I count backwards and dream of fire.
Then I wake up on ice . . . no. . . .
>What is it?
A table. Metal. Cold as ice.
I'm lying down and the metal surface is an efficient heat-sink that sucks all vestiges of warmth from my shoulders, back, buttocks, and legs.
I want to move, to seek warmth and yielding softness, but my body is cold and unresponsive. I am weak and tired and cold . . . so cold!
There are voices nearby. Overlaid by the high-pitched whine of . . . something. . . .
>What does it sound like?
Like a dentist's drill. Only not the same. . . .
>What do you see?
I force my eyes open and see . . . nothing. Dim whiteness. Something over my face. Damn, I'm cold!
>Do you know why you're cold?
Metal table. No clothes. Just a sheet. The sheet is over my face.
>Can you remove the sheet?
Cold: getting the shakes. Hands gripping the sides of the table. Can't seem to let go.
Hungry/Thirsty.
Stomach cramping.
Unh. Trying to sit up.
>Can you do it?
Yes.
>What do you see?
Nothing. Sheet still over my face. Hear better, though.
>What do you hear?
The whine has stopped. I hear the voices clearly, now.
>What are they saying?
The woman is saying: "Eddie, don't be afraid. They do that sometimes."
The man is saying: "What you mean they do that sometimes?" He sounds upset.
The woman says: "Sometimes a muscle contraction as rigor mortis sets in. Sometimes the differential in air pressure in the lungs: since the air is cooler in the morgue—"
I reach up and pull the sheet from my face. I turn my head and look at a black man wearing coveralls, leaning on a pushbroom. The black man says: "Shit, don't tell me they sometimes do that, too?"
He is talking to a white woman wearing a soiled green surgical smock. She is standing next to another metal table, holding a small, electric circular saw. She drops it and screams.
The man shakes his head and says: "Didn't think so."
The woman is stumbling around the other table, trying to get behind it. And . . . and. . .
>What? What is it?
Oh God! Oh Jesus! Oh please!
>What is it? What do you see?
Oh shit oh shit oh shi-it!
>Tell me what you see!
It's Jenny oh Jesus it's Jenny! And she's all torn up!
>Goddamn it! I should've seen this coming!
>Chris! Listen to me! I'm going to count to three! Do you hear me?
>Dammit! Suki, Lupé; help me hold him!
>Chris! I'm going to count to three and when I say three, you will wake up! You will be awake and calm and none of this will be anything but a dim memory! You will awake and feel nothing but calm and refreshed! Do you understand?
Where's Kirsten? Where is my baby? What did they do to my little girl?
>Chris! I'm counting now! One!
What is that? Get out of my way! I want to see—
>Two!
Oh Jesus! What did they dooooo—
>THREE—
I wiped at my eyes. Studied the moisture on my fingertips, the ache down deep inside. "So what happened?" I asked, breaking the strained silence in the examination room. "Did you get anything?"
Dr. Mooncloud shook her head. "I regressed you back to the hospital, a year ago. But it looks like we'll have to go back a little further to get what we need." Her expression was a study in nonchalance. "Sometimes hypnotism dislodges repressed memories after the session is over. Can you remember anything more, now?"
I tried. And for a moment there was . . . something.
Then it was gone again.
"I remember crossing the Oklahoma/Kansas border. I remember getting off U.S. 69 and going north on State 7. After that—waking up in the hospital."
Lupé Garou, ensconced in a wheelchair, maneuvered closer. "You remember waking up there?"
I shrugged. "I woke up a lot: I was in and out of consciousness for most of a week." I shook my head. "I'm told the first time I regained consciousness was downstairs in the morgue after mistakenly being pronounced DOA. Someone said I scared the bejezus out of the pathologist and a custodian." Garou, Mooncloud, and my tour guide of the previous night looked distinctly uncomfortable so I tried a smile. "Now that's something I wish I could remember. I'll bet there was a whole lot a' shakin' goin' on!"
Lupé turned away. The expressions on Mooncloud and Suki's faces suggested something uncomfortable. "What?" I asked.
"So," Mooncloud said, consulting her notes, "you were headed north on State 7."
I nodded. "I can remember thinking about stopping for lunch, but we had just passed Scammon."
"Scammon?"
I rubbed my eyes again. "Tiny little town, but they've got this wonderful restaurant called 'Josie's' . . . but I wasn't sure they were open that early in the day. . . ."
"So then you turned east on 103." She was looking at a map of Kansas recently torn from a road atlas and hastily taped to the wall.
I shrugged. "I must have, given that the accident report puts me at the other end. But I don't remember."
"You passed through Weir, Kansas."
"I don't know." An edge had crept into my voice at the mention of Weir. "I must have. But. I. Don't. Remember."
"The accident occurred at the other end of 103 where you were attempting to rejoin US 69 North."
"Yeah. Yeah. That's what the cops told me." I hopped down from the examination table. "But other than what everyone else has said about where I must have been and what I must have done, I remember nothing! Nada! Zilch! Zero! End of report!" I walked up to Dr. Mooncloud, trying to arrange my face into an intimidating glower. "Are we done here?"
She sighed. "So much for feeling calm and refreshed."
"What?"
She snapped the cover down on her clipboard. "Go. But I want you back here in two hours."
"Fine." I stalked out.
Lupé caught up with me at the elevator. "So, where are you going now?"
"Nowhere. Fast."
"My, what a temper we have today." The sarcasm sounded forced.
"You're one to talk."
She grinned unexpectedly. "Speaking of temper, I hear you pulled the Doman's tail last night."
I looked at her. "He has a tail?"
"Figure of speech, Csejthe." The smile transformed her. While her features would never win beauty contests, there was something appealing in the clean, bold lines and planes of her face. "So what's your problem?"
I glared at her, more in annoyance, now, than genuine anger. "If I have to explain it to you—"
"Yeah, yeah; life's a bitch and then you die," she said. "Only you didn't die. Not permanently, anyways, so you got no kick there. No way you could go on living the way you were, so count yourself lucky we rescued your sorry butt from the New York fangs. Now you're here and, as one of the Masters, your life will be gravy. Relax, enjoy; you're at the top of the food chain, now."
"Maybe I don't like having my decisions made for me," I groused. "Maybe I prefer my guest invitations to include voluntary RSVPs. Maybe I want to live my life—or my unlife—free."
The smile turned rueful. "No one really lives free, Csejthe."
"Okay," I said, fighting my own urge to smile, "cheap. I want to live cheap."
"Well, I hope you do not plan any foolishness such as running away. I've retrieved you once. I do not wish to be sent out to hunt your sorry ass again."
"You and me both, Buttercup."
The elevator arrived and we got on. I gave Hinzelmann my floor and the lift started up. Lupé cleared her throat. "I'm headed back to my room to change. Then, down to the pool. Physical therapy." Her smile was fainter this time. "Want to come down and help me into the water?"
I didn't know what had nudged her into the defrost cycle, but I'd be a fool to pass up a potential ally. And any distraction was better than going down to the bar and ogling the dancers again. I nodded: "I'll meet you there in, say, twenty minutes?"
"It's a date."
Now there was an unnerving turn of phrase, I mused, exiting the elevator. I headed down the corridor and turned toward my quarters. Even more unnerving was the sight of Elizabeth Bachman tapping at my door as I rounded the corner.
"Oh, there you are!"
"Here I am," I agreed as she moved aside so I could open the door.
"May I come in?"
"Well, I'm just ducking in to change and then I have to meet someone."
"I won't get in your way. I promise."
Damn straight, I thought, holding the door as she entered. "Make yourself comfortable." I closed the outer door and headed for the bedroom.
"Who are you meeting?" she called from the living room as I rummaged through my dresser for a pair of swimming trunks.
"Ms. Garou." The Doman had been generous in providing for my sartorial needs: I was having to practically burrow through drawers filled with clothing.
"Why?"
The question irritated me. Pushy women irritated me. Of course, everything seemed to be irritating me these days. "We're having an affair."
She seemed to take the jibe seriously. "That's not funny."
"Oh? And why not?" I heard a sound behind me and whirled around. There was a cat lying in the middle of my bed, watching me with wide golden eyes.
"It's unnatural. Do you need any help back there?"
"Not yet," I called back. Now what in the hell would Bachman consider unnatural? Monogamy? The missionary position? "What's unnatural?" I stared back at the cat.
"She's a wolf." Bachman's voice indicated her logic was inescapable.
Except it escaped me for the moment. "And?" The cat was a sable brown shorthair. Burmese, most likely. Except that it had two tails. Non-standard in the Burmese breed. Or any other, for that matter.
"We are the Masters, darling. We command the other creatures of the night. The bat, the rat, the wolf—they are our servants."
Apparently immortality did not guarantee the long perspective on prejudice. "So, is this bigotry based on class distinctions or racial purity?" I walked over to the bed and scratched the cat behind the ears. It purred.
Bachman didn't. "You have much to learn, my dear."
"No doubt we all have." I went to the closet and started through the folded stacks of clothing on the upper shelves.
"I'm sorry, I didn't come here to fight with you," she called in a milder tone of voice.
Yeah? And just what did you come here for? No swimming trunks. I went back to the drawer that held several pairs of shorts to look for a substitute.
"I just want to help you assimilate into our world. And we do need to talk about your occupational situation. . . ."
Ah, yes. How had she put it the night before? My position. . . . I selected a likely looking pair of shorts and dropped my pants.
"Oh," she said. "Let me help you!"
I looked up to see her standing in the bedroom doorway. "If you really want to help," I growled, "you can go find me some swimming trunks."
"Swimming—?" This made two times I'd put her off balance in as many minutes.
"I'm going down to the pool and get a little exercise." I stepped into the shorts and tried to pull them up like I wasn't in a frantic hurry.
Her hand came up to her mouth and her eyes narrowed. Then the cat merrowed on the bed behind me and Bachman's eyes shifted, widened, and narrowed again.
"My," she said with a new tone of civility, "what a lovely pussy you have on your bed." She backed through the doorway. "I really must be going. I wouldn't want to make you late for your . . . swim."
And with that, she was gone.
I turned and looked back at the cat. It stretched languidly then lay back down and began licking a forepaw.
Before I left, I rummaged through my newly stocked kitchenette and rewarded it with a saucer of milk.
The pool area was several stories below the street level of Seattle and divided into several pools of varying sizes, including three hot tubs set into the stone floor.
One of the whirlpools was occupied by the drop-dead gorgeous redhead that had sat at the Doman's table with Damien. Strangely, Damien was there with her but, instead of sharing the bubbling hot tub with her, he wore a jogging suit and sat in a deck chair just next to it so they could still be together without actually—well—being together.
I discreetly nodded in their direction. "What's that all about?"
Lupé looked over and smiled a wistful smile. "They're in love." That wasn't what I was asking but she changed the subject as I wheeled her past the deep end of the largest pool. "Tomorrow I'll be out of this thing and walking with a cane."
"Seems a little soon."
She shook her head. "Oh no, not for a lycanthrope. We heal very quickly. And that's certainly handy in both of my professions."
"And what professions are those?"
"Well, the movies, for one. I do freelance stunt work down in Hollywood and on location shoots."
"Really?"
"I've had the training. I'm agile and athletic. And, more importantly, if something goes wrong, I can survive gags that would kill any other normal human being."
"Gags?"
"Industry slang: stunts or special effects involving stunt doubles for the actors."
"Logical. Since you know you've got a better chance of surviving, does it ever make you careless?"
"No. It still hurts if you screw up. And you have to be even more careful lest the hospital X-rays you with a broken neck and then you're up and walking around in a few days. I actually find that, since I know my survival is practically assured under most circumstances, I'm less likely to clutch or suffer a mistiming out of fear."
We reached the shallow end and I set the wheelbrake on her chair.
"And your other job?" I asked as we undid the sashes on our robes.
"Long-range retrieval and enforcement for the Seattle demesne."
She shrugged off her robe and I tried not to stare. Her suit was a white one-piece that contrasted nicely with her dark skin. Although her figure lacked the architectural extremes that the Doman's dancers had displayed the previous night, she had a lean, muscled physique that seemed every bit as distracting.
"Which is a euphemism for what?" My voice hardly squeaked at all.
"Finding people like you and bringing them in." She unlatched the right arm support on her wheelchair and swung it down and out of the way.
"I thought half the uproar was because there are no people like me."
She held up her arms. "I'm beginning to think so, too."
I let that one pass as I bent down and lifted her out of the chair.
This time there was no car crash, no pumping adrenaline, no gathering crowd to distract me: even with augmented strength, I could tell that Lupé wasn't light. In fact, she was darned heavy for a woman her size. Not that there was anything wrong with her size: I stand six-feet-two in my stocking feet and I've always preferred tall, long-limbed women. Jenny had been the only exception—
"What's wrong?"
I blinked. "What?"
"Am I too heavy? You suddenly looked very unhappy."
"Not unhappy," I lied, "just thoughtful."
"About what?" One brown arm remained around my neck, the other hand turned my face to look at her. "I am too heavy, aren't I? That's what you're thinking about."
"Not too heavy," I said, shrugging my shoulders and rehefting her in my arms. "It's just been a while since I held anyone like this."
"Oh. Oh, I see." Her eyes said that she did, indeed, see. "Well, there's no need for you to pretend chivalrously: I am heavier than I look. There's a reason for it."
"Muscle tissue is denser than body fat," I said. "A woman in your shape should weigh more—" I suddenly realized that I was just standing there, holding her in my arms, and making no move toward the pool.
Was it happening again? I was aware of an odd discomfort at her nearness, a physiological response that seemed to be building as I held her in my arms. . . .
But it wasn't quite the same as my reaction to the dancers the night before.
"Nice try, but it's more than a matter of muscle to body fat ratios," she said.
"Okay, I give. What's your secret?"
"Taj says it has something to do with the shapeshifting/mass paradox."
I forced my legs to move and took her over to the shallow end of the pool. "Ah, of course it does." I dipped my toe in the water. It felt warm.
"Yeah? Well, we don't understand it as well as you pretend to. Vampires and lycanthropes present opposite ends of the same problem: neither group tends to weigh what their body mass would indicate. Weres tend to be heavier than the norm for their size, whether in human or animal form. And our mass seems to shift along with our change in form: we lose it and then regain it inexplicably. Our resident physicist is going nuts trying to figure out how it can be possible without negating half a dozen laws of reality."
A series of half-circle steps descended into the pool and I began wading down into the water. "I take it that vampires tend to weigh less than a human their size should?" She nodded. "And what about mass when they turn into bats?"
She snorted. "Oh, you've been watching too many horror movies. Vampires can't turn into bats!"
"They can't?"
She shook her head.
"Huge, batlike creatures, then?"
She shook her head again.
"Wolves?"
"Nope."
"Mist?"
"Look at me," she warbled, "I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree. . . ."
Errol Garner was probably spinning in his grave. "No mist, huh?"
"Huh-uh."
"Well, dammit, what can I turn into?"
"You could always walk around the corner and turn into a convenience store or something."
"Bugger. If I can't shapeshift, what's the point of being undead?" I was in up to my waist, now. Reluctantly, I lowered her into the water. "I was really looking forward to being able to fly."
"Oh, you'll be able to do the next best thing," she said. And then ducked beneath the water.
"Next best thing?" I asked when she came back up for air a minute later.
She pulled her hair back into a silky black cable that dribbled water between her shoulderblades. "Did you ever wonder why vampires fancy all those caped outfits?"
"Well—"
"Hang-gliding!" she laughed.
I just looked at her.
"Seriously. A vampire's mass and weight are such that a couple of square yards of fabric, the proper tailoring, and a good breeze occasionally assisted by elevation of a castle parapet or a second story window—well, a lot of folks would swear afterwards that they saw you flying."
"A few might even swear that you turned into a giant batlike creature," I mused.
"I think you get the picture." She submerged again, surfaced by one of the ladders along the side, and began swimming laps back and forth across the width of the pool.
Interesting.
I stood and watched, enjoying the warmth of the water as it swirled around the lower half of my body, enjoying the flash of toned arms and legs cutting the water before me. For a moment I was tempted to join her, to try to match her, lap for lap.
But I was tired. New nightmares seemed to be replacing the old and I hadn't slept soundly in my new bed. The water seemed to sap my strength further, its warmth making me surprisingly drowsy. I moved to the side of the pool and hoisted myself up and out.
The cooler air quickly revived me and I walked down to the diving board at the deep end of the pool. The board was only a couple of meters above the surface of the water, which was just as well, as I hadn't gone off any high-boards since those long-gone college years.
As I climbed the short ladder I looked up and saw Bachman in the observation gallery, one story up. She smiled so I waved. It wasn't much of a wave, but then it hadn't been much of a smile, either.
Jackknife? Backflip? I walked to the end of the board and decided to make the first dive an ordinary, head-first, try-not-to-miss-the-water affair. After I'd gotten the feel of the board, not to mention my own reflexes, I'd try something fancier.
The board was unresponsive. Or maybe it was my reduced mass that made it seem stiff and unyielding. In any event, I was slightly off balance and I cut the water more like a spatula than a knife. Warmth enveloped me again and I slid down through its enfolding weightiness until I touched bottom.
And there I stayed.
I had always required extra poundage on my weight-belt when I went scuba diving, so I figured my reduced weight and mass would make me even more buoyant now.
I figured wrong.
I reached for the surface, scooping at the water with my hands and kicking off the bottom. I barely moved.
This was not good: I hadn't taken a particularly deep breath going in and already my lungs were requesting more air. Panic was kick-starting my adrenal glands and riding them around my body like a couple of circus motorcycles in a round steel cage. I started scrabbling at the water like a marionette on rubber strings.
No good.
Fatigue eventually overpowered my hysteria, bringing the tranquility of exhaustion. Finally, I just stood there on the bottom of the pool, in the middle of the deep end, and looked around.
I could make out a frothy line of churning water off in the murk toward the shallow end. I wondered how long it would take Lupé to notice I was gone.
Think, dammit! My lungs were on fire and my vision was starting to fuzz around the edges.
Walk! I could walk up to the shallow end of the pool! But a few bouncing steps brought me to a steep incline that was too slippery to negotiate. I looked around. It was getting harder to see: the light seemed dimmer, now.
There! Maybe ten feet away. . . .
I turned, angling toward the side of the pool and moving farther into the deep end, again. Walking was difficult: I had to reach out and claw at the water as if tunneling through gelatin and bounce off my toes and the balls of my feet. The result was a slow-motion gait that belonged in an old, fifties, men-on-the-moon sci-fi movie.
Slowly, I turned; step by step, inch by inch. . . .
By the time I reached the side I couldn't see anything at all. I had to feel my way along like a blind man searching for the opening in a wall. Except I wasn't searching for a window or a door.
My chest bucked and heaved, trying to draw air into my aching lungs: despite all conscious resistance, I knew I would be breathing water in less than a minute. Trying to concentrate past the fear, I stood on tiptoes and bounced.
Nothing.
Move down a foot and try again.
Just flat, smooth concrete.
Maybe it's out of reach.
Try again.
Can't even tell if I jumped that time.
Feels like I'm dissolving: legs turning to water.
Hard to keep arms above my head.
Jump.
Something there.
My hand closed on a rung.
I had found the ladder.
As I pulled myself up and out of the water, Elizabeth Bachman leaned down. "Now you know why vampires don't like to cross running water." The brown cat with the two tails was crouched beneath a deck chair some ten feet behind her, watching me with wide, golden eyes. I turned my head and observed Lupé still swimming back and forth across the middle of the pool.
"Thanks . . . for sounding . . . the alarm," I gasped.
She smirked. "I wanted to see if you could make it out on your own."
"And a good . . . thing, too." I used the looping railings on the ladder to pull myself upright. "If you had . . . rescued me . . . I would have . . . been forever . . . in your debt."
It was obvious from the expression on her face that she hadn't thought of that.
I stayed in the pool for a while longer.
My philosophy tends toward the idea of getting right back up on the horse that throws you. But I stayed in the shallow end because my philosophy doesn't include confusing nerve with stupidity.
Besides, I wanted to wait until my legs stopped shaking before trying to walk out in front of Garou and Bachman.
While I experimented with my newfound lack of buoyancy, I watched Damien quit the hot tub area and move to a rack of weights near the far side of the shallow end. He removed his sweats, stripping down to a pair of gym shorts, and started in on a series of stretches and warm-up exercises. It was hard not to stare: Schwarzenegger and Stallone had better physiques, but you could only come to that conclusion after thinking about it for awhile. And, in regards to everything else, the vampire was better looking.
"You continue to surprise me," Lupé said as she steered her wheelchair beside the edge of the pool. "I would've expected you to be the type to stare at Deirdre, instead."
I looked down at my own body. "I think I'm jealous."
"Yeah, me too." She put her hands to her bosom. "He's got more cleavage than I do."
"That," I said, "is a near steal from Groucho Marx."
Her smile turned into a look of confusion. "Gotta go," she said, putting her hands to the secondary wheel rims.
"Hold on, I'll take you back."
"No. I need the exercise." She flexed her arms. "Good for the shoulders and the pecs." She flexed her smile and rolled away with an unseemly degree of haste.
Bachman was already gone, so I climbed out and fetched my towel. Drying off, I wandered over to the weight area.
"You like to lift?" the vampire asked affably as I approached.
I shook my head. "Not as a rule. But now that I'm starting a new life, I probably should be starting some new habits." I looked over various sized weights. "How long does it take to build a body like yours?"
He grinned. "About forty years."
"What?"
He eased the barbell back down to the floor. "I wasn't always into body building. I only started about forty years ago. And then your progress is determined by three things."
"Which are?" I picked up a pair of hand weights that felt light enough for a beginner's workout. I began a set of arm curls.
"Genetic predisposition, the frequency and intensity of your workout routines, and whether you're alive or undead."
"I follow you on the first two," I said. "I'm not sure about the last one."
"Weight training involves increasing muscle mass by breaking it down, first." He slid a couple more metal plates to the ends of his barbell. "You lift weights, which strain the muscle fibers and break them down so that the body replaces them with greater muscle mass.
"But once you become undead," he grunted, hefting the bar up to his chin, "your muscle tissues change, become denser, less susceptible to the breakdown process." The bar rose past his face to its straight-armed zenith above his head. "You can lift greater weights, but your body becomes more resistant to change—even positive change."
As the bar came back down, I counted the weights and did a little simple arithmetic. Damien was cleaning and pressing four hundred pounds.
"Hello, Mr. Csejthe," said a new voice. "How do you like our accommodations?" It was Deirdre, still dripping from the hot tub. Gowned and coiffed the night before, she had been a real head-turner. Up close, wet, and nearly naked in turquoise string bikini, she was devastating. I felt my swimming trunks shrink a bit.
"It's all rather new to me," I stammered.
"Well, the Doman tries to provide us with the best and the people here are very friendly. Aren't they, my love?" She ran a slim hand across Damien's dark jaw as he lowered the weights to the floor.
He grinned and took her hand in his, kissing it.
"I'm going in for about ten minutes of steam and then I'll be ready to go back up," she said. "How about you?"
"I should be done by then."
She smiled and walked away, moving like a twenty-three jewel Swiss watch as she headed toward the steam room.
"I don't wish to contradict her," Damien said fondly, "but to Deirdre, everyone seems friendly."
"I can see why," I said.
"Not just for her looks, but for her personality, as well. 'What is beautiful is good and who is good will soon be beautiful.' "
Damn! He wasn't only good looking and charming, he read Sappho, as well!
And then I noticed that I had miscalculated the numbers on the weights we were using. The dumbbells that I had assumed were merely ten pounds were actually ten kilograms. That meant I was curling close to twenty-five pounds in each hand with no effort. And the plates I had assumed to weigh four hundred pounds on Damien's barbell were more than double that amount.
I devoutly hoped that he wasn't the jealous type.