"Elena…"

"Si, doctor?"

"Do you know what is a raptor?"

Elena was gray-haired and sixty, a strong woman with a practical, no-nonsense air. In the night, beneath the stars, she frowned and said, "Raptor?"

"Yes, You know this word?"

" Si." Elena nodded. "It means… a person who comes in the night and takes away a child."

"A kidnapper?"

"Yes."

"A hupia?"

Her whole manner changed. "Do not say this word, doctor."

"Why not?"

"Do not speak of hupia now," Elena said firmly, nodding her head toward the groans of the laboring woman. "It is not wise to say this word now.

"But does a raptor bite and cut his victims?"

"Bite and cut?" Elena said, puzzled. "No, doctor. Nothing like this. A raptor is a man who takes a new baby." She seemed irritated by the conversation, impatient to end it. Elena started back toward the clinic. "I will call to you when she is ready, doctor. I think one hour more, perhaps two."

Bobbie looked at the stars, and listened to the peaceful lapping of the surf at the shore. In the darkness she saw the shadows of the fishing boats anchored offshore. The whole scene was quiet, so normal, she felt foolish to be talking of vampires and kidnapped babies.

Bobbie went back to her room, remembering again that Manuel had insisted it was not a Spanish word. Out of curiosity, she looked in the little English dictionary, and to her surprise she found the word there, too:

raptor \ n [deriv. of L. raptor plunderer, fr. Raptus]: bird of prey.

Almost Paradise

Mike Bowman whistled cheerfully as he drove the Land Rover through the Cabo Blanco Biological Reserve, on the west coast of Costa Rica. It was a beautiful morning in July, and the road before him was spectacular: hugging the edge of a cliff, overlooking the jungle and the blue Pacific. According to the guidebooks, Cabo Blanco was unspoiled wilderness, almost a paradise. Seeing it now made Bowman feel as if the vacation was back on track.