“…finally got it narrowed down to just violent death where the weapon is not proven, although you can see that the cops are making some guesses. Like, there’s this spree of camper-killings over here. Most of them say cause of death was blunt force trauma or an axe, but the first two were just your basic dead people. The guy was beat to death against a tree, and the girl drowned, but only after she ‘sustained massive sexual trauma’. Hopefully it was after. I don’t know, though. Is your guy E’Var a rapist?”
Heat. Carefully, Tagen said, “I would not know. My knowledge of his activities is limited to those employed on-world.”
“Okay, well, so my keywords were ‘violent’, ‘massive’, ‘severe’, ‘head’ and ‘brain’, but, as you can see, I still turned up a whole lot of shootings and stabbings and stuff. I’m afraid to whittle it down any further because I don’t want to accidentally screen his stuff out.”
“Understandable.”
“So let’s pretend that these campers are his. The time’s about right. Then we have some random body dumpings along the highway…those could be his. And there’s two guys in a trailer park, but I don’t know…something about that one doesn’t sound like our guy. And someone took an axe to a post office, but I think that’s just your basic postal problem. There’s two blunt force to the heads at a playground, but I’d think you’d need a mature human hypothalamus for this drug of yours, so I’m kind of discounting that one. But this, though…this one I think is a match. Someone went to a bar in Blue Ridge and killed everyone inside. More than thirty people.”
Tagen sat up a little straighter, winced, and pressed his hand a little harder on himself, resisting the urge to begin rubbing. “How would that be possible, even for E’Var? Someone must have struggled, shouted.”
“Yeah, well, whoever it was shot the place up pretty good. When guns start going off, it’s human nature to hit the deck. That might have made it pretty easy for him to get everyone else under control.”
Tagen was shaking his head, closing his eyes again. “No, that would never be E’Var. What could it possibly profit him to use a gun on humans?”
“He only shot some of the people,” Daria replied. “The others, quote, sustained massive cranial trauma with an unknown instrument, end-quote. In other words, someone bashed in the back of their heads. Tied them up, it says, and went one by one down the line. It doesn’t specifically say that parts of the hypothalamus were removed, but then, the cops’ll probably want to keep that little tidbit to themselves.”
“Why?”
“To weed out false confessors. And don’t ask,” she said, as he opened his mouth. “I don’t know why anyone would want to confess to a crime they didn’t commit, but people do, and cops have to keep secrets to keep from running wild goose chases all day long. That’s just how it is.”
“Wild goose chase,” Tagen echoed. He liked the sound of that, even though he didn’t know the second word. It had a crazed, frenetic feel to it. He knew exactly what it would feel like. Wasn’t he on one right now? “And do the police claim to have a suspect?”
“Funny you should ask. They say they’re investigating leads, but they always say that when they don’t have the slightest idea where to start looking. But they also say that the attack was gang related because all the victims were associated with a biker gang called the Dog Pack. I don’t know. My instincts say this is our boy, but it could just be a…Are you copping a feel on yourself?”
Tagen eyes snapped open wide and he yanked his hand up above the table. Heat immediately poured in to fill the place his grip had been and he bent almost double, digging furrows into the tabletop to stop himself from seizing his swelling shaft again.
He was caught. He flicked his eyes at her, saw her bewilderment turning aghast, and stared stonily at the table. He could feel himself throbbing to full erection, chafing at his tight coverings well beyond the point of mere pain.
“Jesus, man!” he heard her say, and he closed his eyes. “We don’t…we don’t do that out in the open!”
“I know.”
“What were you thinking?” Incredulous. Disbelieving. Damned near to panic.
“It is the heat.”
“The what?” She drew away from him, her hands curling back into protective fists, as though the bulge pushing hard against his clothing were a disease she could catch if she came too near.
“The heat.” His hand was shaking with the need to assuage himself. “My kind…I have no choice. It is the heat.”
“Can’t you…do something else about it?”
Yes, he could throw her down on this table and—
Tagen bared his teeth and snarled the thought away, sending Daria flying back in a staggering leap, out of her chair and halfway to the door. “I have been taking something…a kind of medicine, you might call it. I was not prepared for ninety days of your summer. Who could possibly expect that?” he added in a furious rush.
She came an edgy step forward, allured by vulnerability, perhaps. He imagined he could smell her sex musk, and his claws gouged deeper into the table. Her eyes were still frightened, anxious and unreasoning, and it came out of her, as he knew it would, in anger. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” she demanded, almost shouting at him. “I have a goddamned air conditioner! I could have found the money somehow to get it repaired if I’d known you were going to jack yourself off in my goddamned kit—”
Tagen lifted his head and glared back into her eyes, clenching his jaw as though he could bite his own answering anger in the throat before it escaped him. “Do not shout at me,” he said, very quietly. “I cannot help it any more than the color of my hair.”
Now she flinched, hard, and looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her hands began to twist at themselves. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t.”
No. No more than she could help her unreasoning, persistent fear. Tagen put out one hand, splayed for apology, and Daria uttered a shrieking little gasp and slapped it away, showing the whites of her eyes in panic.
Tagen’s patience snapped, almost audibly (although the cold, even voice of his dark heart remarked that as long as she was aware of him and frightened anyway, he might as well give her something to fight against and get himself relief as well). He shoved himself away from the table and immediately pushed the heel of his hand against his loins, stroking hard up and down along his length, baring his teeth at her in fury. “I cannot help it. Do you think I would come into your house if I had any other choice? Do you think I want to see that look in your eyes, or hear my name as you curse?”
He advanced on her, stalking her, exaggerating the sliding, squeezing grip of his hand and she retreated with such speed that her bare feet slipped out from under her and sent her in a heavy sprawl over the stone tiles. He reached for her and caught her arm, and she screamed, just once, with wordless terror. Tagen flexed his claws, staring down at her with some evil desire to hurt her as much as he was able, and then he hauled her up and set her roughly on her feet.
“If it comes as any comfort to you,” he snarled, his mouth twisted in mockery of a smile. “It hurts more than I have words to say. You can think of me…copping a feel and know that I am screaming.”
He turned away from her without another word, staggered up to his room, and slammed the door.
*
Daria cried herself dry of panic at the kitchen table. It took a long time, and when the storm passed, she got up and went sickly down into the laundry room and ran a load of linens. She organized her tool shelves as they washed. She readied three dozen planting pots as they dried, just in case she decided to plant something in the fall. She folded sheets and pillow shams, staring at the empty wall and forcing herself not to think. Her heart was a stone in her chest.