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<h2>5</h2>
<p>Helen Lamont looked up from her desk in the squad room when
David Harper came in, running his fingers through his short hair to
shake off the mist droplets that had condensed and settled in a dew
as he walked back to the station.</p>
<p>"I heard you were looking for me."</p>
<p>"Nothing too important," he said. "I'll need help to go through
some videos."</p>
<p>"Picking up porn now, David?" She gave him a wide-eyed innocent
look and he went along with it, trading her an easy grin.</p>
<p>"Don't you wish, sleazy cow."</p>
<p>Her eyes opened wider and her mouth formed a small circle of
surprise, even shock. "That's sexist. I could have your legs done
for that, chauvinist pig."</p>
<p>"Whenever you can tell me who Chauvin was, I'll hold my hands up
and take the rap." He knew she was kidding, and so did she.</p>
<p>She returned his smile. A bruise swelled purple just under her
eye and two scrapes that went down the side of her cheek where the
skin was still risen slightly. Apart from that, she looked
undamaged, though he knew there was a handspan black and blue mark
across her ribs where the doctors at casualty had taped tight, and
another deep purple blossom on her belly where she'd taken the full
force of the boot. She still looked almost frail, but he also knew
she was as tough as anybody on the shift, as the knee in the thin
man's groin testified. Back in the station he had claimed she'd
assaulted him. His lawyer advised him against proceeding further.
He was an accessory to a potential charge worse than receiving
stolen goods. He had backed off, very gingerly, for his testicles
were still paining him the following day.</p>
<p>David gave her an exaggerated up and down once-over, still
kidding, though while he appreciated the fact that she was a good
cop, a really good cop, he was also male enough to think she was a
good-<em>looking</em> cop, and there was nothing wrong with having
good looking policewomen around. She barely came up to his
shoulders and she had a dark-eyed, almost soft appearance, but her
looks were deceiving. On the first day they'd worked together on a
case he'd seen her square up to Walter Gourlay down on Pollock Road
when he'd come at her with a baseball bat. She'd ducked and there
had been only two hits. She hit him on the throat and he hit the
ground. He'd hardly been able to talk when he made his first court
appearance and when faced with his oppressor in the Monday morning
court, the judge had taken a look at the differences in their size
and sex and he'd laughed big Walter down to a year in Drumbain
jail.</p>
<p>"Before I forget, " Helen turned round, making a face as David
shook the droplets from his coat. "May called."</p>
<p>"June," David corrected automatically. He was getting used to
Helen Lamont's quirky sense of humour.</p>
<p>"May, June, whatever," Helen said, trying to keep the smile off
her face. "Anyway, she called half an hour ago while you were out
doing your Christmas shopping She wants you to pick something
up."</p>
<p>He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Does she ever want anything
else? What is it this time?"</p>
<p>"Something from a delicatessen. For a fondue or whatnot. You're
apparently having people around tonight. I put a note on your desk.
She wants you to call."</p>
<p>David slumped down on his seat and ran his fingers through his
hair again. It was short and dark, almost severe. It gave him a
clean-cut capable aspect, almost tough. He was tough enough.</p>
<p>"Tonight?" he asked, letting his breath draw out in a sigh. "She
actually said it was tonight?"</p>
<p>Helen nodded. "Sounds like you're in trouble boss, and now
you're heading into more. It's the same old story. She's got you on
a pretty short leash."</p>
<p>He lifted the phone and turned away while he dialled, putting
his feet up on top of the old radiator which clanked loudly as it
joggled on its loose wall bracket. She turned back to her notes and
tried to ignore the stage whispered conversation. It went on for
three or four minutes and then he put the telephone down. There had
been no goodbye. No tailing off in the conversation.</p>
<p>"Where were we," he said. She could see the glitter of annoyance
in his eyes. "Matter of fact, where were you today?"</p>
<p>"I hope I'm not going to suffer over the fondue, Sarge?"</p>
<p>He looked at her, eyes still fiery. Then he blinked and was
normal again. "No, 'course not Helen. Anyway, the fondue is off.
I'm too busy. She's known my rota schedule for weeks."</p>
<p>"Big trouble?"</p>
<p>"Jurassic."</p>
<p>"I'd rather hear about the porny videos. I'm up to here with
relationships." She indicated a distance somewhere above her head.
"My sister's engagement is off. My cousin's getting a divorce. And
my mother's met some car salesman down at the ballroom and she's
doing some pretty fancy footwork for a woman her age. Her hormones
have gone haywire. All that and Christmas just round the corner.
Let's not talk about relationships."</p>
<p>"Suits me," David said, shrugging off his annoyance. June was
becoming more demanding by the month, both of his time and his
attention and the more insecure she seemed, the more he found
himself resenting her. That just made him feel guilty, for they'd
had a good couple of years.</p>
<p>He backed away from thinking of her, realising as he did that he
had been doing that for some time. Turning to Helen he told her
about the video and how Carrie McFall had snatched the handbag.
"Red handed, as they say in the movies. It was pretty smooth, no
hesitation, right onto the shoulder and away. Cool as ever was our
Carrie."</p>
<p>"And a heartless little bitch," Helen said. "The shoplifting's
bad enough. She's been doing that since she was ten, but stealing
from somebody who's dying on the floor, that's really a bit
off."</p>
<p>"Don't worry. She'll have a great time at the preview premiere.
We've got to get the bag back, if we can. I have to find out who
the victim was."</p>
<p>"What's so important about her?"</p>
<p>"Who knows? She's caused a bit of a stir at St Enoch's.
Something wrong with her blood. I'll tell you the details later.
Donal Bulloch asked me to give it a look, and that's good enough
for me."</p>
<p>Carrie McFall was easy to find, despite the fact that she'd
changed address twice since David had booked her last. She still
lived on the north side, in Blackhale, where he planners had opted
for a supermarket housing policy. They stacked them high as they
could, then forgot about them. Up I this part of the town, business
was drink or drugs or moneylending. The local economy boomed and
everybody was in the same gutter along with the shell-suits and pit
bulls who ran the smack. Carrie McFall was just a product of a
succession of slumps. Her record was pretty much up to date, and a
little longer than the last time David had seen it.</p>
<p>Her boyfriend , a skinny runt with a bowl cut and a ring though
one nostril flange opened the door, stuck a foot under it when he
saw it was the police, but removed it pretty quickly when David
leaned inside and snagged the ring between thumb and forefinger,
all the while finding it hard to believe how stupid anyone would be
to leave themselves so vulnerable. David twisted just a little and
the boyfriend grunted, more in fright than in pain. The door opened
and the boy pressed himself against the wall of the narrow hallway
as David and Helen went past down the narrow hallway that bore the
stale smell of burgers and onions. The wallpaper was peeling at the
corner where a damp patch harboured its own fungus farm.</p>
<p>Carrie was watching television, sitting with her feet drawn up
under her on a low sofa that had seen better days, lazily smoking a
cigarette and chewing gum at the same time. She had dark hair
almost to her shoulders and a silk scarf tied casually round her
neck. Helen recognised the quality and she knew Carrie didn't have
that kind of money. The girl turned round slowly. Her eyes widened
just a fraction, hardly at all. She was cool. She was used to this.
She eye them up and down with hardly a flicker of emotion, then
stubbed her cigarette out. In the bedroom, a baby squalled.</p>
<p>"Got a warrant?" Carrie McFall demanded.</p>
<p>"Got a conscience?"</p>
<p>"You're not giving this place a spin without a piece of paper. I
got turned over only last week." Carrie blew a pink bubble for
emphasis. It burst in a small puff of smoke.</p>
<p>David leaned to the left, eased open the narrow cupboard. Black
plastic bags bulged down at floor level. "Well, you should be a
little bit more careful. What's in the bags?"</p>
<p>"Christmas presents. Open one of them and it'll be inadmissible,
you know that."</p>
<p>"You've been watching too much television," Helen said. She
pulled the cupboard door, giving it a quick jerk. One of the
bulging bags toppled as the pressure on it was released. At least a
dozen perfume bottles, still in their cartons, all of them
expensive, slid onto the floor.</p>
<p>"Oh dear. Your presents seem to have all fallen out. Lovely
stuff. Paris. Givenchy. Not cheap. Got receipts for them all?"</p>
<p>Carrie shot her a deadly look.</p>
<p>David sat himself down on the couch. It was cleaner than most in
Blackhale on the north side of the city. Some people called the
scheme The Sump and not without reason. It was where the dregs
finally settled when their jobs had vanished, when their self
respect had gone, and where they had fallen well clear of any
social safety net. In some of the high concrete towers, you'd be
lucky to find a seat and if you did, you'd never sit in it for fear
of getting a needlestick puncture in the backside.</p>
<p>"But today's your lucky day. A very merry Christmas, I shouldn't
wonder. Because I could forget all about the sweet smell of success
in the bin-bags."</p>
<p>Carrie moved away from him. Her eyes flicked from David to
Helen, suspicious as ever. She'd never had any reason to trust a
policeman. Both of her brothers were up in Drumbain jail and
neither of them were coming out again for some time.</p>
<p>"I could forget all about it," David repeated, "But I do want to
know all about your new handbag."</p>
<p>For an instant, Carrie looked genuinely puzzled. David kept his
eyes on hers.</p>
<p>"What new hand..." David caught the spark of understanding,
swiftly masked.</p>
<p>"Yes, that one," he struck. "Good performance. You should be in
the movies." He gave her a wide smile. "Oh, come to think of it.
You <em>are</em> in the movies. We've got a lovely shot of you in
the Waterside Mall. Very photogenic. What a mover."</p>
<p>Helen sat on the other arm of the settee, diverting the girl's
attention. "And we want the bag."</p>
<p>"I never took it. It was empty, so I just dropped it."</p>
<p>"Nice try," Helen said. Her voice went brittle and cold. "The
second camera picked you up going through the exit. Bang to rights,
I can tell you. But remember Carrie, this is not a smack on the
wrist job like lifting a few bottles of fake perfume. You see, you
took a handbag that belonged to somebody who collapsed in there.
That wasn't very nice."</p>
<p>David butted in, forcing Carrie to swing round to face him.</p>
<p>"Trouble is, her medicine's in the bag. She suffers from a very
rare condition. They've got her hooked on a life support and they
need her medicine. If they don't get it and she dies, then what are
we looking at? Culpable Homicide? For sure. Could maybe even crank
it up to murder, if you insist. If you persist."</p>
<p>"I never saw any pills," Carrie said, eyes shifting from one to
the other, sensing real danger now. "There was hardly anything in
it, honest. Just a purse with some money. I threw them away. But I
can show you where."</p>
<p>David smiled again. It had been far too easy. The story he had
spun had more holes than a garden riddle, but Carrie was in no
position to be objective.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, a shivering Carrie, who had been so
convinced she was facing a long stretch that she'd come with them
immediately and forgotten to take her coat, showed them where she'd
thrown the bag. She directed them down the narrow streets close to
the river, not far from where David and Helen had arrested the
three men with the stash of hardware. They passed under the
motorway bridge, a black arch that rumbled with the passage of
overhead traffic, making the ground shiver. The streets narrowed
further the closer to the river. Here, an early evening mist curled
up from the water, softening the outlines. It was cold and dank,
and there were few people here at this or at any other time. There
had been a day when these streets close to the old quayside had
teemed with life and bustled with commerce, but no more. Like
Blackhale, this too was a derelict part of town, depressed,
forgotten; run down. Close to the river, where the railway
paralleled the bank, there was a stretch of waste ground bounded by
a tall barricade made of old railway sleepers. At one time it had
been a shunting branch for the main line, serving the long gone
yards and wharves, but now it was overgrown with the scrub alder
and exhaust-blackened birch that colonises gap sites in all cities.
The place was less than five hundred yards from the glitter and
sparkle of the shopping mall, but it could have been a hundred
miles away and a century distant. Here the buildings bounding the
old sidings were tall and crumbling and the alleys between them
narrow and lightless. Here the junkie hookers did a little
business, hiking their skirts up in the dark behind the barricade.
An occasional drunk would turn up stiff as a board, red-eyes
frosted open on a winter's cold morning.</p>
<p>David made Carrie show her exactly what she'd done. She pointed
to a gap at the corner where sometime in the past some vandals had
set the old sleepers alight. He shone his small flashlight through.
She had only slipped the bag in between the stanchions and jammed
it down among the jagged twigs of the undergrowth. He reached
through, groped blindly, snagging his fingers on the sharp ends of
broken branches and getting a thin splinter jammed up under a nail.
He cursed, found the bag's shoulder strap and hauled it out. It was
old and tattered and inside, the lining was shredded and torn from
long use. The purse was cheap and plastic, gaping empty except for
a small black folder tucked into the outside pocket. Beside the
purse a tattered account book was losing one of its covers.</p>
<p>"Can I go now?" Carrie asked. She was hugging herself tight
against the cold that had come down hard, turning the thin mist
into a sparkle of frost.</p>
<p>David motioned to her to stay. Helen stood close. He shone the
beam over the front page of the book. It was a rent receipt
account.</p>
<p>Thelma Quigley, the name read, written in block capitals on a
light patch reserved for it. He flicked the cover open. Her name
and a scrawled signature were repeated inside. There was an
address. The small wallet showed a couple of photographs done in
black and white. They looked old and faded. There was some faint
writing on the back, not easily legible, but also old fashioned
script, maybe from the fifties.</p>
<p>"See," Carrie said vehemently, hopefully. "There was no
medicine. If she dies, it's not my fault."</p>
<p>"Oh, I should have told you," David said, giving her his best
smile. "She's already dead. They couldn't save her. And how do we
know there was nothing else in here?"</p>
<p>Carrie's mouth opened so wide her chin was almost on her
breastbone.</p>
<p>"So it's murder then?" Helen asked.</p>
<p>"Looks pretty much like it."</p>
<p>Carrie started to babble. Her shiver became a shudder that had
nothing to do with the cold. She was protesting her innocence, the
words guttural and frightened, almost incoherent. Finally David
held a hand up. He had what he wanted.</p>
<p>"Okay. Enough. We'll think about it. You can go for now. We'll
be in touch."</p>
<p>The girl looked at him, disbelief slack on her face. He nodded
to confirm what he'd said. She stood frozen for almost half a
minute and then turned on her heel and ran away from them, her
expensive running shoes thudding down on the hard surface, echoing
back from the gaunt walls.</p>
<p>"I reckon that gave her the message. Scared the daylights out of
her."</p>
<p>"But she shouldn't have taken the woman's bag in the first
place," Helen said, her voice colder than the sparkling frost. "Not
when she was lying there dying."</p>
<p>She went into her own bag, drew out her radio and thumbed the
switch. It crackled in the dark of the alley down by the river.</p>
<p>When control room came on line, she stood there, eyes fixed on
David Harper, and told them she had reason to believe there was
stolen property at an address in Blackhale. When she had finished,
she clicked the twitch with a hard jab of her thumb.</p>
<p>"I don't mind the shoplifting," she said. "But she shouldn't
steal from the sick.. Or the dying. She's a damned parasite, and
the world's too full of them."</p>
<p>David looked down at her. In the dark of the badly lit street,
her dark hair was tumbled over her eyes, framing the heart-shape of
her face. She looked soft and mild-mannered, almost innocent,
despite the shadow of anger in her eyes. He remembered how she'd
tackled the two men who had run out of the storeroom, how she had
hung on despite the brutal kick in the ribs.</p>
<p>"Remind me not to get on your bad side," he said.</p>
<p>"Oh, you'll never do that," she told him. "You stopped me
getting the rest of my ribs stove in, and that makes you one of the
good guys." She gave him a big smile and it lit up her whole face.
"Even if you are a chauvinist pig."</p>
<p>It was more than a mile from the riverbank sidings to the
address on the tattered rent book. David was driving his own car, a
mud-spattered four wheel drive which had seen better days and worse
roads. The frost was condensing out of the still air, forming
orange haloes around the lights on the far side of the water where
gaunt cranes loomed over the black turbulence of the river's
downflow dark and angular, stretching up to the dark sky, catching
the occasional sweep of lights from a car on the bridge. In the
mist they seemed almost to move.</p>
<p>"Like dinosaurs," David said, driving slowly. "Brontosaurs."</p>
<p>"Brachiosaurs," Helen told him. He looked round at her.</p>
<p>"I stand corrected. You're right."</p>
<p>"In this light, you can imagine them moving, all charging
through the fog. They'd make the ground shake."</p>
<p>"Make <em>me</em> shake," he admitted. "And fill my pants."</p>
<p>She laughed out loud. The anger had gone from her voice. They
moved on, past the tall bridge which spanned the river, its lights
like a strong of bright pearls on the suspension cables. Just as
they came out from under the first span, an immense flock of
starlings came whirring across the water, screeching all in unison,
and the sound of their wings loud enough to be heard over the sound
of the engine and the low fog horn from five miles downstream.</p>
<p>Helen looked up at the birds as they came wheeling in, turning
as one entity, to sweep under the shadow of the bridge to their
roosting place. "Why do they swarm like that?"</p>
<p>"Apparently they're just checking the talent," he said. "I read
somewhere they flock like that to get an estimate of their numbers.
If the swarm is too big, they lay less eggs the following spring,
so there's enough to go round. One of nature's control
mechanisms."</p>
<p>"I didn't know you were a bird man," she said. A hint of a laugh
made her voice warm in the shadows of the passenger seat.</p>
<p>"Ah, there's more to me than meets the eye. I take photographs
of birds."</p>
<p>"More porn?"</p>
<p>"No, real ones. Whenever I get the chance. Birds, animals, any
kind of wildlife. Been a hobby since I was small. I've had a couple
featured in magazines.</p>
<p>"So you've not been a hard-bitten detective all your life then.
I thought you were a born cop."</p>
<p>He laughed this time. "There's no such thing. I used to believe
there were. There's only some good ones and some bad ones. Nobody's
born for this."</p>
<p>"And you?"</p>
<p>"You already said. I'm one of the good guys."</p>
<p>The starlings flocked and wheeled and screeched like banshees in
the winter dusk while the cold frost came dusting down from the
darkness overhead. David drove along the river road, past the
warehouses and the grain stores that had stood empty since the
ships had abandoned the dying ports and the shipbuilding yards had
left the giant cranes as reminders of their own extinction.</p>
<p>They reached the house they sought. It was a ground floor
apartment in a small terrace off the main street in an old, run
down part of the city, but it was as nondescript as much as
anywhere could be. The garden had been covered in concrete which
was now cracked and eroded. Bare tendrils of some creeper, an ivy
that had withered and shrivelled, clung to the crumbling wall. The
paint on the door and the window frames was peeling and behind the
glass the curtains were shut. There was no name on the door, no
plate to carry a name. It was completely anonymous.</p>
<p>David turned to Helen, asked her to check round the back of the
house. She disappeared into the shadows and came back a minute or
so later.</p>
<p>"No sign of life."</p>
<p>He reached to the door handle, gave it a twist. It made a low,
creaking sound of protest, but it turned all the same. The latch
clicked hollowly and the door opened a crack.</p>
<p>He pushed it, listening to the whine of the hinge, until it was
wide open. The hallway was just a mass of shadows.</p>
<p>"Hello?" David called out. His voice boomed hollowly in the
darkness. There was no reply.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>It nuzzled into the warmth, eyes tightly closed, reaching
out with its senses</em>.</p>
<p>It, <em>He</em>, was safe for now. Safe in the hot dark and the
smoothness of the new one. He turned his head just a little and
found the nipple, lets his lips stretch and flow over it, pull
together and begin to suckle.</p>
<p>The milk came slow, not yet the full flow, but that would come
in time. he was hungry, as always, but instinctively did not suck
his fill. The milk was rank and weak, too sweet and dilute. It did
not have the essence of the nourishment he needed. He would get
hungrier still, and desperate until she changed, this new mother.
That would take time. He could sense her battle for control, could
feel the internal jitterings and writhings as she fought for her
own self. But he would win this one.</p>
<p>She was difficult, but it had happened all so suddenly and he'd
been forced to take her very quickly. The old one had been dying.
She had been drying out, shrinking into herself. He had sensed her
slow decay, but it had still been too sudden when it came. His need
had finally drained her, despite the flow of milk that had still
been thick and strong. He had stolen her strength at last, sucked
her essence dry.</p>
<p>But she had gone with dreadful suddenness, leaving him alone and
helpless.</p>
<p>He had sensed the change in the old mother as he sensed the pull
of the moon and the tides of the sea and the coming of the dark. He
reached out his awareness, stretched it out around him, pinpointing
the hot warmths that moved with sudden swiftness and uttered their
thoughts aloud in jarring cacophonies of sound. He had sensed that
alteration in the old mother, but he had been distracted by the new
growth in his own body. That was something new after all this time
of suckling and feeding and it had taken him unawares, diverted his
instincts and changed his perceptions. He would have prepared, as
he always had done, when the old mother began to falter. He would
have chosen a new one first if he could, letting the old mother
slowly fade out, dying from his hunger and discarded because of his
need, while he reached his thoughts inside another one to prepare
her to feed him. He had been distracted and the life in her had
blinked out.</p>
<p>The loss had been intense.</p>
<p>It was as if a physical umbilical cord linking them had been
severed. She hadn't faded away. She had <em>broken.</em> Inside of
her she had burst, so violently it had stopped her in her tracks.
The pain had come lancing across the distance, magnified by its
purity and had slammed into him as he lay in the dark. He had
called to her, demanding her attention, suddenly, for the first
time in memory, afraid of losing her and being left alone in this
place.</p>
<p>He had no recollection of fear, because he had never lost a
mother before.</p>
<p>But then she had broken, he had called to her and she had
responded because she carried the essence of him in her blood and
the blood sang out in terror. She had tried to get to him. Her mind
had sparked and crackled, fading then swelling strong as the lack
of oxygen competed with the urgent demands of the other thing in
her blood. She had tried to get to him but she had fallen and she
couldn't force her broken body across the distance.</p>
<p>All around her he could sense the heat of the others, milling
around, touching her. He could feel the stroke of the other one's
hands and the punch-pound weight on the mother's chest transmitted
from her mind directly to his and all the time her panic and fear
had soared. He was losing her and she was losing him and her
mother-love screamed out from her in desperation. The life had
started to fade. He could sense the sparks of it, little flares of
incoherent thought and sudden spasms of her need and his blood was
sizzling inside her veins as it still battled to return, to reach
him.</p>
<p>But then he screamed for help.</p>
<p>He had screamed the way a baby does, the way an infant will
snatch at a human's emotions.</p>
<p>But he had screamed with his mind and all of his instinct. The
glands had opened up and pulsed and the scent had gone hissing from
him.</p>
<p>Far off, he felt the responses. He sensed a shudder here. He
heard a groan there. Mental pictures danced within his own cold
consciousness, picked up by the reflexive scanning that had powered
up in this moment of intense danger and desperate urgency. Bright
columns of warmth hovered close, passed on by. Way in the distance,
hundreds of them milled together, each one a potential source of
food and warmth. He screeched again, a powerful mental demand.</p>
<p>Close by, one response was stronger and he instinctively homed
in on it. He turned his attention, focused his demand and speared
it outwards. Way beyond him, he could sense the old mother's
disintegration as her mind faded, leaving only the essence of
himself in her blood which spasmed and kicked reflexively. He
called out again, a powerful cry, but fined down so that it was
aimed at the one target. The urgency was clamouring in him and the
fear rising and that was another new thing, the fear. To be left
motherless was something he had never experienced before and it
made him feel exposed and vulnerable and there were minds out there
that would not tolerate his, would not love him. There were minds
out there that were cold as stone, that he could not appeal to,
could never influence.</p>
<p>The moving warmth stopped. He felts its indecision, the sudden
melange of repugnance and fear coupled with the new stirring deep
within it.</p>
<p>He demanded.</p>
<p>She wavered.</p>
<p>He strained, focused tight and <em>commanded.</em> She turned
towards where he lay and as he felt her approach a surge of
satisfaction rolled through him. The old mother was fading away,
the broken and empty chrysalis, discarded and useless. The new
mother leaned down and pulled the covering away. Bright light
seared his eyes and he hissed like a snake and his glands had
opened under the intense pressure. She had looked down at him and
recoiled and then the scent, coming reflexively in that first
sight, had infused her.</p>
<p><em>Take me take me take me.</em> His demand was unspoken, mere
twists of thought pulsing out from him, urgent now, irresistible,
inescapable. The sudden fear inside her fear was strangled back to
whimper deep in her consciousness.</p>
<p><em>Love me!</em></p>
<p>She had reached and taken him and pulled him into her warmth. He
had reached and felt the smoothness of her skin and the desperate
fear had instantly begun to recede. He had made her move, chivvied
her along his own familiar paths, brought her back to a place he
knew.</p>
<p>Now in the dark, he suckled slowly, tasting the thin, weak milk,
but he could also taste the trickle of blood oozing from where he
had abraded the skin. Already, his own essence would be mingling
with the blood, flowing inside her, making the changes he needed.
It would take some time, but he had time. She was young and she was
strong and she would last, this one would, for as long as he needed
her.</p>
<p>In the dark of the room, pressed in against the warm smoothness,
he could feel the ripples of her body as the slow sobs hiccuped
through her and her own bewildered fear transmitted itself to him.
He picked up her confusion and the desperate schizophrenic battle
between her panic and her need. It would take time, but he had her
now and she had him and he would bond her to him with an
unbreakable imprinting that would last until beyond the span of her
life. That was how it had always been.</p>
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