He nodded sagely as Rita's eyebrows raised. "Sure, lots of them. You should see the Warhol exhibit."
Greg made a disgusted sound. "The old fool is talking about the paintings. He wouldn't know a human if one bit him."
"I saw a body on the railroad tracks," Hugh said sweetly.
"You did?" Anyelet dropped gracefully into a crouch, like a panther settling on its haunches. "When?"
Hugh closed his eyes and began humming tunelessly, still clutching Anyelet's hand. Holding onto her made him feel secure and serene, like Tisbee had once made him feel. Got to find that woman, he reminded himself without pausing. And switch that kid a good one for being gone so long. Fathers are so unappreciated—
"Hugh," Anyelet commanded. "Open your eyes and look at me." She tapped his cheek and his eyes, wet and red, opened sleepily. She locked gazes, then went inside, deep into the recesses of his mind, searching for the memory he'd spoken of, trying to discover if it was real. Fragments spun and crashed in his thoughts—
a tall woman with dark hair and darker eyes holding a child Tisbee my son can't find them why can't I remember big gray stone buildings I'm not old and the so dark subway what do they mean Alzheimer's where is Tisbee find that boy can't happen to me can't remember what he looks like see that body on the tracks someone shot a hole right through its chest fall and all the leaves whirling around all dried red no food so many colors can't find Tisbee want to get in see the paintings I used to all that music but the door locked reinforced sounds so pretty don't care—
—and Anyelet found it difficult to make sense of them. Severing the contact, she stood and hauled Hugh up; he chortled happily and pirouetted away, careening off a couch and into an end table.
“Someone take him outside before he knocks over a candle and sets the place on fire." Anyelet struggled to sort through the images still flitting in her mind. The man was insane, but apparently he had seen the body of a murdered human by the Art Institute last fall, though her guess was that it had probably rotted away by now. But there might be humans hiding in that building, and Hugh was simply unable to convey that idea. It was worth investigating.
“Come on, old one," Vic said. He grasped Hugh's frail-looking wrist with a massive hand. "Time to go."
"Sure," Hugh agreed. "Let's go to the opera!" He tipped his head back and let out a howl that sounded like nothing so much as a dying wolf.
Anyelet watched them go, then turned to Rita and Gregory. "We'll go to the Art Institute tomorrow night." Her eyes matched the glittering candle flames reflected in the glass cases along the lobby walls. "We've been lazy—there're plenty of humans in this city that we should be catching and breeding. The ones here won’t last forever."
"Especially with that pig Siebold," Rita interjected.
"True. It's time we considered our future. Our own recklessness will be our suicide." She settled onto an upholstered chair and stared at the candelabra on the table. Closing her eyes, she listened to Hugh's fading, faraway singing, wondering at the things in his mind.
~ * ~
Vic led the old man down the riverfront sidewalk to Wells Street, then gave him a little push toward downtown. "Go on now," he said. "Find yourself something to eat."
"Hungry," Hugh complained. He took a few steps, then stopped and turned back. He smiled crookedly. "Tisbee will fix dinner in a little while. You're invited, too."
Vic looked at him sadly. "Tisbee's gone, Hugh. She's never coming back." How many times had he said those words?
"Gone?" Hugh looked puzzled. "Where would she go?" He ambled away, already forgetting about Vic and the others. Why, Vic wondered, couldn't fate be more merciful and let the sun catch Hugh in the morning? Dark instinct, in Hugh's case, seemed stronger than insanity.
A half block away, Hugh began singing again. The unnatural silence in the city made it easy for Hugh's voice to carry.
“One is the loneliest number . . ."
Vic jerked around as he recognized the Three Dog Night song from decades ago. Where in the hell had the old man learned all these rock-and-roll songs? He couldn’t help straining to hear the next line.
"Twooooo can be as bad as one . . .”
Staring after Hugh, Vic realized what he hated most about being a vampire.
He hated not being able to cry.
21
REVELATION 18:2
And he is become the habitation of devils,
and the hold of every foul spirit,
and a cage of every unclean
and hateful thing.
~ * ~
"One of these days I'll take that bitch down a peg or two," Howard Siebold said loudly. No one answered and in frustration he lashed out with his foot at a battered vinyl-covered chair. He yelped, scowled, and flexed his bruised toe before pacing the ten-foot room once more.
Siebold rubbed his hands briskly up and down his flabby arms, trying to warm the skin through his stained sweater. It was Rita's fault he was cold; if she hadn't pointed out to the Mistress the way he'd beaten the new woman, that same woman would have helped raise his body temperature before he'd come home to this damned little icebox. They would've had a fine time, you betcha. God, how he despised this ancient monstrosity of a building. Eighteen floors—plus a tower if a man was crazy enough to actually climb that high—of little besides cramped, drafty offices and tiny shops split by endless, echoing halls and the occasional cavernous showroom, thousands of rooms smashed into a shape resembling nothing more than a shoebox four blocks square upon which a bored architect had centered a leftover peak. He kicked out again, this time at the empty propane heater. What he ought to do was crawl into his Quallofil sleeping bag and get some shut-eye. In the morning it would be warmer and he could ride his bike over to Morrie Mages Sporting Goods and fill a backpack with propane canisters, and more cooking fuel, too, if the worms on the third floor were going to get something besides cereal and cold soup. He dreaded it, though; it would take him a laboring half hour to get there, and longer to return carrying a load. He wished he had a car, but none of the ones around here would run.
Siebold wished he had company. "Shit!" The room was so small that after only a few steps, he had to turn around. He'd already staked out one of the south-side showrooms on the fourth floor—only one floor above the prisoners but still high enough where he could feel comfortable at night . . . most of the time, anyway. A few more weeks and it ought to be warm enough to move to those bigger quarters and get the hell out of this little pit. He'd wintered in a small room because it was easier to heat, but most of the time he didn't need a heater; he had great natural insulation and the sleeping bag was enough unless the temperature dropped below ten or fifteen. He was cold now because he was horny and had expected better.
"Bitch," he repeated, but with less vehemence. The bodybuilder, Vic, was another problem—no love lost there. The guy had never liked him, but after coming out of the woman's cubicle—and with a full belly, too!—he'd looked like he wanted to kill Howard twice as bad. But Vic hadn't said anything, and that was somehow worse than Rita, who never missed a chance to voice her hatred. The way Vic watched him was scary, like the man was just waiting for a chance to . . . what? Howard rubbed his throat and the crusting sores, remembering Rita's open attempt to throttle him. It might be best if he curbed his more . . . vigorous appetites for a while and concentrated on trying to breed the women, stop wasting virility on the guys who pissed him off. If he could get a few of the gals knocked up, it wouldn't matter what Rita thought. In warmer weather the prisoners wouldn't be so miserable all the time; not only were his chances better with a healthier broad, they'd be more fun when they had energy to do something besides lie there. Even using self-restraint, Howard thought he could still have fun.
Vic could still be a problem, but the two vampires would obey Anyelet, and Howard was positive she would protect him if he did his job well. He had been apathetic and self-indulgent—blame it on the weather—but he'd turn things around.
He w
edged himself into the sleeping bag, then blew out the single candle illuminating the room. In the darkness, Howard couldn't resist rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
There could still be hot times in the cool nights to come.
You betcha.
22
REVELATION 18:19
For in one hour is she made desolate.
~ * ~
I am a dead woman.
Deb didn't know why the thought exploded into her mind, but it spread with enough force and certainty to jar her awake. The noises in the old building were soft and familiar; she could almost feel the rightness of the huge stone blocks, the insets of metal and glass, windows and doors, still sense their unbreached security She was safe.
Tonight.
But not . . . when? Tomorrow night? Or the next? Deb forced her breathing to slow as she listened to her life's air swelling and ebbing in the dark like a miniature bellows. Waking prematurely yesterday had been a fluke—she had scared herself with her own silly paranoia. Now there was no reluctance to move and no doubt that she was alone in the Art Institute, and although the cot was good for sleeping when she was exhausted, awake it was narrow and uncomfortable; Deb finally sat up, sliding the Winchester under the cot without hesitation. She found her book of matches and lit the lamp, watching the welcome glow spread through the alcove before scrubbing at her face with her hands and looking at her watch: three o'clock. Three hours to sunrise.
I should be afraid, Deb thought. Hell, I am afraid. But it won't do any good.
I am a dead woman.
She inhaled deeply, calmer, vaguely accepting. When? The oil lamp's golden light glimmered softly on the burgundy-colored drapes encircling her small, cozy home. "Not tonight," she said aloud. Her voice should have been frightening in the semi-soundless room; instead she found it reassuring. She combed her fingers absently through her hair and tried to think. Why this sudden premonition? Her life had changed drastically today—perhaps Alex was the answer. As much as she would like to think he was different, maybe in reality he wasn't. . . .
She didn't believe that. Her game of making sure he didn't follow her when they'd parted had been just that—a game. Her intuition insisted he was trustworthy, just as it had made her leery of John last fall. Her reluctance was just a way of dealing with too much too fast; she was already looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.
Tomorrow. . . .
Her shoulders sagged and she fought the tears suddenly burning her eyes and making a smear of the lamplight around her. Tomorrow would come, but what about tomorrow night? Or the next day?
God, she hated crying, and the flaring pain in her stomach made her want to cry even more. Not because it hurt—she could deal with pain. What really stung was knowing that she no longer needed to go to the library or read up on it.
Her ulcer just didn't matter anymore.
The tears splashing her hands sparkled like drops of honey in the gentle light.
I am a dead woman.
23
REVELATION 18:24
And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints,
and of all that were slain upon the earth.
~ * ~
To the human eye, the city under tonight's cloud-hidden quarter moon was a gray haze, downtown a deserted, illusory shadow across the river like a black-and-white film frozen at its darkest moment. Staring over the east railing of the Wells Street Bridge, Anyelet smiled widely. This city wasn't dead at all; she could feel the life still pulsating within it. It might seem empty to a puny, light-loving human, yet let that same fool dare to walk its sidewalks—her sidewalks. If he or she were lucky, they would be captured and brought to the Mart by one of Anyelet's soldiers. Otherwise. . . .
Her calculating gaze swept the southern side of the Chicago River, following the narrow concrete park along its base and seeing even through the distant darkness the tiny buds sprouting on the tree branches. The fancy stone sidewalks were spotted with granite benches and matching trash bins between trees encircled by metal sunbursts set into the concrete. Two years before, office workers had carried lunches down those steps, ignoring the transients and winos who made the minipark a place of residence in the warmer months. Then the riverside had been unsafe to most citizens at night. Now it was death, and Anyelet's eyes narrowed as she picked out a few moving figures in the blackness down there, starving things that could barely carry their own weight but whose presence forced her soldiers to move in twos and threes away from the Merchandise Mart. Anyelet seemed to be the only one able to travel anywhere alone, which was as it should be. A year ago it had never occurred to her that one vampire might prey on another, so desperate would they become in The Hunger. Before now, she had thought the food would never end, like the queen in the hive, blindly enjoying the fruits of her womb as they catered to her every whim.
But the food had run out, and by the time she'd realized what was happening, it had been far, far too late. Chicago, the continent, the world, had been filled with her children, and her children's children, ad infinitum. In their feeding frenzy, they had doubled each night, conquering this huge city in only slightly more than three weeks. The mathematics had been astounding: Anyelet had reproduced, created a single child, then taken that nativity to the nth power. All those faraway places—California, Hawaii, Asia, Europe, every island and continent in the world—had been victimized as her offspring fanned out, crossing borders and oceans, using boats and those oh-so-wondrous airplanes to take The Hunger to every possible point on this suddenly too-small planet.
And why? She breathed deeply of the night air and gripped the steel railing, listening to the lap of the water as it kissed the supporting walls on each side. Because she had grown tired; tired of hiding, tired of being alone and inventing stupid little games so that she could feed without arousing suspicion, tired of forever being the stranger. All those epochs blurred together: here in the twentieth century Anyelet alone knew the real reason Stonehenge had been erected, and while the avenues of her memory were blurred, she could still recall the first night of her solitary existence, her dark and bloody birth upon the Slaughter Stone facing Stonehenge amid a circle of horrified, barbaric priests. After twoscore centuries. Anyelet knew the location of countless undiscovered riches still hidden in the sands of Egypt, and the fates of dozens of civilizations in the steaming tropics of South America. In the youth of man she'd had so many opportunities to feed unnoticed, all those wars and atrocities through which she'd slipped unseen—the Crusades, the American Civil War, the death camps of Germany, Korea, and, of course, Vietnam, with its ingeniously camouflaged prisoners of war. So many secrets, blending like melting wax as the years sped uselessly, boringly by. Because at its most fulfilling, what had her nights been but an endless hunt for the next meal? She wanted fellowship and servants, the sound of voices raised in adulation and respect, the everlasting degree of power that belonged to her by the very fact of her dark and immortal being.
Finally Anyelet had risen one cool fall night with a need so great it nearly eclipsed The Hunger, a need to walk where and when she pleased and choose anyone for food or entertainment, the burning, irresistible desire to surround herself with an entourage of immortal companions. Chicago teemed with life, its music and laughter and screams enfolding her in an endless, vivacious bloodscent. At the time her reasoning had been so clear: This was a city of plenty. Why shouldn't she claim it?
And so she had. There was little forethought, just a smug self-confidence that whomever she created would be hers forever, a multitude of little puppets eternally dancing on her strings. So many centuries had passed in her existence yet never had she met another like herself, and the few she'd accidentally created in the dawn of her being had failed to survive, perishing from stupidity or carelessness, leaving as their legacy enough evidence to create the lore and superstition that forced her into perpetual hiding. When at last she'd sunk her fangs into the first of the humans who would help her bring down this city, the
re'd been no one to guide her, no one from whom she could seek answers or advice. She'd had only a burning rage and strength of will born of millennia of isolation.
As she had in her earlier dream, Anyelet now spread her arms wide, feeling an odd mixture of fulfillment from the man who had pleasured her and unease from the dream's horrifying end. It was regrettably true that she had started the chain reaction that had all but emptied this planet, and her decision had been brash and swift and devastatingly unstoppable. She might call her children an army, but in reality her "soldiers" were simply the strongest and most obedient of her creations. Anyelet had once thought mankind was her enemy, but she had been so very wrong. Her true enemy was also her truest and most constant comrade: The Hunger. The Hunger had decimated her world and driven off most of her children, making them skulk into the night like hyenas, disgusting scavengers feeding on rats and whatever else they could find in the sewers, subways, and underground avenues. The ones who remained—Rita, Vic, Gregory, and a few others—were well rewarded, but even they lacked the common goal she'd tried so hard to instill. Cohesiveness was nonexistent while self-serving greed showed itself at every turn. The vampires across the country or the world mattered little to Anyelet, and with each generation her hold became increasingly vague and tenuous, until all that remained—and it would always remain—was the inborn sense in every creature Anyelet encountered that she held a power, a rightness which could not be questioned. That sense of command would forever exist.
Eventually the outcasts would die off. The rats, diminishing in number, would keep the undead mobile but not strong; they were already tearing at each other to lessen the competition, and each sunrise killed dozens more who had been unsuccessful in the hunt and were too weak to seek shelter. Another six months and most of that garbage would be dead.
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