“Jill!” snapped Duca. “Take this devil-dog away!”
“Jill!” I said, without looking at her. “Just stay back!”
“Bullet!” Jill called him. “Here, boy! Bullet!”
Bullet was confused now. He knew that I wanted him to keep Duca at bay, but at the same time he had grown up with Jill, and she had trained him since puppyhood to obey her implicitly.
“Bullet!” I ordered him. “Stay!”
But Jill crouched down and held out her hands toward him and Bullet didn’t really have any choice. He trotted toward her, and even though he still seemed to be unsure about her, he allowed her to take hold of his collar.
“Take it away!” Duca ordered her. “Take that cursed animal out of my sight!”
“Jill!” I appealed, but Jill led Bullet away, and the two of them disappeared around the curved windows of the cocktail lounge.
“Well, Captain,” said Duca, lowering its hand. It looked more relaxed now, but I thought that its face was grayer and more strained than the last time I had seen it. Its sea green eyes seemed to have faded, and its lips were redder, almost as if they were bleeding. It was beginning to look more and more like a creature whose time was coming to an end, a creature that had survived for too many centuries, and committed too many acts of murder and cruelty.
“This is the finish, Duca,” I told it. “You’re not going to get away this time.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re very wrong, Captain. Nobody will ever find me on this vessel, even if they search it from stem to stern. And I have a new love in my life, to give me succor and support.”
“Jill won’t stay with you.”
It smiled and raised its eyebrows. “You really don’t think so? She reminds me so much of my Anca. She could almost be Anca reincarnated. I will certainly love her just as much, and give her just as much devotion, forever.”
“What have you done to her?”
“What do you think? I have won her heart.”
“Won her heart? You’re kidding me. Jill knows exactly what kind of creature you are.”
“Oh, yes. But I have won her heart all the same, and now I am going to win your heart, too, but in a very different way. I am going to cut it out of your body and drink your life’s blood fresh and warm, and watch the light in your eyes go out while I do so.”
“Oh, I see. You’re going to kill me right here, in front of all of these people?”
“Of course not. You and I, we’re going to go below, to the privacy of my cabin, and you can feed me there.”
“And what makes you think that I’m going to come with you?”
“I am ten times stronger than you, Captain, and a hundred times quicker. And what will you do when I take hold of your arm and force you to walk through these crowds with me? Will you shout out for help? I don’t think so. You know what I will do to any of these innocent people if they try to intervene.”
Duca lifted its hat and smoothed back his hair with its hand. Then it took a step toward me, holding out its right hand.
“What do you think, Captain? Shall we walk together? There’s no way that you can stop me, not even with your box of tricks. You think a Bible can stop me? You think a silver mirror can stop me? You think whips and nails and poppy seeds can stop me?”
I stayed where I was, even though several passengers had to push their way past me.
Duca came right up to me. There was no denying how handsome it was, what good bone-structure it had. But, close up, there was an unhealthy transparency to its skin, which reminded me that for all of its good looks, it was dead.
“Why don’t you put down your box?” it smiled.
There was a moment when I considered running, and opening up my Kit, and taking out my silver mirror and my silver whip and trying to destroy Duca with all the religious and superstitious paraphernalia that I had used for so long. But Duca was infinitely faster than me, and somehow I knew that the time for all of those ancient and medieval artifacts was past. This was the modern age, and both Duca and I had to get used to the idea.
I set down my Kit, and pushed it with my foot underneath one of the varnished benches that ran around beneath the fascia of the cocktail lounge.
“There you are,” I told it. “Satisfied?”
Duca took hold of my left elbow. Its grip was painfully strong, and its thumb dug deep into my nerve, so that my forearm felt numb.
“I assume you know which cabin I reserved?” said Duca.
“Yes,” I told it.
“In which case — ” it said, and started to steer me along the deck. The Queen Elizabeth’s siren blew again, and then again, which was the signal for those who weren’t sailing to go ashore. Duca was saying something else — something which caused it to smile, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
Blood Feud
We reached the elevator and waited. Duca’s grip on my elbow was unrelenting.
“You really think you’re going to get away?” I asked it.
“You know I am.”
“So where are you going?”
“I have an appointment to keep in America.”
“An appointment? Who the hell with?”
This seemed to amuse Duca even more. “Before you and I finish our business together, Captain, I will tell you. I want to see the expression on your face.”
“Oh, yes?”
The elevator doors opened. Duca had to step back to allow half a dozen people to get out, and as it did so I half-twisted myself around and stabbed it in the forearm with my hypodermic. Duca flinched, but dead Screechers are not as sensitive as we are. Before it could turn its head and realize what I was doing, I had jammed down the plunger with my thumb and injected it with the full 5cc of polio vaccine.
Duca slammed me against the side of the elevator door. Two women were trying to get into the elevator and one of them shrilled in alarm.
“What have you done to me?” Duca shouted at me. It seized my wrist and forced the hypodermic out of my grasp. “What is this? What have you done to me?”
“You’re just about to find out, friend,” I told it.
Duca dropped the hypodermic on the deck and stamped on it. Then it struggled out of its coat, yanked out its cufflinks and pulled up its shirtsleeve. The needle-prick was clearly visible, and the skin around it was already looking inflamed.
“What have you done to me?” Duca raged. It lowered its head and tried to suck the needle-prick, but it was out of its reach, and it let out an incoherent roar of utter frustration. I backed away, intending to retrieve my Kit, but Duca came after me, as fast as a camera shutter. It seized my arm and threw me across the deck, so that I collided with the rail. Then it came after me again, as if it was going to rip me apart.
It twisted my coat in both hands and shouted directly into my face, so that I could feel its freezing breath. “Tell me what you have done to me!” it screamed. “Tell me what poison you have given me!”
“Like I said, Duca,” I panted. I felt as if my shoulder was dislocated. “You’ll soon find out for yourself.” At least I hoped it would. Supposing I were wrong, and anti-polio vaccine had no effect on dead Screechers at all? Or supposing — even if it did work — that it took hours before the dead viruses came back to life, or even days?
There was a crowd around us now, but Duca was too enraged to take any notice of them. A white-jacketed steward came up to us and said, “Now, then! Pack it in, you two, or I’ll call the police and have you thrown off the ship!”
Duca jerked its head up and snarled at him like a wild beast. Its face was so distorted with fury that the steward raised both hands and said, “OK, mate. OK. Just take it easy, all right?” The rest of the crowd shuffled back, too, some of them stepping on each other’s feet.