began glancing through them again. Citing factors such as body temperature, skin discoloration, degree of rigor mortis, flattening of the eyes from loss of fluid, and the presence of green-fly eggs, each document specified a range of time, generally from four to six hours, during which the murder had occurred. Evidently, as the Toreador had always understood, forensic medicine couldn’t determine an exact time of death: too many factors influenced the rate at which postmortem changes occurred.

Try as he might, Elliott couldn’t see what Angus was driving at. “Dracula kills late at night,” he said at last. “We’d realized that already.”

“We
assumed
as much,” the Justicar replied. “Since the murdered policemen were in radio communication with their dispatcher, we know that the aquarium killings did indeed happen at night. That, of course, was before you started hunting Dracula, when it was safe for her to operate by dark. It was even useful, given that her purpose was to endanger the Masquerade. But more recently, if your local coroner knows his stuff, the killer could just as easily be striking in the wee small hours
of the morning. ”

Perplexed, Elliott cocked his head. “Do you mean, after sunrise?”

Angus nodded. “That would explain why the patrols never run into her, wouldn’t it? By the time she ventures forth, your people are already asleep in their havens, and my nocturnal animals have retired to their lairs.”

“But that’s preposterous!” Gunter exploded. “Dracula needs to sleep during the day also.”

“1 agree,” Judy said. “I’ve known Kindred to stay awake for a single day, when they had a good enough reason. You can do it if you have a lot of willpower and stamina. But Dracula’s been killing steadily for weeks. Nobody could keep it up for that long.”

Angus smiled. “That’s the
other
assumption we made, without ever really examining it. That Dracula is a Kindred.” “But she must be!” Judy said. “The corpses of her victims are drained of blood. 1 made Potter look at some of the bite wounds, and he was sure they were made by vampire fangs. Hell,
you
said the same thing. And the way she can pick off any kine she wants, no matter how many locks or alarm systems are in her way, shows that she has supernatural powers.” She hesitated. “Doesn’t it?”

“We aren’t the only creatures in the world with mystical abilities,” the Justicar replied. “And human ingenuity can accomplish amazing things, even when it only has natural tools to work with. I think that some non-Kindred ally of your principal enemies is doing a brilliant job of
faking
vampire attacks.”

Elliott pondered Angus’ ideas. They seemed plausible if not conclusive. He felt an odd mix of hope and frustration. He desperately wanted the bearded giant to figure out Dracula’s
modus operandi.
Somebody had to, before the Kindred of Sarasota ran out of time and Palmer Guice presented the domain’s failure to the Inner Circle. And yet, if Angus was right about the murderer, Elliott couldn’t imagine how he and his allies were going to stop her. To him, the daylight hours seemed scarcely more accessible or endurable than the surface of the planet Mercury. The mere thought of trying to remain active after dawn, of risking exposure to the sun’s lethal glare, filled him with an instinctive loathing. “If you’re right,” he said, “I guess our only chance is to send the ghouls out on patrol.”

Angus shook his head. “If the cops can’t catch Dracula, they couldn’t, either.
I’ll
catch her. I’ve stayed up past dawn a time or two myself. I can do it again. I’ll put the birds and beasts of the day on sentry duty, and when they find her, I’ll go get her.”

“How?” asked Gunter skeptically. “You’ll burn as soon as you stick your head out the door.”

“I hope not,” Angus said. “I’m tough. Tough enough even to bear the bite of the sun, if I take precautions. It’s a Gangrel trait.”

“It’s one of my traits, too,” Judy said. Her voice was as brash as usual, though Elliott thought he saw an uncharacteristic hint of disquiet in her eyes. “You won’t be anywhere near as powerful by day as you are by night. You’re going to need help, so I’ll sit up with you.”

Angus gave her an approving nod. “So be it. Even though it will mean the sun is brighter, let’s hope for blue skies. After centuries of black ones, the spectacle is worth the added discomfort.”

Elliott took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to dissolve the tension in his muscles. “I’ll help, too,” he said.

“No, you won’t,” Angus said. “You
don’t
have the kind of hardiness it takes to endure the sun.” Feeling a guilty relief at being let off the hook, Elliott wondered how the older vampire could be so sure about his limitations. “Besides, you and the Malkavian will be needed to direct all the other aspects of the defense. Remember, you’ve got plenty of other problems to keep you occupied.”

“I’m not as tough as a Gangrel or a Brujah, either,” Lazio said quietly. “But 1 can stand the sun, I know how to shoot, and I’ve been around the Kindred long enough not to lose my head when someone does something dangerous or uncanny. I’ll join the hunting party, if I may. I’d like a chance to strike back at the people who hurt Roger.”

Gunter snorted, manifestly contemptuous of the notion that the stooped, aging mortal had anything to contribute. But Angus studied Lazio for a moment, then said, “Very well.” He turned to Judy. “Keep the nighttime patrols operating, in case our theory is wrong. And go feed. Gorge yourself. You’re going to need the strength.”

TWENTY-FOUR; CAME
LOT

I’m not frightened of the darkness outside. It’s the darkness inside houses I don’t like.

— Shelagh Delaney, A
Taste of Honey

Even in the crowded, brightly illuminated theme park, one could find pockets of quiet and shadow: odd spaces between the rides, snack kiosks and gift shops where there was nothing to see or buy and mortals strode by without lingering. That was where the entrances to the service corridors were generally located. Trusting in his limited powers of invisibility to keep him hidden, Dan was lurking in one such area. A black wall, the rear of Mordred’s Haunted Castle, towered at his back, while an artificial lagoon, apparently supposed to be the Lady of the Lake’s lake, gleamed and rippled beyond a low brick wall just a few feet away. With his superhuman hearing, he could hear the squeals and laughter of the tourists inside the glorified spook house as clearly as the roar of the power boats participating in the stunt show on the water. At the moment, the balmy evening air smelled of hot dogs, buttered popcorn, exhaust and human sweat.

Dan hadn’t learned anything by searching Wyatt’s apartment. The experience had merely triggered another wave of regret, leading him to suspect that, irrational though it might be, the remorse he felt over killing the other Kindred was likely to stick with him for a long time. Afterward, he’d been eager to stake out Camelot. He’d hoped that playing spy in the colossal tourist trap, an amusement park as big as Disney World, Universal, or any of Orlando’s other stellar attractions, would take his mind off his troubles.

To some extent it had, but so far that was about the only thing he’d accomplished. Using Wyatt’s scarlet key card, he’d penetrated the miles of brightly lit, antiseptic-looking tunnels that underlay the park. There he’d discovered employee offices, cafeterias, restrooms and lounges. Whirring electric golf carts whisking staff and cargo to and fro. Machine shops. Storerooms full of tinned food, carbonated-drink canisters, costumes, half-assembled audioanimatronic robots and dismantled floats from discontinued street parades. He suspected that, unless he was dead wrong about the park being connected to the war against Melpomene and Sarasota, an enemy base lay hidden down there too; but he hadn’t been able to find it. The complex was simply too large.

Twice during his explorations aboveground, once near the ten-story Firedrake roller coaster and once while lounging outside the Round Table Burger Bar and Pizzeria, he’d glimpsed other Kindred gliding through the crowd, identifiable by their alabaster pallor and the silence of their hearts. Though they might have come to the park merely to hunt, or for diversion, it seemed far more likely that they were enemies. Fearful of discovery, he’d given them a wide berth. But now, frustrated by his lack of investigative progress, he’d decided that his best hope of completing his mission was to shadow another vampire. With luck, the guy would lead him to enemy headquarters, and if he didn’t, well, maybe Dan could jump him and beat some answers out of him.

Around the corner, soft footsteps scuffed along the pavement, unaccompanied by the hiss of respiration or the muffled thud of a heartbeat. Tensing, Dan willed himself to stand absolutely motionless. A moment later, a long-legged, brown-haired Kindred wearing jeans, a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow and a black leather vest strode into view. His pale skin was slightly tinged with pink, as if he’d fed recently, and the faint scent of vitae still clung to him.

He marched past Dan without a glance, pulled a red card like Wyatt’s out of his pocket, and dragged it through the electronic lock mounted on the wall. The door clicked and lurched ajar. The Kindred in the vest went through and pulled it shut behind him.

Dan swallowed. It seemed mad to follow the other undead too closely. As soon as he moved, his shroud of invisibility would dissolve, and, down in the bare, well-lit tunnels, he was unlikely to find the cover or patches of shadows necessary to recreate it. Moreover, it was a good bet that the guy in the vest was Tremere, a member of a bloodline as renowned for keen senses as the Toreador and Malkavians. But Dan was all but certain that if he
didn’t
follow closely, he’d lose his quarry in the frequently branching service corridors. Feeling like the most reckless fool on earth, he waited only a moment before scuttling to the door and unlocking it himself.

As he’d previously discovered, it opened on a set of concrete stairs not unlike those he’d found in Wyatt’s derelict office building. His quarry’s footsteps clicked and squeaked from below. Dan paused and listened for an instant to make sure they sounded like they w
⁷
ere still going downward, then crept after them.

By the time he reached the bottom of the staircase, the vampire in the vest had passed through another door. Cracking it open, Dan saw him striding down a corridor with doors and openings on the right-hand wall.

Dan kept following, trying to move silently without appearing as if he were sneaking. If the other Kindred did turn around and spot him, he wanted to look as if he had legitimate business in the tunnels. To that end, he kept the scarlet card sticking out of his breast pocket. With luck, it would help convince at least any mortal observer that he belonged down here.

Dan’s nerves seemed to thrum with tension. Trying to alleviate the excruciating anxiety, he assured himself that he was going to get away with this idiot plan. The Kindred in the vest obviously
didn’t
hear him. Either the guy didn’t possess superhuman senses, or he was preoccupied. And at least there were no security cameras in the tunnels. Dan had noticed some topside and made a point of avoiding them, but apparently the builders hadn’t considered them necessary for the parts of the facility the public never saw.

Eventually his jitters grew slightly less severe. Then a stocky, balding, middle-aged mortal in grease-stained blue coveralls stepped out of a branching tunnel just in front of him. Smiling, the human opened his mouth to speak.

Judging from his expression, the mechanic only wanted to be friendly, but Dan couldn’t afford to let him say anything. The other Kindred would surely hear and probably glance backward. Dan lunged at the human, grabbed him by the throat, hoisted him into the air, and squeezed.

For a moment the mechanic clawed feebly at Dan’s forearms, then shuddered and dangled limply. His heart stopped thumping, and he began to smell of feces.

Dan winced. He hadn’t wanted to kill the guy, just choke him unconscious. But, still not quite used to the extra strength that Melpomene’s blood had given him, he’d evidently crushed the mechanic’s windpipe or pulverized the top of his spinal cord.

Scowling, the vampire tried to push his remorse aside. His victim was only a kine — a member of a different species, just as Wyatt had said — and in any case Dan didn’t have time for guilt. He couldn’t lug the corpse along with him, nor would it be safe to leave it sitting out in the open. He had to stash it somewhere quickly, before the Kindred in the vest — fortunately still unaware of the lightning-fast, silent murder that had occurred just a few yards behind him

— got away.

Carrying the dead man in his arms, Dan stalked to the next door along the wall. He couldn’t hear anything moving on the other side, so he tested the knob and found it unlocked. Hoping that he wasn’t about to walk in on a room full of people, he eased it open.

Beyond the threshold was a shadowy storeroom stacked with cardboard boxes. Some had been opened, revealing bundles of postcards, T-shirts stenciled w'ith the Camelot logo, silvery plastic broadswords and plumed, visored helmets, and other samples of the merchandise sold in the gift shops and souvenir stands overhead.

Dan dumped the mechanic behind a heap of cartons in the far corner, where no one peering in from the doorway could see him. Grateful to have resolved at least this one problem so expeditiously, he hurried back to the door, peeked out, and then cursed under his breath. Because the Kindred in the vest had disappeared.

Fighting panic, Dan reminded himself that his quarry had only been out of his sight, for a moment. Surely he could find him again. In all probability the guy had turned down that side passage about fifty feet ahead. Moving faster now, less worried about being quiet than catching up, Dan strode to the opening and around the corner.

The long, straight passage before him was empty.