Wondering what she looked like-and suddenly overwhelmed by a need to
know how her blood would taste stepped out of the open doorway and took
three steps to her. He made no effort to be silent, but she did not
look up.
The first she became aware of him was when he seized a handful of her
hair and dragged her, kicking and flailing, out of the chair.
He turned her around and was instantly excited by her.
He was indifferent to her shapely legs, the flare of her hips, trimness
of her waist, the fullness of her breasts. Though beautiful, it was not
even her face that electrified him. Something else. A quality in her
gray eyes. Call it vitality. She was more alive than most people,
vibrant.
She did not scream but let out a low grunt of fear or an then struck him
furiously with both fists. She pounded his chest, battered his face.
Vitality! Yes, this one was full of life, bursting with life, her
vitality thrilled him far more than any bounty of sexual charms.
He could still hear the distant splash of water, the rattle-h of the
bathroom exhaust fan, and he was confident that he could take her
without drawing the attention of the man long as he could prevent her
from screaming. He struck her on the side of the head with his fist,
hammered her before she could scream. She slumped against him, not
unconscious dazed.
Shaking with the anticipation of pleasure, Candy placed her on her back,
on the table, with her legs trailing over the edge He spread her legs
and leaned between them, but not to commit rape, nothing as disgusting
as that. As he lowered his face toward hers, she first blinked at him
in confusion, still rattlebrained from the blows she had taken. Then
her eyes began to clear. He saw horrified comprehension return to her,
and he went quickly for her throat, bit deep, and found the blood, which
was clean and sweet, intoxicating.
She thrashed beneath him.
She was so alive. So wonderfully alive. For a while.
WHEN THE deliveryman brought the pizza, Lee Chen took it into Bobby and
Julie’s office and offered some to Hal.
Putting his book aside but not taking his stockinged feet off the coffee
table, Hal said,
“You know what that stuff does to your arteries?” :’Why’s everyone so
concerned about my arteries today?”
‘You’re such a nice young man. We’d hate to see you dead before you’re
thirty. Besides, we’d always wonder what clothes you might’ve worn
next, if you’d lived.”
“Not anything like what you’re wearing, I assure you.” Hal leaned over
and looked in the box that Lee held down to him.
“Looks pretty good. Rule of thumb-any pizza they’ll bring to you,
they’re selling service instead of good food. But this doesn’t look bad
at all, you can actually tell where the pizza ends and the cardboard
begins.” Lee tore the lid off the box, put it on the coffee table, and
put two slices of pizza on that makeshift plate.
“There.”
“You’re not going to give me half’,.”
“What about the cholesterol?”
“Hell, cholesterol’s just a little animal fat, it isn’t arsenic.” WHEN
THE woman’s strong heart stopped beating, Candy pulled back from her.
Though blood still seeped from her ravaged throat, he did not touch
another drop of it. The thought of drinking from a corpse sickened him.
He remembered his sisters’ cats, eating their own each time one of the
pack died, and he grimaced.
Even as he raised his wet lips from her throat, he heard the door open
farther back in the house. Footsteps approached. Candy quickly circled
the table, putting it and the woman between himself and the doorway to
the dining room From the vision induced by the dummy’s scrapbook of
pictures, Candy knew that Clint would not be as easy to kill as most
people were. He preferred to put a little distance between them, give
himself time to size up his opponent rather than take the guy by
surprise.
Clint appeared in the doorway. Except for his outfit slacks, navy-blue
blazer, maroon V-neck, white shirt looked the same as the psychic