Blood Hunt

11

At least Harry was doing well. His voice sounded strong on the phone that evening, telling Garreth they were probably releasing him from ICU in another day or two. How were Garreth’s folks, and Brian, he wanted to know. Lien must not have told him yet about his partner’s true activities.

Lien came on. “How are you doing?”

He sighed. “Not making much progress.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “You know I worry about you.”

Canny Lien. For a moment he imagined himself in Harry’s place, hearing an innocent conversation different from the actual one. “I’m not forgetting I Ching. Do you have any new hexagrams for me?” Something encouraging, something lucky.

“Standstill again, without change lines this time.”

After hanging up he sat sipping blood from one of the motel glasses. The hexagram fit. All things certainly were stagnant and benumbed. If he believed in I Ching, it seemed to indicate futility in searching around Bachman. So should he switch focus to Baumen…or was that a dead end, too?

One way to find out…if the city library here were still open.

A phone call established it was, and provided him with directions there. Once there, he hunted up the phone book collection at the reference desk, then stood eyeing the row of thin directories on the “Local” shelf. Might as well go for broke, he decided…and pulled the one for Baumen.

Opening it, he held his breath…paged to the B’s…sighed in relief. Houston, we have Biebers. Twenty-five of them, ten with rural addresses, and two in a town called Lebeau.

“You’re looking for Biebers?”

He looked up to find the reference librarian quirking a brow at him, and realized he must have spoken aloud. “Sort of. I wasn’t sure I’d find any. Around Bachman there were only Biekers.”

The librarian nodded. “The Biebers are all in northern Ellis County and Bellamy County.”

Garreth wrote the Bieber addresses in his notebook, then looked up the address of the high school. “I take it the Biebers were in another of those Volga German groups settling here?”

Her brows went up again. “You know the history. No, the Biebers used to be Biekers living around Schoenchen. Then about 1900, Anton Bieker had some bitter disagreement with his father and took his wife and children, all thirteen of them, and moved north and changed his name. If it isn’t prying, why are you looking for Biebers?”

He gave her his story.

She listened with interest. “So you think this Maggie Bieber can help you find your grandmother?”

“Or at least tell me if Mary Pfeifer is really her name.”

“There are Pfeifers in Bellamy, too…the county seat. You ought to check there as well.”

To maintain his cover story, he went through the Bellamy directory and took down Pfeifer addresses. Not entirely an empty exercise. Bellamy had eight Biebers, as well.

Would he get lucky in Bellamy County, he wondered as he left the library. Tomorrow would see.

Meanwhile, what could he do the rest of the night besides pace and speculate about tomorrow. Go to a movie? Return of the Jedi was playing at the local theater, he noticed. While he had seen it earlier in the year, filling another empty evening without Marti, it was escapist watching — except for the bullshit with Darth Vader at the end where they got sentimental over him being Luke’s father and seemed to forget about all the mayhem and deaths he was responsible for — so he might as well watch it again.

The movie had not even started, however, when he discovered a problem with theaters and vampires. If this were a weekend crowd, blood smell would have swamped him. Sitting in the empty rear row with a box of extra-butter popcorn under his nose helped mask the scents from tonight’s handful of patrons. Except for one scent with an acidity that reminded him of the hospital and kept distracting him. A part of Garreth wanted to find the source…ask if he/she were ill…urge the individual to see a doctor. Instead he left, reflecting that if a disease altered blood scent a particular way, a vampire doctor would make one hell of a diagnostician

In the parking lot he regarded the long night ahead and almost missed his Embarcadero forays.

Thought of which prompted a question he needed to address. While he still had half the blood he brought with him, when that ran out, what did Kansas offer for refills? Jackrabbits and prairie dogs? Considering the size of the prairie, finding enough of those struck him as chancy. Rats, though, lived everywhere. Where here? Barns, probably, and maybe grain elevators.

Hays had a big one. Sitting in the middle of town, unfortunately, where unfamiliarity with its interior structure and possible location of his prey in it outweighed confidence in his stealth. Blunder around enough and he was bound to be noticed. He needed an isolated elevator…like the one in dead little Dixon. Maybe the county had a Dixon counterpart somewhere close.

North of town, the highway followed rolling hills. At the crest of each, Garreth scanned the horizon for the elevator shape. Concentrating on that, he caught sight of the moving shadows in a field off to the side barely in time to brake and avoid a deer and two nearly-grown fawns as they crossed in front of him.

Deer. He turned in at a pasture gate and climbed out to stare after the animals. Deer had more blood than a rat…enough to give him some without having to die? If he could catch one. Watching these vanish over the hill, he calculated the odds of that as slim to none. But what more might be in the field. The night wind brought him a warm scent of something blood-filled. Cattle, maybe. Cattle had even more blood and should be easier to catch.

He climbed over the metal pipe gate and followed the blood scent across the pasture. Catching up with prey, he realized, did not equal control of it. Would his power work for something so much bigger than a rat?

A hell of a lot bigger than a rat. Coming over the rise brought him face to face with not cattle but a single bovine, looming huge as a elephant and pale as a ghost in the twilight brightness of his vision…with huge testicles between its hind legs announcing he confronted a bull.

Garreth froze. The bull snorted in surprise.

Doubts raced through his head. Not just about the ability to stare into the eyes when they were on the sides of its head, but assuming he managed that, could he find a vein? That was one hell of a thick neck.

The bull snorted again and lowered its head. He needed to act or retreat. Garreth licked his lips and wiped sweaty palms on his jeans. Moving enough to catch one of the cow’s eyes, he focused on it. Would one eye work?

Maybe. The massive head stayed down, but seemed more relaxed. The flare of its nostrils eased.

Now what? Would it stay docile if he looked away to go for the neck? Lane had to do that to bite him, but continued controlling him with her voice. Would that work with an animal? Only one way to find out.

Still staring it in the eye, he eased closer and pushed at its neck…braced to run like hell if necessary. The hair felt warm, soft, and curly under his fingers. “Lie down,” he said, making his voice low and soothing.

It rocked a little. He pushed harder. Its legs sagged, forelegs folding first, followed by the hind ones. Its nose dropped to its front legs.

Garreth moved closer and pushed some more. “Roll over. Lie flat.”

With a sigh, the bull did so.

Garreth felt an urge to sigh, too, in relief. Except now he had to look away. Murmuring soothingly, Garreth knelt and moved his hand up the neck into a hollow behind the jaw. He probed, searching for a pulse…found it, beating strong and slow. Keeping the fingers of one hand on it, he knelt, bent over the outstretched neck and, extending his fangs, and bit where his fingers touched.

And found only flesh and the barest taste of blood.

Not again! He wanted to scream in frustration.

The bull twitched. Garreth fought panic. The pulse throbbed under his fingers. He smelled blood under the pale hide. It had to be in there somewhere. He made himself try again, biting in a slightly different position.

This time blood spurted. The twin gushers filled his mouth. After his usual refrigerated diet, its heat startled him and he nearly jumped back. But the hunger ignited by the hot flow quickly overcame surprise. He hung on, drinking his fill.

His fill, but as with the rat blood, not to satisfaction. He sat back, holding thumbs over the punctures with frustration snarling in him. Blood was blood. Why was this not good enough?

The bull lay still, its eyes closed. Garreth removed his thumbs. The punctures had stopped seeping blood. A handful of earth rubbed into the hide covered the marks.

When he stood the bull rolled onto its chest, but made no attempt to stand, just lay with its eyes closed. Still, he backed away keeping his eyes on it. He did not turn until over the hill, then, once out of sight, he ran…partially to put distance between himself and the huge animal, partly in a vain attempt to run away from the longings racking him.

But enjoyment came, too, in the nighttime strength and energy clamoring for release. The ground streamed beneath his feet as power surged through him. Soon exhilaration drowned all other thoughts and he gave himself up to the unthinking joy of motion. He had never run this fast before! The gate lay ahead and instead of stopping to crawl through, he hurdled it.

Landing beside the car, he discovered that his heart and breathing returned to normal in seconds. He grinned. At this rate, he could run for miles without even trying. What a kick!

A spotlight lit him up.

He froze in its glare, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes. The action came reflexively but even as his forearm rose, Garreth realized it served another purpose as well, to keep the person behind the light from seeing his eyes reflect red.

A car door opened.

The spotlight prevented him from seeing who climbed out, but the very fact of a spotlight suggested law enforcement. He lowered his arm enough to peer over it and identify a light bar on top of the car. Which might or might not be good, remembering times on patrol with a few partners before Harry. Too bad he had no badge on him.

“Evening, son,” a voice said from behind the light.

The casual tone of the greeting gave him hope of a friendly encounter. “Good evening, Officer.”

“Deputy sheriff,” the voice corrected him. “What’s your name?”

“Garreth Mikaelian. My driver’s license is in my hip pocket. Would you like to see it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

As Garreth fished out his billfold and extracted the license, the deputy said, “You have California plates. You a student at the college?”

Yes, there was a college here. He debated his answer and chose honesty. “No, just passing through. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn.”

“What are you doing way out here?”

What answer would the deputy accept? What would he accept if their positions were reversed? “I’m a night person and your town goes to sleep before I do. So I took a drive. This is a spectacular sky. I don’t see anything like it in San Francisco.”

“Don’t you see No Trespassing signs out there?” He pointed to the one wired to the fence beside the gate.

Okay, maybe this was turning not so friendly and good thing he had not shown a badge and made himself look more irresponsible. Garreth gave the deputy a sheepish grimace. “I saw the sign but I wasn’t going to do anything but walk to the top of the hill and back. Which I did.” Would it help to come across as an ignorant city boy? “I didn’t even bother the cow that’s sleeping on the other side of the hill.”

“Cow?” The deputy laughed shortly. “The Good Lord looks after fools. Son, that ‘cow’ is Vale’s Chablis of Postrock, Postrock ranch’s prize Charolais show bull…or he was until he got too mean to handle.”

Garreth swallowed. “Mean?”

“He’s put three men in the hospital, one of them crippled for life. You could have paid for trespassing with your life.” The deputy returned the driver’s license. “Suppose you go on back to town and stay out of pastures, especially when they’re posted.”

Garreth went, shaking in retrospective fear.

By the time he reached the hotel, that had been replaced by exhilaration. Though ignorant of the risk he took, he controlled the bull…which should mean no trouble with less dangerous cattle. Giving him a plentiful source of blood which did not have to die feeding him. He needed a better excuse for nocturnal activity, though. The next deputy might be less friendly.

Jogging suggested itself. Everyone ran these days and he enjoyed the one tonight. Before he headed to Baumen tomorrow, he would buy a pair of running shoes and a warm-up suit to lend his story credence. But maybe exercise more caution, too, in his choice of cattle to fed on.