Once Bitten (20 page)

“So,” said Sugar, stretching his arms above his head. “Enough about us. I think you've gathered by now that we suspect that this Terry Ferriman is one of these mutants.”

“It's possible,” I said.

Sugar scowled and brought his arms down hard on top of the desk, making me jump with the ferocity of the movement. Hooper didn't even flinch, he just kept looking at me with his cold,

emerald eyes. “Don't fuck with us, Beaverbrook,” said Sugar. "In terms of operational powers we rank way above the country's law enforcement agencies and anti-terrorist organisations. CIA, FBI,

any group of initials you want to come up with, we're head and shoulders above the lot. We answer to only one man, and he reports directly to the President. We can make you disappear,

Beaverbrook. We can take you to the sort of places you haven't even conceived in your worst nightmares and we can talk to you there. But if we have to do that, you won't leave. Ever. You're either with us, or you're against us. And if you decide you're against us you give up any rights that you might have. Am I making myself clear, Beaverbrook?"

“Yes,” I said.

“I can't hear you.”

“Yes,” I said, louder this time.

“Good,” said Sugar. “Now, you've been making enquiries about Ms Ferriman. What conclusions have you drawn?”

“She isn't Terry Ferriman,” I said slowly. “The real Terry Ferriman died more than twenty years ago. She took over her identity. She's rich, very, very rich. She seems to have access to tens of millions of dollars in a bank account with no real means of accounting for it. She owns a big apartment block but pretends to live in a tiny apartment there.” I figured that De'Ath had probably already told them about the money in the bank, and it wasn't much of a step to have found out about the building. I didn't mention the basement because I hoped that they might have missed that. I told them about finding Greig Turner's picture, and about my meeting with the former film star because De'Ath knew about that, too. It was important that I appeared to be co-operating.

“What about her personality?” Sugar asked. “How did she seem to you?”

“She was fine on the Beaverbrook Program, and that would show up if she was lying or being evasive. But she seemed to know a lot more than you'd expect for someone of her age.”

“Her apparent age,” corrected Hooper.

“Her apparent age,” I agreed. "She could speak several languages, yet didn't really explain how she'd learnt them. She was amazingly confident, too. As if she knew exactly what she was doing.

As if she was in control."

“What about physically?” asked Sugar.

“I guess the first time I met her I reckoned she looked younger than her age.” I caught Hooper looking at me. “Than her apparent age. I'd have put her in her teens. And the way she spoke was often like a teenager. Yet she seemed to know so much. It was as if....”

“As if she was acting young. Pretending,” Sugar interrupted.

I nodded in agreement.

“What about her body?” asked Hooper.

“Like a teenager's,” I said.

“Did you see much of it? Her body I mean,” asked Sugar.

“A fair bit,” I said, unsure what he was getting at.

“Let me be a little more blunt, Dr Beaverbrook,” he added. “Were you lovers?”

I was about to protest but I saw Sugar's eyes harden so I thought better of it. “Yes,” I said. “At least, we went to bed once. Just once.”

“Did you use any form of contraception?”

The surprise must have shown on my face because Sugar grinned at my discomfort. “I'll explain later,“ he said. ”Just answer the question.”

“No, we didn't. She said she wouldn't get pregnant. I assumed she meant she was on the Pill or something.”

Sugar and Hooper looked at each other and something unspoken passed between them. Sugar looked back at me. “Did she bite you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, emphatically. I felt a sort of tremor of anticipation run along my spine because if she had asked me, I'd have let her. No doubt about it.

“Did she take blood from you in any way?”

“No,” I said, equally emphatically. Then I suddenly remembered the night she'd taken me to The Place, how the mugger had cut me and how she'd licked the wound clean. Sugar must have seen something in my face because he asked me if I was sure. I told him what had happened.

“Did she tell you why she was doing it?”

“She just said she was cleaning it.”

“Did she ask you to take blood from her?” Sugar asked.

I laughed out loud but could see that he was serious. “Why on earth would she do that?” I asked.

“Is that a yes or a no?” he pressed.

“No. Never,” I said. He nodded as if he believed me.

“Did she ever ask you to do anything for her?” asked Hooper.

“Lots of stuff. Everyday things, you know. What do you mean? What do you think she might have asked me to do?”

Sugar got up out of his chair and walked over to the window. He stood and looked out, his hands clasped behind his back. “You have to understand, Dr Beaverbrook, that these people usually want something from the people they get close to. They tend to keep to themselves, because the more people who know them, the more chance there is of them being discovered. They don't age, and after five years, perhaps as much as ten, it becomes noticeable. If they do get close to someone, it's because they want something.”

“We met by accident,” I said. “I was called in to examine her, that was all. We got on well together.”

“You hit on her?” asked Hooper.

“No,” I said angrily. “I'm a professional. It would have been totally unethical for me to have done that.”

“So,” said Sugar, still with his back to me. “She hit on you?”

I had to think about that one. She'd turned up at my house late at night, dragged me out, and yes, at the end of the night she'd seduced me. It had been all her doing. I hadn't realised at the time, it had felt so good, but I hadn't had to do anything. “Yeah. You could say that.”

Sugar turned round and smiled. “And why do you think she did that?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling defensive.

“Why do you think a pretty girl of her age - her apparent age - want to get involved with someone so much older?”

“I'm only thirty six,” I said, and realised how weak that sounded.

“You look older,” said Hooper, unsympathetically.

“Thanks. But we're only talking about an age gap of ten years or so. That's not unusual.”

“The girl is beautiful,” said Sugar. “And very rich, as you say. She could have any man she wanted. So why did she choose you?”

“Maybe she wanted me,” I said.

Hooper made a sort of snorting noise and put his hand over his mouth. I glared at him, but they were making me think.

“Did she ask you about your work?” asked Sugar, sitting down again.

“Of course.”

“Did she ask about vampires, things like that?” he pressed.

“Never.”

“She never asked if you knew where they were held?” he said.

“I don't follow.”

“Is it possible that she was hoping that you would tell her where the rest of her kind are? The ones we know about.”

“But I don't know where they are being held. Until I met you two I had no idea that they even existed.”

“Yes, but she wouldn't have known that,” said Hooper.

“Wow,” I said.

“Wow,” agreed Sugar. “Wow is right. It could be that you've had a very lucky escape.”

“You think I was being set up?” I asked.

“Sounds like it,” said Hooper.

Sugar drummed his fingers lightly on the desk top. There was no tune, no rhythm, just random tapping. “Dr Beaverbrook, it's important that you understand something, that you don't allow yourself to get too attached to her.” He spoke quietly, his head thrust forward to close the distance between us, as if he was drawing me into his confidence. “These people, these mutations, are different from us, they don't form emotional attachments. They are loners, complete and absolute loners. They only get close to other people when they need something - when they need blood, for instance. Or information. This might sound trite, but they don't fall in love. You must not imagine that it possible for her to, how can I say this, have feelings for you. Do you hear what I am saying to you?”

“Yes,” I said, but I felt that he was lying. I knew the strength of her feelings. And I knew that I loved her with all my heart. With my soul.

Sugar looked at me intently as if trying to peer into my mind and for a brief moment it almost felt as if he was probing through my synapses like a burglar rooting through a bedroom closet. And the valuables he was looking for were my true feelings.

“They don't even form attachments with their own kind,” Sugar continued. “They meet occasionally, they help each other, but generally they keep away from each other.”

“For safety?” I said. “So they can't give each other away?”

“No. Because they prefer it that way. They can't help themselves. How good is your biochemistry, Dr Beaverbrook?”

I shook my head.

“Ever heard of a hormone called oxytocin?”

“No,” I answered.

“They call it the happiness hormone,” Sugar continued. “It's a peptide secreted by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain.”

Something surfaced at the back of my mind, a paper I'd read a year or so earlier. “It stimulates uterine contractions during childbirth, doesn't it?” I said.

Sugar looked impressed. “And starts milk production,” he added. “It's long been known as a muscle contractor. But recent research has shown that it's much more than that. Researchers at Rockefellar University in New York gave doses of oxytocin to female mice and found that they were almost twice as keen to mate as control animals. Another experiment showed that female rats given the hormone make more of an effort to nuzzle their young, and male rats take more trouble to build a nest. If you block the effect of the hormone, you get the opposite effects. Sometimes the parents even go so far as to kill their offspring. The hormone is also thought to increase the sensations of sexual arousal.”

As I listened to Sugar's explanation, I began to realise that he was more than just a cop in a grey suit. I got the impression that he was giving me an idiot's guide to the subject and that his knowledge ran much deeper.

“Scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland discovered that brains of sociable mice are particularly turned on by oxytocin, and after extra shots of it they seem to enjoy physical contact even more. It's like they want to get inside each other, almost. But they also found that solitary mice were hardly effected at all.”

“So you're saying that some mice are receptive to the hormone, some aren't?”

"It's not just mice, Dr Beaverbrook. It looks as if it does a similar job in humans. Oxytocin is the trigger for tactile contact between humans. It makes you want to hug, to hold hands, to stroke.

Levels of the hormone jump four or five times during orgasm and ejaculation in humans. It either triggers orgasm or is triggered by it. We're not sure which comes first, if you forgive the pun."

I smiled, but I was still confused. “Where is this biochemistry lecture heading?” I asked him.

Sugar linked his fingers on the desk and rubbed his thumbs together. He had big thumbs, the nails almost square. “The investigations we've done on the vampires we have suggests that at no point do they secrete the hormone. Nor is there any indication that they posses receptors which recognise oxytocin. In simple terms, the hormone has no effect. In vivo or in vitro. It does not exist in their bodies. Whatever genetic mutation it is which gives them their longevity also appears to do away with their need for oxytocin, and with it the desire to be sociable. They do not need company, Dr Beaverbrook. Nor do they need sex. I doubt if either the males or the females get any enjoyment from the sexual act whatsoever.”

I remembered how Terry had been in bed, how she'd screamed, how she'd held me, how she'd touched me. Had she been acting? Had she faked it? I realised Sugar was staring at me and so I fought to control my feelings.

“So, how was she in bed?” asked Hooper. I'd forgotten he was there, so intent had I been on Sugar's speech. Hooper was openly leering at me and I wanted to punch him in the mouth. I breathed deeply and evenly and tried to relax. I didn't answer his question and looked back at Sugar.

“What he asks is valid, even if it was tactlessly put,” said Sugar. “I know that what I'm saying will annoy the shit out of you, but you have to understand quite clearly what I'm saying. They don't need contact with others. They don't need sex.”

“Only with their own kind, you mean.”

"No, that's not what I mean. They don't need sex, period. They don't reproduce. They can't.

They're sterile. Men and women. Their sterility is at the gene level, it's nothing to do with sperm levels or blockages in Fallopian tubes or any of that stuff. Their DNA just won't recombine.

Everything looks normal, their chromosomes split just fine, but they don't combine again. The men ejaculate, the women ovulate, everything is just as should be, but no matter what you do you can't make the DNA in the sperm and the egg combine."

I began to wonder what sorts of experiments Sugar and his colleagues had been carrying out on the mutants they already had. And what they planned to do with Terry. I heard a throbbing noise from outside the building and the windows began to tremble like an approaching earthquake.

Hooper walked behind Sugar and looked out.

“It makes sense, when you think about it,” Sugar continued, seemingly oblivious to the noise outside. "Humans are born, they produce children, they die. The old makes way for the new.

That's how the human race has progressed over the thousands of years we've been on the earth. If we didn't die, there wouldn't be enough room for everyone. But if your body isn't going to die, if the cells can reproduce themselves ad infinitum, it takes away the need to procreate. There is no need to replace the original. And without the need for procreation, there is no desire for the sex act."

An act, I thought. Is that what is was? An act?