When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
The marble facade of the Sarasota Performing Arts Center shone ghostly white in the starlight. Above the main entrance, sixty-foot composite columns rose to an entablature carved with scenes from American history, where a knowledgeable vampire could pick out the portraits of the undead lords who had steered the course of the republic. The structure’s attic story was a fantastic wedding cake of lanterns, pediments and balustrades.
As he climbed out of his vintage Jaguar into the balmy night air, Elliott Sinclair remembered how, arriving on other nights, he’d been transfixed by the building’s beauty. Or amused by its pretentiousness. And in either case, eager to sample the evening’s entertainment. Now he vaguely dreaded walking into it. But he had nowhere else he’d rather be, nothing to do that would please him better, so he glumly supposed he might as well honor his social obligations.
Elliott surrendered the car to a liveried mortal valet, then set to work on his appearance. He no longer truly cared how he looked, but a habit cultivated over centuries died hard. He combed his long gray hair and smoothed down his eyebrows. Wiped his mouth to remove any lingering trace of blood. Made sure his elegant black tuxedo draped his tall, gaunt frame properly and that his patent-leather shoes still gleamed. When satisfied, he composed his aquiline features into an amiable smile and sauntered into the foyer.
No one was there but a pair of servants. No doubt the prince’s guests, Kindred elders from all over the South, were gossiping and sipping blood from crystal glasses in the grand saloon. Elliott gave the attendants an affable nod, then climbed the stairs to join his peers. He passed one gorgeous Impressionist painting after another without sparing any of them a glance.
Upon entering the grand saloon, he saw that nearly everyone on the guest list had chosen to attend. He wasn’t surprised. Kindred of Clan Toreador, his bloodline, were the unchallenged arbiters of taste and style in vampire society, and thus their soirees were the high points of the social calendar. Even undead too gauche to appreciate the entertainment turned out to hear news, conspire in shadowy corners, and demonstrate that they were of sufficient consequence to receive an invitation.
Working his way around the edge of the room toward the polished ebony bar, Elliott passed an exquisite Chinese porcelain vase full of lavender orchids. Like many Toreador, he possessed preternaturally keen senses, and to him the flowers’ fragrance was almost unpleasantly heady.
Emerging from the cloud of scent, he brushed past two elders with whom he was acquainted. One was Catherine Cobb, a blond, Junoesque Ventrue. Like many members of her backward'looking clan she wore antique clothing: in her case an elaborate powdered wig and a rose-colored gown appropriate for the court of Louis XIV. The other vampire was Otis McNamara, a short Brujah with a coppery handlebar mustache and an iron ring in his septum. Kindred
of Otis’ bloodline revelled in their reputation as the rebels of the Camarilla, the sect that united and governed, however haphazardly, the seven principal vampire clans; Elliott wasn’t surprised to see that the redhead had eschewed formal wear for scuffed, steel-toed boots, torn jeans and a motorcycle jacket.
For some reason Elliott had never fathomed, Catherine and Otis were deadly enemies. Had they met in another setting, they probably would have tried to destroy one another. But the Performing Arts Center was an Elysium, a sanctum where violence between Kindred was forbidden, and here the two rivals stood chatting with every appearance of amiability. The display of suavity was no doubt winning high marks from their peers, for whom poise was virtually a religion.
Though Elliott had felt obliged to put in an appearance at the soiree, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He tried to slip past Catherine and Otis quickly, before they noticed him. But the Brujah turned, grinned, and gripped his forearm.
“El!” Otis boomed. “How ya doin’?” The vitae in his half-empty glass smelled rich and appetizing.
Sighing inwardly, Elliott gave his fellow undead a cordial smile. “I’m well, old friend. How are both of you?”
“I’m very well,” said Catherine. She offered her beringed, satin-gloved hand and Elliott bowed over it and kissed it. “Despite a certain unfulfilled longing for intelligent conversation.” She gave Otis a malicious smile. “When I arrived and didn’t see you, Elliott darling, I hoped it was because you were preparing to perform.”
“Alas, tonight’s play didn’t have an appropriate part for me,” Elliott lied.
“Fiddlesticks,” said Catherine, pouting. “No part for an actor who can play any role superbly?”
“You’re too kind,” said Elliott. “But I’m sure that with Prince Roger playing the lead, you won’t miss me.”
“I was hoping it would turn out that you’d written the damn show,” Otis said. “Your stuff doesn’t put me to sleep. But I guess you didn’t, did you, or you’d be backstage.”
“No,” Elliott said. “One of Roger’s mortal proteges did the honors. It’s a wonderful piece.” At least Elliott assumed it was. Despite Roger’s urging, he hadn’t read it.
Otis grimaced. A fleeting, unaccustomed gentleness came into his jade-green eyes. “Do you think you’ll ever act or write anything again?” he asked.
“Of course,” Elliott said, annoyed at the Brujah’s prying but holding his smile in place. “I’m just taking some time off. Recharging my batteries.”
Clearly undeceived, Catherine said, “Do you intend to mourn forever, cheri? I can’t believe that Mary would have wanted that.”
For some reason the mention of his late wife’s name infuriated Elliott. Who the devil was Catherine to tell him how to grieve? He opened his mouth to say as much, then heard the rapid thump of a heartbeat, and pattering footsteps scurrying up behind him.
Kindred hearts didn’t beat; obviously, one of the mortal servants was approaching. Grateful for the interruption which had prevented him from indulging in a shamefully unseemly outburst, Elliott turned and saw Lazio, Roger’s personal dresser and valet. “Did you want me?” the Toreador asked.
Lazio was a stooped, balding man with horn-rimmed glasses. As usual, he had a sewing kit clipped to his belt. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said breathlessly, “but Mr. Sinclair, can you come? There’s” — he hesitated — “a little problem.”
Thank God, Elliott thought. Here was his chance to extricate himself from his fellow vampires’ clutches. “Of course,” he said. “If I’m needed.” He smiled at Catherine and Otis. “Please excuse me.”
Lazio led Elliott out of the grand saloon, then shut the ornate art deco door. “I’m so glad you’re here,” the dresser half-whispered. “The prince didn’t think you were going to come.”
“Well, I did,” Elliott said, unconsciously adjusting his cuffs. “But frankly, that doesn’t mean I want to sort out whatever opening-night snafu may have arisen backstage. Where’s the stage manager? Go tell him.”
“You don’t understand,” Lazio said, his voice still lowered. He glanced around as if worried that someone might be lurking at his elbow, eavesdropping. “It’s not the show. Something’s wrong with the prince himself!”
Elliott frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to say,” Lazio replied. “Not here.” Elliott supposed that, considering the hyperacute hearing of some vampires and the powers of invisibility possessed by others, the dresser’s caution was appropriate. “Just come and see.” “All right,” Elliott agreed reluctantly.
Lazio ushered him back to the ground floor and then through the maze of rooms and twisting corridors beneath the stage. Elliott, who possessed the vampire power of superhuman speed, kept drawing ahead of his scurrying human companion. He guessed that he’d caught Lazio’s sense of urgency, the weariness and ennui that had dogged him these last few years notwithstanding. As they neared the dressing rooms, the Toreador heard voices murmuring back and forth.
As befitted his status as Prince of Sarasota and star of the production, Roger occupied a well-appointed suite consisting of a dressing room and a sitting room. Entering, Elliott found his lord and sire sprawled on a red leather couch in the latter chamber, with fully fifteen of his lean, pallid, bright-eyed followers hovering anxiously around him. Relying on a constant influx of tourists to replenish the blood supply, and on the Kindred of his domain to hunt unobtrusively, Roger had permitted his vassals to beget more childer than were generally found in cities of comparable size.
Roger Phillips was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a strong, deeply cleft chin and a curly mane of lustrous chestnut hair. He was already in costume — an outfit incorporating a grimy, many-pocketed photojournalist’s vest with a press badge clipped to it — and a layer of makeup stained his alabaster face. Elliott was shocked to see that the prince was trembling and his wide, expressive mouth was twitching. His blue eyes were glazed.
Pushing through the crowd, Elliott made his way to Roger. Dropping to one knee so they could talk face to face, he said, “Sire! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Roger croaked. Elliott was horrified by the labored rasp of his sire’s voice. “I’m just a little under the weather.”
“Do you mean you’re ill?” Elliott asked, praying the answer was no. Kindred diseases, contracted by imbibing tainted blood, were always serious and frequently fatal.
“No,” Roger growled. He tried to stand up, lost his balance, and sprawled back on the couch.
“Just rest,” said Elliott. “We’ll help you.”
“No!” said Roger. He lurched up again, this time making it to his feet. “We have a performance. I’ve never missed one, and I’m not about to start now.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Elliott said. Roger swayed, and the younger vampire took his arm to support him. “It’s obvious something’s happening to you, something serious. For all we know, your life could be in danger.”
“Mr. Sinclair is right,” said Lazio firmly, edging through the mass of vampires. Amid a crowd of Toreador, many of whom had been inducted into the clan for their beauty and grace, the aging mortal looked homely, flabby and decrepit. “I think we should call your doc—”
“Damn you!” Roger screamed. He tore his arm BsJt of Elliott’s grasp, stumbling and nearly dumping himself feck on the sofa in the process. “I’m fine! Why do you keep insisting otherwise?” He peered at Elliott, squinting as if he were having trouble seeing him. “Are you trying to make me look weak? Undermine my authority?”
“No!” said Elliott, astonished.
“Sneaky little rat,” said Roger. His gleaming fangs lengthened, garbling his speech. “Creeping around behind my back, plotting and spreading rumors about me! Want to be prince yourself, don’t you?”
“No!” Elliott repeated. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could suspect he wanted to seize the throne, not when he’d spent the years since Mary’s death shirking his less-demanding duties as a member of the primogen, Roger’s council of lieutenants. Nor could he fathom how the man who’d made him a vampire could suspect him of any treachery. Through their four centuries of constant association, acting, sharing the joys and pains of vampire existence and guarding one another’s backs, Roger had always treated his childe like a favorite son, and Elliott had responded with uncompromising devotion. “I assure you—” Roger rounded drunkenly on the other Toreador. “How about the rest of you?” he said. Despite his manifest irrationality and the slurring of his speech, in his fury he began to radiate a palpable force of personality. Like many of his bloodline had a preternatural ability to influence an audience, and even though Elliott knew his sire was exerting the talent, even though he possessed the same power himself, he felt a wave of shame and fear wash through him, making his knees wobbly. “Do you want to pull me down? Would you rather see this gutless fop in my place?”
“No!” cried Amanda, a willowy young neonate only recently released from her maker’s care. “We love you, Roger!”
“Then take your damn places!” snarled the prince. The other members of the cast and crew exited the suite, some scuttling, anxious to get away from him, and others dragging their feet, looking helplessly at one another.
Exerting his will, Elliott managed to cast off the unnatural fear with which Roger’s voice had filled him. “Please,” he said to the prince, “don’t endanger yourself needlessly. You don’t have to go on. We’ll think of an excuse to cancel the performance, something that won’t alert our guests that anything’s wrong with you.” Kindred society was rife with both hypocrisy and murderous intrigue. Though every elder in the grand saloon professed to be Roger’s friend, it would be foolhardy to let them know he’d fallen ill. Someone might decide to strike at him in his hour of weakness.
Roger smiled and squeezed Elliott’s shoulder, just as if he hadn’t accused his offspring of treachery only a moment before. “Good old El, always looking out for me. But you worry too much.” He staggered out the door and vanished in the direction of the stage.
Lazio was cowering in the corner, where the force of Roger’s rage had driven him. Panting, his face beaded with sweat, he said, “You see what he’s like? Completely irrational! How can we help him?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott said, frowning. “One thing’s obvious. He’ll go on unless we physically restrain him. And I doubt anyone’s willing to go that far. He might really decide that we were traitors. Indeed, he might destroy us on the spot.” Older vampires were almost invariably more powerful than younger ones, and thus Roger, even in a debilitated condition, might well prove more formidable than any of his brood.
“But he’ll disgrace himself!” said Lazio, his wrinkled face a mask of anguish.
The mortal was in so much distress that Elliott felt an urge to reassure him. “Perhaps not,” he said, exerting his own unnatural powers of persuasion. “Perhaps his problem is that he drank from someone intoxicated. If so, he may be himself again by the time the curtain goes up.”
Lazio peered at Elliott dubiously. “Do you really think that’s what’s wrong? He’s usually so careful about his vitae.” Elliott shrugged. “That’s a matter of opinion. He usually drinks from actors or other artists. You know what we’re like. Always putting something down our throats, in our arms, or up our noses. I’ll tell you what. Speak to the stage manager. Ask him to find an excuse to hold the curtain for a few minutes, to give Roger that much more time to recover.” He gave the dresser an encouraging smile.
“Good idea!” cried Lazio, abruptly succumbing to the vaimpire’s influence. The mortal scurried out of the room.
Wishing that he had some method of easing his own fretful mind, Elliott made his way back upstairs and took a seat in one of the shadowy boxes overlooking the stage. The rest of the audience would no doubt choose to sit in the orchestra, where the view was better, and now that he was worried about Roger he was even less inclined to socialize with them than he’d been before.
He wondered if Roger really had drunk blood laced with alcohol or drugs. Lazio was right; given the prince’s habits, it seemed unlikely. But Elliott hoped it was true, because all the other possibilities were worse.
He prayed that, whatever was wrong, Roger would give a creditable performance. It w’asn’t impossible. During his centuries as an actor, Elliott had seen his fellow artists work drunk, starving, and afflicted with influenza and pneumonia. The attention of an audience enabled them to tap into some mysterious reserve of inner strength.
Except, of course, when it didn’t, and the poor wretches wound up collapsing or babbling lines from the wrong play.
Elliott wished he could just get up and leave. Whatever was wrong, let someone else put it right. His labors, his days of troubleshooting problems, were supposed to be over. But he couldn’t go. However joyless his current existence was, he’d been happy once, and he owed that happiness to Roger. If the Toreador prince hadn’t made him a vampire, extending his life beyond any mortal’s natural span, Elliott would never have met Mary. Roger had even introduced him to her at the riotous party following the opening of The Old Bachelor at Drury Lane.
After a few minutes, the house lights dimmed and brightened. Elliott knew they were doing so throughout the building, signalling the imminent beginning of the play. Shortly thereafter, the guests filed into the cavernous auditorium and selected seats in the first few rows. Gazing down at them, Elliott noticed that Otis and Catherine had chosen to sit together. He wondered absently if they’d decided to make peace. That too seemed unlikely. It was a rare vampire indeed who ever forgot a grudge.
The hall darkened, and the crowd fell silent. With a whisper of ropes and pulleys, the golden curtain rose toward the masks of comedy and tragedy carved on the proscenium arch. The spotlight picked out two Toreador standing center stage. Both were costumed and made up as Vietnamese peasants.
As the scene unfolded, they did their best to give a good performance. Still, Elliott could see that they were carrying themselves a little stiffly, and hear a subtle undercurrent of tension in their voices. Obviously they were anticipating Roger’s entrance as nervously as he was.
Eventually one of the peasants said, “The village has to eat. We can always make more children.” Then the two actors fell silent, as if awaiting some event, but nothing happened.
“We can always make more children,” the actor repeated after a moment. Elliott surmised that someone, probably Roger, had missed his cue.
Sure enough, wiping his face with a red bandanna, a camera hanging around his neck, the Toreador prince strode in from stage right. He was moving with his customary grace, and Elliott felt a pang of hope. Whatever his mysterious malady had been, maybe Roger had recovered.
“How can you people live in this heat?” Roger said peevishly. “Where am I, anyway?”
“Ten miles outside An Tuc,” said one of the other actors. Roger frowned as though perplexed and then, suddenly, sneered. His fangs began to lengthen.
With his hypersensitive hearing, Elliott heard the prompter stationed in the prompt box at the front of the stage whisper Roger’s next line: “Shit. No way am I walking that far. Where can I hire a car?”
With one violent motion, Roger tore the camera from around his neck, breaking the sturdy leather strap in the process, and hurled it into the concealed opening of the prompt box. Elliott heard the device shatter and the prompter’s body thump to the floor.
Roger’s fellow actors goggled at him in horror. The audience sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then they murmured and leaned forward, peering with heightened interest, as if they’d decided that Roger’s behavior, however aberrant it seemed, must be a part of the show.
“Bastards,” the prince snarled to the peasants. “Trying to upstage me. Trying to ruin my reputation.”
One of the actors pivoted toward stage left and gestured frantically. Elliott assumed that the performer was signalling to someone to lower the curtain. It didn’t come down. Perhaps the stagehands w'ere frozen in dismay.
“And you,” slurred Roger as, swaying, he rounded on the audience. “You think you’re bloodsucking little gods, don’t you? The lords of creation. Well, I say you’re corpses. Vermin. A pack of mosquitoes and fleas.”
Shocked, the thin, white faces of the spectators gaped up at him. Such insults were egregiously offensive and a gross breach of the etiquette proper to any Elysium whether a part of the script or not, although, somewhere in the darkened hall, a single thick-skinned Kindred was chuckling appreciatively.
“Want some vitae, little fleas?” Roger mumbled, his long ivory fangs extending fully. “Of course you do.” Lifting his bare right forearm to his mouth, he scored his flesh from elbow to knuckles. The coppery aroma of Kindred vitae, even sweeter and more enticing than that of mortals, suffused the air. Red drops, shining like rubies in the spotlight, pattered onto the stage. The prince started to tear open his left arm.
“No, sire, please!” cried one of the actors. The two faux Vietnamese grabbed their leader, trying to wrestle his muscular arm away from his bloodstained lips.
Roger knocked one peasant on his butt with an elbow to the belly, then hurled the other crashing into the orchestra pit. As the first actor tried to scramble to his feet, the prince whirled and kicked him in the jaw. Bone snapped, and the performer slumped back down.
Intending to help restrain Roger, Elliott surged to his feet. Some of the audience did the same. Voices babbled backstage.
Turning, suddenly looking as formidable as a crazed, maimed god, Roger stared at his would-be rescuers. A spasm of unreasoning dread locked Elliott in place. Below him, vampires recoiled back down into their plushly upholstered seats.
The Toreador prince tore open his other arm, thrust his fingers into the gaping gashes, and flicked spatters of vitae into the orchestra pit. “Go on!” he cried. “Soup’s on! Get down on your knees and lick it up!”
No one moved.
After a moment, Roger said, “Well, perhaps I’ve misjudged you. Maybe you’re not fleas, but maggots. In that case, have some carrion!” He put his index finger between his teeth and bit down hard, evidently intending to sever it and throw it to the crowd as well.
Elliott wondered sickly if Roger meant to dismember or even destroy himself completely. His horror at the prospect drove the paralyzing awe out of his mind. Moving faster and more nimbly than any human acrobat, he scrambled onto the gilded, rococo balustrade of his box and leaped down toward the stage.
He slammed down on the edge of the platform. The impact jolted pain through his joints and threw him to one knee, but he was all right; the fall hadn’t torn any ligaments or broken any bones. Roger spun around, snatching his bloody hand away from his mouth.
Elliott tried to project his own unnatural charisma. “Please, take it easy,” he crooned soothingly. “I’m your friend. Your faithful childe. I want to help you.”
Roger snarled and lunged at him.
Elliott twisted aside, slamming his fist into Roger’s kidney as the prince blundered past. But, unlike certain other Kindred, the younger vampire only possessed the strength of an ordinary human. In his delirium, Roger didn’t even seem to feel the blow.
Spinning, Roger kicked at Elliott’s head. Elliott ducked, then sprang forward, right into a second kick to the solar plexus. The impact threw him halfway across the stage and down onto his back. Black spots swam before his eyes.
Christ, he thought, dazed, trying desperately to clamber to his feet, how can he move like a drunk one second and Bruce Lee the next1
Addled with pain, Elliott never even sensed Roger approaching. But without warning, another kick smashed against the younger vampire’s temple, hurling him back down onto the stage. Roger dove on top of him and pinned him.
Elliott struggled, but couldn’t break free. The punishment he’d taken had stolen his strength. Roger opened his jaws and lowered his head toward his opponent’s throat. Elliott realized that, despite the presence of nearly one hundred
witnesses, despite the fact that diablerie, the practice of preying on one’s fellow vampires, was perhaps the most heinous crime an undead could commit, Roger meant to drink his blood.
“No,” Elliott gasped, gazing imploringly into Roger’s maddened eyes. “Please. If the other elders see you do this, they won’t rest until they’ve destroyed you.”
“To hell with them and to hell with you,” Roger replied. Overcoming Elliott’s last feeble attempt to fend him off, he plunged his canines into his childe’s neck.
Elliott felt a stab of pain, then a wave of numbness. One part of his mind gibbered in terror, even while another part opened itself willingly to the final death, to an end to futility and sorrow. He prayed that he was about to see Mary again.
Then several of his fellow Toreador charged onto the stage. Apparently they too had finally managed to break through the artificial cowardice Roger had implanted in their minds. They grabbed the prince and pulled him off his victim. As Roger’s fangs tore free, they ripped ragged gashes in Elliott’s throat.
Roger struggled in the grasp of his childer for another moment, then went limp. His eyes rolled back in his head as the younger Kindred began to haul him offstage.
Amanda, the same slender, fresh-faced cheerleader of a neonate who had assured Roger earlier that his offspring loved him, knelt beside Elliott. “Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes wide with concern.
Feeling addled and slow, Elliott gingerly touched his wounded neck. The gashes were closing, though more slowly than if they’d been inflicted by a blade or the teeth of a natural creature. “I’ll be all right,” he managed. “Just help me up. Get me offstage.” It wasn’t prudent for him to look weak and helpless in front of his peers, either. In any case, a pride he’d half-forgotten he possessed rebelled at the prospect of further humiliation.
The neonate lifted him to his feet and draped his arm around her shoulders, helping him toward the wings. His head swam; the theater seemed to spin around him. The audience, now convinced that what they’d witnessed had been real, maliciously rejoicing in the disaster that had overtaken the Kindred of Sarasota, began to applaud.
♦
The aquarium was a four-story box of a building standing beside the Gulf of Mexico. A huge, wraparound mural of whales and porpoises, only vaguely visible in the darkness, decorated the exterior. By the time Forbes and his partner Ryan pulled up in front of the staff entrance, one of the facility employees was waiting under the light on the stoop to let them in. She was a dumpy, middle-aged woman dressed in a baggy gray sweat suit. With her short, gray-brown hair disheveled, she looked as if she’d been dragged out of bed. Given the lateness of the hour, that was no doubt precisely the case.
The two policemen, clad in green uniforms with orange trim, climbed out of the prowl car. Forbes, a lanky man with a straw-colored crewcut, paused for just a second to savor the cool sea breeze and the murmur of the ghost-white breakers. Ryan, a burly African-American with a neatly trimmed mustache and a broken nose, hitched up his gun belt, trying to position it comfortably over the beer gut he’d been growing for the past two years.
“Let’s take care of this nonsense as fast as possible,” Ryan said. “We’ve had to stay past end-of-shift the last two nights. I’ll be damned if I’m going to do it again this morning.”
“I’m with you,” Forbes said. “I’d like to get home in time to see the wife before she goes off to work. Maybe even catch her still in bed, if you get my drift.” God knew, he and Julie didn’t get nearly enough quality time together. He loved being a cop, but working his current hours was playing hell with his home life.
The two men hurried up the sidewalk that led to the entrance. “Thank goodness you’re here,” the dumpy woman said. “I’m sure there’s nothing to this, but I was getting nervous, waiting here by myself.”
“It would have been safer to wait in your car with the windows up and the doors locked,” Forbes said reflexively. Then, realizing that this little safety tip might spook the woman even more, he gave her a reassuring smile. “But you’re okay, so what the heck. I’m Sergeant Forbes and this is Officer Ryan.”
“I’m Mattie Purvis,” she replied. “Mr. Bronson’s assistant. Of course I was glad to come when the police called, but I can’t imagine how there could be a dead body inside the building. How could anybody get it inside without setting off the alarms?”
“Beats us,” said Ryan wryly. “All we know is that an anonymous caller phoned 911 and said you had a corpse on the premises. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred it was a crank call, but we’ve got to check it out anyway. So if you could please let us in?”
“All right,” said Mattie, lifting the jingling key ring in her hand. She unlocked three locks, then ushered the policemen through the door and into the hallway beyond.
The corridor was far darker than the moonlit night outside. Though Forbes was as sure as Ryan that this call was bogus, for some reason a chill oozed up his spine. For a moment he nearly believed that something terrible might be waiting in the lightless rooms and passages ahead. Then Mattie threw a wall switch. Down the length of the hall, fluorescent lights pinged and flickered on, and his momentary trepidation dissolved.
Forbes grinned sheepishly. He was a day person. He’d always hated the graveyard shift, even before he had a relationship for it to disrupt, and he guessed it was getting on his nerves again. He was glad Ryan apparently hadn’t noticed his jitters. His partner would have kidded him mercilessly.
“Let’s get to it,” Ryan said.
They worked their way through a series of hallways, checking cramped offices and storerooms full of janitorial supplies, bundles of promotional brochures and barrels of fish food. They didn’t find a body.
“Let’s move on to the part of the building where the public goes,” said Forbes at length.
Mattie conducted the cops to the atrium inside the main entrance. When she turned on the lights, Forbes saw that the floor was decorated with a tile mosaic of teeming undersea life. Similar frescoes adorned the walls. Beside the exterior door was a kiosk with books on ichthyology and bright cloisonne jewelry fashioned to resemble tropical fish on display. A map and directory had been mounted on the wall to guide patrons to the various exhibits, including Florida’s Rivers, Wonders of the Reef, and Manatee Encounter
Mattie pointed to one of the arches along the wall. “This way?” she suggested, the statement garbled by a gaping yawn.
Ryan shrugged. “Whatever. We’re going to have to check out every inch of the place before we’re through.”
Mattie led them through another series of chambers. Whenever she switched the lights on, driving the darkness deeper into the building, the illumination revealed countless amberjacks, skates, eels, groupers, clowns, angels and gars, swimming sullenly back and forth in the blue-green world beyond the plate-glass walls.
To his disgust, Forbes felt his jitters creeping back. His mouth was dry and his stomach, queasy. Even though he knew how stupid it was, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fish behind the glass were staring at him. Or perhaps it was some presence lurking in the shadows that always hovered ahead of the searchers, no matter how many lights Mattie turned on.
Snap out of it! he silently ordered himself. But the uneasiness didn’t go away.
He and his companions entered yet another room. It was no different from the one they’d just exited — merely an octagonal space with windows for walls and two long, backless wooden benches set in the otherwise bare linoleum floor — and yet his anxiety intensified.
Finally yielding to the feeling, he said, “Call me crazy, but I think there might be a body around here somewhere. Or some kind or problem, anyway.”
Mattie gaped at him. Ryan’s eyes narrowed quizzically. “Why?” he asked. ' ’
Forbes shrugged helplessly. “Intuition. Something in the air. Can’t you feel it?”
Ryan grimaced. “Frankly, no. You sure you didn’t just get a bad burrito at Pablo’s?”
“No,” Forbes admitted. “I’m not sure of anything. But my instincts are telling me that something’s wrong here. Right in front of us.”
Ryan gestured at the largely empty space around them. “If there is, you’ll have to show me, because I sure don’t see it.”
Squinting, stooping low, Forbes scrutinized the surfaces of the benches and the floor. Behind the walls sea creatures drifted and darted, some as beautiful and delicately shaped as butterflies, and others as dark and grotesquely formed as the denizens of a nightmare.
Forbes didn’t find any bloodstains, or anything else suspicious. In the face of Ryan’s skepticism he was feeling increasingly like a fool, yet his nervousness still wouldn’t go away.
“Well?” said Ryan. “Ready to move on? I’m sure Ms. Purvis would appreciate it. If we hurry, she might have time to go home and catch another hour or two of sleep.”
“Okay,” said Forbes reluctantly. He straightened up and trudged toward the entrance to the next room in the chain.
But as he did, he glimpsed another peculiar form floating behind the glass. He couldn’t make it out clearly, not from the corner of his eye, but he sensed a wrongness about it. His heart jolting, he turned.
The shape was the nude body of a little girl. Her wide brown eyes peered sightlessly through the glass, and her mouth gaped in a silent scream. An octopus had wrapped itself around her ankle, the ceaseless writhing of its tentacles mimicked by the stirring of her floating black pigtails. A cloud of small orange fish flickered around her, nibbling her flesh.
Forbes gasped and lurched backward. Sick with horror, he wondered vaguely why he and his companions hadn’t seen the corpse right away. He supposed they’d been too intent on checking the rooms to pay much attention to what was on the other side of the glass. Or perhaps they’d unconsciously resisted the sight of anything so ghastly.
Mattie and Ryan turned. “What’s wrong?” the black officer asked. His throat still clogged with revulsion, Forbes pointed at the little girl. Ryan cursed, and the woman squealed and wrenched her gaze away.
Ryan swallowed audibly. “Chalk one up for intuition,” he said, moving closer to the window. Straining to reestablish a cop’s properly stoic demeanor, Forbes followed him. The little girl’s white hand brushed against the glass as if she were feebly knocking on a door.
“Do you think she drowned?” Ryan asked. “Hm, maybe not.” He pointed. “Check out her throat.”
Peering, Forbes saw that the child had twin punctures in the side of her neck. The marks looked like a vampire bite in a movie. In another situation such a ridiculous notion might have amused him, but now it only served to make his discovery seem even grislier.
“Let’s call this in and seal the building,” Forbes said grimly, reaching for the radio clipped to his belt. He turned. “Ms. Purvis, you might want to phone your boss—”
He faltered in bewilderment. The woman had disappeared.
Forbes guessed he must look as shaken as he felt, because Ryan gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t get rattled,” he said. “I’m sure she just left the room while our backs were turned, so she wouldn’t have to look at the kid. Can’t say as I blame her.” He raised his voice. “Ms. Purvis! Are you there? Answer me, please!”
The shout echoed hollowly down the lighted chain of rooms through which they’d come. No one answered. Forbes couldn’t help feeling that his companion had bellowed in the wrong direction, that someone or something had dragged the plump woman into the stygian chambers ahead.
“I guess she panicked,” said Ryan, a subtle tremor in his voice. “Ran all the way out of the building.”
“Or the guy who killed the girl is still here,” said Forbes. He could feel his pulse beating in his neck. “And he grabbed her.”
“Without making enough noise for us to hear it six feet away?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah,” said Forbes tensely. He knew the idea didn’t make sense, but his instincts were shrieking that it was true — they hadn’t been wrong so far.
Ryan grimaced. “I guess it could happen. So we’d better go look for her.”
Forbes radioed the dispatcher to describe their situation and request backup. Then he and Ryan drew their .38 automatics. Since they no longer had Mattie, who knew where all the wall fixtures were, to guide them, they took their pencil flashlights out of their belts. Thus equipped, they crept warily into the dark.
The flashlight beams slid back and forth, illuminating a nurse shark and a starfish behind the glass. Forbes could hear Ryan’s quick, shallow respiration and smell the sweat that had begun to soak his partner’s shir!'.
The policemen slunk around a corner, moving from one exhibition area to another. Now the massive gray forms of manatees, their backs grooved with white propeller scars, floated beyond the glass. Forbes’ flashlight beam picked out another light switch. He moved towrard it, and then a nearly inaudible tapping ticked through the blackness.
Forbes froze, reflexively holding his breath, waiting for the sound to reoccur. It didn’t. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.
“I thought I heard something,” Ryan answered. “I’m not sure.”
Forbes abruptly realized what the noise had sounded like. “I think it was w'ater dripping,” he said.
“Maybe the killer got wet when he threw the body in the tank,” said Ryan, sweeping his flashlight around the room. The beam revealed only the placidly drifting sea cows and empty space. .
“If we are hearing him, he must be close,” said Forbes. “Let’s be really caref—”
Ryan’s gun boomed. The roar was deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet cracked into the linoleum.
Yelping, Forbes spun around. His hand shaking, he shone his light on his partner. Ryan stared back at him with wide, stricken eyes. The black officer dropped his pistol and flashlight, then made a gurgling sound and clutched the side of his neck. His knees buckled, and he fell face down on the floor.
Forbes felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare. It wasn’t possible that Ryan had been attacked. He’d swung his light around the room only a moment before and, except for the cops themselves, there hadn’t been anyone there.
But possible or not, it had happened, and now, Forbes suddenly realized, the assailant might be creeping up on him. His heart hammering, he frantically swept his own light around until it flew across a round, inhuman face. He almost snapped off a shot before he realized that he was looking at one of the manatees.
The light didn’t reveal the attacker.
Forbes flipped the wall switch and felt a wave of relief when the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered on. Surely, if he watched his back, no one could sneak up on him now!
His own safety presumably secured, it was time to assist his partner. Forbes knelt beside the injured man. His knee landed in a spreading pool of blood. The coppery scent of the liquid rose to mingle with the tang of gun smoke drifting in the air. Ryan’s breathing was a labored wheeze.
Forbes winced. It was obvious that his partner needed immediate first aid. With a pang of renewed trepidation, he set his .38 on the floor and took a folded white handkerchief out of his pocket. He pressed it against the twin punctures in Ryan’s neck, wounds like the dead girl’s, struggling to stanch the bleeding. In half a minute, the makeshift compress was red and sodden. The flow of blood wouldn’t slow.
Forbes awkwardly used his left hand to switch on his radio. Static crackled. “This is Forbes,” he said. “I have an officer down. Repeat, Officer Ryan is down. We’re in the manatee exhibit. Get an ambulance.”
“Understood,” the tinny voice of the dispatcher replied. “Help is on the way.”
After that, the minutes crawled by. Despite Forbes’ best efforts, Ryan kept bleeding. Every few seconds, Forbes looked over his shoulder or glanced at his pistol to make sure it was still lying where he’d put it.
The murderer heard me radio for help, Forbes told himself. So he must have run away by now. I'm not in danger anymore. But he was having trouble believing it. Perhaps the phantom he’d been chasing wasn’t afraid of a new contingent of cops. After all, the bastard hadn’t had any trouble neutralizing the first wave.
Forbes looked around again. No one was behind him. Panting as if he’d run a marathon, his eyes stinging with unshed tears, he returned his attention to the dying Ryan. When he lifted his gaze again, only a moment later, he saw a smear of reflection on the aquarium window before him. It was barely visible, but seemed to possess a human shape.
Terrified, Forbes snatched for his gun. At the same instant, powerful hands grabbed him, jerked him to his feet, and thrust him toward the glass. With a burst of pain, his forehead slammed against the window. His shooting hand clenched convulsively, and the automatic blazed. Somewhere in the room, glass shattered and water gushed.
Forbes’ assailant yanked him back from the window and pulled him against his body. A powerful arm wrapped itself around the policeman’s chest and fresh pain ripped into his throat. His wife’s face shone before Forbes’ inner eye; then the world went black.
♦
Pallid and slender, her waist-length raven hair seeming to shine even now that the moon had set, the vampire paced along the eight-foot stucco wall, psychically sensing what lay on the other side. Her diaphanous white gown, her only garment, rippled in the night breeze, and the cool, dewy grass kissed her feet.
After a minute an image of guard dogs, stocky black animals with cropped tails and ears, entered her mind. Despite her anxieties, she smiled for an instant. She’d always found animals even easier to manage than she did humans. She stepped away from the wall and then bounded over it, noticing as she did so the alarm strip embedded in the top of the barrier.
She landed lightly, her lovely, inhumanly powerful legs soaking up the shock of impact. Before her extended a broad expanse of exquisitely manicured lawn, its flower beds planted with red and yellow roses and orange hibiscus with magenta eyes. To her sight, the colors shone as brightly by night as they would by daylight, and she could smell the sweet scent of the rose petals from fifty feet away.
Her sense of urgency notwithstanding, the loveliness of the grounds tugged at her, tempting her to linger. She no longer thought of herself as a Toreador. She’d long ago grown beyond such categorizations to become a singular entity. But she’d been reborn into undeath a Toreador, and her identity was still defined by the bloodline’s fascination with art and beauty.
Shaking off the bewitching spell of the verdure, she walked toward the darkened mansion standing at the center of the grounds. A horned owl, a fellow night hunter, swooped over her head. Then three snarling hounds slunk out of the shadows.
She smiled at them and spread her arms. I love you, she thought, and I want you to love me too.
The animals stopped growling. One of them whined, as if ashamed of its truculent behavior. Their tails began to wag. She knelt and they ran to her, nuzzling, licking, lolling on their backs so she could tickle their stomachs. Their wet tongues laved her skin. She gave them all a good petting, crooning “Good boy,” “What a pretty dog,” and similar comments. For a moment, she felt a pang of nostalgia for her mortal childhood in Athens, when she’d romped with her father’s hunting hounds.
After a minute she clambered to her feet. “Go away,” she said, making shooing motions with her hands. “You’re good dogs, but I can’t take you in the house with me.” The adoring canines permitted her to depart alone, but watched her mournfully as she walked away.
Nearing the house, she saw that it was a hideously botched attempt at a grand home in the neoclassical style, with an incongruous string of leering gargoyles running along the roof line. Obviously her unwitting host had been more fortunate in his landscaper than in his architect.
She climbed the circular steps to the twin-paneled front door. Instead of a keyhole, it had a keypad mounted on the jamb. She laid her hand lightly on the buttons. After a moment, the numbers eight, four and three came into her mind. She punched in the combination and the door clicked softly open.
She stepped into the vestibule. The smells of furniture polish, pipe tobacco and dry white wine hung in the air. Above her, on the second floor, the hearts of four humans slowly thumped while their breath sighed in and out. By the sound of it the mortals were all fast asleep. Easy prey, but not for her. Vampires as ancient as she could only be nourished by the blood of their fellow undead.
Her intuition urged her toward the arch directly opposite the front door. She stepped through it into the house’s central hall, then gasped with delight.
A treasure trove of paintings hung along the walls. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the owner of the house had assembled his collection, or to the manner in which he’d chosen to display it. An early self-portrait by Picasso hung beside a gorgeously illuminated page from a medieval Bible, which in turn bordered a voluptuous nude by Rubens. But the disorder, the jarring clash of cultures and periods, didn’t matter in the least, because every piece was magnificent. The vampire could have lost herself in any one of them for hours.
And they were safe. Intact. Perhaps the dream that had roused her from her year-long trance had been only a nightmare. Perhaps the masterpiece for which she feared was safe as well. Except for the warning embodied in her vision, she could think of no reason why it shouldn’t be.
Encouraged, she paced on into what in the eighteenth century would have been the withdrawing room. Here it was an extension of the householder’s art gallery; he’d eliminated the windows in the bowed back wall to provide more hanging space. The pictures here, a Wyeth and a Mondrian among them, were as exquisite as the ones in the central room. All except one: a portrait of an Elizabethan lady. The lady’s shoulders, eggshell-colored ruff, long white neck and dark brown hair w’ere as the vampire remembered them, but her face was only a muddy blur.
Aghast, moving as fast as a cheetah, the vampire rushed to the painting. A sharp, astringent smell stung her nostrils. Someone had employed a solvent to scour away the pigment of the Elizabethan lady’s features, destroying the portrait beyond any hope of restoration.
The vampire lifted the picture gently off the wall. Holding it to her bosom as if it were her dead child, she dropped to her knees on the polished oak floor and rocked slowly back and forth.
John Kincaid had painted this portrait: grinning, mercurial John. She’d never even spoken to him — by Elizabeth’s time, she’d already withdrawn from both mortal and undead society — but she’d been fond of him nonetheless, ensuring that he found generous patrons, savoring his triumphs and endearing quirks as one might the antics of a character in a play. And, of course, marvelling at the passion and technical proficiency of his art on those rare occasions when he could be lured away from his amusements and his myriad lovers long enough to paint. She’d intended to arrange for his induction into the ranks of the Toreador, but he’d perished, knifed in a senseless tavern brawl, before she’d gotten around to it.
He’d left only a handful of canvases behind, and now one of the finest was lost forever. Anguished and outraged, keening softly, the vampire wept tears of blood.
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
— Mother Teresa
Dan Murdock was trolling one of the beach bars, a crowded, raucous place decorated with circus photos and memorabilia, when he spotted the other vampire.
One moment, everything was fine. Pretending to sip a Heineken, he was jammed in with the youthful, sun-bronzed mortals watching the limbo contest. The blood thirst beginning to burn in his throat, he was peering about, looking for a drunken girl to seduce. Drunks were easier. He didn’t have to be particularly charming to convince them. His tall, athletic build, arresting gray eyes, shock of blond hair and what one would-be lover had called his “cruel, chiseled good looks” generally did the trick all by themselves. Even more importantly, the drunks rarely understood or remembered what he’d done to them. And he liked the buzz their alcohol-laced vitae gave him.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck had stood on end. Turning, he had spied the other undead standing across the room, between the door and a calliope, glaring at him. He’d seen her around town before, though he didn’t know her name. She was a big-boned, butch-looking woman as tall as he was, with short, dark hair cut in bangs, and a pug nose. She had a sloppily hand-rolled cigarette smoldering in the corner of her mouth and was dressed in a stained Tampa Bay Lightning sweatshirt, denim walking shorts and flip-flops. Judging from her homeliness and lack of any vestige of sartorial elegance or style, Dan surmised that she wasn’t one of the Toreador who comprised the majority of Sarasota’s vampire population, but rather a Kindred of some other bloodline.
She arrogantly jerked her head, summoning him outside. He supposed that she wanted to tell him to keep away from prime hunting ranges like the strip of bars opposite the public beach, which “Prince” Roger’s subjects wished to reserve for their own use. Some of her peers had tried to deliver the same message on previous occasions.
He mouthed the words, “Fuck you,” and began to turn away.
The female vampire stared at him even more intently. Without meaning to, he took a shuffling step toward her, jostling a young man’s elbow, sloshing beer over the rim of his stein. On the dance floor, the MC lowered the limbo bar another notch. Reggae music tinkled from the speakers set around the concrete-block walls.
Despite his thirty years of vampiric existence, Dan still considered himself woefully ignorant of the world of the undead. Clanless, transformed and summarily abandoned by his anonymous sire, he hadn’t had anyone to teach him about it; what little he had learned he’d discovered through observation and experiment. But he knew enough to recognize that the woman by the door was mesmerizing him. Exerting every iota of his willpower, he managed to wrench his head to the side, breaking eye contact. His rebellious feet stopped trudging forward.
Hoping that he’d shaken her confidence sufficiently to convince her to leave him alone, he turned away and moved toward the chiming, chirping pinball machines and the pool tables at the rear of the bar. After a moment, he glanced stealthily back and then scowled in annoyance. The woman was pushing through the crowd. Coming after him.
He turned and waited for her, trying to look tough and forbidding without quite reestablishing eye contact. Perhaps because of the crowding in the bar, she wound up standing just inches away from him. They could have put their arms around one another and waltzed.
“I gave you an order, Caitiff,” she told him.
“I don’t take orders,” he replied. “If you’re smart, you’ll go hassle somebody else,”
“I guess I’m not smart,” she said, sneering. Something hard pressed against his navel.
He looked down. She was holding a snub-nosed revolver against his belly. All around them mortals drank and chattered, joked and flirted, oblivious to the battle of wills being waged in their midst.
Dan was puzzled. Though he’d had his share of altercations with Prince Roger’s flunkies, they didn’t defend their “domain” from outsiders nearly as zealously as other vampires he’d encountered; that, together with the fact that he’d been born in the area, was why he’d settled here. In fact, none of them had ever pulled a gun on him before, even when he’d provided considerably greater provocation. “Would you really shoot me in the middle of this mob?” he asked calmly.
“Believe it,” she replied. “I could be gone before any of the kine realized what happened. And even if they did notice, they couldn’t stop me. Now, are you coming, or what?”
“I’m thinking it over,” he said. It was almost inconceivable that a bullet in the guts would kill him. He was even more resistant to harm than the average vampire; that, and prodigious strength, were the powers his unknown creator had passed on to him. But the wound would be painful and inconvenient — too high a price to pay for the pleasure he’d derive from frustrating his would-be abductor’s desires. Besides, he was curious to discover what she wanted. “Oh, hell, why not?”
She edged around him and jabbed the revolver into the small of his back. Setting his green beer bottle on a table, he led her toward the door, past a tiny yellow clown car and a plastic statue of a rearing elephant, twisting and sidestepping as he worked his way through the crowd. He realized that it would be child’s play to interpose one of the mortals suddenly between himself and the gun, thus frustrating her rather pitiful attempt to coerce him. But then he wouldn’t find out what was going on.
They emerged from the stuffy, smoky atmosphere of the bar into the cool, sea-scented air. To the south, over the black waters of the Gulf, lightning flickered. “Let’s take a walk on the beach,” the female vampire said.
They crossed the street and the largely empty parking lot on the other side, then walked onto the soft white sand. The waves murmured. A few other people, mere shadows in the dark, were strolling on the shore, while a handful of anglers fished off the concrete pier.
In a minute Dan and the woman were well away from the lights shining in the parking area. He stopped walking and turned to face her. “I assume this is isolated enough for you,” he said.
“It’ll do,” she replied grimly.
“Then tell me what you want. If it’s a sex thing, 1 have to warn you, beefy, ugly women aren’t my type.” The remark was a joke, if not a very witty one. Vampires had no more sex drive than any other dead thing. When they were transformed, the desire to make love warped into the insatiable craving for blood. It was one of the many aspects of his condition that he didn’t like.
“I want to know what you were doing last night, and three nights before that.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What a weird question. I wasn’t thirsty” — his stomach churned, reminding him that he was now — “and didn’t need to go out, so I stayed in, playing a computer game and slogging my way through The Complete Works of Dickens. Why?”
She ignored his question. “Was anyone with you?” “Yes,” he said sarcastically, “my hundreds of Kindred buddies. No, no one was there. And now, if you want any more answers, you’re going to have to tell me what this is all about.”
She lifted the little revolver, reminding him of its existence. Moonlight rippled down the barrel. “You aren’t in any position to make demands.”
“Because of that popgun?” He snorted in derision.
She stared at him. After a moment, he sensed that she was trying to take control of him again, but this time the magic didn’t work at all.
Abruptly feeling bored with the situation, perhaps even a little sorry for this woman who wanted so badly to be tough and wasn’t especially good at it, he said, “Can’t we just talk like a couple of reasonable people? What will it hurt? If you’ll fill me in on what’s bothering you, maybe I can even help you.” He smiled sardonically. Right, help the prince’s people, who shunned him. They’d certainly given him a lot of incentive to do that!
The woman grimaced. “All right. We — the clans — need to get to the bottom of these murders. I saw you in the bar and decided to see if you knew anything about them.”
He held up his hand. “Whoa. You lost me. What murders?”
She blinked in surprise. “The triple murder at the aquarium, and then the double one on Siesta Key. You must have heard about them on the news.”
He shrugged. “Afraid not. I don’t pay much attention to the news.” Why should he? The stories were about the living, not creatures like himself; although, come to think of it, tidings about the doings of other undead wouldn’t have been all that relevant to his solitary existence either.
“Well, the killings were... strange/’ she said, “for all kinds or reasons. The police obviously don’t understand how the murderer could have done the things he did and gotten away clean. And each of the victims had twin puncture wounds in the jugular vein or the carotid artery.”
Dan frowned. “Like the bite of a vampire.” A careless vampire, or one unconcerned with secrecy, to be precise. Ordinarily Kindred licked the wounds they had inflicted when they finished drinking, which caused the fang marks to close instantly. “And you’re worried that whoever it is will give away the Masquerade.”
“You got it,” she said. A pickup truck, its radio blaring a satanic anthem by Cannibal Corpse, its cargo bay full of whooping teenage boys waving beer bottles, hurtled down the street separating the beach and the bars.
“Not entirely,” Dan said dryly. “What made you think I might be involved? You know I’ve been living quietly in this town for years now, hunting about as discreetly as anybody else.”
“But there’s something different about you,” she said contemptuously, “something cold and nasty. People say you’re crazy, maybe crazy enough to unmask us to the kine without caring that you’re jeopardizing your own safety as well.”
Dan had heard this kind of disparagement of his character, or at any rate his demeanor, before, but had never had any idea what the Kindred who offered it were talking about. Probably nothing real. Generally speaking, vampires were no less self-righteous and self-deluded than humans, and perhaps it was only to be expected that they rationalized their snobbery by convincing themselves that he was some sort of freak. “Well, whatever you think of me, my mother loved me,” he said ironically. “And you’re barking up the wrong tree, so why don’t we break this off. I don’t want to delay your little manhunt.” He began to turn away.
“Hold it!” she barked.
Sighing, he pivoted back to face her. “What now?” he demanded.
“You admitted that no one can vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the killings,” she said.
“And you,” he replied, “have pretty much admitted that you don’t have a shred of evidence to implicate me. You just suspect me because I’m not one of your sissy prince’s snotty little bunch of ass-kissers.”
To his surprise, she snarled like an angry dog, her lengthening fangs gleaming even in the darkness. His intuition told him that, for some reason, his slighting reference to her leader had really gotten under her skin. “I don’t need evidence,” she said, articulating the words with difficulty. “All Kindred in a prince’s domain exist there at his sufferance and are subject to his commands. And in his name, I order you to accompany me to his haven for further questioning. Maybe I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth, but the psychics will be able to.”
For the first time since sighting the other vampire, Dan felt a pang of genuine anxiety. If his would-be captor actually meant to drag him off to the vampire equivalent of the slam, this nonsensical situation was more serious than he’d thought. Granted the prince and many of his followers were Toreador, a clan widely considered to have a softer disposition than the others, but Dan was still unwilling to trust them to treat him with justice or compassion. Every vampire, even the most seemingly human, occasionally fell under the sway of the Beast lurking inside.
Indeed, Dan felt his own Beast awakening even now, roused by the female vampire’s obdurate hostility. His own fangs lengthened, indenting his lower lip. His fists closed and his knees flexed to hurl him at his captor.
He’d hoped to take her by surprise, but she sensed his hostile intentions. Her revolver blazed, and searing pain stabbed into his gut.
Grunting, he lunged at her and threw a punch at her jaw. She hopped frantically backward, and the blow missed. Her gun barked, sending its next bullet into his right forearm, shattering the bone. The limb flopped down to dangle uselessly at his side.
Focusing beyond the agony of his wounds, Dan sprang at the female vampire again. This time she shot him in the forehead.
The head wound didn’t inflict any more pain, but he instantly acquired double vision and his body began to shake. Hoping that neither problem would ruin his aim, he pivoted, lashing out with a low roundhouse kick. His foot crunched into her knee, snapping bone, tearing her leg out from underneath her. She fell on her back and he dove down at her.
Her revolver fired once more while he was in flight. It seemed impossible that the shot could miss at point-blank range, but he didn’t feel it hit him. Perhaps his other pains masked the shock of impact.
He slammed down on top of her and, using his uninjured arm, grabbed the wrist of her shooting hand, squeezing and wrenching, trying to make her drop the gun. She clawed and snapped at him like a rabid animal. Thrashing, locked together, they rolled across the ground, his blood staining the pale sand black.
He felt the bones in her wrist begin to give. He gave her arm a final violent jerk and they shattered. A jagged splinter of bone lanced through her skin and scraped the palm of his hand. She cried out, her fingers spasmed, and the revolver tumbled out of her grip.
The fury in her face gave way to astonishment, as if she were amazed that, even with a bullet in his head, he was stronger than she was. Abruptly releasing her broken wrist, he began to batter her face.
The female vampire jerked both arms, injured and sound, up in front of her features, trying to deflect his hammering fist, but her efforts were to no avail. His blows smashed through her guard as if her limbs were made of paper, flattening her nose, snapping her fangs and pounding her skull out of shape. Finally she shuddered like a mortal in her death throes and passed out.
Still trembling himself, Dan crouched over her. The thirst he’d been experiencing even before she had accosted him burned like a bonfire in his throat, intensified by both his anger and the massive blood loss from his system. He wanted to sink his fangs into the unconscious vampire’s throat more than he’d ever yearned for food, drink, or sex when he still breathed.
But, much as he generally tried to pretend to himself that he was inured to his lonely existence, deep down he knew it wasn’t so. He still yearned for the acceptance of his fellow undead. If he began breaking their most sacred laws, he wasn’t likely to win it.
The memories of countless insults and rebuffs rose in his mind, and he wondered who he was kidding. His fellow Kindred would never accept him in any case. For whatever reason, they’d always loathed him, and no doubt they always would. And perhaps it was time to start avenging the mistreatment he’d suffered at their hands.
Making himself move slowly, savoring the moment, he lowered his head toward the female vampire’s throat. A bullet fell out of his breast as his regenerating flesh ejected it. Just as his fangs pricked his victim’s skin, a lovely contralto voice behind him said, “Wait.”
If I am a great man, then a good many of the great men of history are frauds.
—- Bonar Law
By the time he reached the top of the wide oak stairs, Elliott knew there hadn’t been any improvement in Roger’s condition. The Toreador prince’s voice echoed hoarsely through his four-story beachfront Victorian house, ranting threats, accusations of treason, and obscenities. Nevertheless, cringing at the prospect, the younger vampire felt honor-bound to look in on his sire.
Straightening his green silk tie, Elliott paced down the softly lit, luxuriously carpeted hallway. Baroque paintings depicting the world of the undead — macabre masterpieces unknown to the art historians of the mortal world — hung along the walls. For a moment one of the pictures glimpsed from the corner of his eye, a depiction of a pretty young vampire spying on her own funeral, tugged at him in the old familiar way. But even as he turned to gaze at it, his sense of incipient rapture died unborn.
Sighing, he moved on and tapped on the door to Roger’s bedroom. His knock triggered a renewed outburst of his sire’s cursing. Simultaneously, a solemn baritone voice said, “Come in.”
Elliott entered the chamber. Roger lay, not in his ornate canopy bed, but on the hospital gurney his subjects had procured the night he’d fallen ill. Leather restraints bounds his arms and legs to the steel rails to keep him from hurting himself or someone else. Even those hadn’t prevented him from gnawing his lips bloody. The scent of the vitae tinged the air.
Lazio perched miserably on a Queen Anne chair in the corner, looking as if he’d aged ten years. A tall, black, shaven-headed vampire with a square, oversized head and narrow maroon eyes, his skin as dark as it had been in life but with an underlying grayness, stood beside the ailing prince’s resting place. Several gold studs gleamed in his left ear, in striking contrast to his conservative attire. The front of his three-piece pinstriped suit was stained with blood. Roger had probably spat it at him.
Seeing the Kindred, Elliott felt a faint stirring of hope: the man was Lionel Potter, come at last. When mortal, Potter had been a brilliant physician; in the century since his induction into the ranks of the undead, he’d become the closest thing there was to an expert on vampiric physiology and disease. Thanks to his invaluable knowledge, skills and discretion, he’d transcended his humble Caitiff origins to become one of the most respected young Cainites in the Camarilla.
Elliott gave Roger a respectful, affectionate smile. “Good evening,” he said. “How do you feel?”
Roger’s lip curled. “Well, the leader of the rats, come to gloat. If you have a shred of courage or honor, you’ll let me up from here so we can settle our vendetta in a fair fight.”
Elliott’s head swam. For a moment he felt a burst at rage at his sire for impugning his bravery, and yearned to give the older vampire the duel he was demanding. Stepping forward, he reached to unfasten the restraints. Then his mind cleared, and he realized that Roger was using his charismatic powers to manipulate him. Feeling foolish, Elliott lowered his hand, and the prince of Sarasota burst into peals of mocking laughter.
Elliott turned to Potter. “Thank you for coming,” the one-time actor said. “I’m Elliott Sinclair. We met in Paris two years ago.”
“Of course,” the physician said with a cursory smile, “at the party in the Louvre. I remember.”
“How is the prince?” Elliott asked.
Potter frowned. “Let’s talk outside.”
“That’s right, get out of my sight!” Roger raved. “Plot against me behind my back! It doesn’t matter — I’ll get free and kill you all!”
His heart heavy, Elliott escorted Potter out of the room and down the painting-lined corridor far enough that, if they spoke softly, even Roger’s hypersensitive hearing shouldn't be able to eavesdrop on their conversation. Lazio trailed along behind them. Potter stared at the dresser coldly for a moment, as if displeased that the human had followed them unbidden.
“All right,” said Elliott to Potter, “what’s wrong with him?”
“He’s paranoid, agitated, delusional, hostile, assaultive, and has a compulsion to engage in self-mutilatory behavior.” To Elliott’s annoyance, Potter’s sing-song delivery sounded as if he were reading from a psychiatric textbook, not describing a patient about whom he was supposed to be deeply concerned.
“Yes,” the Toreador said, “but why?”
“I don’t know,” the physician said, frowning. “It’s a pity I couldn’t have seen him closer to the onset of the illness.” “We called you the night he got sick!” Lazio exclaimed. Potter glared at Lazio. For an instant, Elliott was afraid that the vampire physician would strike the human down for what he manifestly considered an insolent outburst. The
Toreador had observed that Caitiff often lorded it over mortal servants in the most arrogant manner imaginable. Perhaps it was the clanless vampires’ way of compensating for feelings of inferiority.
Elliott reflexively lifted his hand to restrain his fellow undead. But Potter seemed to recall that he wasn’t standing in his own home, about to chastise one of his personal flunkies. Some of the fury fading from his eyes, he pivoted pointedly away from Lazio and back toward Elliott. “It’s true what they say,” he remarked. “You Toreador permit your slaves too many liberties.”
“Perhaps that is true of some Toreador,” Elliott said evenly, “but the ones in Sarasota don’t have slaves. Lazio here is the prince’s faithful friend, and as such did not, I’m sure, intend any offense to you. He’s just profoundly worried, like the rest of us.” He made his voice steely: “I might observe in passing that I too was disappointed at how long it took you to arrive.”
Potter frowned uneasily. He was prudent enough to understand the danger of offending Elliott, a respected and powerful clan elder. “I came as soon as I could,” the doctor said. “I was treating another gravely ill patient in Venice. Surely you understand, I couldn’t just walk out on him.” “Of course,” said Elliott in a slightly more conciliatory tone. “Now, about the prince. We conjectured that he might have drunk tainted vitae.”
“It’s possible,” Potter admitted. “I won’t know for certain whether there are toxins or disease organisms in his blood until I run a battery of tests. But judging from his physical symptoms, or rather, lack of them, I very much doubt it. Has he been in a fight lately? Has he been bitten by another Kindred, perhaps, or a Lupine?”
Elliott didn’t think so, but he glanced enquiringly at Lazio, who, as Roger’s valet, knew the prince’s movements and activities even better than himself. Wisely reluctant to speak and risk provoking Potter anew, Lazio simply shook
his head.
“No and no,” Elliott said to the physician. “Roger’s subjects all love him, and we don’t even have werewolves hereabouts, although I hear there’s a pack in Tampa.” In fact, thanks to Roger’s skill as a ruler and diplomat, Sarasota had been at peace for decades, an oasis of calm in a savage, conspiracy-ridden world.
“Well,” said Potter glumly, “that would seem to rule certain possibilities out. In all candor, you ought to prepare yourselves for the possibility that his condition doesn’t have a physiological basis, in which case there will be little I can do.”
Lazio shook his head, mutely denying that what Potter had said could be true.
“I’m not following you,” Elliott said. “When someone is ill, there must be a reason for it.”
“But the cause could be psychological,” Potter replied, “or spiritual. You know as well as I do, it’s a traumatic thing to be one of the Kindred. One struggles constantly to hold the Beast in check. Sometimes it slips its reins anyway, and then the vampire must cope with the guilt its subsequent atrocities inspire. And at the same time he must deal with all the negative aspects of immortality. Boredom. Watching everything and everyone you love pass away.”
You don’t know the half of it, Elliott thought, remembering Mary’s severed head and mangled body. A pang of anguish wrang his heart, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
“Many Kindred can’t handle the strain,” Potter droned on, oblivious to Elliott’s distress. “They go insane, like your prince, capitulating to the Beast and becoming sociopathic, or committing suicide. The pathology frequently manifests itself as they approach their thousandth year, and I understand that Prince Roger was born around the time of the First Crusade.”
The way Potter was talking, it sounded as if he’d already written off Roger. Lazio shot Elliott an imploring look.
The Toreador struggled to cast off the paralyzing pall of melancholy that had fallen over him. “I do know all that,” he said to Potter. “Your medical credentials notwithstanding, 1 daresay that at my age, I comprehend the vicissitudes of Kindred existence rather better than you. And 1 can assure you that if there was ever a man capable of transcending them, it’s Roger Phillips. I’ve never known an elder with so much humanitas, who adapted so readily to changes in the world around him, or who so rejoiced in each new night.” For a moment, as Elliott spoke, he felt a fierce surge of pride and affection for Roger, an emotion he hadn’t experienced for a long time. He had always been devoted to his sire, but he usually couldn’t experience the devotion except in an abstract and superficial way. His love for Roger lay buried, cold and inert, beneath his grief for Mary.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Potter. “But on the other hand, perhaps the prince is a private person, who up to now has been hiding his growing depression. In which case—” Remembering the manner in which he’d portrayed Henry V, that indomitable, commanding warrior-king, Elliott gave Potter an intimidating stare. “I think,” he said, “that it would be best to proceed on the assumption that there is a physical cause for Roger’s malady. You will remain here until you discover the cause and bring about his full recovery. Needless to say, your success will be well rewarded, just as — and here I’m speaking purely hypothetically, of course — your premature departure would earn you the enmity of every Kindred in this domain.”
Potter tried to match Elliott stare for stare, but after a moment he was forced to lower his eyes. “Of course,” he mumbled. “With your permission, I’d better get back to my patient.”
Elliott gave him a regal nod. Potter turned and strode back down the corridor.
Lazio sighed. His shoulders slumped as the tension went out of his body. “I had the same feeling you did,” the dresser
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said. “He wasn’t going to try to help Roger if he could get out of it.”
“Because he’s baffled,” said Elliott somberly. He felt the momentary passion that his clash of wills with Potter had engendered ebbing, and the accustomed deadness stealing back into his soul. “And it won’t do his reputation any good if he actually tries to cure Roger and fails.”
“If he doesn’t know what to do,” said Lazio, “maybe we should get somebody else.”
“There scarcely is anyone else,” Elliott replied. “And even if we could find another qualified doctor, the chances of him knowing any tricks that Potter doesn’t are remote. The problem is that, until very recently, nobody was even trying to use modern science to study vampire physiology. Now that they are, their efforts are hampered by the fact that the Kindred are supernatural entities, whose very existence violates natural law. The upshot is that even the most knowledgeable of us, like Potter, comprehends the disease process in vampires about as well as Galen understood the analogous phenomenon in his fellow humans.”
Lazio nodded, though Elliott could see that some of what he’d said had gone over the human’s head. But the aging valet understood the essential point: “You’re saying there isn’t any hope, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Elliott quickly, although that was precisely what he feared. “Potter has cured some Kindred. He saved Pierre Delacroix in Marseilles six years ago, when everyone else had given the old monster up for dead. And you know how resilient Roger is. He might shake off the madness all by himself. So promise me you won’t despair.”
Lazio nodded, encouraged either by Elliott’s arguments or by the unnatural force of personality which, the vampire now realized, he’d just exerted without even intending to. “I won’t,” the dresser said.
“Good man.” Elliott squeezed the mortal’s shoulder. “I’m going home. Call me if there are any developments.” He began to turn away.
“Wait!” Lazio cried. Elliott turned back around. “You can’t go! They need you downstairs!”
Like the residences of most monarchs, vampire or mortal, throughout history, Roger’s haven was more or less a public place, where affairs of state were conducted and some of his subjects could be found hanging about at any given hour of any night. At the moment Elliott could hear at least two dozen of them, babbling and pacing anxiously.
“Are the rest of the primogen here?” the actor asked. Lazio grimaced. “Yes.”
“Then you don’t need me,” Elliott said reasonably, striving to project the power of his charisma again.
But this time, for some reason, Lazio was scarcely affected. He gave his head a shake as if to clear it, then said, “We do! You haven’t listened to them. I have. They’re afraid, and they can’t agree on anything. But they’ll listen to you.” Elliott sighed. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” said the human, scowling stubbornly. “You’re the oldest, and the one Roger valued” — his mouth twisted — “values most.”
“Once,” said Elliott, “that may have been true, but I’m sure that if Roger were in his right mind he’d tell you that it isn’t anymore.”
“That’s bullshit!” Lazio said.
Elliott felt a flash of anger, a shameful, unaccustomed desire to strike the impudent, importunate human down. Instead, turning away, he said, “Watch this.”
Two paces farther down the hallway sat a small, round, cherrywood William Morris table and, atop it, a beautiful twelve-inch marble statue of a nude woman. Elliott recalled Roger telling him that the sculpture had been unearthed by archaeologists digging in Pompeii.
The gray-haired Toreador picked up the statue by its head, swung it into the air and slammed it down against the edge of the table. The blow splintered the wood and echoed down the corridor, but it didn’t break the stone figure. He had to smash it against its stand again before it shattered.
He set the base back down and then, dusting marble dust off his hands, turned back around. Lazio was goggling at him in horror. “Do you understand now?” the vampire asked, feeling vaguely ashamed. “No Toreador should be able to desecrate a beautiful work of art. But I can do it easily, because I’m broken inside. I can’t feel the things I used to feel, or care about the things I once cared about. Now do you understand why I’m unfit even to sit among the primogen?”
“No,” Lazio said. “You’re an actor, aren’t you? If you don’t feel confident and ready to lead, fake it! Snap the other Kindred out of their funk and get them organized. Don’t you think your wife would want you to?”
Elliott realized that she would indeed. He shrugged uncomfortably.
“Don’t you think you owe it to Roger to support him in his hour of need?” Lazio continued relentlessly. “Come to think of it, don’t you think you owe it to me? Or are you going to urge me to hang in here with the prince come hell or high water — using your damn powers on me too, I’ll bet
— and then run out on us yourself?”
Elliott held up his hand. “Enough!" he said, scowling. Then, to his surprise, the situation began to seem obscurely funny, and his frown quirked into a wry smile. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the Kindred are savage, amoral predators, utterly incapable of guilt?”
“Are you going to help?” Lazio persisted.
“You can’t push me into standing in for Roger,” said Elliott. “I’m truly not up to the job. I’d make a botch of it. But I will meet with the others now and try to help them pull themselves together. Will that satisfy you?”
“It’ll do for a start,” Lazio said.