Jesus, Mary and Joseph, let this be what he wanted me to do.“Would you have done that to me too, if you were hungry enough?”
Saul’s laugh was an ugly thing. “Ididtell you not to get too close to me, sweetheart.”
“There,” said Halder. “You see? We can only ever be prey to a thing like him.”
I licked dry lips. “Have you found a reliable way to recognize them yet?”
“I have had some promising results with blood tests, thoughof course, none of them would be foolish enough to allow themselves to be tested willingly.” He gestured with the gun, which was now pointing more toward Saul than to me. “I am somewhat hampered by having only one specimen. Still, I am confident that we can find a way.”
I lowered my hands, waiting to see if Halder would protest. He didn’t. “If Phelps had just explained things to me, instead of shouting about devils…”
Halder sighed. “Phelps was a useful tool that outlived his usefulness, I am afraid. He never understood the importance of what we were doing.”
I nodded. “Itisimportant, isn’t it?”
“You fickle little bitch,” growled Saul, and made an abortive lunge in my direction.
I dodged out of the way easily, ducking toward Halder, and heard the gun go off. A bullet whined past me and something stung my shoulder.Oh God, have I been shot?I staggered forward with a cry, tripped, and sprawled full-length on the ground.
For one crucial second, Halder took his eyes off Saul to look at me.
Saul moved in a blur. He grabbed the hand with the gun, yanked it upward. Halder pulled the trigger, but the shot went into the air. Saul dropped his head and Halder began to swing the lantern toward the other man’s face, then slowed. The lantern’s handle fell from his fingers and oil splashed over the dry pine straw, lighting immediately. More hit my skirts, which were fortunately too wet to go up. I yelped and rolled, scrambling to my feet with speed, if not grace, and began slapping at my skirts.
When I finally looked over, neither Saul nor Halder were moving, and I realized belatedly that Saul’s teeth were sunk to the gums into Halder’s wrist.
“Oh,” said Halder, his voice remarkably calm. “It would appear that your saliva possesses anesthetic qualities.”
Saul opened his mouth. I caught a flash of sharp teeth vanishing.“Yes,” he said, clamping a hand on the back of the doctor’s neck. “Useful for a parasite, don’t you think? Miss Wilson, get his gun, please.”
“Let me put this fire out first,” I said, stomping out the last flames on the pine straw.
“Time is something of a factor, Miss Wilson.”
“So is not burning alive,” I snapped, but hurried to take the gun from Halder’s fingers. He tried to hold on to it, but his fingers were rapidly going limp. A moment later he crashed down to his knees. Saul moved his grip to the fringe of hair at the back of the doctor’s head and held him up.
“Miss Wilson,” Halder said, still very calm, “you can still help me. You have the gun.”
I took a deep breath. “Why the botflies, Doctor? Why did you do that?”
“For science.” His words were beginning to slur a little.
“And did you tell other scientists what you were doing? Invite them to read your notes and see your experimental setup?”
“Of course not.”
I shook my head. “Then it wasn’t science, Dr. Halder. It was just you torturing some poor bastard in a hole in the ground.” I stepped back, lowered the gun, and nodded to Saul.
“Hmm,” said Saul thoughtfully. “Now what shall I do with you? I have so many ideas…”
Halder said nothing. I don’t know if Saul’s saliva had paralyzed him completely, or if he simply didn’t have anything to say.
“I could put you down in that hole, Halder. Down with those wolf worms you fed on my flesh. I could even find some screwworms, I expect. You made cuts on my thighs so that the screwworms would burrow in exactly where you wanted. Do you remember?” He shook Halder, just a little. “Answer me. You’re notthatnumb.”
“I remember,” said Halder. His pupils were huge behind thelenses of his spectacles, as if he’d been eating opium. Phelps had said that his pig let the blood thief bite off its face, and now I understood why. Like the cockroach paralyzed by the wasp, Halder had no more will of his own.
“Even if I can’t find some screwworms, the flies will have you soon enough,” Saul said. “These move fast. One was eating through Phelps’s skull, did you know that?”
“Really?” Halder took a deep breath and seemed to rally a little. “Did it take control of his motor functions, then? I theorized…” His mouth slackened, and his theory was lost. His very last theory.
