Even though I had slept for two days, a healing trance was not the same as a restful repose.
And, according to Dr. Mooncloud, I was clinically depressed, as well.
She said it wasn't unusual for those who found themselves living the vastly altered life of the nosferatu. The fact that I was stuck between the worlds of the living and the undead made my depression all the more inevitable. She gave me a bottle of pills she called "mood elevators" and urged me to come back to Seattle for some head sessions with a Dr. Melder.
I guess vampires need shrinks since the confessional was clearly out of bounds . . .
Maybe I was having difficulty coping. And maybe the biochemical changes in my cerebral cortex were coloring my point of view. But the emotional lassitude that had settled over me like a heavy dark shroud wasn't mysterious at all.
The Kid was dead. Well, by most definitions, he had been dead for approximately eight decades. But now he was gone, as well. Suddenly. Savagely.
Because of me.
Others had died. Because of me.
My wife and daughter were dead because of me.
My unborn child might die because of me.
Lupé had almost died—was keeping her distance now—because of me.
I had spent the past year worrying that the necrophagic virus in my system was going to turn me into a monster someday. If the rules of cause and effect were to be believed, I was already there.
I had promised myself oblivion before it came to that, a sacrifice rather than a suicide, for the good of the world. What further purpose could my existence serve other than to bring more pain and death to others around me?
Kurt seemed to think I had a higher destiny. That my occupation of that twilight realm between the darkness and the light was a pivotal point for bringing change. But change to whom? And what kind of change?
Could I marshal the forces of darkness and lead them, like an army, into the light? How could I lead, much less entice, them when I seemed incapable of finding my own way?
Come to New York, he insisted. Confront the power-hungry traditionalists in the East Coast enclave, face them down. Show them that the Children of the Night can peacefully coexist with their Siblings of the Day.
But there was no peace in my own heart now.
And the "opposition" was bigger than that. The opposition was widespread. Most of the true opposition didn't know my name or that I even existed. The struggle wasn't really a personal one: by its very nature, my existence was a gauntlet thrown down to both realms, the light and the darkness. And since I couldn't take refuge with one side to resist the other, I was merely fighting a holding action. And that, not for long, given the size of my battered little faction.
How could I make a moral stand when defeat was inevitable and everyone around me was certain to die? How could I ask—how could I allow them to discard themselves for a hopeless cause? What point would be served other than to prove my values wrong and needlessly fatal while cementing the position of the darker status quo?
I had two choices.
I could run and hide. In a sense, that's all that I had been doing since the accident that had killed my wife and daughter. Gee, look at how well that strategy had worked out.
Or I could switch from defense to offense. No hope of winning there, either. And more of the people around me would die before it was over.
More of the people around me would die whichever way I went.
So, the first order of business was to divest myself of my human—and not-so-human—shields.
"'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.'" Deirdre was standing in the doorway. "'He is weakened by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town?'"
"Now," I said, "you get out of my head."
"I'm not psychic. It's Emerson, not telepathy."
"And you quote Ralph Waldo because . . . ?"
She came into the bedroom, partially closing the door behind her. "You've been reading his essay 'Self Reliance' a lot lately."
"So?"
"I think you're prepping for New York."
"Prepping?" I decided to sit up. Discovered that I lacked the will to do so.
"Psyching up." She walked over and pushed my legs over so she could sit on the side of the bed. "I think you're getting ready to make a run for it."
I put my hands behind my head. "That would be the smart thing to do."
She shook her head. "I mean from us. You've always worried about putting other people in danger and this latest attack has just underscored all of your fears."
"The Kid is dead. If you or Suki were human, both of you would be just as dead as her badass trio. Lupé thought the wedding was going to be problematical but just getting engaged damn near killed her!"
"And when you look around, do you see her?"
"No."
"Do you see me?"
Yes, I saw her. She wore a turquoise shirt, unbuttoned to show the curve of her throat, descending to the swell of her bosom. My eyes were not held by the shadowy hillock of cleavage but by the faint ticking of her carotid as it slipped along the side of her neck. I forced my gaze back up to her face. I was still in trouble there. "Yes."
"Tell me to go away."
"Okay. Go away."
She smiled. Her lips were slow and lazy: "No." She leaned over me. "Did you tell Lupé to stay away?"
"No. But I might have. Should have."
She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. She's an adult. She chose not to come. I'm an adult. I've chosen not to go."
"She was seriously injured, Deirdre. She couldn't be moved."
"Maybe that same day. But she's a lycanthrope, Chris. She's been up and around since. She chooses not to be here."
"That's her business."
"Yes," she said, "yes it is. So don't be playing head games over how everything that happens is your fault. We're all grownups. We all make our own choices. You're not some complicit puppeteer."
"Okay . . ."
Her smile changed. I thought it grew wistful though it was hard to see as her proximity was now blocking the light. "Don't run . . ." she murmured.
I said nothing.
"Don't run," she whispered, "from me . . ." Her face came down and her lips brushed mine.
"Deirdre," I said quietly, "I'm not feeling very well right now and neither are you. We've lost friends and colleagues. We're battered and bruised on the inside as well as the out."
"We could help each other feel better . . ."
"I love Lupé."
"But does she love you?" She read the hesitation in my eyes. "Can she love you the way you need to be loved? Can she do this?" Her lips crushed mine. Her mouth was hungry and I felt the suggestion of her tongue against my teeth. "She can't even bear to have you touch her!" she gasped against my mouth. "What could she offer you even if she was here? Could she give you this?" She grasped my hand and guided it to her left breast. Belatedly I realized her shirt had come unbuttoned. When did that happen? There was no bra—neither now, nor, apparently, during the times she went sunbathing. And, aesthetically speaking, her bosom was about as perfect as any you might find outside of what we euphemistically call a men's magazine.
But it wasn't Lupé's breast.
"Kiss it," she murmured.
"No. Deirdre, I—"
"Then bite it!" Her hand was suddenly before my eyes, my fanged dental appliance resting in the cup of her left palm. Even though I didn't possess the half of the recombinant virus that grew the preternatural incisors, modern dentistry had found ways to compensate. "Put your teeth in your mouth," she whispered, breathing heavily, "and then put them in me!"
"No."
"You've done it before."
"I'm not thirsty."
"You're lying!"
I was lying. I was thirsty. I was more than thirsty, I was hungry. I was hungry a lot these past few days and never so aware of how everyone's pulse seeme
d to throb against the sweet, sloped sides of their necks. Deirdre's sudden shift from sex to food had caught me off balance and it took me longer than I intended to just say: "No."
She swore softly as she took the razor-sharp fangs between the fingers of her right hand. "They should take your picture and put it in the psychology texts under 'passive-aggressive' . . ." She brushed her hand across her breast and suddenly there were two red lines tracing the inside curve of her cleavage. Blood, red and warm and ripe with promises began to well up along the cuts and drool towards her midriff. "Dinner's on me," she said, pulling back the sides of her shirt and leaning toward my mouth.
I opened my mouth to say "no" again. But I didn't. We both paused, holding ourselves very still. The only movement was the blood (the blood! oh, the blood!) turning to rivulets, crimson streams of life and power, trickling to the roughened delta of aureole, circumnavigating the globe in search of southern latitudes, until two streams converged.
A third tributary formed.
The convergence grew, swelled, formed a second, liquid nipple, tumescent to the tweaking of gravity. It grew heavier and finally dropped down on a thin ruby strand like a one-way bungee jump of blood, falling onto my lips.
My self-control was a trembling house of cards, collapsing in all directions. I pulled her down and pressed my mouth to the river's source.
Perhaps it was Deirdre's blood that overwhelmed my resistance—its unique alchemy made it stronger and sweeter than the nectar that ran through human or vampire veins.
Certainly living blood, hot and pulsing from its nursery of flesh and bone, was more compelling than my usual fare. Long-dead plasma and platelets—stored and frozen in plastic and warmed over to simulate its former liveliness—were pale, watery substitutes when offered honeyed ambrosia.
Still, I had resisted live blood-offerings before. But this time the need, the Hunger, had grown beyond all previous demarcations. I was surprised by its new depth of urgency, catching me in a sudden, heady undertow. I barely heard the footsteps coming down the hallway. The pounding of my heart reverberated in my head, revving its four-chambered engine to match the hammerstrokes of Deirdre's own. The whisper of the door was lost in sighs from her throat, the gasps in my own as I nursed at the red spill of life across her bosom.
The voice, however, was crystal clear both before, when it called: "Oh Chris! I came as soon as I heard—"
And then after, when Lupé said: "—I guess I did not come soon enough." There were autumnal tones in her voice, promising a deep and endless winter.
I didn't push Deirdre away nor leap from the bed to claim that it wasn't what she thought. I didn't hurry down the stairs in her wake, apologizing and begging for her to hear me out. I didn't even move until I heard the front door slam like the last beat of a cardiac muscle in final arrest.
Only then did I carefully, gently, but implacably, move Deirdre aside and rise from the ghost town of my bed.
"Where are you going?" Deirdre asked softly.
I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, dabbed at my chin. "To make a phone call."
"To Kurt?"
"Yes."
"The sun hasn't set, yet."
"Here," I answered. "In New York it is already dark."
I walked out of the room.
* * *
Sometimes it looked like a man. It was not a man and if you looked into its eyes, you knew this immediately. The soldiers who encountered it near the road instinctively gave it a wide berth and little more than a sideways glance. Anyone who looked closer or longer, felt his bowels loosen and an unaccustomed scream building up in the back of his throat.
Off the road and deep in the green hell of the jungle, it appeared to the peasants as a great shadowy jaguar by day and a great, winged darkness by night. The peasants would cross themselves in obeisance to modern catechism, then invoke more ancient prayers upon the altars of their ancestral hearts.
Something had awakened. Something walked among them. It had not stirred from the dark depths in twenty-five hundred years but now it was come forth.
It was hungry—as hungry as anything might be that fed on villages, snacked on armies, dined on pestilence and plague. But its hunger was as nothing in comparison to its need!
Blood!
It must have the blood!
It did not stop to feed. It turned neither to the left nor the right. Only one certain kind of blood would serve.
The demon moved relentlessly, heading north by northeast. Day and night it traveled. Implacably, tirelessly, until it came to the ocean.
The Gulf of Mexico would lead it in a great, arcing approach, through Mexico, then Texas, and finally into Louisiana. It weighed the advantages of velocity versus distance and decided against the speed bumps of human population centers. It gazed out over the gray-green swells of the Atlantic Ocean and then walked forward into the water.
It was heavier and denser than a human so first the breakers and then the undertow had no effect as it moved deeper and deeper into the pounding surf. Soon its head disappeared beneath the waves as it continued its long walk toward the man it had glimpsed in its own fearsome dreams only a brief decade before.
Soon, it thought, very soon . . .
One final, bloody sacrifice for Camazotz, Lord of the Underworld, and then eternal silence and endless darkness.
Forever and ever.
Amen . . .
Chapter Nine
I awoke from the dream as the landing gear of the 737 bounced on the runway. One minute I was dreaming that the waves of the Atlantic Ocean were rolling over my head, the next I was descending to earth from a sojourn in the skies.
I had expressly forbidden Deirdre and Suki to come to New York with me. That's why they were sitting three rows behind me instead of occupying the seats on either side.
I tried to ignore them but it finally became necessary to fake a trip to the restroom so I could lean over and speak to the Asian vampire. "Stay out of her head," I whispered. "Out of respect for me if not her."
Deirdre's distress level dropped a little after that but Suki's amusement only grew. Bad enough that the blood-bond made me sensitive to the redhead's emotional state; I had no idea why I was tuned in to Suki's broadcasts, as well.
The rest of the flight was uneventful except for the dream. Nightmares are bad enough when you're asleep. When you wake up you should be able to shake it off, dismiss it as a bad dream, and know that you are safe in the bright light of day.
I couldn't do that. Something was stalking me. The dreams were merely progress reports, reminding me that the Darkness was drawing closer, even when I was awake.
At least I had two small consolations.
First, this trip was buying me time on the demon front.
And second, I hadn't embarrassed myself by screaming during my in-flight nap.
* * *
There was no avoiding my two shadows as we deplaned at La Guardia. It was just as well. A limo driver was wandering about holding a placard with my name written on it.
I grabbed Deirdre's hand before she could point. "No, dear, a limo isn't for us," I murmured. "We'll take a cab." We ambled past the chauffeur and I exerted all the mental influence I could muster to keep Deirdre's and Suki's attention diverted until we were out of earshot.
"That driver was looking for you," the redhead said as soon as I released my grip, both mental and physical.
"A lot of people are looking for me," I said. "Not all of them are friendly. Ah, here we go . . ."
Another limo driver had come into view. This one wore mirrored sunglasses and held a placard with the name Henry Clerval printed across it. I steered in his direction.
"Mr. Clerval?" he asked as we approached. He was shorter than me, slighter of build, and I could probably knock him down and run before he could get a weapon out. He didn't seem old enough to grow the moustache and goatee that narrowed his already narrow face. Adding to the oddness of his appearance was his apparent lack of an Adam's apple.
/> "No," I said, "the name is Murnau. Friederich Wilhelm Murnau. But you can call me Fred."
He looked at me uncertainly. "That's not part of the password."
"Yes, it is."
"Not the Fred part."
"Okay, call me Mr. Murnau. Listen there's another limo driver back there holding a card with the name of Chris Cséjthe on it. Who sent him?"
"I don't know, but we expected this might happen. Follow me."
We followed him out to a black stretch limo with black SUVs parked in front and behind. All had their engines idling. Five other people followed behind us: two businessmen, a woman pushing a baby stroller, a college student with a backpack, and a kid who looked like he was lost but wasn't. They flanked us as the heavily tinted passenger window rolled down in the back.
A very angry master vampire sat inside just beyond the sunlight's reach. "I am not pleased," Kurt Szekely announced with a scowl.
* * *
Actually, he was furious.
Furious at me for coming with no more than a moment's notice. Furious that I was flying commercial with next to no security precautions. Furious at the ladies for letting me.
And, I suspected, for necessitating his traveling about in the light of day.
The risk was relatively nil, however. Back in Louisiana the expected high was a balmy sixty-four degrees under sunny skies. Here in the northeast the sun hadn't made an unshrouded appearance for days. A storm front had dropped a foot of snow from the Canadian border to the Jersey shores and the wind chill was rumored to be in the minus twenties. I should have brought a coat—more for camouflage than comfort as my transformed flesh was becoming less sensitive to temperature variables.
Sitting in the car, we were treated to a detailed explanation of his ill temper while our luggage was attended to. The limo was stretched and armored, outfitted with a wet bar, and occupied by another familiar face. Stefan Pagelovitch sat across from me, wearing a dark double-breasted suit, dark shirt, dark tie, and very expensive wingtip shoes.
"Hello, Dennis," I said as the girls slid in next to me.
Pagelovitch's face began to sag, melting and rearranging itself until Dennis Smirl sat across from me in the Seattle Doman's place. "How did you know?"
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