Prowlers - 1

PROLOGUE

The taste of a child's blood.

The subway train shrieked as it entered the Government Center station, brakes squealing in pain. The boy shouldered his backpack and stepped off the train and onto the platform amid a tumble of humans, going about the business of their lives. It was after 7:00 P.M. and most were going home. Not this boy. From the heft of his bag and the set of his gaze he was on his way somewhere other than home. Books in there, probably. Maybe a night class.

The man waited until the milling about had ceased. Just before the doors dosed, he stood, clutching his slim, stylish briefcase in one hand, and then stepped off the train. He allowed his eyes to glaze over with the numbness of the commuter, but his heart began to beat faster and there was a sureness in his step. A hunger.

This was not his stop.

The boy moved on. Eric Carver followed.

Several different train lines passed through Government Center , a labyrinth of tunnels leading from one line to the other. Numerous staircases led up to various surface exits. When the boy headed into a narrow passageway that would eventually take him up, Eric Carver followed. Several people passed, going in the opposite direction. Then they were alone.

The only noise in the tunnel, other than the distant wailing of trains, was the echo of Eric's footfalls, the sound of the leather soles of his seven-hundred-dollar imported Italian shoes striking the filthy tiled floor. Alone like that, the boy sensed him.

The young, even among humans, had an uncanny sense of self-preservation.

The boy glanced nervously over his shoulder several times as he made his way along the passage toward a stairwell that would take him up. Up to the darkness. To the night. Up to the moon.

Eric could taste the boy's blood on his tongue, feel his teeth tearing the young flesh. He picked up his pace, working to keep the vague, blank expression on his face. He even swung his

briefcase a little. And he whistled. A happy tune. It was from a Disney cartoon, he knew. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go."

It was a long stairwell. Perhaps as many as one hundred steps. As soon as the boy started up, Eric knew it was time. He began to run, though the sound of his shoes on the tiles was quieter somehow. Still, the boy heard him coming and looked back. Eric glanced at his

watch and swore, a performance meant to indicate that he was late for something important.

The boy saw. His eyes would tell his brain and his brain would tell his body that there was nothing to worry about. But his heart would begin to hammer in his chest, and in the depths of his mind he would know. The young ones always knew. That was why they were such a challenge.

Like a fellow actor in the same bit of absurd theater, the boy glanced at his watch. He did not swear, but made a little tsking noise with his tongue, and then began to hurry up the stairs.

Eric smiled. He liked the boy. The scent of fear rolled off him in waves.

At the forty-seventh step, Eric gauged that he needed only seven more to overtake the boy, perhaps eleven if the boy panicked and began to sprint.

As he mounted the fifty-second step, Eric tensed, preparing to lunge at the boy.

Then he heard laughter. With an upward glance he saw a trio of young women of various shapes and sizes descending the stairs toward them. One of them muttered a vaguely sexual remark and the others tittered again. Eric growled deep in his chest, but continued hustling up the stairs. On the fifty-fifth step, he passed the boy. On the fifty-sixth, he turned to glance at him and flashed him a bright, toothy grin. A knowing smile.

Lucky boy, he thought. Even though he did not speak the words aloud, he knew the message was dear. The fear in the boy's eyes was not the reward he had hoped

for that night, but it would tide Eric over until another opportunity arose.

In his heart he had known that he would lose the boy. That was best. The child, no more than eighteen, had been too tempting to ignore, but taking him there would have been too great a risk.

On the other hand, it would hardly have been the first time Eric had nearly compromised his safety for irresistible prey.

He reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the night, still swinging his briefcase, still whistling happily. The half-moon was bright in the clear, cold March sky, and it pulled at him, tugging painfully at his flesh, as though prying and digging into him to reveal the truth of Eric Carver, the secret within the man.

It was late by the time Eric returned to his apartment. He had boarded the T again and ridden it toCopley Square , then wandered about for a while, prowling, sniffing at the city. Eventually he had found his way to Morton's. It always amused him how many people had trouble finding the place. An office tower sat above it, all glass and steel, and simply by looking at it one would never imagine someone might have put a restaurant in the basement—well, if it weren't for the sign, of course.

But the smell. The succulent odor of cooking flesh was irresistible. Eric ate at Morton's at least once a week. Whenever he descended into the basement restaurant, the maitre d' would always find a table for

him, never mind that he had no reservation. Mr. Carver, a regular customer, was well known to the staff at Morton's as an excellent tipper, a wine connoisseur, and a lover of steak eaten raw enough to break federal health guidelines.

Nobody minded breaking a few rules for Eric Carver.

Tonight he ordered the super porterhouse, very rare, along with a baked potato and a salad. The wine he drank came from his own personal reserve, a service the restaurant offered only to its most valued customers. Eric Carver was relatively young, or at least he appeared to be. In only a handful of years he had become one of the highest paid attorneys at Gallows and Winter, where he was already a junior partner.

He was a mover and a shaker.

He was more than that as well, and perhaps people sensed it. Some did. It always fascinated Eric that of those who sensed something unusual about him, some shied away while others moved closer, as if sticking their heads in the maw of the lion.

After dinner Eric went home alone, as he did most often. There were women. A great many women, in fact. Some of them had even been to Morton's with him, and he had taken a significant few back to his apartment. But none of them ever went there a second time. Alone with Eric, they invariably found him a bit too . . . wild. Polished as he might be in court or at a deposition, within the confines of his own lair he was, to say the least, a little rough.

On the far side ofCopley Square not far from the Boston Public Library there stood an ornate Catholic church that had been closed and sold off in 1957. The nave and transept had been transformed into office space, to no one's great surprise. But the seven-story bell tower, with its medieval interiors, its stained-glass windows and its 213 steps from top to bottom, had been sold to a private developer and transformed into a luxury apartment. For someone of an athletic nature, of course. And Eric Carver was nothing if not athletic.

He walked across the park atCopley Square , shying away from the paved paths where couples strolled hand in hand. A crew of teenagers cruised past, one on a skateboard and the others

marching with a bounce that was half-dance and half-challenge. Eric chuckled at the spectacle of the young ones, at the airs they put on, thinking themselves so dangerous.

At the other end of the square he crossed the street and reached into his pocket for the keys to the church tower. An old man walking his dog along the sidewalk was nearly yanked off his feet as his yippy poodle began to bark in alarm and haul on its leash.

Eric pulled out his keys and jingled them in his hand. He smiled at the man, baring his teeth. The dog stopped, crouched into a defensive posture and bared his teeth also.

"You oughta have that pup looked at," he told the geezer. "Got a nervous condition or something."

The old man frowned and ducked his head as he moved off, the dog very enthusiastically pulling him

onward. Eric heard him mutter to the poodle, barely above a whisper. Still, he heard it. The words were unkind, but Eric ignored them. He had enjoyed himself tonight. One frail old man and his dog weren't going to change that.