Shadowfires

Easton Solberg listened, filled with both disgust and
pity.
    “His was not just a lust for young girls,” Solberg told Julio and
Reese. “It was an obsession, a compulsion, a terrible gnawing need.”
    Only thirty-one then, Leben was nevertheless deeply frightened of
growing old and dying. Already longevity research was the center of
his career. But he did not approach the problem of aging only in a scientific spirit; privately, in his personal life, he dealt
with it in an emotional and irrational manner. For one thing, he felt
that he somehow absorbed the vital energies of youth from the girls
he bedded. Although he knew that notion was ridiculous, almost
superstitious, he was still compelled to pursue those girls. He was
not really a child molester in the classic sense, did not force
himself on mere children. He only went after those girls who were
willing to cooperate, usually teenage runaways reduced to
prostitution.
    “And sometimes,” Easton Solberg said with soft dismay, “he liked
to… slap them around. Not really beat them but rough them up. When he
explained it to me, I had the feeling that he was explaining it to
himself for the first time. These girls were so young that they were
full of the special arrogance of youth, that arrogance born of the
certainty
they'd live forever; and Eric felt that, by hurting them, he was knocking the arrogance out of them, teaching them the fear of death. He was, as he put it, 'stealing
their innocence, the energy of their youthful innocence,' and he felt that somehow this made him younger, that the stolen innocence and youth became his own.”
    “A psychic vampire,” Julio said uneasily.
    “Yes!” Solberg said. “Exactly. A psychic vampire who could stay
young forever by draining away the youth of these girls. Yet at the
same time, he knew it was a fantasy, knew the girls could not keep
him young, but knowing and acknowledging it did nothing to loosen the
grip of the fantasy. And though he knew he was sick-even mocked
himself, called himself a degenerate-he couldn't break free of his obsession.”
    “What happened to the charge of statutory rape?” Reese asked. “I'm not aware he was tried or convicted. He had no police record.”
    “The girl was remanded to juvenile authorities,” Solberg said,
“and put in a minimum-security facility. She slipped away, skipped
town. She'd been carrying no identification, and the name she gave them proved false, so they had no way of tracking her. Without the girl, they had no case against Eric, and the charges were dropped.”
    “You urged him to seek psychiatric help?” Julio asked.
    “Yes. But he wouldn't. He was an extremely intelligent man, introspective, and he had already analyzed himself. He knew-or at least believed that he knew-the cause of his mental condition.”
    Julio leaned forward in his chair. “And the cause as he saw
it?”
    Solberg cleared his throat, started to speak, shook his head as if
to say that he needed a moment to decide how to proceed. He was
obviously embarrassed by the conversation and was equally disturbed
by his betrayal of Eric Leben's confidence even though Leben was now dead. The heaps of papers on the desk no longer provided adequate cover behind which to hide, so Solberg got up and went to the window because it afforded the opportunity to turn his back on Julio and Reese, thus concealing his face.
    Solberg's dismay and self-reproach over revealing confidential information about a dead man-of whom he had been little more than an acquaintance-might have seemed excessive to some, yet Julio admired Solberg for it. In an age when few believed in moral absolutes, many would betray a friend without a qualm, and a moral dilemma of this nature would be beyond their understanding. Solberg's
old-fashioned moral anguish seemed excessive only by current,
decadent standards.
    “Eric told me that, as a child, he was sexually molested by an
uncle,” Solberg said to the window glass. “Hampstead was the
man's name. The abuse started when Eric was four and continued till he was nine. He was terrified of this uncle but too ashamed to tell anyone what was happening. Ashamed because his family was so religious. That's
important, as
you'll see. The Leben family was devoutly, ardently religious. Nazarenes. Very strict. No music. No dancing. That cold, narrow religion that makes life a bleakness. Of course, Eric felt like a sinner because of what he'd
done with his uncle, even though he was