"I was just sitting there with my pistol holstered," Mooncloud said, "when they yanked open the door and tossed a couple of Molotov cocktails inside." Equal portions of pain and disgust drew down her mouth and etched new lines in her face. "Never heard them coming."
"Neither did I," I mumbled. No one heard me over the crackling backdrop of the fire.
"By the time I had the fire extinguisher out, they'd thrown three or four more against the outside of the bus. At that point it was a lost cause: all I could do was grab essential items and abandon ship."
"You were lucky," Suki said.
"Yeah, I was lucky." Shimmering light from the burning bus bronzed the bitterness in Mooncloud's face. "I lost our transportation, our equipment, weapons, our medical supplies. I think I rebroke my leg getting out of that firetrap."
"You saved our database," Suki said, brushing off the laptop's carrying case, "and you could have been shot. You could have been killed."
"And richly deserved it," Mooncloud said. "I was careless. I was sloppy—"
"We all were." Lupé finished tying off the makeshift splint around the remains of the cast on Mooncloud's leg. "But this isn't like other retrievals. We've always hunted the newborns: inexperienced, confused, almost always alone. This time we're chasing someone who's had time to acclimate. And he's in the company of professionals. The people we're hunting are hunters themselves, so maybe we're luckier than we think."
"Lucky. . . ." Mooncloud bowed her head. "Neither Chris nor I are in any condition to travel. The blood supplies, the medical kit, and my other crutch are all burned up. So are Lupé's clothes. In a few hours the sun will be coming up. Suki, you and Chris won't have anyplace to hide, to sleep—"
"We're halfway between Somerset and New Lancaster," she said. "Enough time to reach either at a brisk walk and find some sort of shelter before dawn."
"But not for Chris," Lupé pointed out.
"Hey," I said, finally stirring a bit. "Maybe I've given up on a daytime lifestyle, but I don't think a few hours of sunshine are gonna smoke me."
"Maybe," Mooncloud said, "but we shouldn't take the chance."
"I'm no weenie," I grumbled.
"You're a delirious weenie," Lupé said. "Shut up and let the rational folk make the decisions."
"He's probably right, though," Mooncloud said. "He hasn't progressed much since we brought him in." She turned to me. "You could probably manage a fair amount of daytime, if you were wearing a good sunblock."
"Jeepers, I could start a new trend: vampires with tan lines." I realized I was babbling and shut up.
"Suki, you hit the road now and find a place to hole up for the day," Garou said. "I'll stay here and see that these two find some shade."
Mooncloud produced the cellular phone, the other item she'd managed to grab on the way out. "I called the Doman and he's sending a helicopter and cleanup crew. Trouble is, they won't be here before midmorning. We'll have to cross our fingers that the local constabulary doesn't show up first. A close examination of the fire scene could prove embarrassing."
A cache of ammo in the burning bus suddenly went off, punctuating her last words with random tracers of sizzling lead. I was already lying down; everyone else threw themselves flat.
"What about our allies from Chicago?" Suki asked once the snap, crackle, and pop became sounds of cooling metal.
"I've tried them repeatedly. They're either out of the car or the phone has been switched off. I'll keep trying, but we can't take any chances. Suki, you hit the road now and we'll meet you back here—mmm, better make that a mile south of here, as soon as you can make it after sunset."
"I'll meet you," Lupé amended. "Dr. Mooncloud and Mr. Csejthe are going to be airlifted out of here for medical treatment just as soon as the cavalry arrives."
Suki stood reluctantly. "I don't like leaving you."
"There's no other sensible choice," Mooncloud said. "Take cover and come back tonight."
"All right. Be careful!" She turned to go and took a couple of steps. "Wait. I don't know if this is important, but I noticed that all the vehicles belonging to our little Kansas cabal had Arkansas license plates."
Lupé whistled. "Bubba's a long ways from home."
"Perhaps it's a ruse," Mooncloud pondered as Suki jogged into the darkness, "using false plates to misdirect us. . . ."
"I don't think they're that clever," I said, remembering Rancher Cantrell's tale of midnight trespassers.
"What difference does it make?"
I turned toward Lupé. "It means we're now looking for a Chevy van with Arkansas plates."
"Why?" Mooncloud asked.
"And what are Satanists from Arkansas doing here?" Lupé pondered.
"Don't know what brought them here," I said, trying to lever myself up on one elbow, "but I think they're legit. This part of the country has a history of arcane events—spook lights and hauntings that predate even the white man's arrival here. Maybe they think it's a place of power, a nexus or focal point. . . ."
"Or maybe they just figure they're less likely to have their reputations ruined back home if they're caught out of state," Mooncloud mused.
"Whatever the reason, our quarry apparently ran into this traveling circus last night."
Lupé came over and eased me into a sitting position against a large rock. "Maybe somebody stuck a pitchfork in one of them," I continued. "Somehow, the New York group convinced these jokers that they were demons or minions of Satan, or some sort of folderol, and got some cooperation. First they swapped their limo for somebody's van. Then they told them to be on the lookout for us—promised some sort of reward for killing us. So while we were being oh-so-clever in sneaking up on them, they were already waiting for us."
Lupé's face was skeptical. "They told you all this?"
"They inferred as much."
"Inferred?"
I glared right back at her. "Inferred."
"Great! While they were at it, did they infer what happened to Luath?"
"What happened to Luath?"
"Um, I think," said Mooncloud, "that Lupé just asked that question."
"Hey," I said, "I don't know what happened to Luath. You're the only one who heard him tonight."
"Stop it!" Mooncloud hissed. "Stop it, the both of you!"
We both looked at her. The flicker of firelight made trenches out of the fresh lines in her face.
"We can't afford this. We already have enough problems, enough enemies, without turning on each other. Lupé, I'm surprised at you, baiting Chris when he's in shock."
"Actually, I was baiting him out of it," she said with a half smile. "Got his adrenaline pumping and I do believe he is more alert."
Mooncloud peered at me. "His color is a little better. But he still has a serious need for blood. And we also have to find him some shelter from the sun before it rises. Something better than tree shade, if possible."
"I'll see what I can do," Lupé said, crouching down on all fours. She metamorphosized into wolf form and loped off down the road.
"Strange girl," I murmured.
"She's had a very difficult life."
"I can imagine."
"You can't even begin to imagine," she snapped. "And you're complicating things for her."
"Hey, I didn't ask to be run through with a pitchfork! And it's not my fault the blood supplies got crisped!"
"That's not what I'm talking about!"
"Well, what are you talking about?"
Mooncloud stared at me. "You really don't know, do you?"
I stared back. "What?"
She sighed and settled back against the tree trunk. "Never mind."
"I hardly do, anymore." I lowered my head back to the ground and stared up through the tree branches at the night sky. The stars glistened like chips of crushed ice in the moon's absence. Glowing red embers swarmed in their midst like a host of demonic fireflies. The breeze began to freshen, sweeping the sparks away to the west, along with most of the heat from the smoldering wreckage. My undead flesh, lacking even its basal blood supply, felt the night breeze as a chill wind.
"You're not like other vampires, Chris," Mooncloud said quietly.
"Yeah, no fangs."
"I don't mean in that way. There's a coldness that sets in. . . ."
"I think I'm feeling it right now." I repressed a shiver.
"I don't mean temperature, either."
"Well, I imagine it takes a certain kind of mindset to hunt human beings for food."
She nodded. "That and, as I mentioned before, there are biochemical changes in the brain. I wonder if you'll eventually lose touch with your own humanity as the others have done, take on their arrogance. . . ."
"I don't need anybody else's arrogance; I brought my own, thank you." I thought back to the Doman, Suki, Damien, and Dr. Burton. "But, so far, everyone's been pretty friendly." Not counting New York's involvement. Or Lupé, of late.
"Perhaps you are mistaking curiosity and interest for warmth. Don't get me wrong, Chris; Pagelovitch is a good Doman. Fair, never unnecessarily cruel, and he looks after those he considers his own.
"But you have been treated particularly well because of your intrinsic value on the Underworld market: your condition may be the key that unlocks a number of secrets that have eluded the wampyr for centuries.
"It also is a matter of your transition. There is a caste system in which the rules of behavior are very strong and compelling. Mutual respect is de rigueur among vampires. But only among their own kind. To the Doman and the other vampires of his demesne, Lupé and I are valued servants, serfs—possessions even. We are not now nor ever can be 'equals.' Vampires are 'the Masters.' "
I remembered Bachman's words in my room just before I got my first swimming lesson as one of the newly undead.
"And it's worse for us than most of the others," she continued. "It's our job as part-time enforcers to go after other members of this Master Race. And put them down, if necessary. You see the problem?"
Yeah, it was starting to come into focus. Given the mindset, Mooncloud and Garou were the equivalent of a couple of uppity niggers to this cold-blooded "Massa" Race. "Is there anything I can do?"
"No. And don't try. You won't make anyone happy and you'll just get Lupé all the more confused. Was there any sign of Luath while you were out there?"
It took me a moment to mentally shift gears. "No. Why? Do you think Lupé is imagining things?"
"Maybe. But it's more likely that the cu sith wasn't fully banished."
"Fully what?"
"He may have only been pushed into an overlapping dimension. Maybe partially phased."
"Partially phased," I said.
"Right. In which case it might be possible that he's still around. In a phased sense, you understand."
"Me? Understand?"
"So it would still be possible to track our quarry as long as Lupé can hear him."
I was tired and cold and even more confused than I had been five minutes before, so I didn't waste my energy trying to point out that we had no weapons, no transportation, and no means of tracking the cu sith through the transponder anymore.
"Found something!" Lupé said, loping up out of the darkness. Unnerving enough that we didn't hear her returning, but it always gave me a turn when she spoke while still in wolf form.
"How far?" Mooncloud wanted to know.
"Not far. A short walk." Her muzzle swung over to consider me. "For a healthy man."
"How about if I crawl?" I asked.
"I'll help you." Lupé's shape shifted back along human lines as she came and leaned over me. "Can you sit up?"
I decided I needed proper motivation when I failed at my first attempt. Maybe I'd do better if someone placed a TV remote between my feet. . . .
She hoisted me to my feet on the second attempt and then had to hold onto me to keep me from falling over. "Friends don't let friends walk drunk," I chided.
"Tell the Doman," Lupé told Mooncloud over her shoulder, "that he owes me big time for this."
"Good luck," Taj called as we lurched off down the road.
It was worse than embarrassing, it was humiliating: not just in that I had all the stamina of Raggedy Andy on Percodan, but as lucidity came and went like a bungee jumper, I found myself draped over my human crutch in a variety of positions. Bad enough had she been wearing clothes, but under the present circumstances. . .
When she slapped my face to bring me around, I awoke thinking I had just been called on an "out of bounds" penalty. Slowly I discovered that I was lying down and sitting up at the same time. And that we seemed to be in a tunnel.
"We're in a dry culvert that runs under the road," she said, the corrugated metal tube echoing her words into a distorted booming sound. She put her hand to my forehead. "How do you feel?"
"Thanks for not saying 'we.' " My teeth were starting to chatter.
"You're not running a fever. You're cold. Is that good or bad?"
"Doesn't feel so good. But then again I'm feeling surprisingly well for a guy who got run through with a pitchfork."
She frowned. "Yes, and we have an account to settle on that matter." She reached out and began unfastening the buttons on my shirt. "But for now we'll do what we can about keeping you alive. Let's see if we can get you warmed up." My shirt, still damp but turning crusty with blood, came off, and she used it to sponge the area around my wounds. Then she pulled me against her and down to the ground.
Her skin was covered with short, downy hairs like peach fuzz, and the feel of her was like warm velvet. She wrapped her arms around me and slowly slid her hands up and down my back, trying to pull the chill out of my semidead flesh. The pain receded as I basked in the warmth that poured out of her like secret sunlight.
It wasn't long before I felt a familiar stirring. A hunger was awakening. Not now, I thought.
But I needed blood. And that need was inescapable.
Undeniable. . . .
Except, as the feeling grew in intensity, it didn't feel like the bloodlust that had become increasingly familiar of late. It was a different kind of hunger, of need.
"Is this helping?" she murmured, her face close to mine.
In response, I touched my lips to hers. She answered in kind. The kiss that followed was long, deep, and more satisfying than anything I could have imagined.
"This is a bad idea," she whispered, finally.
"I'm just full of bad ideas," I whispered back.
She snuggled against me. "Are you warm enough?"
"I'm getting there."
She sighed. "You still need blood."
"It will have to wait."
"You don't have to wait. I can give you some of mine."
I flinched: the thought of taking a little of her blood seemed even worse, now, than what Deirdre had seduced me into doing just days before.
"I can't," I said, falling back on the old standby. "Dr. Mooncloud insists that I have nothing but normal blood. It might contaminate her research—"
She shook her head. "I don't care about research. I care about keeping you alive."
"I don't want your blood."
"You'd drink Deirdre dry but refuse a single swallow from me?" She looked in my eyes and flinched. "I'm sorry. I know that wasn't your fault." Claws extended from her fingertips. "We can argue about this later." She drew a single claw across the inside of her hand. Blood began to gather in her cupped palm. "You've got to have something." She raised her hand to my lips. "Drink."
"If you take even one swallow," said a new voice, "then I shall be forced to kill you both!"
I looked over and, at the opening of the culvert, I saw a familiar face.
The face of Death.
I swooned.
"Chris, what happened? Are you all right?"
"Daddy, Daddy, what happened to your shirt?"
I look down and eventually realize that my shirt is half on, half off and soaked with a witch's brew of blood, water, and mud.
"What happened to him?"
"Don't rightly know, ma'am," the fire chief is telling my wife. "My guess is he got a lungful of smoke, staggered into the barn, and collapsed. We found him there and the paramedics have been looking him over.
"Hey, Jim!" He motions to one of the firemen who was holding a breathing mask over my face when I woke up.
"We gave him oxygen," Jim explains as the chief moves off to direct cleanup efforts, "but he's still pale and shocky. Take him straight to a doctor or the emergency room and have him looked at."
"What about that bandage on his arm?" Jenny wants to know.
"Well now, ma'am, I was about to ask you the same thing. That's not our handiwork; he had it on when we found him."
"Well, he didn't have it an hour ago." She looks at me.
"I—I don't remember," I say. It is something that I will say for the rest of her life.
"Will you help me get him into our van?" she asks the paramedic. "I'll take him straight to the nearest doctor."
"I can walk," I say. When I prove that I can, I'm even more surprised than they are.
"Daddy, are you going to go to the hospital?" Kirsten asks as her mother eases the van around in a slow, tight turn.
"No, honey, we're going to go straight home so I can rest."
Jennifer gives me the Look. "We are taking you to a doctor."
"Seriously, Jen; I am feeling better!" And I am. The farther away we get from the fire and the creepy old barn, the better (safer) I feel. "In fact, I'm ready to drive now."
"Don't be silly."
We are back on 103 now, and the town of Weir is just ahead. "Tell you what, though," I say, spotting an IGA Food Mart up ahead, "I could use a couple of Tylenol. Why don't we stop here? It'll only take a moment."
My wife is a woman completely devoid of guile. More surprising: after nine years of marriage, she still doesn't expect it from me. When she comes back out with the tiny sack, I am sitting behind the steering wheel with the driver's door locked. Kirsten laughs delightedly at Jennifer's scowl. "Daddy tricked you, Mommy! Now he gets to drive!"
"I don't think you're funny," she says, climbing into the passenger seat.
"Oh, lighten up, Jen," I say, pulling us back out onto 103. We head east.
"You're a macho pig just trying to prove how tough you are." The words are not devoid of affection as she says it.
"Not only that," I say, "but a penny-pinching tightwad who doesn't believe in wasting ninety bucks and another hour in a waiting room with two-year-old magazines just so a doctor can tell me to take some Tylenol and go home and lie down."
Outside the town limits, I bring the van up to fifty-five miles per hour and set the cruise control. "See?" I raise my knees to the steering wheel. "Nothing to do but steer. And I can do that with one hand. With one finger."
"My, my, aren't we feeling better?" She smirks, but there is genuine concern in my wife's eyes. I'll always remember those eyes, just that way. Wide, cornflower blue—they have a way of shining in a very special way when she looks (looked) at me. "Now, maybe you can tell me what happened to you back there in that barn?"
"Wh-what?" I feel an unexpected wave of dizziness.
"I hope that old man is going to be all right."
My heart lurches in my chest. "Old . . . man . . . ?"
"Can't you remember anything?"
Don't want to!
"The barn?" The periphery of my vision is clouding, growing dark. My foot dances for the brake, finds only the accelerator. A red tide washes over my thoughts.
"Slow down, Chris; we're coming up on the highway."
Can't see it! I'm groping in darkness for the cruise control release, for the brake. The steering wheel slips out of my hands.
And I remember—for just one moment—the horror that was waiting for me in the barn. A horror that I thought could not be surpassed and still survived.
And then I know that there are worse things than the horror in the barn.
They are unfolding even now as the sound of the tractor-trailer's airhorn drowns out Kirsten's screams. . . .
I remember, now.
And, with the memory, I opened my eyes and looked at his face.
It was an old face, ancient, in fact. But not infirm or beset by any of the weakness or dissolution that one associates with the aging process. It was a strong face, whole, unmarked by scars or wounds where the flesh had once been burned away from the bone.
It was the face that had looked out the rear window of a black and white, 1931 Duesenberg the night I arrived at the Doman's castle in Seattle. It was the face that looked down upon my death throes in the trunk of a limousine belonging to an assassination team from New York. It was the face that waited at the end of that dark culvert I had last found myself in that had spoken just before I passed out.
And it was the face that had surfaced from the bloody stew, locked away in my nightmare pit of forbidden dreams.
It spoke now.
It said: "Good evening, Mr. Csejthe." My name rolled oddly off of his tongue. "I trust you are feeling better?"
I wasn't feeling better. I was feeling stronger. There was a difference. It wasn't easy tearing my eyes away from his, but I felt the needle in my arm and I needed to look: five plastic packets of whole blood were suspended on a telescoping pole beside my bed. All were feeding directly into my arm.
My eyes returned to that ancient face, to the man standing at the foot of my bed. There was something in his eyes, in his bearing, in the all but visible aura that seemed to surround him that suggested this was a man used to meek subservience and unaccustomed to insolence.
"I've had Monday mornings that were worse," I answered for just that very reason.
He smiled. His lips were cruel—a phrase I'd never expected to encounter outside of a bad romance novel and yet no other description came close. His smile was not a particularly comforting expression.
"I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir." I was never one to be content with tugging on Superman's cape when I could spit into the wind, too.
His smile grew broader, revealing the sharpest set of canines I had seen on a vampire yet. "Forgive me, I have been unaccountably rude. I am," he said, executing a slight bow, "Vladimir Drakul Bassarab the Fifth."
"Count Dracula," I said.
He clicked his heels. "At your service."