True Grey (3 page)

‘No.' Dulcie shook her head again, sadly. ‘I don't know what's going on – I mean, with the dean and all. I do know she's got pull. That letter was like an all-access pass. And even if she didn't, I can't stand in her way. I mean, it's not her fault that I've been slow.' Trista's brow furrowed, rousing Dulcie. ‘Maybe I can talk to her.' She affected a cheer she didn't really feel. ‘See what she's looking for. Maybe I can find some part of the
Ravages
she isn't interested in. Some little fact she doesn't care about.'

‘Dulcie, are you serious?' Trista looked up and accepted a fresh mug from Jerry. Chris sat one chair over, his feeling of helplessness showing on his face. ‘You want to make peace with this, this—'

‘I don't
want
to, Tris.' The anger was surfacing again. ‘I don't
want
to talk to her or try to get along with her. I don't want to have anything to do with this . . . this Sloane Harquist person. But I think I have to. I think it's the only way to get through this, the only way to see if I may still have something to say in my own thesis.'

In an uncharacteristic move, she picked up her own mug and took a long pull of beer. Choking a little, she wiped her mouth, her lips set in a new determination. ‘Truth is, if I had my way, I could murder her.'

‘M
aybe you really should talk to her?' Chris sounded so tentative that Dulcie was seized by guilt. ‘You know, a little scholar-to-scholar confab?'

‘Have I sounded that fierce?' Dulcie looked up at her boyfriend. They had left the pub early, Dulcie's mood not getting any better in the crowded bar. Now they sat on his old sofa, Dulcie holding Esmé, their cat, in her lap. She'd been focusing on Esmé, letting the young feline bat at her outstretched finger with one white mitten. Now she studied Chris's pale, thin face and wondered out loud. ‘Have I become an ogre?'

To his credit, the slim computer geek smiled at the idea. ‘Hardly.' As he pushed his bangs back, though, he revealed worried eyes. ‘But I've never seen you so angry, Dulce. You can be a little scary when you get that worked up.'

Dulcie felt herself flush. She was taller than Thomas Griddlehaus, but in the grand scheme of things, she'd be considered petite. A little round, perhaps, but hardly threatening.

Just then, Esmé pounced, biting the finger she held between her paws. ‘Ow, Esmé!' Dulcie pulled back, and caught the sharp look the green feline eyes gave her. Size, they said, had nothing to do with ferocity. ‘Sorry,' she said, leaning over to rest her head on her boyfriend's chest.

‘I don't blame you.' He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer. The movement should have disturbed the cat, but the little animal only readjusted. ‘I mean, you have reason.'

‘Tell me about it.' She sniffed, the tears that had been threatening since that afternoon coming dangerously close to the surface. ‘I just felt so . . . blindsided.'

‘And you had no idea?' he'd asked – they all had. It was inconceivable. ‘Martin Thorpe really owes you one,' he said.

She shook her head. Her thesis adviser wasn't omniscient. ‘He reads the same journals I do,' she said sadly. ‘He gets the same notices of publications and of meetings. It's just—'

‘Inconceivable.' Chris finished her sentence.

Dulcie felt her eyes closing. It had been an exhausting day, and she'd been so upset she had drunk more than she'd intended. She didn't even like beer, really. The pub was simply social, the grad students' ‘other place' away from home or work. And on their budgets, anything beside the on-tap special was prohibitively expensive. She was going to have a headache in the morning, she realized, starting to drift off. As long as she didn't have the dream again: all that blood darkening the red hair. Or was it black? Somehow she couldn't be sure . . .

Teeth woke her. Esmé's teeth, sharp and quick. ‘What the . . .?'

‘What happened?' Chris, she realized, had fallen asleep on the couch beside her.

‘This cat. She keeps biting me.' Dulcie looked down. Esmé stared back, unblinking. ‘What is it, Esmé?'

‘You think she's trying to tell you something?' Chris yawned and would have stood, only the little cat reached out one white paw. ‘Oh, she's so cute.'

‘Cute for a tyrant,' Dulcie muttered. ‘She's got you wrapped around her paw. What is it, Esmé? You know you could tell me directly, if you wanted.'

She could have, Dulcie knew. Although she and Chris barely discussed it, they both had heard the voice of the young cat, speaking in quite articulate English. Usually, however, that feline voice wasn't directed to them, but to Mr Grey – Dulcie's late great cat whose presence lingered in spectral form, as a kind of feline guardian over all their lives.

‘Maybe she just doesn't want us to go to bed.' Dulcie sighed. ‘You know, cats are largely nocturnal.'

‘Well, I'll play with her tomorrow.' Chris stood and stretched. ‘Now, though, I've got to get some shut-eye. I'm not used to these daytime shifts.'

Dulcie smiled up at her boyfriend. He'd worked overnights at the computer lab almost as long as they'd been together. Over the summer, he'd taken time off, and these last few weeks on the same schedule had been heavenly. ‘Darlene covering again?' The new girl had jumped at the higher-paying shifts.

Chris nodded. ‘I don't think she'll mind getting back to daylight hours, though.' Although she had yet to meet Chris's new colleague, he had already told Dulcie about the younger girl's relatively new romance with the Dardley House senior tutor. ‘We know how rough it can be.'

She nodded, but kept her thoughts to herself. With the term revving up again, he had to do the practical thing. They both did. That meant, for her, taking as many sections as the department would give her – and as many as Thorpe would approve. For Chris, it meant the overnights. Soon, Dulcie knew, he'd be at the lab at this hour, guiding hapless undergrads. Then the only one she'd have to talk to would be Esmé.

‘Wait a minute, Chris.' He turned on his way to the bathroom. ‘What did you mean, I should talk to her?'

‘Just following up on something you said to Trista.' He yawned again. ‘Maybe find out if there's some area she hasn't written about. Maybe there's something she isn't interested in, but that you are.'

‘Find some niche that I could call my own.' Dulcie looked back at the cat. Esmé seemed to be regarding her. ‘Write a thesis out of the leftover scraps.'

‘It doesn't have to be like that.' Her boyfriend's voice was clear, but Dulcie was suddenly aware of another presence. Although she could clearly see her current pet on her lap, she felt the undeniable prick of feline claws on her forearms, making the hair on them stand up. ‘It could be, well, collaborative.' Chris was still speaking.

‘Maybe there is something she missed . . .' The claws could be a warning – but they could also be an alert, telling her not to miss her opportunity. ‘Something I know that she doesn't.'

‘Exactly.' Chris sounded relieved. ‘That's my girl, Dulcie. I can't see you giving up.'

‘Not when I have such a great support network.' Dulcie lifted the corporeal cat to the floor and stood to follow her boyfriend. That slight pinprick was gone, leaving only the memory – and a question. ‘Come on, Esmé,' she said to the cat, who responded by bounding ahead of her into the bedroom. ‘Mr Grey?' She looked around the empty living room. Nothing. She turned the light off and waited, still nothing.

Chris came out of the bathroom. ‘Are you coming to bed?'

‘Yeah, in a minute.' She passed by him and reached for her toothbrush. ‘I was wondering though.' Her toothbrush had suddenly become the most fascinating object in the world, and she stared at it hard. Maybe then he wouldn't see the tears gathering in her eyes. ‘What about Mr Grey, Chris?
He
had to have known that something was wrong. Didn't he? And if so, then why didn't he let me know?'

B
lood, she hadn't expected so much blood. The dark'ning ichor lay pool'd around the body, its flow now halted by the ebbing of the very essence of the creature's Being. Blood, so much blood. She felt her own carmine pulse racing in her Veins. Could it be the same vital fluid as now lay cooling at her feet? In truth, she had not expected such a Human trait in one she considered a Wraith, a Spectre. A creature both foul and Unclean. Then again, she knew that the evil creature, the thing that now lay cold and still before her, had feasted upon her very Essence, a Vampire of the Soul. Only the Creature's curls showed brightness now, red and gold. The blood had cooled. Blood . . . There was so much blood.

Dulcie woke with a start, her heartbeat throbbing like the neighbor's house music. She'd had the dream again, the horrible dream. In it, she had first seen the text, the description of terror, penned in a feminine hand, archaic and yet elegant. And then the words had faded, showing the carnage that she had started to read about. In the dream, she was the writer
–
and felt the chill of horror in her own self. Only this time, it was different. Worse. She wasn't only viewing a gory scene. She was involved, somehow. Deeply involved with the body that lay cooling on the library floor.

Breathing deeply to still her racing heart, Dulcie made herself go over it again. Only by deciphering its shadowed meaning, she was sure, would she be free of the horror that woke her, night after night.

Beside her, Chris stirred, and she slipped out of bed. He worked so hard, she didn't want to wake him. The first time she'd had the nightmare, three nights ago, he had woken her. She had opened her eyes to see his worried face. He'd been shaking her gently. Urging her to wake, to throw off whatever bad dream she was in. She'd been making strangled sounds, he'd told her, as if she'd been trying to scream – to wake herself.

Dulcie reached for her robe and shrugged into it. At least she'd progressed to waking herself up. And any progress was good. With that in mind, she made her way to the kitchen, where she'd left her laptop, to find Esmé sitting on the keyboard, batting at the mousepad. Distracted by the news, she must have left it open, and the movement of the cat had caused the screen to become active, glowing bright behind her like the moon outside.

‘Esmé, no.' Dulcie reached for the cat, who had pounced on the computer's touch pad. ‘There's no real mouse there – no!' As she lifted the rotund feline off the machine, Esmé squirmed and bit – and Dulcie dropped her. The little tuxedo responded by jumping back up on to the table, but Dulcie was too fast for her and closed the laptop. Esmé yowled with disappointment.

By the time Dulcie had washed her hand – the bite had barely scraped her skin – Esmé had calmed down and assumed a perch on the window sill instead. Silhouetted against the light of a full moon, the little cat looked quite regal. Her black fur glowed, catching the light. Almost, Dulcie thought, like . . .

‘Mr Grey?' She kept her voice soft. It was too much to hope for. But when she felt a warm pressure against her shins, she knew she was right. Scooping Esmé into her arms, she went to join the spectral feline by the window, and for a moment the three stood there, looking out at the still city night. Dulcie felt her pulse slow to normal in the feline presence. Even Esmé seemed preternaturally calm.

‘
You are troubled, little one.
' Mr Grey didn't speak out loud, but Dulcie knew his voice. Quiet and deep, it filled her with warmth. ‘
Tell me.
'

‘Mr Grey.' She paused. What she had wanted to ask him about was his silence. Why hadn't he warned her? But he was here now, and she didn't dare risk chasing him away.

‘It's the nightmare, Mr Grey,' she said instead. In truth, it had unsettled her, and in his company, with her other cat in her arms, Dulcie would dare to revisit it. ‘On other nights, I've seen her writing. That's why I've thought she's my author. Or maybe, well –' there was no point in being coy around her all-seeing friend – ‘me. But she has dark hair, not like mine.' The image of the dead man's hair – red and gold – came unbidden. Dulcie's curls were touched with red, but not like that. ‘I guess what I read today is influencing my dream,' she continued.

‘She's been writing some kind of horror scene. Something truly frightening. I mean, more so than anything in
The Ravages
.' Gothic novels were filled with cheap thrills – ghouls and ghosts, and all sorts of human evil as well – but Dulcie's favorite had focused more on the relationships between the characters. Particularly on the heroine, Hermetria, and her unfaithful attendant, Demetria.

‘At first, when Griddlehaus handed me that box and I found that page, I was thrilled. If that page really is her manuscript, maybe I can be the one to tie the book to her. To link her to another novel.' She looked over at her pet. For all that he seemed to understand everything about her, she really couldn't tell what he comprehended about her thesis. Did Mr Grey know about the hundreds of pages that the library held? The boxes of papers she had yet to go through? Maybe he knew, maybe he even knew where – or if – the rest of that strange horror story could be found. Cats, she knew, always seemed all-knowing. Sometimes, though, they just wanted to nap.

‘Ow!' Esmé had grabbed her finger and nipped it again. ‘Esmé, please.'

‘
Go on, little one.
' For a moment, Dulcie wasn't sure which of them he was addressing, but when Esmé quieted down again, she continued.

‘I just always thought I had an edge, you know? I thought maybe I was dreaming of her writing that book – the missing book. Maybe it's just such a scary work that the fear has been coming through. But tonight was different. Tonight, she wasn't writing about a murder. She was witnessing it, as if she . . .'