The Demon Lover (38 page)

“I checked in with our resident vampires last night and I don’t think they’re the ones who are preying on the students.”

“Why? Because they told you they weren’t?”

“No, because I watched them all night and the only blood they drank was imported.”

“Imported?”

“As in not local. Three people arrived at their house last night—all over twenty-one, none glamoured—to volunteer their services.”

“Ew. Why would anyone do that?”

“One was a middle-aged woman from Woodstock who’s writing a paranormal romance and considers herself the luckiest person on the planet to have found real live—or real
undead
—vampires who are such
gentlemen
. That’s what she told me when I stopped her leaving their house near dawn. The other two were a couple from Manhattan who are trying to spice up their marriage …”

“Okay, maybe I don’t want to know any more.”

Frank smiled. “Good call. There are some images I’d rather not have in my head either.”

“But just because the vampires weren’t stalking students last night doesn’t mean they don’t ever.”

“No, but I also went by the infirmary and had a little chat with the night nurse. There are no bite marks on any of the students and when I spoke to Flonia Rugova she had no memory—conscious or unconscious—of a vampire attack.”

“How is Flonia?” I asked.

“She’s very weak and appears to have suffered some short-term memory loss, but seems to be recovering. I told the nurse she shouldn’t have any visitors.”

“But if it’s not the vampires draining the students …”

“I don’t know. I’m going to track Flonia’s progress. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine. I think it was just a virus, but I’m over it now.” I got to my feet and gave Frank a wide smile to keep from wincing at the soreness in my legs. “I’ve never felt better.”

But I couldn’t help thinking: if not a vampire, then who—or what—was draining the students? What else could it be but a succubus?

THIRTY-SIX

I
considered telling Frank my suspicions, but if I did I’d have to also tell him that Soheila was a succubus. Somehow I couldn’t bear to betray her secret, knowing how Soheila felt about him. Unless, of course, it was Soheila who was draining the students.

I started keeping track of the students who got sick and then seeing whether they had any contact with Soheila. Both Nicky and Flonia were in Soheila’s Introduction to Middle Eastern Mythology class. So was Scott Wilder, who got so sick he had to take a leave of absence. And of course the dean had had ample contact with Soheila. But when I went to see Liz to share my concerns with her I found her completely recovered.

Her eyes were sharp again, her skin smooth and pink, her silver hair coiled into a gleaming chignon. She was wearing a kelly green tweed suit and pink blouse to celebrate the approach of spring, but her fur coat lay across the back of the couch where she sat, and occasionally she reached out to stroke its glossy pelt.

“Is Ursuline better?” I asked, eyeing the coat uneasily.

“Oh yes! She pretended to be a dog and we took her to the Goodnoughs’ clinic. She enjoyed being a dog so much I’ve agreed that she can spend a few hours each week at the dog park so she can see Abby and Russell with their rottweiler Roxy—as long as she
behaves.
” She injected a note of sternness into her voice but patted the coat fondly. I wondered how Ursuline liked the hours she spent as a coat but thought it might be rude to ask. Instead I told her my suspicion that the “flu” that was going around might be caused by a succubus.

“I suppose that’s possible, but the only succubus on campus is … Oh! You can’t mean Soheila? She would never do such a thing! And especially not to students!”

I felt instantly guilty for even suggesting the possibility, but I persevered. “If not Soheila, then is it possible that there’s a succubus—or incubus—on campus we don’t know about? I mean, you don’t always know who is and who isn’t a supernatural creature, do you?”

Liz frowned. “No, I’m afraid it’s not always possible to tell. With you, we suspected something when you told us about letting the bird out of the thicket. But if someone really wanted to hide their true nature … Oh my, it would be awful if I hired a succubus or incubus who was draining the students. I’d never forgive myself!” She looked stricken. “I’m going to do a thorough background check on all recent hires. I’ll ask Mara Marinca to help me … if you can spare her.”

“Sure,” I said a little too readily. As useful as Mara had been I’d found our sessions awkward and exhausting—especially now that she was focusing on the erotic passages in Dahlia LaMotte’s books. I wouldn’t mind having my afternoons free again. I was actually disappointed when Mara volunteered to do both jobs but told myself that I was being ungenerous. Clearly the girl needed all the money she could get from her work-study jobs.

As the semester went on fewer students got sick and many who had been sick recovered. The exceptions were Nicky, who became so sick she had to move back into her grandmother’s house, and Mara, who missed class the last day before spring break. She texted me from the infirmary saying she was sorry she had missed class and that she wouldn’t be able to come by that day to work on the Dahlia LaMotte manuscripts. My first reaction was relief. I could go home and take a nap instead. But then I felt so guilty at that thought that I went by the infirmary after class to visit her. Lesley Wayman was in her room, fluffing her pillows and straightening her blankets.

“Poor dear,” Nurse Wayman said, laying a motherly hand on Mara’s pale forehead. “She was weak as a kitten when she came in last night. She should have come sooner.”

“I hated to miss class and work,” Mara said through bluish lips. “I could lose my scholarship and get deported.”

Nurse Wayman clucked her tongue. “Nonsense, dear, I’m sure no one’s going to take away your scholarship because you’re sick. Isn’t that right, Professor McFay?”

“Of course not,” I answered, patting Mara’s hand.

“But we were making so much progress on cataloging Dahlia LaMotte’s books. I could still come to your house over break to work on them …”

“Don’t be silly, Mara. Those manuscripts will still be there after break and you should really use the time to rest.”

“That’s what I intend to do with my break,” Lesley Wayman said, bustling me out of the room. “I’m going to spend the whole week in my hot tub.”

“I bet this has been rough on you, having so many sick students at once.”

Nurse Wayman yawned and arched her back, kneading her sacrum with one hand, a gesture which made me feel the ache in my own back.

“At least it wasn’t stomach flu. Most of them get better with a little rest. I hear Nicky Ballard’s still pretty bad, though. I’m afraid that fool mother of hers has got her running around taking care of old Miz Ballard instead of resting.”

“Hm. Maybe I should drop by and see how she’s doing,” I said, seeing the possibility of an afternoon nap slipping away.

“If you do, could you take these iron supplements with you? I ordered them for Nicky and called JayCee to pick them up, but she said she was too busy.” She snorted. “Can you imagine? Too busy to pick up her sick daughter’s vitamins? I went to school with JayCee and she was a nice enough girl back then so I hate to say anything bad about her, but …” Lesley Wayman shook her head and folded her lips together as if to suppress her criticisms of JayCee Ballard. I offered to take the vitamins and wished her a good break.

“You, too,” she said. “Get some rest and put some meat on your bones. You’re still looking peaked.”

Before I left the campus I texted Liam to tell him I’d meet him at home later. He texted me back to say he had an appointment with the dean and would be back around five. I walked out the southeast gate, passed my house with a longing look, and turned down Elm Street. The Ballard house looked more decrepit than ever in the sunshine, although there were some cheerful crocuses peeking up through the sooty snow on the front lawn. I wondered who had planted them. Someone had cared once about making the house look more cheerful. I noticed, too, that stacks of newspapers, tied off neatly with twine, had been left for the recycle pickup. Maybe Nicky had been cleaning up while she was home—an admirable endeavor, but probably not the best way to recuperate.

I knocked on the door and waited. I could hear a radio playing inside—WFAI, the college station—and an occasional thump. I knocked again and heard some muttered curses. Then the door was yanked open. JayCee Ballard, in the middle of lighting a cigarette, scowled when she saw it was me.

“Let me guess, you’re here to check up on Nicky. Don’t you people have any other students to worry about up at that college of yours?”

“Why, has someone else been to visit?”

JayCee squinted through her cigarette smoke and then smiled slyly. She folded her arms across a faded Phish logo on her tight ribbed tank top. “So you didn’t know your boyfriend came here this morning. Inner-resting … He even brought muffins! Can you feature that? A man baking! If he hadn’t stared at my tits so hard I’d have said he was a homo.”

“Oh, Liam was here?” I said, trying not to sound surprised. “He
did
say he was going to drop by sometime. I didn’t realize he’d gotten around to it. I’d like to see Nicky, too. I’ve got some vitamins for her.” I took the bottle out of my pocket and JayCee snatched them out of my hand.

“I’ll give ’em to her. She’s asleep. Your boyfriend’s visit tired her out. If I find out there’s any funny business going on between them I’ll sue that college for sex harassment.”

“Liam would never take advantage of a student,” I sputtered. “He cares about them too much …”

“ ‘Too much’ is right. He was holed up in Nicky’s room for half an hour. Nicky said they were talking about her poetry, but I saw his eyes. Bedroom eyes, if you know what I mean.”

To my horror, I blushed.

“I guess you do know what I mean.” JayCee snickered. “My advice to you, honey, is keep your man satisfied so he don’t go prowling around here looking for younger meat.”

With that sage advice delivered, JayCee slammed the door in my face. I almost knocked again but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I retreated down the steps and along the unshoveled front path which, I noticed now, did have large footprints that matched Liam’s size 13 L.L.Bean snow boots. So JayCee hadn’t been lying about him visiting. Which was no big deal. It was just the kind of considerate thing Liam would do—even the baking part. So why did I feel funny about it? Surely I wasn’t taking JayCee’s obscene hints seriously. Liam would never take advantage of a student that way. But still there was something about Liam visiting Nicky that bothered me …

“Yoo hoo! Yoo hoo!”

The call, which might have belonged to a migratory waterfowl, pierced my consciousness as I was stomping up Elm Street. I turned and found a petite middle-aged woman in a bright red sweater and jeans waving at me from the front porch of a Craftsman bungalow. I recognized the house as the one I’d gone into on Thanksgiving Day with Dory to check the pipes for its owners who wintered in Florida. A glance at the RV in the driveway suggested they were back.

“Hello?” I answered back, holding my hand over my eyes to shade the glare. “Are you talking to me?”

The woman came down her steps and then looked at the snow on her unshoveled path and the red slippers on her feet with dismay. “Oh dear,” she said as she began to pick her way gingerly through the snow. “We came back early and forgot to tell Brock to shovel our paths. Or to turn up our heat. And now we’ve found that we’ve been broken into! Harald’s on the phone with the sheriff. Can you believe it? Here in Fairwick? I’m Cheryl Lindisfarne, by the way, but everyone calls me Cherry.” She held out her hand when we reached each other on the middle of the path.

“Callie McFay. I’m at the college. And actually I came by your house with Dory Browne after the Thanksgiving ice storm to check on your pipes. Everything looked fine then.”

“Oh my, I hate to tell you this, but from the dates on the fraudulent credit card charges the home invader was already in the house on Thanksgiving Day! We noticed some unusual charges on the AmEx in December and we canceled all our cards. But who knows what other information he might have taken! He might have stolen our identities!”

She glanced nervously up and down the street as if clones of Cheryl and Harald Lindisfarne might be strolling brazenly in broad daylight along Elm Street.

“Well, that
is
upsetting,” I agreed, unsure what the woman wanted me to do about her problem. “But if you haven’t seen any more fraudulent charges maybe it was just a vagrant trying to get warm …”

“Do you think?” she asked, laying her hand on my arm. “He ate an entire Hormel ham and all the peaches I’d put up last summer, but he was very neat. He washed out the peach jars and put back all the DVDs from Harald’s collection. Harald is a bit of a movie buff …”

“He put back the DVDs?” I asked. “Then how do you know he took them out?”

“Oh, because they’re out of alphabetical order … Oh dear, maybe he was an
illiterate
vagrant! Maybe he turned to a life of crime because he never had a proper education. I’m a literacy volunteer, you know,” she added. “I work with newly arrived immigrants in Florida and migrant workers up here in the summer. Gosh, do you think it could have been one of the men I tutor?”

Thankfully the new conjecture was cut short by the appearance on the porch of a short, bald, rotund man in khaki shorts, a T-shirt that proclaimed the owner was a RETIRED SNOWBIRD AND PROUD OF IT! and red suspenders. “The sheriff’s on his way, Cherrybaby,” the man called as he picked his way across the snow toward us. “He says we need to make a list of everything that’s missing. You’ll have to do the pantry.”

“Oh,” Cherry said, squeezing my arm, “I’d best go in. Thank you for being such a good listener. I just had to tell
someone!
And I’m glad to meet you. Dory told me we had a nice new woman professor at the college. You’ll have to join our book club and Harald’s Friday night movie club. We watch classics and new movies. My favorites are the romantic comedies …”

I’d been trying to come up with a polite way to get away from Cherry Lindisfarne when the words
romantic comedies
brought me up short.

“Which movies did the thief watch?” I asked, interrupting Cherry’s personal review of the new Nancy Meyers film.

Cherry Lindisfarne blinked at my rudeness, but recovered herself quickly and turned to her husband. “Do you remember, Harald?”

“I made a list for the police,” he said taking a folded piece of paper out of his shorts pocket. “Let’s see …” While he adjusted a pair of bifocals on his sunburned nose I suppressed an urge to throttle him. “
Beauty and the Beast
—the French one, not Disney—
It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story, You’ve Got Mail
, and
When Harry Met Sally.
”

“He was apparently quite the fan of romantic comedy!” Cherry exclaimed. “I bet he’d been disappointed in love and was trying to figure out how to get back with his girlfriend. Those movies are practically primers on the art of love!”

“Yes, a person could learn a lot from those movies.” Like how to lie to your girlfriend, I reflected bitterly. “And those credit card charges. Do you recall what companies they were from?”