Stephen Leather - Once bitten

"You had a relationship with her?" said Hooper.

"You could say that, yes," I said.

"A sexual relationship?" asked Sugar.

I hesitated, but then nodded. I had a hunch that lying, at least obvious untruths, would do me more harm than good at this stage.

"Did she tell you much about herself?" asked Hooper.

"Pillow talk, as it were," added Sugar, grinning.

I ran my hand through my hair. "I'm very much in the dark here," I said. "I think I've only got a small part of a very big picture, and it's causing me some confusion. Could you give me some sort of briefing first, so I get a rough idea of what's going on?"

Sugar linked his hands together behind his head. "You mean we show your ours and you show us yours?"

"A sort of quid pro quo?" said Hooper dryly.

"It would be a help," I said lamely.

Hooper and Sugar looked at each other and then Sugar nodded. From the body language I guessed that he was the higher ranking of the two.

"There are more than four billion people on this planet," said Hooper slowly. "Thousands are born every hour. The vast majority are like you and me. We are born, we marry, have children, and eventually we die. The species moves on. That applies to 99.999999 per cent of the population.

But every now and again, in something like one in a hundred million births, something happens. A mutation. An alteration at the DNA level, inside the chromosomes of the cells. The mutation can take several forms, but the end result is something which is not human. Something which can be less than human, or, in some cases, more than human."

"You're talking about monsters," I said.

Hooper shook his head slowly. "Not monsters," he said. "Mutants. Born of completely normal parents. In the old days they might have been called monsters, and many of them passed into folklore, tales told around the campfires."

"Folklore?" I said. "What do you mean specifically?"

"Vampires," said Sugar, and he wasn't smiling now. "Vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters.

That was what they were called, and the definitions still work as labels, though there are not especially accurate."

"If you're saying such things exist, why isn't it common knowledge? Why are they still regarded as fiction?"

"Statistics," said Hooper. "Such mutations are a very rare occurrence. Even today with a population of four billion there are probably no more than one or two a year born around the world.

A hundred years ago it would have been one every ten years or so. And it's only recently that we've had the capability of keeping track of people. Before they could move around and conceal their identities. Now everything is on computers. There's nowhere to hide."

What he said made sense. It also went some way to explaining how they knew I was involved.

God knows how many computerised trip wires De'Ath had gone blundering through while he was chasing up Terry's background. "How many does your organisation know of?" I asked.

Hooper looked at Sugar for guidance and Sugar nodded.

"We know of seven what I suppose you'd call vampires. Four in the United States, two in the Soviet Union, one in Eastern Europe. We suspect there are some in China, but the authorities in Peking aren't especially forthcoming. There are no werewolves or shapeshifters in the States, but there are three in the Soviet Union, two in India and one in Albania. Again we are in the dark about China."

"You don't really mean vampires and werewolves, do you?" I asked him.

Hooper shook his head. "Not as you'd see them in movies, no. The vampires we're trying to track down don't wear black cloaks and turn into bats. They can eat all the garlic they want, you can see them in mirrors and they have no problems crossing running water. They don't have sharp incisors like Christopher Lee, either. But they are virtually immortal. The gene which causes aging is missing and their cells continue to replicate ad infinitum. They usually have an allergy to bright sunlight. They are very strong, very intelligent, and they need blood. The gene mutation leaves them unable to synthesise certain essential amino acids which they must therefore obtain by other means. Blood is the easiest source of supply, though blood-rich organs such as heart or liver will also do."

"And they live forever? Is that what you're saying?"

Sugar shrugged. "There seems to be no limit on the number of times their cells divide. We know of one who is more than two thousand years old. You'd never know it to look at him. He's little more than a boy. Even carbon-dating doesn't help date him. But under hypnosis, we've gone back with him to ancient Rome."

The mention of carbon-dating made me wonder if they knew about my trip to UCLA, and if they'd been told about my enquiries. I had a nasty feeling that the men belonged to an organisation whose tentacles were spread throughout the world's scientific community. No, tentacles weren't a good analogy. A spider's web, maybe, thin filaments running back to their headquarters waiting for the slight tremble that would suggest that somebody, somewhere, was asking the sort of questions you'd ask if you were on the track of a vampire.

"And the werewolves and, what did you call them, shape-shifters?" I asked.

"They're more complex, and even rarer than the vampires," said Sugar. I've never seen one, though I've seen a video of one of the Russian examples undergoing transformation. Pretty heavy stuff, I can tell you."

"What's it like?"

"To be honest it's not as impressive as the sort of special effects you see in movies like The Howling, but it's a whole different ball game when you know it's the real thing."

"What if the film you saw was faked?"

Sugar snorted. "The sort of guys we liaise with don't play games like that, Dr Beaverbrook.

They're not exactly selected for their senses of humour, you know."

I shook my head in disbelief. Vampires. Werewolves. Things that go bump in the night. Part of me expected Canonico and his colleagues to come bursting in through the door with wooden stakes and mallets screaming "April Fool" but the two men in grey suits were too serious for it to be a joke. This wasn't a set up. It was for real. It was for real and I was frightened for Terry.

"So," said Sugar, stretching his arms above his head. "Enough about us. I think you've gathered by now that we suspect that this Terry Ferriman is one of these mutants."

"It's possible," I said.

Sugar scowled and brought his arms down hard on top of the desk, making me jump with the ferocity of the movement. Hooper didn't even flinch, he just kept looking at me with his cold, emerald eyes. "Don't fuck with us, Beaverbrook," said Sugar. "In terms of operational powers we rank way above the country's law enforcement agencies and anti-terrorist organisations. CIA, FBI, any group of initials you want to come up with, we're head and shoulders above the lot. We answer to only one man, and he reports directly to the President. We can make you disappear, Beaverbrook. We can take you to the sort of places you haven't even conceived in your worst nightmares and we can talk to you there. But if we have to do that, you won't leave. Ever. You're either with us, or you're against us. And if you decide you're against us you give up any rights that you might have. Am I making myself clear, Beaverbrook?"

"Yes," I said.

"I can't hear you."

"Yes," I said, louder this time.

"Good," said Sugar. "Now, you've been making enquiries about Ms Ferriman. What conclusions have you drawn?"

"She isn't Terry Ferriman," I said slowly. "The real Terry Ferriman died more than twenty years ago. She took over her identity. She's rich, very, very rich. She seems to have access to tens of millions of dollars in a bank account with no real means of accounting for it. She owns a big apartment block but pretends to live in a tiny apartment there." I figured that De'Ath had probably already told them about the money in the bank, and it wasn't much of a step to have found out about the building. I didn't mention the basement because I hoped that they might have missed that. I told them about finding Greig Turner's picture, and about my meeting with the former film star because De'Ath knew about that, too. It was important that I appeared to be co-operating.