It was one of those late-spring-early-summer rains that brought an unseasonable chill to the air and remained for an entire day as only a drizzle blown in eddying drifts by a variable wind. Enough rain, he thought, to smear the city's grime a bit, but not enough to wash it clean.
Never enough rain, Henry thought, to wash the city clean.
Across the street from his destination was Meridian Hill Park and just through a now-scraggly clump of trees, he knew, was an old statue of Joan of Arc. Beyond that was a fountain that once fell gently down a terraced stream for fifty yards.
Years before, as a child, he played there. He hadn't been back in years. Too depressing. Homeless people under every other bush. Human excrement in the fountain. Pushers haunting the statues day and night.
Never enough rain to wash the city clean.
He approached the apartment house on foot, careful to stay within the role assigned to him.
He looked to be about 50 -- slightly overweight, slightly balding, slightly greying at the temples. Which he was.
With a conservative suit of a nondescript blue-gray, adorned at the lapel with a bright red rose, he looked to be a businessman out for a night on the town. Which he wasn't.
He was a cop. An undercover officer for the morals squad. Out to keep an appointment with a high-class hooker. On business.
Before the evening was over, one more prostitute would be behind bars and the city would be that much cleaner. Wouldn't it?
He didn't really believe such nonsense, of course. But the town fathers did. They paid his salary.
The apartment house -- the Park Towers -- was a nice one, but very old, one of the remnants of the 1890s that line 16th Street. This one, being a little farther north than most and away from the Florida Avenue ghetto, had been reprieved (for now, at least) from the usual pattern of such once-exclusive buildings: chic apartment, then working-class flats, next flop house, tenement, and, finally, wreck and crackhouse.
Two tower-like wings jutting up on either side of the six-story building gave it its name and dated it to the 19th century, but the red canvass canopy stretching out from the entrance was faded, weather-beaten, and cheap. Years before, it was most likely made of velvet with gold tassels hanging down at all sides -- to match the livery of the doorman.
There was no doorman to greet him this evening, nor had there been for three quarters of a century, and not a soul occupied the large lobby. The glories of the past were long gone, echoed only in the high ceiling of the lobby, the faded carpet upon the floor, the cracked and dirty marble on the fake columns.
An empty desk stood far to one side of the empty lobby, next of rows of dingy mail boxes.
He walked back to the lone elevator and punched the button. When the ancient cage rumbled to a stop and two doors opened with a shudder, he thought there must be at least a hundred buildings exactly like this one in the city. He pushed the button for the fifth floor. And this must be the hundredth time he'd pulled this kind of assignment in just this kind of building.
For some reason, this time he felt vaguely uneasy.
Room 512 was down the long hallway toward the back end of the building, last door on the right. He looked again at the card as he passed a vacant-eyed woman in curlers and housecoat tossing a bag of trash down a belching hole that reeked of smoke.
The card read simply: "Lilith XXI, 512 Park Towers." He'd gotten the card last night in a hotel bar. Said she was the best in town.
They'd pick up Adam later, after this arrest was made.
He almost stepped on the little dog, a tiny unclipped poodle dyed a sick green. It yipped when he stepped too near it and raced past him into the arms of the curlered, housecoated woman now returning from the trash chute.
The door he wanted was marked only by its number. He pressed the bell. Was eyed through the peep-sight. Was admitted.
Though he was accustomed to the ostentatious display of money from some of the city's more successful prostitutes, he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
Thick carpeting covered the floors. Draperies and tapestries -- rich, luxurious and obviously very old -- covered the walls. Incense filled the air with a sweet, alluring aroma.
The only furniture seemed to be an ancient bed, back by the window (which he knew from his earlier examination of the building overlooked a bowling alley). The bed was covered with a brocade spread fully equal to the tapestries in age and value.
All colors in the room were muted browns and oranges, with intricate designs throughout that gave hints of people and activities, but were so cleverly drawn that if you stared at a design for any time, any semblance of reality disappeared. The only way, he discovered, to see anything he could recognize was to look only at the whole. Then, the images seemed to exist as in a mist, changing constantly but ever changeless at the same time.
He found himself staring at his hostess. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but whatever it was, this wasn't it. Here was no young girl become a hooker for fun or money or drugs. No saggy-eyed woman of the world who stayed a hooker because it was all she knew to do, and the only way to feed the habit that consumed her.
The woman who stood in front of him, beside the bed, was truly beautiful. Her face seemed ageless, the perfection of female beauty matched -- the words seem to appear inside his head -- with "contemplative wisdom." (Strange words, he thought, to apply to a whore.)
She wore a nightgown of shimmering gauze that revealed her naked body underneath. Real poppies (he could swear they were real) were attached to the sheer gown and accentuated the shape of her body.
"I'm Henry," he found himself stuttering. "Adam said he'd set up the appointment for me."
"Of course," she responded languidly. She walked to the bed and let the nightgown fall to the carpet. Serenely, she lay down, her hand beckoning him like some goddess calling to her a mortal with whom she was enamored of the hour. The voice was sweet, burdened of tropical fruit.
"Damn!" he thought. "this is going to be a tough bust."
He began to undress slowly, pulling out a wad of bills at the same time. He had to go through the process until money changed hands. That's when the crime actually took place.
He had his shirt off and was reaching toward Lilith with the money when everything began to change slowly in front of him.
It suddenly seemed to him as if the room began to melt. The tapestry gave way to strands of cobwebbing, swirling behind a wall of fog. The carpet beneath his stockinged feet disappeared and became dust and dried bones.
He looked up at his intended victim and suddenly realized he was the victim. The woman and the bed had grown together -- metamorphosing before him. The thing they had become was nothing he could recognize. Perhaps if he'd had more time he would called it a great golden spider, but it was more than that.
It had many arms -- or were they legs? tentacles? -- and it was covered by that silken golden hair that had looked so appealing on the woman now gone. His scream was stopped by a golden strand of hair that stretched from the thing before him and wrapped itself around his head. More strands clutched his arms, his legs. He felt himself being pulled slowly toward the creature. He struggled, but each time he pulled away he merely tightened the sticky strands.
All he could do was to gurgle. And to vomit. And to die.
Sgt. Steve Puran pulled his chubby hands from off Captain Stuart's desk. "Do I get the warrant?"
"Why didn't you just bust in there right after he disappeared?"
"We didn't have a reasonable knowledge that a felony was being committed in that room. We saw Henry go into the building, but no one definitely saw him enter the apartment. Besides, we didn't want to blow Henry's cover with a raid -- in case he wasn't ready." Puran shrugged. "So we waited all night. Nothing."
Captain Stuart looked at his neat fingernails and rarely even glanced at the Chief of Morals Squad, and when he did only with a touch of something akin to distaste. Back at the university, they'd treated this branch of criminology like an archaic relic of the past, and the two years since he'd received his doctorate had not been sufficient for him to quite accept the Morals Squad as a part of his department.
"This is the second time you'd lost a man, or had one disappear, under similar circumstances, isn't it, Steve?" Back in the university he'd learned to be democratic and to use first names whenever possible. Now, he noticed the heavier and older man wince, and he suddenly realized his statement could be interpreted as an accusation as well as a statement of fact.
"That's right, sir. We think this might be the same woman. Until our man disappeared last month, we had never followed our own men or even required they tell us in advance of every possible bust. We followed Henry there last night because of the name."
"The name?"
"Yes sir. Lilith. The woman he went to see. We found that name on a card that Jock -- the first officer who ended up missing -- left at the station before he disappeared."
"So what do you expect to find with a search warrant?"
"I don't know. Perhaps just a clue to what happened. Perhaps my two men. Or their bodies. Perhaps evidence that I had some bad eggs in my squad."
That convinced the captain. Even the possibility of a scandal would be worth it. "I'll get you your search warrant," he said, "for this evening. I'll even come along with you -- just for orientation, you understand."
The older man started to object. Then thought better of it. Twenty-five years on the force taught one to be thankful for favors granted. And to make no waves.
"Lilu 21. Lilu 21. You must leave at once. An armed band of the thisworldthings is approaching your lair at this moment. You must escape at once."
"I cannot," the response came. "I have not removed the residues from my lair."
"Forget the residues! We have no time to send the equipment to you. Leave at once! This is Marduk speaking!" He was angry. She should not be arguing with him. She whose task it was to gather energy was wasting energy in force-augmentation by arguing with him.
"Cannot I use thought control?" she transmitted. "They have found none of our residues in a long time. This might be a poor time to have them discovered."
"We do not want them discovered." His thought pattern was firm. He was trying not to be argumentative. "But we cannot afford to lose another individual. The time may be very short now before we leave for home. Every individual is important. In any event, you cannot use thought control over so large a group. Leave!"
"How much time do I have?"
"None! You must blast physically from your lair. Report to the mountain Great Lair. The last thisworldthing you harvested was some kind of official, and now they are searching for me also."
"An official? But he wore no robes."
"This is another time, Lilu. These beings have changed greatly in a short while, as we were sleeping. Now leave! And stop wasting precious energy with force-augmentation."
He felt the connection break and sighed to himself. She must escape. They were so few now. It had been so very long -- so very long. The end was finally in sight.
He opened the window to his apartment, stepped into his flyer, and blasted out into the night sky.
Somewhere, someone thought they saw a meteor that night.
The shock wave hit Captain Stuart just about the instant he reached the door to Room 512. More surprise than the actual force of the blast pushed him back against the door directly opposite 512. The door behind him opened and a gape-mouthed Captain Stuart flopped backwards into the middle of the apartment. He landed on his back on the floor, next to a very surprised, hair-curlered tenant clad only in shorts.
She was lying on the carpet, her head toward the door, two small barbells clutched in fists suspended directly above her chest. Although to the Captain she seemed to be frozen in that position, she was actually doing her exercises -- the Upward Breast Press, to be exact -- to "improve the bust" as the ads had said.
She slowly brought the barbells down to rest on, and partly cover, her breasts, looked calmly at the captain of police, and asked "You all right, honey?"
He just stared. He was still staring when two Morals Squad officers helped him to his feet and guided him out the apartment past the four yapping, multi-colored, tie-died poodles.
"Who was she?" he stammered.
Sgt. Puran laughed. "That's Gigi, the exotic dancer -- you know, stripper -- at the Golden Slipper. She doesn't go on until 3:00 a.m."
Captain Stuart was finally beginning to see a purpose behind Morals after all.
The door to Room 512 remained silent to their knocks and calls, but gave easily to a battering weight swung by two officers. When the door came down, they saw a sight that no human had seen for nearly 500 years.
Everywhere they looked, except over the roughly six-by-six-foot hole in the far wall, were what appeared to be cobwebs -- sticky gray webs that looked like nothing in nature. They were not hexagonal or octagonal or any other polygonal shape. They were composed of true circles (or more properly, ellipses) with no radial strands at all. The circumferential strands were linked by a gelatinous film of some sort.
The group of officers clustered around the doorway and stared for what seemed to be a long time. What lay against the walls affected them most. Bundles of clothing filled only with loose bones and a smattering of skin -- the drained shells of what once must have been human beings -- lay piled randomly against every wall.
By the window lay a fresh clump -- a conservative grey suit still adorned with a faded rose. The face was unrecognizable -- hardly more than a skull, crushed inward by some force. Near the clump lay a .38 special revolver, covered by the same gummy substance that coated everything else in the room.
"My god," someone muttered. "That's Henry!"
One of the men turned back to the hallway and threw up.
The door across the hall opened and a now-bathrobed Gigi looked out. She began screaming. Sgt. Puran felt like screaming himself, but instead he vomited on the spot.
Gigi was still screaming the next day. In the hospital.
The little green peaked hat perched on the back of his head, festooned with feathers and bright colored flies, showed he was a fisherman. The small cane swung jauntily in his right hand, covered with metal insignia representing the official seals of 34 European cities and resorts, showed that he was a hiker. The knee-pants and tight red jacket showed he was a German.
And the dark-colored trees through which he now walked so briskly showed that he was in the Black Forest and that he was content with his world.
He'd been this way many times before, along the Hochsfussweg above Titisee, but it never ceased to please him -- the small streams that appeared around every bend, the little lakes glimpsed in the distance from time to time as he strode by an opening in the evergreen tapestry, the occasional tiny deer that started at the sound of his steps and bounded quickly out of sight.
With one exception, he'd seen not a soul in his walk this day, the one exception being the fat little American tourist directly ahead of him wearing those atrocious shorts, the gaudy hand- painted shirt, the ubiquitous Polaroid around his neck, and the sunglasses. The little German's pockets were already full of trash he'd picked up after the American -- a cigarette wrapper, a half dozen messy film covers, a gum wrapper. Disgraceful, he thought, the way Americans treated these forests.
For a brief while he'd been sure he'd escaped the American by taking the higher route, but just recently had discovered more tourist spoor in his path and feared the fat American had crossed over to his path by the middle way.
Just as he turned the next bend he saw the tourist ahead. Instinctively he stopped and looked around him for another path to take. Then he saw the other person ahead.
At least it looked like a person at first -- a golden-haired woman bathed in mist. Then he shook his head and looked again. He was far enough away that the thought control was not taking full effect. He was also not expected by the Lilith, and was not therefore a conscious recipient of the signal.
What he saw as the mist cleared brought a chill to his blood. In the place of the woman was something else, something large and alien, though the gold colors still predominated. It seemed to have no legs, but moved with golden cilia. A band of tentacles, arranged something like a sea anemone, waved from the top of the creature.
The American's actions amazed the German. The fat little man began walking toward the creature as if hypnotized. He threw his camera to one side. He practically ripped his bright shirt from his back, revealing a paunch that protruded over his belt. When the American began to unbuckle his belt, one of the golden cilia wrapped itself around his neck.
A gurgling sort of scream followed, and the German took to his heels. His strong legs carried him down the pathway, to the small town of Titisee and the police station there.
He was known to be a sober man. They almost believed him from the beginning.
When a police contingent found the body, or what was left of the body, they did believe him.
"Are you certain the thisworldthing saw you?" Marduk was talking with Lilith XVII, his tentacles moving nervously over his fang-maw.
"I'm almost positive," she signalled. "I had to draw out the energy from the one I had because he was just dead, so I couldn't pursue. When the armed group of thisworldthings came, I was forced to flee and to leave the residues behind. I got all of the energy, but little nourishment from the thisworldthing I killed."
"That was all that could be expected of you." Marduk was worried. They had been taking chances these last few days. Calculated chances, but nonetheless dangerous ones.
"Will this..." Lilith's thought patterns showed something akin to worry also. "...affect our chances of getting back home?"
"Not in itself it won't. But when we consider it in relation to the occurrence on the Cities continent only one thisday ago, it might."
"How could it?" she asked. "They have only some residues and now one brief glimpse of us."
Marduk straightened his tentacles in the sign of resignation. Only the Marduk and the Ishtuk had been taught the ancient wisdoms -- and the Ishtuk was long gone. The Lilu were, after all, only energy gatherers, though he sometimes wished they had been bred for more intelligent conversation. It had been thousands of thisworldyears, since the death of his Ishtuk, since he had intelligent conversation with any being of his own kind.
"Don't you remember," he spoke-thought gently, "the Divine Law of Threes?"
She looked blank. He had explained it many times, but they always forgot.
He continued: "All things happen in sets of three. Three living things born each time to a Marduk and an Ishtuk..." (How he wished there had been another Ishtuk on their ship! Had there been, they would now have more time...) "...three suns about which our homeworld orbits, three sleepings for every wakening, three drangs for.... But I could go on and on."
"And every trouble," he continued, "also comes in threes. Two troubles have now happened, and so close to our hoped-for departure. There will come a third. The Divine Law says the third is always the greater and the more important. Let us hope it does not bring the end of us."
"How terrible!" The Lilu's tentacles shuddered at random, a certain indication of stress. "I want so much to go home."
"It is not so terrible," Marduk said to comfort her, "because we are forewarned. We must be prepared for the next trouble. Now, you must leave the forest here and go into the cities with your sisters. I will prepare the way for you tonight. We must have more energy."
Lilith XVII skittered away to transfer her stored energy into the motherplant before she left. Marduk weighed their chances in his mind. By his calculation, they had no more than nine halves in nine. This abominable planet! he thought. Only one species with sufficient brain energy to make it worth harvesting. All the larger species, of course, could provide pure sustenance, but only this one -- the primary species -- could provide the energy sources for their propulsion and life-support systems.
In the thousands of thisworldyears they'd been on this miserable world, this species had become more crafty, more dangerous, more numerous and more powerful. They had also become, he had to admit, less credulous about non-physical powers. And therein, he thought, lies our strength! If only they fail to discover the energy sources hidden within their own brains! At least until he and the remaining Lilu had left for their home world.
The thought of home saddened him. His tentacles relaxed. (They were old and tired anyway.) He looked at the ugly greens and browns that surrounded him in his forest retreat, and in his mind's eye he saw his own home -- a world of gold and red filled with pleasing circles and ovals and ellipses. No ugly straight lines to slice a scene in two.
Then he thought of an Ishtuk. And a mating.
But perhaps, he thought sadly, I'm too old for that now.
When the body of J.B.B. Hustens -- for that was the name of the fat tourist from the Hochschwarzwald -- arrived back in the States, it was sent (by chance of residence) to the same coroner who had examined the estimated 58 bodies or parts of bodies retrieved from the apartment of Lilith XXI.
He recognized the similarity and referred the case to Homicide, which referred it right back to Sgt. Puran, whose entire team, along with two Homicide detectives as consultants, was now operating for the sole purpose of finding the murderer or murderers. Captain Stuart felt Puran's men would not only have better contacts in this case, but also have more motivation than any other unit.
Efforts had been made to "minimize press coverage" but the cover-up was only partially successful. How much can you hush up a mass murder of this sort? Besides, with most of the victims (those who could even be identified) being tourists from other parts of the country, newspapers all over the nation had been alerted to something strange going on. Wire services and the TV and cable networks were crawling all over police headquarters.
Officially, not much had been released past the obituary stage, though rumors (in the absence of any hard news) were commonly reported as fact by the press.
The warrant issued for one "Adam Marduk" was a joke, being completely inadequate. It described the suspect only as "white male." Henry had uncharacteristically failed to give a single identifying feature of his contact. It was, Puran thought, almost as if he'd been hypnotized -- like the guy in Germany. Heaven forbid if the press ever got hold of that!
The coroner's report was being kept under wraps, but the pressure from the press to release even a part of it was great. Early leaks only hinted at the truth, but the sensational dailies were already printing garish stories about modern vampires.
Puran's men had literally turned the city upside down, that part of the city, at least, where prostitution was a way of life. Nothing.
He picked up the card on his desk. It read: "James K. Barrett, Professor of Historical Criminology." Stuart had just given it to him. "Ole' Barry," the Captain had said, "might be of assistance to you."
Puran made a face. Perhaps it would come to that -- that he would have to give "Ole' Barry" a call. But he hoped not.
George Bernard Riddle concentrated on the pencil and saw it move a quarter of an inch.
Or did it? Perhaps he was only imagining things again.
George Bernard wanted more than anything else to be able to control matter with his mind. All his life he had spent in search of that power. He had gone through all the frivolous paths that such men usually take: rosicrucianism, scientology, T.M., spiritism -- even pentacostalism and Eddyism. Dead ends, all of them. Each had taught him to convince himself that something real was happening -- but nothing real ever did happen.
Now, George Bernard was going his own way. For months, he had been inwardly exploring the reaches of his own mind, having dropped all preconceptions after finding only frauds in the established religions and New Age cults he'd explored.
He thought he finally had found something, a source of power that he could only sense rather than actually feel through any normal means. Wary of the traps he had fallen into earlier, however, he now kept a careful log.
The pencil lay on a lined sheet of paper, with each line carefully numbered in George Bernard's tight script. In the log before him was written: "Pencil on line 3. 10:53 p.m."
Now he looked at the pencil. It was on line 5! He entered that into the log and concentrated again, this time with more confidence in what he was sensing.
The pencil rose tentatively into the air. In his excitement he broke the spell, and the pencil clattered back to the paper, straddling lines 6 through 9. He'd found it! Finally found it! The secret he had searched for all these years!
Before he could continue with his experiment, he suddenly sensed a message from somewhere deep in his own mind. He tensed with momentary fear. This he had not expected.
The voice was soft and gentle, and immediately allayed all his fears.
"Brother," the inner voice said, "you have found the secret and are now eligible to join the Brotherhood. We are leagued together, all those who have discovered the Way, to insure that our powers are kept secret and are used only for the good of humanity. Will you join us?"
Then it was real! The secret Brotherhood of ultimate knowledge. And he was being invited to become one of the legendary Immortals! It was what he had always dreamed for -- even more than simply the ability to move matter with mind power alone. But how to respond telepathically.
"Yes," he spoke aloud. "I will join the Brotherhood." Later, he thought, they will teach me how to communicate by mind alone.
"Good," the thought continued. "I'll be with you in a short while and bestow on you the rites of initiation. Until then ... Power to the Brotherhood!"
"Power to the Brotherhood!" George Bernard thought back, and then -- to ensure he was heard -- he spoke it aloud: "Power to the Brotherhood!"
While he waited for his initiation, George Riddle played with his pencil, tossing it with him mind into the air and catching it, making it pause in mid-air. He found he could even make it write a few words in his log-book from across the room.
At long last, the quest was over.
Lilith XXI sat in the funny little cubicle called a "room" by the thisworldthings and waited. It was a new lair, but just as ugly as the other -- despite her attempts at beautification with her lovely strands of webbing. Marduk was sending another of these ugly little creatures to her tonight.
They were primitive things, these thisworldthings, wholly out of proportion in appearance and on a level biologically with the domesticated beings of her own world.
Her task this evening, as on all evenings, was simple. She must use thought control to project an image into the creature's mind that would draw it to her. Then she must kill it and -- in the first few seconds after death -- draw out the energies from its brain and feed them into her storage plant.
She could not move and exercise thought control at the same time, of course, so she must stop transmitting the image just before she attacked the creature. Which was unfortunate, for in the last few seconds before death they behaved so badly, squealing like smashed fligs and emitting such terrible, smelly fluids from their systems.
Once she harvested the energy, she could spend the rest of the night consuming the rest of the body for sustenance. It wasn't a very appealing way of having dinner, not like the foods back home, but necessary. There was no appealing food for her kind on this accursed planet.
A tap of the door. She prepared the image she had been taught by Marduk and admitted the victim. He was a scrawny little thing. Not much sustenance here. She wondered, as she threw a grasping strand around his surprised face, how much energy his mind would have.
Such a nasty little thing to have to eat for dinner!
George Bernard Riddle was still playing with his pencil when he heard a knock on his apartment door. He concentrated ... and the door opened of itself.
The man who entered was -- well -- descriptionless. He was plain looking, dark-haired, but totally nondescript.
"Hello," the newcomer said. "My name is Adam. I'm Secretary of the Brotherhood. Are you ready for the initiation?"
George simply nodded. Suddenly he was very, very frightened. For no reason that he could tell.
"I really hate to have to do this, you know," the man continued. "If someone had done this to my race at your stage of development, we might never have gotten anywhere."
George Bernard shuddered. What was the man saying?
"But I really must do it, you see, for my very survival. For thousands of your years I have kept a close watch on all your kind for any signs of mind-energy control, and stopped it whenever I sensed such activity. Your command of the powers is quite limited now, of course, but if I were to let you continue, you could soon become a threat to us."
The man's intention slowly seeped into George Bernard's brain. He tensed. Almost instinctively his mind began creating intense thoughts of destruction at the man standing in front of him.
Marduk winced.
"You really shouldn't have done that," he transmitted in a mind-shaking thought pattern.
The image of a man disappeared, melted into fog, and in its place appeared a huge red object with tentacles and cilia and long red strands which reached, and grasped ... and killed.
Puran looked incredulously at the old professor seated across the desk from him and felt his eyebrows raised after the old man's first two sentences. Sure, he had been warned somewhat by Captain Stuart, ("Ole' Barry's a little bit crazy, so they say, but he's had some amazing results.") Still, the police sergeant wasn't sure whether he should excuse himself now and waste no more time with a crackpot, or to sit it through in hopes something worthwhile might come of it all.
"Your criminal -- this Lilith -- has been around for many years," Professor Barrett had begun, his eyes twinkling under his neat grey crewcut. "I'd say for better than 3000 years." He had then paused a moment to take some enjoyment from Puran's look of shocked surprise.
After Puran had given him full measure, he continued: "But a find like yours is strange indeed, the first discovery of its nature -- as far as I can determine -- in half a millennium.
He pulled an old volume from his briefcase. "I've read the report from your ... uh ... raid on the apartment. It is really quite similar to this report by a special commission appointed in Nantes (That's in France, of course) in the fifteenth century. It was hearing the case of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz. You've heard of him, of course?"
Puran shook his head. Who ever heard of such a character?
"But," the professor continued, "you've heard of Bluebeard?"
"Sure," Puran mumbled, "but wasn't he only a legend or something?"
"Only partly. The legendary Bluebeard supposedly murdered his wives. The real Bluebeard, Gilles de Laval, was reported to have murdered more than a hundred children." He glanced at the tome he was referring to.
"Here's the official record. The remains, if such they might be called, were discovered in 1440 in the tower behind the castle of Machecoul. The record I hold in my hand was never made public. Most histories rely on the actual trial reports themselves.
"Since de Laval was Marshall of France at the time and a quite powerful person, the trial was conducted at the highest level and the charge against him was simple witchcraft. Much of the "evidence" at the trial consisted of fake, hashed-over accounts from the Inquisition, used at the hearing to give this crime a less heinous character than it actually had.
"You wonder what could be more villainous in the 15th Century than witchcraft and black magic?" Puran hadn't wondered, but no matter. The professor continued: "Would you believe the grossest form of vampirism and cannibalism? These children had been drained (in the same fashion as your victims, I might add) of every drop of blood and every ounce of flesh. They were found in the tower surrounded by a weird collection of cobweb-like materials -- the 'spoor of the devil' it was called.
"But did poor Gilles do all this? Of course not! He was incapable of it, as would any mere mortal. His two assistants, however, might have been able to perform such deeds. These have been identified as the false priest, Marduk Prelati, and his companion, a woman named Lilith Cinc. You begin to see the connection?"
"The Marshall of France, Lord de Retz, was probably guiltless of any actual murder. But he was financially strapped at the time and under royal edict to prevent him from selling any more of his paternal estates, so he most likely did provide the tower -- and presumably the victims -- for who knows what in return.
"But enough of Bluebeard." Barrett flipped some more through the volume he carried.
"What about the Harlot of Battersea in the last century, who did away with so many of her 'clients' that her flat was eventually burned to the ground by an angry mob? Did you know that her name was supposed to have been Lilith?"
Puran had never even heard of the "Harlot of Battersea," much less her name.
"No remains were found," the professor went on, "perhaps due to the fire, but our London Lilith disappeared completely.
"Go back even deeper into history and the name Lilith comes up frequently. Jews of the seventh century would put charms around the room in which a newborn infant lay, to keep Lilith from consuming the child. To the Jews, you see, Lilith is a witch or demon who was the first wife of Adam and who devours little children, or ..." He paused for effect. "...men whom she seduces with her looks.
"Even the Babylonians have records of Lilith, though they called her 'Lilit' or 'Lilu," words that modern scholars have attempted to translate as 'night-monster.' Lilit was a demon who ensnared young men and then consumed them, after wrapping them up in her web."
"Kind of like a black widow spider," Puran said.
"No, a gold spider. Lilith is always described as having golden hair."
"But I still don't see," Puran began, "what this has to do with ..."
"Let me finish and perhaps you will." The professor pulled another volume from his briefcase. Puran noticed the title of this one: Vampirism, An Historical Perspective.
"The vision the German saw brings me to another phenomenon just as common historically and just as unexplainable as the Lilith matter. I mean vampirism."
Puran shook his head, finally ready to call the meeting off. "You mean bats and counts and ..."
"Oh no! Your knowledge of these things is abysmal. The Dracula story is a modern-day fairy tale, a misinformed thing that confuses vampirism with lycanthropy. Humans turning themselves into bats indeed!
"The earliest descriptions of vampires showed them to be 'disembodied heads' with their entrails hanging down. In the medieval period, one of the protections against vampires was to imbed nails into the window sill to catch the entrails as they were dragged over it. Jews of eastern Europe did this until quite recent times.
"Doesn't that description, however -- 'disembodied heads with entrails hanging down' -- fit the thing the German saw in the Schwarzwald? Invert the image, of course, and 'disembodied head with entrails' would be about what a primitive people would make out of what was seen.
"Even the Haitians have vampires, loup garous, which they describe as streaks of light flashing across the night sky. Persian vampires were shapeless things that consumed the unwary. I could go on and on."
Puran was happy the old man was not going to go 'on and on.' "But where does that put me?" he asked. "You've given me a lot of superstitious drivel, but I'm no closer to finding out who killed my two men than I was before."
Dr. Barrett leaned back in the chair and sighed. "You've complete misunderstood me, haven't you? I have not been talking about anything supernatural. These are all phenomena, natural phenomena, all somehow interrelated and pertinent to the present situation.
"What I'm saying is this: For thousands of years, human beings have been the victim of some thing, or race of things, that uses human bodies for some purpose, for food or for who knows what. These creatures have been attacked by humans in the past and, partially at least, defeated. They've been identified, however primitively, by our ancestors ... but we today have failed to recognize them through our very skepticism, our pride, or our obstinacy."
He leaned across the desk toward the police sergeant. "I am saying that there are such things as vampires. That they are probably found the world over. And that when you find your vampires, you'll find Lilith among them."
Puran arose from his seat, signalling the interview was at an end. "Thank you for your time, Professor Barrett. I appreciate your efforts, but I really must get back to work."
"You don't believe a word I've said, do you?"
"Frankly, no."
Barrett sat a moment thinking, then arose to go.
In his car, he sat even longer, twirling a pencil between his hands.
It was such a nice theory. Wasn't it?
Marduk looked up at the bright black sky and thought again of home. It would not be long now before there would be enough energy stored up to allow them to leave -- what was left of them.
It had been such a long time since they'd first landed on this despicable planet, prematurely out of fuel so far from their own world.
He thought of the Ishtuk, killed so long ago by the Akkadians, that race of humans that first had worshipped him and his mate and then turned on them -- as this species often did -- when the "harvesting" of humans became known.
He thought of the Lilus over the years who had died: burned to death, assaulted by force by mobs, destroyed by the nasty little things who inhabited this world.
It would soon all be behind them. Lilus were in many cities now, gathering what energy they could before another sleeping put a halt to their activities. They must be gone before another sleeping, or many thisworldyears would pass before they could try again.
He wondered idly what the third trouble would be. Then he turned his face to the stars, and dreamed all the more of home.