Grey Dawn (5 page)

A
stranger in grey: Dulcie didn't believe in coincidence, not when soft-coated heroes were involved. But she also didn't want her friend to think she was as nutty as her mother, so when Trista had finished her story, Dulcie skimmed over the rest. She'd been out late. She'd heard –
something.
And then she'd seen Martin Thorpe, looking frantic about something.

‘Martin Thorpe couldn't hurt a fly.' Trista had said, mopping up the last bit of her soup. ‘The worst he can do is make your life miserable.'

‘Easy for you to say. You're done with your thesis.' Dulcie didn't dare tell her friend her real fears.

‘You will be soon, hon. And then we'll both be out job hunting. Just like Thorpe!' She hopped off her stool. ‘See you at the Newman tonight?'

Dulcie nodded, watching her friend queue up at the cash register. She hadn't told her about visiting Rogovoy – but then, Trista hadn't asked where she'd gotten her own information about the attack. Besides, she decided, the victim wasn't blonde and multiply pierced. Trista didn't have to worry. At any rate, not until the next full moon.

With a wave to Lala, Dulcie paid her own bill and stepped outside. She should call Suze, she knew. Her former room-mate and long-time friend was a lawyer now, or at least a law school graduate. Suze had given Dulcie good advice every time she had found herself talking to the cops. Never mind that Dulcie wasn't in trouble this time, Suze would be a source of comfort – and information. Besides, she realized, they hadn't chatted in a while. Partly, that was because Suze was studying for the bar. Partly, Dulcie acknowledged with a sinking feeling, that was because they were both in relationships. Their lives were changing. But couldn't they still be friends?

Walking across the Yard, Dulcie dialed her friend.

‘Please leave a message …' Well, it was the middle of the workday.

‘Hey, Suze.' Dulcie thought fast. She didn't want to worry her friend. Not when she had an upcoming exam. ‘Just calling to say hi.'

Feeling just a bit more alone than before, she kept walking. Ostensibly, she had office hours. Any students who had felt cheated by her absence this morning should be able to find her in the basement office she shared with Lloyd. In reality, she hoped they wouldn't. Maybe, she admitted, she just didn't want to deal with the very real and very scary thought that someone – a woman who looked like her – had been brutally attacked. But if she couldn't talk to a friend, then what she wanted to do, more than anything, was return to her research. Specifically, to that text. Outweighing her scholarly intent, she acknowledged, was plain old curiosity. She wanted to see what would happen next.

Besides, it seemed she had other friends looking out for her.

‘Mr Grey?' She asked the trees as she made her way across the Yard. ‘Was that you, this morning, telling Trista to warn me?' Even as she said it, she realized how far-fetched it sounded. Mr Grey – the ghost of her late, great cat – had never had any trouble contacting her directly. ‘Or am I being silly?' A stray commuter who happened to favor mohair – that might have been all it was.

‘If it was you, why did you contact me through Trista?' She paused in front of the Memorial Hall steps, another larger question forming in her mind. ‘And why did you contact her this morning, not last night when I was out with the –' she didn't want to say ‘wolf' – ‘the attacker?'

‘Trust … friend.'
The word whispered by her; the ‘r's trilling into a purr.
‘Look to a friend.'

‘Mr Grey!' Dulcie's heart leaped. ‘That
is
you, isn't it?'

The brush of whiskers against her palm almost had her looking down. But Dulcie had been through this before and knew better. Instead, she kept her face averted and cupped her hand in what had seemed, moments before, like empty air. She was rewarded with another purr, rich and full – and then the smooth soft pressure of a feline headbutt against her palm.

‘Are you saying I should look to my friends more?' The damp wet of a nose. ‘I should trust them more?' Her next question brought a lump to her throat, but she asked it anyway. ‘But aren't you my friend? And Suze?'

If there was an answer, it was drowned out by the sudden rush of freshmen, tromping by and laughing. As Dulcie moved out of their way, she lost contact with the feel of fur. With a sigh, she turned her thoughts to her students and started down the stairs.

‘Hey there.' Lloyd looked like he was finishing up his own lunch. As Dulcie crossed over to her desk, he was wiping crumbs off an open book into a crumpled paper bag. ‘You've got a message.'

‘Already?' Dulcie looked at the clock. Her office hours officially started at one. By university time, she was hardly late at all.

‘Oh, not a student. Sorry.' Lloyd balled up the bag and shoved it into his backpack. ‘Thorpe, I'm afraid. He came by about a half hour ago, looking for you.'

‘Great.' Dulcie sat heavily in her chair.

‘What's the matter? I thought you were making great progress with that new text? He should be proud of you.'

‘Should be.' She looked over at Lloyd. ‘Maybe he'll be better when this is all over.'

‘Really.' Lloyd nodded in understanding. ‘Put the poor guy out of his misery already.'

‘You don't think he has a chance?' Talking to Chris, Dulcie had been certain. Now, sitting with her colleague, she began to wonder.

‘I don't know, Dulcie. They've got Showalter coming in, and Hanson next month, and he's a double doctorate – Anglo Saxon
and
semiotics.' Lloyd shoved another book into his bag. ‘And the guy who's giving tonight's Newman, James Lukos? Everyone says he's a real brute.'

‘Sounds wonderful.' As much as she didn't like him, Dulcie at least knew Thorpe. ‘In what way?'

‘Well, he's published in every major journal. I was reading his article in
Victorian Embellishments
. He came up with a whole new way to classify late-period character studies based on perceived gender. I wanted to ask him about it last night, but I couldn't get near him.'

‘Wait, the talk is tonight, right?' Something Lloyd had said was tickling the edges of her mind.

‘Yeah, it is. Lukos flew in last night though. I don't know. He wanted to get a good night's sleep, I guess. Anyway, Teitelbaum let it slip that he was staying at the Commodore, and so I just happened to wander over to the bar.'

Dulcie raised her eyebrows. The idea of Lloyd wandering into an upscale lounge wasn't something she could easily picture. Then again, she could easily see him wanting first crack at the scholar. Lloyd always did have post-structuralist leanings. ‘And you thought he'd be up drinking?'

Lloyd shrugged as he stood to leave. ‘It was worth a shot. And he was there all right. I recognized him from the pictures. He was like a movie star. Really, Dulcie, it's the kind of thing that probably only happens in a college town, but they were all over him. Like, a dozen women. But I'll tell you, he only had eyes for one – a redhead. She had curly hair, kind of like yours.'

‘Y
ou don't think it was the same woman, do you?' Dulcie knew what it was now – Lloyd's use of the word ‘brute.' ‘The one who was attacked?'

‘Huh?' From the confusion on Lloyd's face, Dulcie realized he was lost. She explained, then, about meeting Rogovoy – and about his warning that the victim of last night's attack had resembled her.

‘Oh, lord, I hope not.' Lloyd had sat back down at his desk. ‘That would be awful. Guest scholar turned slasher?'

Dulcie mulled it over. In a way, it was better than what she had been thinking – that Martin Thorpe had been involved.

‘Oh, no, it couldn't have been.' Lloyd started breathing again. ‘I distinctly heard her saying that she had to get going. And he went up to his room after that. I know because I hung around, hoping to get a chance to talk to him.'

‘You're sure?'

‘Yeah, it was wild. Two blondes walked him to the elevator, or I'd have gone up to him. He was laughing and he kissed them both goodnight, but he was pretty clear about wanting to go to sleep – alone.'

‘Huh.' Dulcie trusted Lloyd, but she also knew that people could be devious when they chose. Perhaps the blondes had been camouflage, and the retreat just a ruse. Or perhaps her initial suspicion – about her adviser – had been correct. ‘Hey, did Thorpe say what he wanted?'

‘No.' Lloyd shook his head and went back to packing his bag. ‘Just that he wanted to speak with you. He knew you had office hours this afternoon.'

She nodded, letting her dread give way to relief. It wasn't great that her adviser had come by – and she wasn't here yet. But at least he knew she had the afternoon scheduled. Cell phone reception down here in the basement was awful, and her adviser wouldn't expect her to leave while students might come by. She watched as Lloyd reopened his bag, cramming more books in than it should rightfully hold. So much for everything being digital. With any luck, she'd have the next two hours to dive back into the text and try to make sense of what was going on – then and now.

‘Come.' The voice, deep and soft, and yet audible despite the wailing of the winds, was accompanied by an arm. Reaching out from the Shadow of the carriage, a gloved Hand, reached for Hers. Hesitating but a moment, she took it, the Warmth and Strength emanating through the soft leather a strange Comfort in that time. ‘We must away,' the Stranger said—

‘Ms Schwartz?' Dulcie looked up. A student. She tried not to let her disappointment show as she motioned the student – a junior named Beth, she recalled – into the chair in front of her desk.

‘Beth, how may I help you?' As she spoke, Dulcie folded her laptop closed, but left her hand on its top. It was probably her imagination that made its faint vibration feel like a purr. The warmth was encouraging, however: a promise that she could soon return.

‘It's about the final paper.' Dulcie kept her smile in place. Of course it was. This was the time in the semester when she started to hear excuses, weeks in advance, for why the final assignments simply could not be done.

‘I do have a letter from my doctor.' The student started rummaging in her bag, and Dulcie realized that she'd missed what the young woman had said. Something with cramps – the full moon, and all that. Lucy would have had an answer, Dulcie thought, her smile becoming real. She'd have encouraged this young woman to harness her lunar cycles for some kind of celestial boost.

‘Okay,' Dulcie didn't dare try that kind of response, and instead took the note handed to her. ‘Well, just try your best.'

With that, Beth left. ‘So much for wanting to work on the material,' Dulcie muttered, as a gust of air – as soft as the brush of fur – smoothed past her face. It could have been a breeze whisked up by the student's departure, but Dulcie didn't think so. ‘It's all about the grades, Mr Grey. I don't think they care about the reading at all.'

Only silence greeted her, and so Dulcie reopened her laptop. ‘I know,' she said, as she waited for the system to awaken. ‘I'm trying not to get discouraged.'

‘I have been summoned to assist you on your journey,' said the Stranger, his face shrouded in the shadow of the coach's deep recess. ‘For dangers abound on this Road, as the bilious Moon rides to her turbulent zenith, and I would be your Friend.'

‘What?' Dulcie sat back. She had no recollection of transcribing this. True, deciphering those torn and stained pages had taken all her concentration; she hadn't been able to read while figuring out words, letter by letter. Something this evocative, however, she was sure she would have remembered.

‘I did not summon you.' Breathless, still from the cold, which had whipped her flaming midnight locks –
there was a question mark here, and Dulcie had added in brackets: [redhead? Brunette?] –
and brought stinging tears to her eyes. ‘And if I did not, then what Spirit demanded your Presence at this spot, on such a night with a Moon—'

‘Excuse me?' Another interruption. Dulcie couldn't help herself. Her sigh was loud, audible for sure to the slim young woman in the doorway.

‘Yes?' Dulcie heard the peevishness in her voice. ‘I'm sorry,' she tried to soften it. ‘I just got caught up in my own reading. Please come in.'

‘Thanks.' The young woman collapsed into the chair, her dark hair falling over a pale face. Up close, Dulcie could see that she looked frail rather than simply slim. She seemed exhausted, as well, her large, dark eyes heavily shadowed. ‘This has been a nightmare.'

Strange words, but she undoubtedly was referring to the assignments. ‘Is it the class work? Is it too much for you?' Dulcie didn't usually offer such fill-in-the-blank answers, but right now she didn't want to hear more excuses. Besides, this student really did look to be at her wit's end.

‘It's not the class.' The girl surprised her as she pulled herself upright, pushing her hair back as she did. ‘It's my room-mate.'

‘Ah.' Dulcie waited. She'd had a little experience with room-mate issues – at any rate, until she and Suze got a double sophomore year. But they'd never stopped her from finishing her work. That's what libraries were for.

‘She was, well …' The girl paused. Working on her story, Dulcie figured. ‘She – she was hurt last night. You probably heard.'

‘That was your room-mate?' Dulcie knew what the student before her had said, but the shock was talking. ‘The girl – the young woman – who was attacked in the Square?'

A nod of the head, and the student looked away, blinking. Dulcie fumbled in her desk for a box of tissues. ‘Here.' She pushed them toward her visitor. ‘I'm so sorry.'