The Vampire Murders: 7/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
At last, when three-thirty had come and gone, Lois was forced to concede that there would probably be no more action tonight. She yawned behind her hand. "Let's go," she said through the yawn, "I'm thinking more about my warm bed than anything else right now."
"You got it." Clark turned on the engine, backed carefully out of their hidden parking space, turned on the lights and moved slowly and carefully forward on the street.
As he turned the corner, the headlights illuminated a single figure standing on the sidewalk. A man wearing a dark suit and a dark, form-fitting overcoat. He lifted his head and Lois saw a face that she would not forget for some time.
The face was narrow and pale, with dark, piercing eyes and a head of thick, black hair. As the headlights flashed across his features, he ducked his face, shading his eyes, half covering it with the lapel of his form-fitting, black coat. Then, he stepped swiftly backward out of the passing lights and was gone.
**********
And now, Part 7:
"You don’t have to walk up with me," Lois protested, but her voice lacked conviction, and Clark frowned slightly. He hadn't said anything about her precipitous entrance into the Jeep an hour and a half ago, nor did he comment now, but she suspected he was thinking a great deal. Clark wasn't stupid, and he probably knew her better than -- well, just about anyone.
Instead, his expression changed to the faintest of smiles and he put his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "You know me," he said. "When I escort a lady home, it's full service."
"You haven't changed a bit since last year," she said, recalling the last time he had escorted her back to her apartment when she had been more than a little worried about the consequences to her of an investigation, although she would have died before she admitted it to a rookie reporter, as she had erroneously pegged him at the time. And she almost had. That time, he had shown up the next morning just in time to save her life, and she had subsequently discovered, although he didn't know it, that he had almost certainly spent the previous night staking out her apartment. If it hadn't been for that, Mr. Makeup would have brought an abrupt end to her career.
"All right, come on," Lois said. To tell the truth, having Clark's solid form beside her was enormously reassuring as they proceeded up the steps and into the deserted entrance hallway of her apartment house. The sound of the elevator descending a moment or two later when she pressed the button, reminded Lois that elevators were good places for assailants to hang out, so Clark wasn't going to get an argument here, either. Normally, she wasn't so chicken-hearted, she rationalized, but this had been the kind of evening that was likely to give her uneasy dreams tonight. It was okay to be just a little edgy.
The memory of the lone man on the sidewalk near Cost Mart came to mind. He was probably just an innocent passerby, but the image stuck with her and for some reason the picture gave her chills on the back of her neck. Admittedly, vampires weren't supposed to be able to enter a building without invitation from an inhabitant, but that prohibition had no effect on general run-of-the-mill criminals, and the events of the day, as well as the night, had left her feeling just a little bit skittish. Intergang was definitely up to something, and it was certainly a lot more dangerous than any mythical member of the undead. She didn't think that she or Clark had given them any reason to be suspicious but you never knew.
The car arrived after a minute or two and Clark let her enter first, shoved his glasses back into place and followed. Lois pressed the button numbered "5" and they waited. The doors slid decrepitly shut and the elevator began to rise.
"I want to go back there tomorrow," Lois said.
"I figured," Clark said. "Let's make it a little later in the day, though -- say about the time that there's likely to be a rush of shoppers."
Lois nodded. "After work -- say about four-thirty. I figure we can go in to work about noon, after we've had a little sleep. I want to be at my best when we try this."
"Good idea." Clark looked faintly relieved. "Maybe Jimmy can do a little work on locating the plans for that building, too. We know there has to be a sub-basement. Maybe he can find out where the entrance is."
"I'll call him in the morning," Lois said. She yawned behind her hand as the elevator came to a creaky halt and the doors scraped open. Clark let her exit ahead of him, and followed her down the hallway.
The hall was dim. Lois hadn't been too happy when the building's owners had installed dimmer switches to help save electricity, but so far there hadn't been any untoward consequences. No muggings or anything had occurred to disturb any of the tenants. Still, the dim passage made the memory of that shadowy crypt, and the crude wooden coffin rise suddenly in her mind and she was silently glad that Clark accompanied her to her door. Not that she really had any fears of vampires rising from their coffins to feast on the living, but it had been a creepy evening. She stopped in front of her door and unlocked the series of locks before opening it.
The lights were out, of course, and Clark reached past her to snap on the switch by the entrance. The warm yellow light sprang to life at once and they stepped inside. Clark glanced unobtrusively around.
"Everything looks okay," he said.
"No reason it shouldn't," Lois said. She yawned again. "I'd invite you in for coffee, but I'm going straight to bed. Are you sure you prefer to walk? I would have driven you home first if you wanted me to."
"But that way I couldn't have seen you to your door," Clark pointed out. He crossed the room to check her window and nodded when he discovered it to be locked. He pulled the curtains firmly. "Good night, Lois. Get some sleep."
"I will," she said. "Good night, Clark."
He stepped outside and waited while she closed the door, and only then did she hear his footsteps retreat down the hallway. She turned the locks, smiling faintly. Clark was so obvious, sometimes. She'd thought he was a little spooked, and she was right. It was just like him to make sure she was safely inside before he left.
Well, it was well past time for her to be in bed. Lois crossed to her bedroom and snapped on the bedroom light, before turning off the switch by her bedroom door that also extinguished the living room light. Somehow, once Clark was gone, the apartment had an empty feel to it that she hadn't been aware of before. She checked her bedroom window and made sure the shade was pulled before she changed quickly into her flannel pajamas. Of course, they weren't particularly glamorous, but after she had seen a photo in the Planet of a hapless woman descending a ladder clad only in a bedraggled negligee while fire decimated her apartment building, Lois had made certain that she was always decently clad even at night, especially in the winter, and had a robe close by, just in case. Somehow the notion of Superman seeing her scrambling awkwardly down a ladder, while most of Metropolis got a good look at her clad only in semi-transparent lace and goose-bumps, didn't appeal to her at all.
She brushed her teeth quickly, made a few swipes at her hair with the hairbrush and went to switch off the bedroom light.
The living room window rattled and every faculty she possessed went on the alert. Perhaps it was the evening she had spent sneaking around in underground crypts, but all of a sudden her scalp was crawling.
It was probably just the wind, she thought. Or maybe Superman had flown by. He sometimes did, she knew. She had seen him late one night last summer when she had been doing research, with the windows partially open to cool the room, and Superman had drifted down to float outside the window to ask if she was all right.
But somehow she didn't feel at all like opening the curtains to check tonight. Besides, if he wanted to talk to her, he'd probably knock.
Again the faint rattle came, and then nothing. She waited, listening for several minutes, but whatever it had been seemed to have stopped.
Lois closed and locked her door and crawled into bed. After a moment, she switched on the lamp on her night stand.
The room looked exactly the same. There was nothing to alarm her, and yet her nerves were still tingling. She knew this mood. She wasn't going to get much sleep until she worked out what had set her on edge. Telling herself that she was being spooked by an overactive imagination wasn't going to help, either.
Fifteen minutes later, she was still wide awake. Fatigue pulled at her, but sleep was still very far away.
Lois got out of bed and went to her dresser. Her jewelry case sat there with rings, bracelets, chains, earrings, a string of pearls and a pendent tangled together in the bottom.
In a small compartment on one side, however, was something she hadn't looked at in years. A tiny, silver cross on a thin, slightly tarnished silver chain, it had been a gift from her grandmother one Christmas.
Lois took it out, carefully untangled the chain and contemplated it. It was silly, of course, but what was the harm?
She unfastened the catch, slipped the chain around her neck and, with some fumbling, refastened the catch. Then, feeling somewhat shamefaced, she returned to bed, pulled the covers up and determinedly extinguished the bedside lamp.
In less than three minutes, she was sound asleep.
**********
In the light of late morning, when Lois crawled out of bed, her fears of the night before seemed a little silly. She brushed her teeth, got dressed and arranged her hair, eyeing the silver chain and its tiny silver cross thoughtfully.
If she wore it to work today, was Clark likely to tease her about it if he noticed it? Once, while she was scrubbing an upper molar and again while she was brushing the hair in the back and contemplating its length, she had the impulse to remove the chain, but in the end she left it on and simply tucked it beneath the neck of her knit sweater.
Okay, she thought a little defiantly, so it wasn't something she usually wore. Why shouldn't she wear it today? And if Clark dared to make the slightest remark about it, she was perfectly capable of putting him in his place. It had nothing to do with coffins or bodies drained of blood, strange-looking men in dark coats, or hidden crypts under the Cost Mart parking lot. She just felt like wearing her grandmother's gift. Was there anything wrong with that?
Stepping out into the open a short time later, she discovered that the cold, crisp night last night had morphed into a damp, gray, cloudy day with a light scattering of tiny snowflakes floating lazily down. She clutched her coat tightly at her throat and unlocked the door of the Jeep quickly. A few moments later, she was traversing the snowy streets of Metropolis toward the Daily Planet.
Fortunately, the morning rush hour was past. Pulling up to a light, she put her foot on the brake, only to discover that in the slush of snow melting on the pavement, that she suddenly had no brakes. The Jeep slid forward into the intersection and an oncoming Volkswagen had to swerve to avoid her.
The blue and red figure that appeared in front of the sliding vehicle almost startled her. Superman brought her to a stop and stepped around quickly to the window. After a shocked pause, Lois lowered the glass.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yes." Lois found herself slightly breathless and told her heart to slow down. "Thanks. I didn't realize how slippery the road was."
"I've been trying to prevent accidents all morning," he said. "It's always this way with the first snow of the season. There's fender-benders all over the city. Be careful driving the rest of the way to work. It's just as bad farther on."
"I will. Is the other driver all right?"
"He's fine. Be careful, all right?" Superman stepped back and moved quickly to stop another car that tried at that moment to slide into her. "Better get going. You're blocking the intersection."
Lois rolled up the window and crept away at half the speed limit. Behind her, someone blew his horn in exasperation, and a moment later a station wagon tore past her, spraying her windshield with snow. The next instant, the brake lights of the other vehicle came on and the car skidded, its back end fishtailing as the driver tried to stop.
Lois turned right, leaving the other driver to his fate. Why on Earth couldn't people be more careful? Most of the accidents this morning could probably be avoided if the drivers would exercise some elementary caution!
She turned another corner, cut down a narrow alley and emerged onto the street in front of the Daily Planet, and moments later was parking the Jeep in the Daily Planet's lot, under the building. Maybe, she thought, she and Clark could take the bus over to Cost Mart today. Not only did she want to try to sneak into the sub-basement and see if she could locate the smuggled goods that had come in last night, but she wanted to have another try at interviewing the manager. Surely Henderson had talked to him by now. Not that she expected to get anything truthful out of the man, but it was possible that they could learn something he didn't intend to tell them if she was clever enough.
**********
Naturally, when she reached the newsroom, Clark was nowhere to be seen. She dropped her purse beside her desk and glanced around. "Jimmy!"
Jimmy was crossing the Pit with a large box of doughnuts. "Yeah?" he inquired.
"Have you seen Clark?"
"Yeah. He was here a while, but he ran out about half an hour ago and hasn't got back yet."
That figured. Lois checked her watch. It would be the lunch hour in forty minutes, and the perfect time to go into Cost Mart with the crowd of lunch time shoppers, and of course Clark was missing.
She picked up her purse. Well, she was just going to have to go by herself. She didn't want to miss the opportunity to find out what that batch had been bringing in last night. Clark would figure out where she'd gone when he got back, and if he was lucky he'd join her in time to help her do some snooping.
"When Clark gets back," she told Jimmy, "tell him I've gone to check into that stuff we discussed last night. He'll know what I mean."
"If you mean Cost Mart, I haven't had the time to get the plans yet," Jimmy said. "Clark said you were going over there after work."
"I figure lunch hour should be even better," she said. "There'll be more customers around. Don't forget to let Clark know, if he gets back in time."
"But --" Jimmy's voice trailed off uncertainly. Lois paid no attention to his feeble protest. With a brisk step, she headed for the elevator.
**********
tbc
