An Old Friend of the Family

feel no solid barrier opposing her, yet she was unable to reach even a finger into the room.

Kate shifted forms. The solidity of her body gone, she tried again. The doorway was as impervious as before.

In woman-form again, she stood just outside the open doorway, biting her nails and trying to think. The old man had said something about this. The room that she was trying to enter was living quarters, part of someone’s dwelling. He had said it would be impossible now for her to enter any such space uninvited. Listening to the old man, back in the mausoleum, she hadn’t really understood or believed what he was trying to tell her. Now—

She must rouse Joe, get him to call to her, invite her in. But she could hear other voices now, including the voice of Poach, just beyond the storeroom’s inner door. They would certainly hear her if she called to Joe.

Again and again she pressed her body, in alternate forms, against the barrier. But it was like a breather trying to go through a wall. She tried urgently to force her thoughts into Joe’s mind. But his stupor was too deep.

If only the old man were here. But even he would not be able to drive his way in uninvited.

Six feet away from her, she could feel Joe’s life gently ebbing.

There were tears on Kate’s face. She would have sobbed or screamed, but those in the apartment must not hear her.

The old man had told her something else. That whatever powers any human being could seize beyond nature came from the will, not through diabolism or magic. That if the will were strong enough, very little in this world need be impossible. That if—

Kate closed her eyes. She stood on the threshold, leaning forward. But she was not pushing any longer. That had proven useless. This was something else.

Is this what it means to pray? she wondered briefly. And then she ceased to think at all about what she was trying to do, or what was happening to her. Her self was entirely forgotten. There was only Joe, and his need, and the help that had to reach him, somehow.

Prayer, or giving birth. Or could they sometimes be the same—

—and something, some agony, was over. Kate came to herself lying face down on the concrete floor. Air, cold and unaccustomed, was filling her lungs with repeated pain, and it took a great effort to manage this labored, almost sobbing breath in silence. The birth, some kind of birth, was over, and the thin cry floating in Kate’s mind was not a baby’s but her own, unvoiced. She saw that she was lying halfway across the threshold. She crawled forward, arms trembling with a sudden weakness, the weakness of the newborn. With fingers that suddenly seemed almost powerless she began to work to remove the cords holding Joe’s hands. He was still alive. His breath and hers were mingling in the air.

She whispered his name. That, or the tugging at his arms, made his eyes open presently. His eyes saw her, and yet they did not see; his mind had not reacted to her presence yet.

In her new relative weakness she was not going to be able to carry or drag him very far. So he was going to have to walk, and perhaps climb, and so she was going to have to free his legs. His hands were now free at last; numbly he moved them in front of him, trying to get the fingers working.

“Kate?” His voice was weak, yet loud enough to present a danger.

“Shh! Yes, I’m here. It’s going to be—”

“Kate?”

“Oh, love, be quiet!” She pinched his lips together with her fingers, then closed them with a kiss. And now the last bindings on his legs were coming loose. And now—

The inner door of the room swung open suddenly. Enoch Winter stood there in dark evening dress. The difference between his face as Kate now saw it and as it was in her memory lay less in the new scar on his forehead than in the dumbfounded surprise with which he looked at her.

Kate leaped to her feet, but would not flee alone. Winter’s loud voice burst out with some exclamation; in another moment his massive fist had somehow collected both of her wrists within its grip. Other people came flooding around, gabbling their astonishment. A young-looking, red-haired woman barked orders. Kate was dragged stumbling out of the storeroom, into luxurious though badly lighted living quarters. At the moment it seemed that the last of her strength had been used up. Joe, looking worse off than she, his wrists gripped in Poach’s other hand, was pulled along staggering at her side.

* * *

Joe didn’t really begin to come out of his faint or stupor or whatever the hell it was until he was already on his feet. At that point Poach had him, was drawing him along to what Joe thought must be some kind of final confrontation with his enemies. Joe understood at once that Kate was now with him again, and in a way it seemed quite natural that she was. They were both of them now dwelling in the domain of ultimate things, of life and death. The trivialities making up what was usually called ordinary life had all been left behind—by Kate some days ago, by Joe himself only during the last few hours. Now they were in the land of life and death together.

Together they were pushed up against the edge of the massive worktable, on whose top Joe had earlier been drugged and then bound. The bonds were gone now, and he could stand. His arms were still so numb that he could barely move them.

“Bring her closer to the light.” That was Carol—no, Morgan was probably the right name, Joe remembered.

Now Morgan was inspecting Kate’s face closely. “She’s certainly breathing steadily enough,” Morgan pronounced a moment later. “I really don’t think she’s faking it.” A murmur went up from the people gathered in the circle of shadow just beyond the table’s light. Now Morgan was pushing back Kate’s upper lip, as if inspecting a horse, then tilting back her head to examine the smooth skin of her throat. “This is Kate Southerland?” she snapped at Poach.

“Yeah, sure.” Poach blinked. “Hey, at least it’s the one that Walworth introduced me to.”

“You assured me that when you were through with her, she had been changed.”

In the silence, all of them seemed to be watching Kate’s breath, steaming faintly in the room’s chill air. Joe’s breath steamed too. But he noticed now that no one else’s did, except for the briefest momentary puffs with speech.

Besides Joe and Kate and the woman called Morgan, there were about a dozen other people present. Looking at their shadowed faces now, Joe could see that they were divided about evenly between men and women. Judged by surface appearances, the gathering might have represented a cross-section of middle-class America. A couple of people were black, one Oriental. Most were dressed in clothing that might have been worn to the office, a few outfitted as for a casual party. One sturdy, young-looking couple wore denim jeans and jackets that had the look of real work clothes. One of the older-looking women, rather beefy, almost motherly, was already gazing at Joe when his glance fell on her. She gave him a sharp-toothed smile, and in the middle of it her tongue came out and licked her lips.

Before he could start to think about that, his attention was caught by the girl who stood next to the beefy woman. She had been dead in the box in the storeroom when Joe first saw her. A blond girl, thin and nervous, as well dressed—he saw now—as a fashion model. Her eyes were resting on Joe too, and she was smiling.

“I have heard of this, but never seen it before.” The speaker was a gray-haired man, the oldest-looking of the group. “A girl, or a young man, changed unwillingly. Then a few days later a spontaneous relapse to the breathing state. What the breathers, I suppose, would call a spontaneous cure. It happens under intense emotional stress.”

“I have seen it, Dickon,” Morgan mused. “But only once before . . . this is a genuine reconversion, it would appear. Her blood will again be good to drink.”

There was a silence, while each from his or her own viewpoint considered this. Looking past Morgan, who stood on the opposite side of the large table, Joe could see a vista of semi-darkened rooms and halls, ending at a large, draped window, through which some exterior light sent in a filtered glow. If he could tear free, run on his half-numbed legs, leap, cry for help as he crashed outside . . . on Morgan’s left as Joe faced her, a great fireplace held cheery embers. There was a tang of aromatic woodsmoke in the air. Above the fireplace was mounted a lone diagonal spear.

As if struck by a sudden thought, Morgan bent across the table to look keenly at Kate once again. “Did any send you here, child?” Then she appeared to think better of the question. “Never mind. It does not matter.”