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Chapter Thirteen

The Blood is the Life—so sayeth the Old Testament.

Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, all have strong prohibitions concerning the "eating of blood."

But the concept is older than written language. This simple, basic axiom comes down to us from a time before.

Perhaps before there was even a spoken language.

Our distant forebears believed that drinking the blood of your enemy, or eating his heart, bestowed the blessings of strength, courage. That such transferred the essence of his vitality to your own blood, your own heart, your own vitality.

If you think that we've moved beyond such primitivism perhaps the difference is more a matter of scale, today, with corporate raiders replacing the barbarians at the gates: "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap in for Genghis Khan, companies dismembered, gutted, and consumed by conglomerates. Resources, inventories, labor pools, payrolls—corporate life-forces consumed upon the economic fields of battle. Thousands of hoplite livelihoods are sacrificed to feed the glutted stock options of boardroom chieftains. Before you pronounce the economic "sciences" the superior belief system consider the pyrrhic victories of corporate raiders: the slash and burn trails through the regional economies as the Wild Hunt passes "buy."

Give me the good old mano y mano primitive any day. . . .

The ancient Hebrews recognized the dangers of developing appetites that turned other humans into prey. Even the blood of animals was proscribed in their codex of law and ritual.

Too bad I wasn't Jewish.

In fact, I wasn't even sure that I was fully human anymore.

There was, however, enough humanity left for me to get upset over this latest visitation from the Pipt Plaguebook. Never mind the complex biochemical changes wrought by Dracula's transfusion; my ingesting human, werewolf, and demon blood. There are worse offenses than personal attacks upon one's personal flesh. Back when Kadeth Bey used the Dark Arts of necromancy to raise my wife's and daughter's corpses from their graves and reanimated them with ancient and evil spirits, I was appalled.

But now I was beyond furious.

Why was this worse?  

The sciences of medicine and biology were giving my loved ones a second chance at life via cloning. Wasn't that a good thing?

Why, then, did this seem more heinous than their previous, demonic resurrections?

Was it because Pipt had casually used their cloned fetuses as bait? That he could keep copying them for any number of monstrous projects and purposes? Our mad scientist had to get his raw materials for Fangenstein and that five-fingered creepy-crawly from somewhere. Back in Mary Shelley's time he might have procured his parts from the gallows and the grave. Now, in the third millennium, he was more likely to spend his time exhuming DNA instead of whole corpses.

Beyond biology, beyond science, was the ineffable question of the soul. As in: one to a customer? What happened when there were more soup cans than soup? Did other sinister brews appear in the canning process? Or was the broth progressively thinned and watered down until it lost all flavor and identity, eventually evaporating altogether?

Kurt and the others were right: I wasn't thinking clearly just now. I couldn't think clearly. The only thing I could be sure of was that Pipt's reassembling my wife and daughter in the lab was no mere happenstance: it was both message and threat.

Anger was turning to rage—bad enough—but my increasingly aggressive Thirst was piggybacking on it and ramping up to an unbearable level of need! I paced my quarters like a caged predator, waiting for the food—the volunteers—to arrive.

It only took twenty minutes for the first to be delivered but it seemed like an eternity. It felt like days, weeks, months had passed since I had last fed.

* * *

Before my Thirst was slaked, I drank from seven different volunteers—four of them blood-drinkers, themselves. I started by telling myself that, by drinking a little from each, I didn't take too much from any.

By the time I was sated I knew a different truth. I had multiplied my victims.

I spread the pain.

And there was no way to give each the time and care they deserved in exchange.

At least some of them liked it.

Those that didn't? Well, that was their lookout. They were volunteers, right? Maybe they should seriously reconsider their positions in the food chain. Say: "Ciao, babe," not "chow."

I found myself wondering how Carmella would taste.

And I wondered if Darcy Blenik's sweet, tight husk had ever felt fangs pierce her well-scrubbed skin. Would her blood taste virginal? Would she be like a glass of cool water after shots of whisky, snifters of brandy, steins of ale, and goblets of wine?

I shook my head. I was full to bursting with new blood and I still wasn't thinking clearly. I climbed out of bed, pushing at the lethargic bodies that surrounded me in a fleshy tangle. I had started out fully dressed but friendly fingers had unbuttoned and unzipped during the feeding frenzy and impatient hands had ripped and torn everything that didn't immediately slip off or fall away. It was just as well: the blood would have never completely washed out, anyway.

I stumbled to the shower and turned on the hot water. I felt cold and dirty. I used half of the shampoo and a complete bottle of liquid soap, fogging up the bathroom like a night on the Scottish moors. When I was done I looked presentable on the outside.

Inside I still felt cold and dirty.

Back in the bedroom no one had moved. Nor did they stir while I dressed. I wondered, briefly, if one or more of them had died from exsanguination. Decided it was unlikely. More specifically, it seemed unimportant. I exited without checking.

Deirdre looked at me as if I still had blood smeared across my face. Suki considered me with a greater impassiveness than usual. Kurt, at least, seemed pleased that I had topped off at the pump. "Are you feeling better?" he asked. "You have a big night ahead of you and we are already behind schedule."

"Are we?" I breezed past him and opened the outer door. "Where's my passport?"

"It has been ordered. But these things take time. Tonight you should concentrate—"

"Let's get something straight, Igor: I am the Doman, you are the 'Do' man. As in 'do what I say.' You've made your suggestions. I've heard them. Now we will do what I think is important. I don't give a flying flip about several hundred walking corpses under Gotham City while my wife and daughter are being held hostage. You can just reschedule their twenty-minute lap dance with the grand fanged Poobah and, if anyone gets their panties in a wad, well they can just sit on a stake and rotate. Got that?"

As Kurt stalked to the door, Deirdre sidled up to me and whispered: "I can't believe you said that!"

"Said what?"

"Flying flip."

* * *

Although irritated and reluctant, Kurt was obedient. He drove me to the lab and dropped me off before heading off to check on my passport forgeries.

The computer was still trying to find a match for the topography tattoo on the hand but Spook wasn't there. A couple of technicians were puttering around the lab. A little boy sat on a stool beside the Plexiglas tank, studying the hand.

The hand, in turn, was studying him.

I asked one of the techs about Spook.

"Still asleep," he answered. "She pulled an all-dayer."

"Well," I said, looking at data scrolling down the monitor screen, "it looks like she's running matches for the Alleghenies at the moment. Has she already eliminated Central Europe?"

He shrugged. "I really don't know."

"Well, who would?"

"It's Miss Blenik's project, sir. No one else is allowed to touch it."

"How long before she's up?"

"I don't know, sir. She left orders that she wasn't to be disturbed."

"Yeah?" My whole body was thrumming with tension. I couldn't just stand around, waiting for something to happen. "She can sleep later. Disturb her."

He nodded and stepped to a wall phone.

There was a tug at my pants' leg.

"Mister?"

I looked down. It was the boy, suddenly off of his stool and across the room at my side.

"Are you the new boss-man, mister?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Are you the new boss-man?"

"Um. Yes."

"My name's Tommy. What's yours?"

"Chris." I watched the tech dial a number and wait with the receiver at his ear.

"Chris?" Tommy repeated my name like it was the punch line of an extremely silly knock-knock joke. "That's a girl's name!"

"It's also a boy's name."

"It's a funny boy's name."

I finally turned my attention to the little towheaded kid. "Isn't it past your bedtime?" I hadn't seen any other children so far nor had I expected to. Still, the possibilities weren't so farfetched. With human servants, biology was bound to have its way with a pair of them sooner or later.

"Are you lookin' for Darcy?" he asked, ignoring my question completely.

"Yes. Where are your parents?"

"I know where to find her."

Which was more than the lab tech seemed to know. He was still on the line, waiting.

"She's in her room, sleeping. Which is where you should be."

The boy went all wide-eyed. "In Darcy's room?"

"No. I mean in your own room."

"She's not there, either."

The lab tech turned to me and said: "She's not answering. Her phone is probably unplugged."

"Or she's out," I said.

"She may be on her way here," he agreed.

Another tug on my pants' leg and I looked down. The boy shook his head.

"Where is she, Tommy?"

He crooked his finger, motioning me to bend down. "I don't know how to tell you," he whispered in my ear, "I have to show you. 'Sides, it's a secret!"

I gave the tech my cell phone number and instructions for Darcy to call it if she arrived before I returned. It was only after Tommy took my hand and led me to the door that I remembered that the Gator-man still had my mobile. My family, my humanity, my fiancée: after working my way through the important stuff I was down to losing the inconsequentials, scattering them in my wake like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs in the ever-darkening forest.

The hand with the eyeball seemed to wave bye-bye as it scrabbled at the side of the tank.

* * *

After about two dozen turns and tunnel changes, I was starting to wish I had brought some breadcrumbs so I could find my way back. Even that would have been impractical as we moved into a sunken corridor with dripping pipes and an inch of water flowing sluggishly along the floor. There were no intermittent fluorescents now and the glowing lichen that oozed from the ceiling barely provided enough illumination for even my enhanced night vision.

As we splashed through a crumbling intersection where concrete met brickwork met stone, I asked: "How long have you lived down here, Tommy?"

"It seems like forever," he answered in a gee-whiz voice.

"I'll bet. You look like you're about seven. Is that how old you were when you died?"

He turned his head and gave me a long look but didn't break stride.

"Your hand is cold, Tommy—if that's your real name. You haven't been ninety-eight-point-six for a long time."

"Nineteen fifty-three," he said. "I was nine—small for my age. And my name is Thomas."

"So you don't really think Chris is a girl's name."

He released my hand and grabbed a rusted iron rung set in a mossy oubliette. "We'll find out soon enough." He started climbing.

"And are you really taking me to Darcy Blenik?"

"Darcy will meet us," he said over his shoulder. "She didn't want you to know but some of us felt it was better to ask your blessing than seek your forgiveness."

His small form was becoming smaller as he climbed upwards. I could stand here, go back and wander around the tunnels for a few days until the search parties found me, or I could follow not-so-young Master Thomas and see what game was really afoot.

I was inclined to climb. The sound of footfalls back down the tunnel, stealthy but for a slight splashing echo, encouraged my ascension. I climbed.

We came out through a manhole in a clump of shrubbery on the far side of the park. Thomas gave me a curious look as I hurriedly dragged the metal cover back and dropped it into place. "Wouldn't want any squirrels to fall in," I explained.

His expression suggested this was unlikely when the squirrels were hibernating and the biggest nut had just followed him up here. "Come on," he said, slipping through the foliage and out into the open. It took me a little longer to ease through the curtain of evergreen branches but he waited patiently. As I joined him he grabbed my hand and said: "C'mon, Dad! Mom's gonna get mad if we're late!"

That's when I noticed one of New York's Finest ambling down a path in our direction.

"Okay, uh, Junior. Lead the way."

And he did. Right by the cop. Who nodded pleasantly to the "father and son" hurrying to a family rendezvous somewhere across the snow-dappled grounds.

The snow had half melted, the clouds were gone, and the air was still, but the temperature was back below freezing. Even though I was less troubled by the cold, I needed to start dressing like temperature made some kind of difference if I wanted to blend in.

A limousine idled at the curb a couple of blocks away. The kid made for it directly, splashing through slushy puddles and plowing through crusty clumps of snow. Ice-crusted grass crunched under my shoes as I tried to keep my feet dry by following in a circuitous route. Since my legs were longer we arrived at the curb at the same time. The door opened and we climbed into the back.

Two platinum blondes sat across from us, red sequined dresses up to only here and fur stoles only down to there. In between, their barely restrained bosoms threatened to break free and rise like twin pairs of dirigibles straining toward the heavens.

"Jeepers," said Tommy, "look-it them piggybanks!"

I blinked and realized our fellow passengers were Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Or, at least, looked like them. I didn't know which was scarier, the real deals back from the grave or things that could pry your head open and pour the images over your gray matter like maple syrup.

"Oooh, Tommy," Marilyn breathed, "you brought us an extra playmate!"

"And he still looks warm," cooed Jayne.

"Sindi, Sassy," the kid said, "this is Christopher Cséjthe, our new Doman."

"Ooooh, Mr. President—I mean, Domo Cséjthe!" Sindi/Marilyn extended a satin gloved hand. "This is such an honor!"

"Likewise," added Sassy/Jayne, "I'm sure!"

I briefly took each of the gloved hands in turn and released them. They felt strange, like the size and angle were wrong. "Ladies . . ." I turned to young Master Thomas. "Playmate?"

"Would you like to play with us?" Sassy inquired brightly.

"You look like a perfect gentleman," Sindi observed on the verge of breathlessness. "I hear that gentlemen prefer blondes . . ."

"Uh, sorry . . . no."

"Maybe he's hungry, sister. Would you like a menu, Domo?"

I looked back at Sassy. "A menu?"

"Do you like Italian?"

The interior of the limo was not well-lit. The women leaned back in their seats so that the shadows concealed their features for a moment. When they leaned forward, the Marilyn and Jayne were gone, replaced by Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. The outfits were different, too: dark material, sleeved, but still exposing ample décolleté.

"Mama mia!" exclaimed Sophia.

"How about-a some spicy meatballs!" Gina chimed in.

Both threw their shoulders back and shook their "charms" like a bad burlesque act while cackling like drunken chorines.

I looked back at the kid. "Playmate?"

Thomas grinned like a kid turned loose in Disneyland and I had to remind myself that he was even older than I was.

"So," said one of them, starting to lose a little focus, "tell us what you like."

"Why?" I asked, feeling the hairs on my arms start to rise.

"We understand that you're going to be auditioning consorts," said the other, also losing face and figure. "We'd prefer more comfortable quarters—"

"—but we'll take what we can get," added the first. "Just let us show you what you can get!"

"Tell us what—"

"I'll tell you what," I snapped, cutting them off. "Don't show me anything. Just sit there for a moment."

While the human parts of me might be susceptible to the full vampiric mind-twist, the transmuted portions of my brain had proven resistant to previous attempts at all-out mental domination. Perhaps I could filter these glamours as well. I stared back at them, trying to peel the illusion like an onion.

Underneath the outer shell of 1950s' icons and 1960s' screen legends were more identities from the '70s, '80s, and '90s: actresses, models, singers, even a couple of princesses—one still living, one dead. Before I knew it I was sitting across from pop royalty: Britney and Christina.

"Hubba-hubba," said Tommy. "Too bad we can't pick up Madonna!"

I looked at the kid. "Oh, please. Nobody says 'hubba-hubba' anymore. I'm not sure they ever really did." I looked back: now I was sitting across from a pair of Paris Hiltons. "Okay, now I'm starting to get scared."

She/they morphed into the Olsen Twins.

"Now I'm really, really scared."

I blinked. And, for the briefest of moments, Mary-Kate and Ashley became twin girls who appeared to be on their way to their sixth birthday party. Long, blonde hair framed identical round, cherubic faces and huge, blue-gray eyes gave them the appearance of sixties kitsch waif paintings or, maybe, nineties anime heroines. Somehow, in spite of the other glamours, I got the uncomfortable impression that this was pretty close to their true appearance.

They had to be very old and very powerful to project multiple appearances so convincingly. Not that they didn't really inhabit prepubescent bodies but, while their flesh had stopped aging, their minds and appetites had not.

The one on the right licked her lips.

Ew!  

I turned to "playmate" Tommy. "You said you were taking me to Darcy Blenik."

"Darcy?" The one on the right wrinkled up her little button nose. "But she's so . . . young!"

"She's practically a baby," agreed the other. "You'd be wanting something a little more mature."

"And diverse . . ." The one on the right started to blur.

As did the one on the left.

Now I was sitting across from Faith Hill and Shania Twain. Who promptly broke into a very bad rendition of "I wanna be loved by you" and sounded more like Marilyn and Jayne as they stumbled into the "Boop-boop-ee-doop" part. Either I was very resistant or there were just some illusions that could not be fully managed on all levels.

I felt the bright coppery taste of dinner rise in my throat. As I tried to swallow it back down, the window separating us from the front seat slid down.

"Domo," the turbaned chauffeur said, "why don't you sit up front with me?" His dark complexion and long curly beard were not familiar but the voice was.

"Hullo, Darcy," I said.

* * *

"What's with the hide and go Sikh outfit?" I asked as she drove north.

"As a human, I don't have the advantage of being able to mind-wipe witnesses or cops." She had raised the tinted window so that we had a bit of privacy. Judging from the sounds in the back, maybe the privacy wasn't so much for us. "Sometimes it's best to leave a false impression in the event that things go south."

"And how far south might things go tonight?"

"Depends."

"Past the Mason-Dixon line?"

She gave me a sideways glance. "Maybe all the way to the equator."

"That far? Tell me more."

"If I did, I'd have to kill you." The accompanying smile was weak.

"Everyone back at the ranch thinks you're in bed."

"Good."

"So, why aren't you?"

"Got things to do."

I looked over my shoulder. "Your night to baby-sit?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"You have a very limited manner of speaking," I said after another three blocks of silence. "As your Doman I find it a little unsettling that secrets are being kept from me."

She sighed, but the tension remained in her arms and shoulders. "Did it occur to you that perhaps your ignorance might also be your protection?"

"Nope. I'm surrounded by potential enemies. The more I know the better off I am."

"Maybe in the wild," she said, "but politics is a different jungle. Ever heard of plausible deniability?"

"Plausible deniability is an abrogation of a leader's responsibilities. It suggests that he is either willing to sacrifice his underlings for decisions he won't own up to—or he really isn't in control of the people around him. Either way, it's a damning indictment of the guy in charge."

She shook her head. "Oh boy. Uncle was right: you aren't going to last long here."

"Not if I don't know what is going on."

"See, here's the problem: no one really knows if you're going to be a good fit to the demesne—"

"Because I'm part human?"

She nodded.

"Kind of a racist attitude, don't you think?"

"It's a question of policy, not biology. I'm human but I'm not Doman. I don't make or break the rules that affect the lives of everyone else in the demesne. The concern is that you are gonna be 'ethical man' when what's really needed is 'practical man.'"

"And ethics is a bad thing, right?"

"It comes back to how human are you?"

"Human or humane?"

"I guess the words are interchangeable."

I shook my head. "Not really. When we are treated like animals, we say: 'Hey, I'm human.' When we behave like animals, we say: 'Hey, I'm only human.'"

She smiled. "Nice. But the question remains. Can you rule a pack of predators who must hunt, who must kill, to survive?"

"I'm not convinced that killing is necessary. A symbiotic relationship—"

She slapped her hand on the dashboard. "There are too many carnivores who will not submit to those limitations. If you try to impose a vegan lifestyle on vampires you will have civil war. At best, they will all rise up and depose you. At worst, there will be a bloodbath as the clans are torn apart over leadership and loyalties—a bloodbath that could well spill over into the human neighborhoods. Weak and ineffective leadership could be worse for your ideals of mercy than having another monster like Elizabeth Báthory rule!"

"And the assumption is my human side will make me weak and ineffectual?"

"So far you're an enigma. You've survived assassination attempts, destroyed two former Domans, and chosen not to form any political alliances, yet . . ." She paused. "Well, there is that little rumor that you're forging ties to the Were community. I'm assuming that one is just as ridiculous and ill-founded as all of the others seem to be."

"That's me: Mr. Urbane Legend."

She ignored that with a shake of her turbaned head. "The point is, my uncle respects you and you have allies in the Seattle and Chicago enclaves. This gives you political clout that no former Doman has had in living memory. And living memory around here goes back several hundred years."

"But there's still that niggling little problem of my humanity," I said.

"So, as I said, we're all watching to see how you do on your first tests."

"Tests, plural?"

She nodded.

"Like Yuler? How'd I do there?"

"The jury is still out. While many feel it would have been more merciful to kill him—points for you—you did imply a death sentence for attempts on your life just before Yuler made his."

"I believe I said 'dealt with harshly' with consequences for the families and clans involved, as well. Ask Friederich Polidori if he and his clan emerged from the evening unscathed."

"Social humiliation is not the same thing as harsh punishment."

"Depends on who you are and where you're from. But, rest assured, ole Freddy and I aren't done yet. Not by a long shot. Now, you said 'tests' plural. I figure I'm in the midst of another exam tonight. I'm assuming it isn't 'open book' since you've avoided any worthwhile explanation of your errand, tonight."

"And then there's the matter of your dead wife and daughter."

Sometimes people light the fuse of my temper and it's a short one. In this case, it was a hand grenade and Darcy Blenik had just pulled the pin. I counted to three: "You want me to take tests? Fine! Sharpen up a woodpile of number two pencils and stack the little blue books to the ceiling! After that, I'll pee in a cup! I guess for every day that I survive around here as the head tooth fairy, there is going to be a fresh round of exams.

"But let's get one thing clear: my family is not a test! And I will demonstrate to anyone who thinks to make them one that they are dead wrong—heavy emphasis on the words dead and wrong!"

She let the silence build in the car before answering softly. "No one wants to bring your family into this, Domo. You know that this is not our doing. But it cannot be anything but an indicator of your priorities, of your loyalties, if you choose to leave New York at this crucial time."

I didn't respond so, after a moment, she spoke again. "You can't afford to be distracted with side issues—"

"My wife and daughter are not side issues." My volatility was downshifting into implacability.

"The lives of two weighed against the lives of many."

"Obviously you never saw Star Trek III: The Search for Spock."

"What?"

I glanced at the side mirror and thought I saw something following behind us in the dark. Should I mention it to Darcy?

No, said a voice in my head.

"Look, I'm not saying your wife and daughter aren't important," Darcy was saying, "but let us handle it. We can send a team. You are needed more here."

"As what? A rubber stamp? Kurt seems to have done all right in my absence."

"He cannot hold things together indefinitely. And he cannot act as seneschal for a Doman who would abandon all of his people for two that have already died."

There was no point in continuing the debate. My wife and daughter were more "my people" than a thousand strangers in an unfamiliar city—strangers who were likely to kill me if I didn't measure up to their expectations. They had all managed their affairs without me to this point while I was responsible for Jenny's and Kirsten's deaths.

And it wasn't just that my poor, dead family was being used, once again, as preternatural hostages. Pipt had sent the Tell-Tale Heart, the Frankenvamp, and the creepy-crawly thing back there in the fish tank. Pipt was now using the twice-deceased Theresa Kellerman as his emissary. She had been tenacious in pursuing me while still alive and after her first death. Now that Pipt was acting as her personal necromancer there was no reason to believe she would back off now. Screw politics: this was my number one priority. And if I couldn't deal with one presumably human madman, I certainly couldn't hope to rule several hundred undead ones.

"So what about Cairn?" I asked abruptly.

"What?" The question caught her off balance and seemed to fluster her.

"I get the fact that the average Joe and Jill Vampire are wondering about my human agenda. I take it this Cairn sees this as an opportune time to make a power grab."

Her face was like stone. "That would seem logical."

"So what's his campaign slogan?"

"What?"

"What's his political platform? 'Vote for me: I really suck?' 'Go Undead, Not Half-Dead?' Has he addressed vampire social issues?"

"The ascension to the throne is not a democratic political process—unless you count character assassination, disinformation, and dirty tricks campaigns." A small smile cracked her frozen façade.

"Yeah, I get that, too. But what about the vamp, himself? What does he promise to those who support him?"

"Power, I suppose, just like any other political movement. As for specifics, you would have to ask one of them. That's assuming you could identify one, capture him, and make him talk."

"It just seems an odd kind of campaign," I mused. "No one seems to know who this guy is or what he stands for. I'm told this Doman wannabe has been taking out the opposition for a half century or so and yet he's still a backroom boy, no closer to the limelight and making a popular bid for public candidacy. That's a long time to keep to the shadows."

"Not if you're an elder vampire," she said, her eyes narrowed against the glare of passing headlights. "Their lives are measured in centuries the way yours and mine are counted in decades. Fifty years is a relatively brief span of time in the bigger political picture. And you forget that Dracula and Báthory were the ruling powers during those years. Any opposition was dealt with swiftly and brutally during that period."

"Maybe," I conceded. "But the door's been wide open these past several months. It's been a perfect opportunity for an established member of the New York community—a political freedom fighter by some accounts—to step forward and challenge a fangless outsider for the throne. The enclave is all abuzz with rumors that I will impose moratoriums on breeding, hunting, and killing."

"Perhaps he prefers to do that from behind the scenes for a bit longer."

"My intel suggests that he's more interested in seeding chaos than consolidating a power base."

Her lips were compressed in a straight line beneath the faux moustache and beard. "Who knows? Insanity is not uncommon among the older vamps."

"And those who serve him?"

"As I said, you'd have to find them to ask them. Our intel suggests that secret cadres exist which denounce Cairn in public but serve him in secret. And that's as far as we've been able to get."

"Ever try to infiltrate one of these cadres?"

She snorted. "Despite my nickname, I don't have any disguises that good." The car angled up to a curb and stopped. "We're here."

"Here" was a side street lined with old brownstones dating back a century or more. Lights burned in some of the windows dispelling the first impression that the crumbling buildings were long abandoned.

Darcy flashed the headlights twice and killed the engine.

"I still don't know what we are doing here," I said.

"We are here to perform a little surgery. Our demesne has developed cancer and tonight we're going to remove a tumor."

"Really? Why didn't Kurt brief me about this?"

"Kurt doesn't inform you of every little administrative detail. And just as he doesn't micromanage what he delegates, so I don't pass along every little detail of my work, either. He trusts me to do my job so he can concentrate on doing his."

"Sounds reasonable," I said. "Except everyone thinks you're still in your room. So stop dodging the question and tell me what we're doing and why you're running it like a covert ops mission. And why you're hauling the three leg-biters with fangs."

One of her eyebrows went up. "Leg-biters?"

"Leg-biters, shin-kickers, ankle-grabbers, cookie-crumblers, yard-apes, curtain-climbers, thumb-gummers . . ."

"I am taking Tommy, Sindi, and Sassy to see their Sire."

"And that is?"

"Malik Szekely."

"Any relation to 'Uncle' Kurt Szekely?"

"His brother."

"Ah. Kurt never mentioned having a brother."

"He wouldn't.

"Family history?"

"Isn't family all about history?"

I nodded. "And I'll bet the Szekelys have oodles of it."

"You are a quick study, Mr. Cséjthe."

"Yeah? Then how do you explain the lapse of judgment that brought me here?"

"You can wait in the car, if you wish."

"What? And miss the father and child reunion?"

"You are upset."

"What makes you say that?"

"You're working very hard at keeping your face and your voice neutral."

"You think?" I asked calmly. "Maybe I just don't give a shit."

"You prove my point. If you didn't care, you might say that you didn't care. You're not a vulgar person, Chris. When you say you don't give a shit, you are telling me that you are upset."

"Are you?"

"Upset? No. I have grown up surrounded by vampires. One of them was my father. I have served them since I came of age. I understand them. And I know my place. And my destiny."

"How nice for you."

"Yes," she said, "how nice for me. You are still trying to figure out your place. You think you know, but you don't. You think that having more information will make your choices easier. It won't."

"And why is that?"

"Because information is more than just cold, hard facts. It is also about people. And people are about relationships."

"Emotions," I said.

"That too. But relationships are about family. About tribes. Clans. Group identities. Loyalties." She shook her head. "Relationships subvert our greater morality. We defend our children when they are in the wrong. We make excuses for brothers, sisters, parents, lovers, kith and kin. Our country, right or wrong. Our friends and mates, before all strangers. You and me against the world."

"It is only as a man puts off from himself all external means of support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail," I recited.

"Is not a man better than a town?" she finished. "But it's more than Emersonian morality. It's about how even your enemies begin to transform as you come to know them—from threat and danger to equations of misunderstanding and lapses of tolerance. Evil becomes enigmatic, a puzzle to be dissected and deconstructed, not fought and eradicated. You shake your head as the world burns around you and say: 'Why can't we all just get along?' No, Mr. Cséjthe, the problem with fact-finding missions is they substitute information-processing for action, the illusion that thinking about something or talking about something is the same as doing something. You become Hell's bureaucrat, assisting evil by obfuscation, all in the name of further observation and analysis."

"And that's what you think I'm doing here?" I asked.

"Why don't you tell me what you think you're doing here?" She opened the car door and got out.

I followed suit and leaned across the roof of the limo. "Among other things, to answer your last question, I'm trying to figure out why Kurt never told me he has a brother and why this visit is such a secret."

"How about we make a deal, Domo? You tag along, keep your eyes and ears open, your mouth shut, and I will answer all of your questions when the visit is over. I'll even throw in three complete surprises. Agreed?"

"I don't agree to conditions blindly."

"Try being nearsighted for the next thirty minutes, then. If you do as I say, no humans will die tonight. Interfere, and the blood of innocents will likely be spilled. I don't say this as a threat. It will be the result of our failure."

I looked into her eyes. "You're asking me to trust you. What if I'm wrong? What if you're wrong?"

"You don't know if you can trust me," she said. "But how will you ever know if you can trust me until you have trusted me and weighed the result?"

Damn, now there was a logical conundrum. I gestured in surrender. "Lead on, MacDuff."

Surprise suffused her hirsute features. "Another myth busted."

"What?"

"You're supposed to be Mr. Literary Quote-Master and yet you just misquoted Macbeth."

I shrugged. "I was quoting pop culture, not Willy Shakespeare. You want me to say: 'Lay on, MacDuff. And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"?' I just figured we were on the same side, here. But if you want to invest in the whole Macbeth scenario . . ."

I was suddenly distracted by the sight of the other children: they were almost invisible in the darkness—even in the infrared spectrum. The fact that Sindi, Sassy, and Tommy were cold wasn't surprising. It was the twenty-odd kids—some coming down the street, others huddled on the stoops of the neighboring brownstones—who were giving me pause. It wasn't only past their bedtimes, it was past their lifetimes: these children were beyond cold, they had no body heat whatsoever! 

Then I noticed something else. A cat crouched atop a battered garbage can. It, too, was cold. Darcy Blenik and I were the only warm things out on the street.

And I was no longer that warm.

Darcy walked over to huddle with the kindervamps and a spirited discussion developed. Heads turned my way and then back to the huddle. A consensus seemed to emerge. The huddle broke up. The children melted back into the shadows.

"Come," Darcy said. "Remember what I told you. And try to follow my lead."

I followed her lead up the street and onto a stoop another three buildings over. She climbed the steps like an old man and rested a moment before pressing a buzzer.

While we waited I looked around. The kids were all gone. The cat was crouched two steps below. Ahead of us, iron bars backed the glass in the door and the side windows like idealized Belgian waffles. Never mind burglars, an army couldn't get into the lobby without heavy artillery. On the other side of the barred glass, a video camera stared back at us. A little red light came on beside the lens.

"What is it?" rasped an ancient voice from the tiny speaker next to the buzzer.

"It's Darcy, Uncle Malik," she answered sweetly. And raised her hand in a girlish wave.

"What? I don't see any Darcy," the rusty voice grumbled. "All I can see is some kind of Shriners' mascot and a smudgy-looking fellow."

The smudgy-looking fellow would be me. True vampires do not cast shadows or reflections. They have a similar effect on photographic film and videotape. As my brain chemistry changed I, too, began to project a subconscious electromagnetic field that affected cameras and recording equipment.

I was still visible for the time being, just not very photogenic.

Darcy wore a voluminous greatcoat of royal blue that looked like it belonged to a Cossack officer of the Napoleonic era. Gray-white pantaloons and the curved end of a cutlass scabbard were visible below the skirtlike hem of the overcoat. Her feet were ensconced in red satin slippers with pointy toes that curled upward.

"Good gracious, girl," the voice growled, "I haven't seen a getup like that since your grandmother was a baby!" I think it was attempting a purr and the vocal cords would only compromise so far. "I know you like to use disguises but aren't you more likely to attract attention running around like that?"

"This is New York, Uncle. If you got out more you'd know I could pass quite handily for a cabbie."

"Did you come here in a taxi?"

"We came in a limo."

"Then you should have dressed to pass for a limo driver. What about him?"

"I'm dressed to pass for a tourist on his first visit to the Big Apple," I said.

"A tourist who forgot to wear his coat in the dead of winter?"

I nodded. "Convincing, huh?"

"Uncle, this is Christopher Cséjthe, the new Doman."

There was no immediate response.

"Uncle Malik?"

"Why did you bring him here?"

"To discuss your petition for amnes—"

The ancient voice cut her off: "Why did you bring him here? Such things are best discussed at a neutral location. Now that he knows where I dwell, what are my guarantees that he will not return with reinforcements?"

"Uh, I've come in good faith," I offered, trying to wing it without cue cards.

"Bah! They always come in good faith! And then they come with the stake and the torch . . ."

"You've heard the stories about this one," Darcy said. "He is not like the others. He is merciful to his enemies. He only kills in self-defense."

Another long pause. Finally: "Weapons?"

"He's clean."

"Also trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, and irreverent," I quipped.

Darcy gave me a look that said Don't help.

"Precious is coming down to escort you up. I'll buzz you in once he gets there."

I looked at Darcy. Precious? I mouthed silently. I started to smile.

"Book cover," she replied.

As in don't judge by, I decided as Precious descended the stairs and came into view.

He was huge. Six-six and nearly half again as wide. His bald head gleamed in the light of the foyer and his skin had the appearance of having been recently oiled. Gold rings, large and heavy, drooped from paper-punch piercings in his ears and nose. He looked like a cartoon cannibal from deepest, darkest Africa even though his voluminous flesh was the color of dirty chalk.

"Let me go first," she whispered. "Hang back. And don't let the door close behind you."

Precious fairly minced his way across the lobby and nearly arrived too late to catch the doorknob as the lock buzzed open.

"Good evening, Miss Darcy," he trilled as he pulled the door back.

I noticed three out of four things as he ushered us in.

One, Precious had the falsetto voice of a long-time castrato.

Two, his teeth had been filed to triangular points.

And three, his breath smelled like the back end of a slaughterhouse.

Precious noticed one out of two things as we entered: "Are you wearing a sword under your coat, my dear?"

The scabbard had shifted upwards under her greatcoat: a good nine inches now protruded from between her coattails like a friendly tail.

"It's part of the costume, Precious. Plastic and rubber."

"May I see?" It wasn't really a question. There was no doubt that we weren't going anywhere until her uncle's hulking companion was satisfied.

"Fine," she said, unbuttoning her coat from the top down as I caught the door to keep it from closing behind me.

"What are you doing?" Tall-White-and-Gruesome demanded, turning toward me.

Darcy turned as well. "Here, block the jam with this." She tossed a crumpled pack of cigarettes to me.

Precious took a step, reaching for me, and was thrown off balance as Darcy's greatcoat burst open.

Sindi, Sassy, and Tommy rushed out from the parted material like schoolchildren released for recess. They charged the big man and attached themselves to his lower extremities like Velcro Cabbage Patch dolls. Sassy and Tommy each sank their fangs into a meaty thigh. Sindi went for the crotch. Precious began to scream like an operatic soprano on helium and danced like a sumo wrestler on meth.

I dropped the cigarette pack but the door stopped two inches from closing. It began to swing open again. The other children were storming the porch and the first wave was breaching the door.

Darcy had her sword out now and it wasn't plastic and rubber. The blade was silvery steel and looked very sharp. Sharp enough to sever the big man's head from his shoulders. Which it did as she went all Uma Thurman on him.

A tide of children swept across the foyer, trampling over the fallen mound of twitching flesh and starting up a game of rugby with the razor-toothed head. A couple of them slipped in the spreading pool of blood, one of them taking a knee. Another executed a running lunge and belly-surfed across the crimson tide with a squeal of glee. The others were businesslike as they spread about, producing crowbars and wicked-looking tools of indeterminate origin. Some began attacking doors down the hallway, others started up the stairway.

The pitter-patter of tiny feet never sounded so chilling.

"Tell me, Domo, do you believe in evil?"

I looked at Darcy. This had to be a trick question.

"Or do you believe in theories of social injustice?" She turned and started up the stairs.

I didn't follow. It felt wrong. What was I doing here?

Besides playing hall monitor to the children of the damned, that is?

That's when a cold and clammy hand fell on my shoulder.  

 

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