William Bernhardt - Dark Eye

There was another Pulaski. A little girl.

Just the age he liked them.

He’d run a computer search through the city database and come up with a name: Rachel Pulaski. A daughter? No. If she and her deceased husband had procreated, it would have appeared in the public records. Same for any adoption. A cousin?

A niece, as it turned out.

Her brother, the one who died in the traffic accident. That must be the answer.

But why was the girl living with strangers? Why wasn’t she with Susan? She must’ve lost custody, or been unable to obtain it. So she was reduced to occasional visitation.

A rapid-fire synaptic flurry crackled in his head. New ideas flooded to the surface. Was this why he’d been unable to break Susan, why she had not become his willing partner like Tiffany and her friends? His quest for Susan was always marred by the fact that she was not suited to be an offering, much less the Vessel.

But Rachel was. She so perfectly, delicately, wonderfully was.

His premonition had been right. The name Pulaski would be writ in the roll call of Dream-Land. But not Susan Pulaski. Rachel.

He must have her.

Originally, he’d been trying to reincarnate Virginia as she once was. Of course that was impossible; her flesh was dust. But like the prophet’s Ligeia, her spirit could be recaptured, brought back to the earthly plane. If only he had the proper Vessel.

He would have to remove her, to condition her, and he had little time. But he was sure it could be done. And then Virginia would return to him. And together, they would leave this horrid world behind. And create a far better one.

The only thing worse than Granger acting like a human being was Granger trying to be consoling.

“It’s not your fault, Susan. It was a good theory. I thought we were on to something, too. But even the best theories don’t pan out sometimes.”

“He’s here. I know he’s here.”

He actually laid a hand on my shoulder. And the worst of it was, I let him. “We went through all the records, Susan. Twice. And we didn’t come up with anything.”

I pressed my palms against my forehead, running every scrap of Edgar-data through my brain for the millionth time or so. “We must have something wrong. In the profile. The description. Something.”

“Susan, you’ve looked at everyone who has stayed here in the last month who even remotely fits your profile. You came up with zip.”

Truth hurts. He was right. I’d played my best hand and come up short. The review of the Transylvania’s guests had yielded nothing.

Where was all my buoyancy now? All that blinding self-confidence? The girl who was going to catch the bad guy and never drink again? Where had she gone? Now when I looked in the mirror, I just saw a big placard reading LOSER. LOSER-AND DRUNKARD.

My wrist throbbed.

Granger was shuffling papers, obviously making moves to get the hell out of this tiny hotel office. “You look beat. Why don’t you let me drive you home?”

So I won’t stop somewhere and drown my sorrows in alcohol? “Sure. Thanks. Darce?”

After he’d done everything he could back at headquarters, Darcy had joined us here at the hotel. I don’t know why. But I made sure he went over every name, every bio, every scrap of information I had, just in case I missed something. When your PC fails you, put a human computer on the case, right? He’d stared at those lists till his eyes watered.

“Did you know Einstein wrote his Special Paper on Relativity three times before he realized that space was curved? That was what made the whole thing make sense.”

I gave him a tired grin. “I’m much too feeble to grasp Einsteinian physics at the moment. Or any other moment, actually.”

“Can I go over the lists again?”

“No, Darcy,” I said, clapping him on the back. “We’re all going home now.”

The fax machine pinged.

“Did Madeline have anything else to send us?” I asked.

Granger shook his head. “Madeline has gone home.”

That was intriguing enough to keep me by the machine a few seconds longer. And halfway through the cover sheet, I had an even better reason.

“It’s from Edgar.”

How did he know we were here? I took the sheet and stared at it. Another coded message. But this time it was all ones and zeros.

“He’s really taken this multiple-substitution code gimmick to the outer limit.”

Darcy snatched it from me. “I think that this must be binary code. Do you think that this is binary code?”

“What, like computer talk?”

“Can I use this please?” He was already scooting in front of the hotel’s PC.

“Sure. Ain’t mine.”

He tapped information into a black screen on the computer, fingers flying faster than I could follow. It all looked like gibberish to me.

“Hey,” I said, “this probably won’t be important. He wants to brag, impress me, maybe scare us a little. But he won’t give us anything we can use to stop him. And I’m not going to stay up all night so I can read a quote from Edgar Allan Poe’s grocery list.”

“I think that maybe this is a hyperlink,” Darcy said, not that it meant anything to me. “The code is much easier than the last one, if you know COBOL.”

“Well, that’s nice, but it could still take hours and-”

“Got it.” Darcy clicked the Enter button a few more times. A Web browser came up, and a few moments later I saw the hourglass symbol that told me it was traveling to a new destination.

“You think Edgar has his own Web site?” Granger asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. There are plenty of public-access servers that allow anonymous uploads. But what would he post? Poe’s Greatest Hits? MP3s for the Golden Age? Photos of his vic-”

My tongue froze in my mouth. The graphic image in the Web browser had begun to resolve.

It was a photograph, presumably taken from a distance with a digital camera. I had no problem recognizing one of the people in the photo. It was me. Didn’t have to work much to identify the other person, either. The one I was talking to.

It was Rachel. He knew about Rachel.

“Oh, God,” I said as a cold sweat broke out all over my body. “Oh, my God.”

“I’m calling for backup,” Granger said, already dialing his cell. “What’s her address?”

“Oh, God,” I repeated uselessly. Rachel. All I had left-

“Susan! Give me her address!”

And I did. Pulling myself together as best I could, I grabbed my car keys and raced for the front door. Please, God, don’t let us be too late. Please, don’t let us be too late.

But my own words haunted me, even as I raced out the door and into the stifling desert night air.

He wouldn’t give us anything we could use to stop him.

Rachel raised the window and leaned out into the cool night air.

Not a creature was stirring, as the poem went. Excellent.

It was drizzling outside. The white trellis attached to the front of the house was slick. She would have to be careful.

She hoisted herself through the window, flipped her feet around, then slowly descended onto the trellis. The Shepherds were nice folks, but they had to be crazy not to see how easy it was to get out of this room. Just too innocent to consider the possibilities, she supposed. Or perhaps it was some sort of test.

Didn’t matter, she thought, as she dropped like Spider-Man down the side of the house. At first, she’d thought the Shepherds were pathetic, hilarious, ridiculous. But over time, she had sort of gotten used to the regularity of life with them. She had found new friends, new interests. It wasn’t all bad, really.

But her first loyalty was to Susan. Had to be. She was family. And she knew how much Susan loved her. Knew how much Susan counted on her, needed her if she was to stay sane. When she’d visited earlier today, Rachel could see how edgy she was. Then when she got the call from a co-worker telling her how much Susan had fallen apart, how desperate she was-Rachel knew she had to go to her.