know any Biebers.”
Checking her phone book confirmed Bachman had listings for only Biekers. Garreth felt a lurch of dismay. Had the reference librarian in San Francisco telling him Bachman had telephone listings for Biebers heard him wrong? Yet Lane called herself Bieber and he clearly remember the letter being addressed to Madelaine Bieber.
Back in his car, Garreth pushed dismay aside. Maybe Pfiefer had Biebers.
He headed east on a county road. A few miles out of town it took him through the Dixon the secretary mentioned. Not just a small town, he found. Dead…two houses, with overgrown foundations all that remained of several others, a gas station-come-general store, and a grain elevator — a fascinating row of huge, melded columns…a giant tombstone marking the town’s passing.
In Pfeifer, he stopped at a gas station and checked the phone book before going on to the high school. It listed Biekers, no Biebers. Still, he pushed on to the high school and was handed over to their school librarian, who showed him to the shelves holding almost a century’s worth of yearbooks. He went through those from 1930 to 1940…where he found Biekers and some Pfeifers, but no Biebers. And none of the faces were Lane’s.
Gloomily, he wondered what his chances were of finding Lane this way and whether he was totally off base about where to search. On which depressing note, he headed back to Hays.
11
At least Harry was doing well. His voice sounded strong on the phone that evening, telling Garreth they were probably releasing him from ICU in another day or two. How were Garreth’s folks, and Brian, he wanted to know. Lien must not have told him yet about his partner’s true activities.
Lien came on. “How are you doing?”
He sighed. “Not making much progress.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “You know I worry about you.”
Canny Lien. For a moment he imagined himself in Harry’s place, hearing an innocent conversation different from the actual one. “I’m not forgetting
“
After hanging up he sat sipping blood from one of the motel glasses. The hexagram fit. All things certainly were stagnant and benumbed. If he believed in
One way to find out…if the city library here were still open.
A phone call established it was, and provided him with directions there. Once there, he hunted up the phone book collection at the reference desk, then stood eyeing the row of thin directories on the “Local” shelf. Might as well go for broke, he decided…and pulled the one for Baumen.
Opening it, he held his breath…paged to the B’s…sighed in relief.
“You’re looking for Biebers?”
He looked up to find the reference librarian quirking a brow at him, and realized he must have spoken aloud. “Sort of. I wasn’t sure I’d find any. Around Bachman there were only Biekers.”
The librarian nodded. “The Biebers are all in northern Ellis County and Bellamy County.”
Garreth wrote the Bieber addresses in his notebook, then looked up the address of the high school. “I take it the Biebers were in another of those Volga German groups settling here?”
Her brows went up again. “You know the history. No, the Biebers used to be Biekers living around Schoenchen. Then about 1900, Anton Bieker had some bitter disagreement with his father and took his wife and children, all thirteen of them, and moved north and changed his name. If it isn’t prying, why are you looking for Biebers?”
He gave her his story.
She listened with interest. “So you think this Maggie Bieber can help you find your grandmother?”
“Or at least tell me if Mary Pfeifer is really her name.”
“There are Pfeifers in Bellamy, too…the county seat. You ought to check there as well.”
To maintain his cover story, he went through the Bellamy directory and took down Pfeifer addresses. Not entirely an empty exercise. Bellamy had eight Biebers, as well.
Would he get lucky in Bellamy County, he wondered as he left the library. Tomorrow would see.
Meanwhile, what could he do the rest of the night besides pace and speculate about tomorrow. Go to a movie?
The movie had not even started, however, when he discovered a problem with theaters and vampires. If this were a weekend crowd, blood smell would have swamped him. Sitting in the empty rear row with a box of extra- butter popcorn under his nose helped mask the scents from tonight’s handful of patrons. Except for one scent with an acidity that reminded him of the hospital and kept distracting him. A part of Garreth wanted to find the source… ask if he/she were ill…urge the individual to see a doctor. Instead he left, reflecting that if a disease altered blood scent a particular way, a vampire doctor would make one hell of a diagnostician
In the parking lot he regarded the long night ahead and almost missed his Embarcadero forays.
Thought of which prompted a question he needed to address. While he still had half the blood he brought with him, when that ran out, what did Kansas offer for refills? Jackrabbits and prairie dogs? Considering the size of the prairie, finding enough of those struck him as chancy. Rats, though, lived everywhere. Where here? Barns, probably, and maybe grain elevators.
Hays had a big one. Sitting in the middle of town, unfortunately, where unfamiliarity with its interior structure and possible location of his prey in it outweighed confidence in his stealth. Blunder around enough and he was bound to be noticed. He needed an isolated elevator…like the one in dead little Dixon. Maybe the county had a Dixon counterpart somewhere close.
North of town, the highway followed rolling hills. At the crest of each, Garreth scanned the horizon for the elevator shape. Concentrating on that, he caught sight of the moving shadows in a field off to the side barely in time to brake and avoid a deer and two nearly-grown fawns as they crossed in front of him.
Deer. He turned in at a pasture gate and climbed out to stare after the animals. Deer had more blood than a rat…enough to give him some without having to die? If he could catch one. Watching these vanish over the hill, he calculated the odds of that as slim to none. But what more might be in the field. The night wind brought him a warm scent of something blood-filled. Cattle, maybe. Cattle had even more blood and should be easier to catch.
He climbed over the metal pipe gate and followed the blood scent across the pasture. Catching up with prey, he realized, did not equal control of it. Would his power work for something so much bigger than a rat?
A hell of a lot bigger than a rat. Coming over the rise brought him face to face with not cattle but a single bovine, looming huge as a elephant and pale as a ghost in the twilight brightness of his vision…with huge testicles between its hind legs announcing he confronted a bull.
Garreth froze. The bull snorted in surprise.
Doubts raced through his head. Not just about the ability to stare into the eyes when they were on the sides of its head, but assuming he managed that, could he find a vein? That was one hell of a thick neck.
The bull snorted again and lowered its head. He needed to act or retreat. Garreth licked his lips and wiped sweaty palms on his jeans. Moving enough to catch one of the cow’s eyes, he focused on it. Would one eye work?
Maybe. The massive head stayed down, but seemed more relaxed. The flare of its nostrils eased.
Now what? Would it stay docile if he looked away to go for the neck? Lane had to do that to bite him, but continued controlling him with her voice. Would that work with an animal? Only one way to find out.
Still staring it in the eye, he eased closer and pushed at its neck…braced to run like hell if necessary. The hair
