T Parker - The border Lords

Hood was fascinated to learn that the vampire legends originating in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe followed a major rabies outbreak there in 1720. The author, Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso, pointed out that rabies victims have symptoms very similar to the traits often attributed to vampires. He wrote that because the virus attacks the limbic system, which is a part of the brain that influences aggression and sexual behavior, rabies victims-like vampires-are prone to biting and to hypersexuality. And because rabies also affects the hypothalamus, which controls sleep, people with rabies suffer-as do vampires-from insomnia and become energized and agitated late at night. The doctor pointed out that rabies causes hypersensitivy to strong stimuli such as light, bright reflection and strong odors-including garlic-all of which appeared early in the vampire legends. He pointed out that rabies victims commonly vomit blood, and of course, an over-full vampire could be expected to do the same. Most obviously, Gomez-Alonso pointed out, both rabies and vampirism are most commonly spread by biting.

Hood took a sip of beer and checked his watch. A gust of wind rose outside, and in the island of light cast by his security floods he saw the desert sand stand up and take a human shape and travel a few feet toward the house before collapsing. As a child, he had been more frightened by vampire movies than by other horror movies. They had seemed more possible, and a vampire could appear to be normal-a threat that could walk unrecognized among us.

Tapping at his keyboard now, Hood brought up the picture that he had e-mailed to Sean just minutes after Seliah had gone into the coma. In the picture she looked fresh and lovely and relaxed but Hood knew she'd been blasted into unconsciousness by drugs. He'd hoped that the picture might help persuade Sean to surrender himself. He'd promised Ozburn that if he did surrender, their first stop would be UCI Medical Center. Hood had also told Ozburn that Seliah had given him some things she wanted Sean to have. Again, a lure. But there was only silence from Ozburn. Hood wondered if Oz might be shamed or infuriated by the picture and by Hood's proximity to her. Who could know?

He called the nurses' station at the ICU and got Marliss. She told him there was no change; Seliah's vitals were all good.

"The doctor will let you know when she'll be brought out of it," she said. "It will be days, Mr. Hood. They will taper her off of the sedatives when the rabies is over. And she will come back. Very slowly."

He asked if she could hear what was going on around her, down in a sleep that deep.

"No," said Marliss. "She's not aware of anything at all. Nothing. Are you in law enforcement?"

"Yes."

"Her husband called a few minutes ago. He sounded very agitated and angry. He said if she dies, terrible things will happen. We reported it to hospital security as we were told."

"Is the marshal still there?"

"Oh, yes. There is supposed to be a marshal twenty-four/seven. He looks bored to tears."

Hood called Soriana at home and told him about Ozburn's threat and asked him to put another U.S. Marshal outside Seliah's room. Soriana was quiet for a beat, then said he would. Back on his computer Hood looked at a pictorial of vampire bats in the wild. A camera crew had gotten video and stills of a cave filled with them. The scientists all looked happy to be there but the local guides looked spooked and guilty. One of them held out a vampire bat by its wingtips while the animal bared its teeth and hissed. One ran along the bottom of the cave floor upright on its feet, wings half-out for balance, its tiny chest strangely human, its face piggish. Vampire bats almost always approach their prey on the ground, Hood read. They are nimble runners.

Hood pictured the priest leaning forward over Sean's feet and Seliah at the window screen with the moths and beetles and flies seething around her. He pictured the priest standing when he became aware of her, and Hood saw the small dark thing drop from his hands as he turned to open the door for her. He pictured Sean asleep through all of this, ignorant that the seeds of his and Seliah's destruction had just been introduced to his innocent blood. Again, Hood heard the voice of skepticism commenting on these images and this story. A priest with a vampire bat in his hands? Come on, Charlie, could this have happened? Isn't there a simpler explanation for what had fallen to the floor and what had happened to Sean and Seliah? How truthful was superstitious, heavy-drinking Itixa?

He checked his e-mail and found another communication from one of the German bird-watchers who had stayed at the Volcano View back in July, at the same time as the Ozburns. So far, six of them had responded to his inquiries about Father Joe Leftwich, specifically, pictures of the man, but none had taken a picture of him and none knew anything at all about where he might have gone. Dear Mr. Hood, I am sorry to report that I did not speak often with Father Joe Leftwich. He was a talkative man and often engaged in conversation. He was provocative in subtle ways and made some people angry. But he had a great curiosity about birds and bird-watching. Being Irish he knew that the English call birders 'twitchers.' I have gone through my many digital images of that trip and I have some unforgettable pictures of the trogons, but no pictures of this man. I am sorry I am not able to help. Sincerely, Heinz Tossey

Hood looked outside to see another dirt devil spinning through the security lights. He wrote a thank-you e-mail to Heinz, then lay his head back on the couch top and looked up at the beam ceiling of the old home and listened to the wind outside; then he closed his eyes.

When he opened them the baseball game was over and his beer was warm and his screen saver had long since engaged. The wind had gotten stronger. The telephone vibrated against his hip at eleven forty-five-Beth saying she'd be an hour late at least, so sorry, an extra-busy night again, an attempted suicide and a burn victim. She sounded upset and Hood took the phone into the kitchen, which was better protected against the wind.

"I was really looking forward to you," she said.

"I miss you a lot. You hang in there, Beth. I'm going have some dinner and wine ready for you."

"I want you first."

"I won't argue that, Beth." Hood liked saying her name out loud. She was easy to imagine-lovely, tall, dirty-blond, chocolate-eyed. She was goofy and self-unimpressed. Hood leaned against the big butcher block and looked through the window over the sink, out to the silver-rimmed mountains in the east. There in the lee side of the house grew a grapefruit tree and Hood could see the big yellow orbs swaying in the wind.

"I hate this job sometimes," she said. "I mean, I love-hate it. If I went to days, I could see my guy more than once in a while, but then you'd get sick of me."

"Fat chance of that, Doc. But your guy has been plenty busy, too, so don't blame everything on you. Just get here when you can."

"I'm there. I'm so there, Charlie."

Suddenly, behind him and out of sight, the front door blew open. It was a heavy mahogany-and-iron affair and Hood heard it whack into the wrought-iron hat rack, then heard the hat rack crash to the entryway tile with a metallic twang. It was not the first time this had happened.

"What was that, Charlie?"

"Hold on."

Hood went to the kitchen pass-through and looked out. The wind hurled a blast of sand through the open door and blew the hats that had spilled off the rack across the foyer and into the living room. Some slid and some tumbled end over end.

"Just the wind." He came around and out of the kitchen, walking across the living room for the front door. He could feel the cold wind hit him. He hooked a Stetson with one boot toe and flung it up into the cold front and caught it midair.