“Why do you suppose they cut them up so?” she asked Lucas.
“No feet, the dead can't walk. Old Indian belief.”
“Really?”
“It's also true of Transylvanians, so… take it for what it's worth. Still, if you cut off an enemy's head, hands, feet and genitals, it's for a purpose. Whoever's behind this may be involved in some sort of cult that believes an enemy's power can only be eliminated by scattering his parts to the four winds. I dunno.”
“It makes sense. There's something there. Always strike the heart, like a stake through a vampire's heart, then dismantle the pieces. Isn't that how the belief goes?”
“You think we're dealing with vampire-hunters?”
“I dunno. I don't know much of anything anymore.”
“Hang in there,” he said, placing a firm hand on her arm.
She nodded. “I'm okay.”
“Here, right here, is where they stood when they fired. They had a direct shot, and those two inside never knew what hit them.”
She looked up and saw that it was true. This was the perfect angle from which to fire. It was close enough, within range, and all the killers needed to do was step from behind the boulders to their left, where crushed cigarettes told the story of how long the assassins had waited for just the right moment. Meredyth thought this must have been exactly how Alisha Reynolds was killed in Georgia.
Lucas began scooping up butts into a plastic bag. “Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe we'll get a print.”
“But you doubt it.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Why didn't the FBI take the butts?”
“Because they know it'd be a useless waste of time, most likely. These guys don't leave prints.”
They walked back toward the house, the cars and the waiting sheriff.
On their way back to their hotel, Lucas asked her what kind of weapon she carried.
“Weapon? You mean gun?”
“Yeah, what caliber? A. 38 or what?”
“I'm a police psychiatrist, not a police officer. I don't carry a gun.”
“What?” He was amazed. “You're tracking killers- predators-without a gun? I thought so, when I saw no sign of a bulge under your arm. Who do you think you are, Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote? Get real. If these assassins decide to turn on us, how do you hope to defend yourself?”
Frankly, she told herself, she hadn't given it a thought, but she wasn't about to tell him that. 'That's what I have you for.”
He smiled at her little joke and then suddenly turned off onto a solitary, winding, and isolated dirt road. The sky was a deep cerulean blue, like the bluest of oceans, the sun brilliant, and the thick clouds like whipped cream piled high. It was what every boundless western sky in every Gregory Peck western was supposed to look like. The clouds seemed posed, even fake, yet they were real, and the mountain backdrop appeared painted on, yet it was actually there, not to be denied.
The road snaked like a river, deeper and deeper into a hidden crevasse, and soon they were driving alongside a sparkling river that cascaded over a rocky bottom. Nature here was rampant with casual beauty, so that even the leaves on the trees fluttered enchantingly elf-like in the sunlight.
“This place is lovely, beautiful.”
“I know. I own a little piece of it, kind of a retirement place. One day, I plan to build on it, if I don't die first.”
She recognized the fatalism of both Indian and cop. “One day? Why not now?”
“Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but currently my cash flow is not quite as strong as the creek there.”
“What's it called? The creek, I mean.”
“Elk… Elk Creek. There are several reservations around here, and I'd be welcomed on any one of them, but I don't want to spend my retirement on a reservation; I'd like to own my own place.”
“That's a fine goal.”
He pulled the car to a halt just off the road on an overlook near the creek. He got out and stretched. He seemed in his element here, she thought.
When she got out of the car, he pointed to a clearing opposite her. 'There is where I'd put the house.”
“It is beautiful, really.”
“I'd be snowed in winters, but I could handle that.”
“I'm sure you could.”
He walked around to her, and for a moment she worried he was going to propose she spend those winters here with him, too; instead, he surprised her with a gun, pushing it into her hands. 'This is yours. I'm going to teach you how to load it, how to handle it, how to fire and hit your target.”
It wasn't a matter of what she wanted; it was what he wanted. Still, she held the gun up by the trigger guard and said, “I don't know about this.”
“You will, when I'm finished with you. Now, let's get started. If you're going to be my partner, I need to know I can count on you in a fight.”
This challenge issued, she grimly brought the gun back under her control and said, “All right. Show me.”
'That's the spirit. Now, this gun is what we call a police special, a, 38-caliber weapon. Very efficient and light-weight.”
“Lightweight?
I'd hate to see what you call hefty.” He offered her his Browning automatic, his hand almost large enough to conceal the big weapon, and she compared the two firearms, saying, “I see.”
“Now, let's talk about how you load a. 38,” he suggested. “Yeah, please, begin with the basics.”
“Before we leave here, I'll have you shooting with some grace and ease,” he tried to assure her.
“I'm just not certain I could shoot another human being, ever,” she confessed.
“You will if your life depends on it.”
Maybe… maybe not, she mused as he thundered the words, “Pay attention, now!”
When they got back to the lodge, there was a message light blinking on Meredyth's phone. The message was left by Randy Oglesby. She made the call, using her calling card, and when Randy came on, he sounded out of breath and excited.
“What's up, Randy?”
“Something big, really big. Doctor.”
“Tell me about it.”
She listened in rapt attention, her eyes widening with the new information.
“I know it sounds crazy, but when I was a kid, we played this computer game called Helsinger's Pit. Remember Stonecoat's having told us the guy said it had to be Sanger's way? Well, I listened to the tape again, and he actually might have said, Hell-singer's way… Get it? Helsinger's way, Helsinger's Pit, the computer game I told you about? It got me to thinking and muddling over that game, and damned if that game isn't precisely what's happening – murder by crossbow. It's a game that sets you up as a kind of religious fanatic, out to rid the world of… of vampires, you see?”
“Vampires? No, I don't see…” She didn't want to believe it, but at the same time, she recalled the earlier discussion she'd shared with Lucas on vampires. In the car coming back to the hotel, he'd also added that vampires existed in every culture as part of the antireligious icons necessary to preserving order.
“The hero, this Helsinger guy, and his followers tracked down and killed practicing vampires. It was the hottest role-playing game around after Doom Lotta demonology stuff, very hostile environment, easy to get whacked either by the vampires or by law enforcement.”
“Law enforcement?”
“Yeah. According to the game rules, no self-respecting cop's going to believe in vampires, see? That's how come it's so easy for them to get away with murder, but it makes it tough when the good guys kill a vampire, because they're taken as citizens, so the cops intervene wrongly all the time throughout the game.”
“Back up there a second, Randy. What'd you mean when you said locating practicing vampires?”
“Sure. FBI keeps a known list on people who claim ties to the vampire life.”
“People who claim ties to the vampire life?” She realized that she was repeating everything Randy was saying, but she couldn't help herself. This sounded simply too off the wall. “Sure! Even if you're just a kid on a PC, you start talking that you're a vampire, enjoy nightlife, shun the light, crap like that, and then you start keeping vampire hours and drinking goat's blood or some such shit, and they begin to track you.”