Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human understanding.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Frowning, Gunter circled Roger’s desk, glaring down at Judy’s marked'up map of Sarasota and its environs. Seated in one of the shabby but comfortable leather chairs, Elliott thought that the Malkavian looked as if he were eager to find fault with the patrol routes and schedules the former slave had made. Judging by Judy’s pugnacious scowl, she suspected the same thing.
At last Gunter lifted his ruddy face. “I can’t see anything that I would have done any differently,” he said grudgingly. Judy’s dark eyes widened in momentary surprise. For an instant, the sound of Roger’s voice, screaming threats and obscenities, penetrated the study door. Elliott’s sire was enduring another bad night without the benefit of sedation. Lionel Potter had decided that the drugs might be doing more harm than good.
“1 couldn’t improve on the arrangements, either,” Elliott said, tugging the end of his shirt cuff beyond the sleeve of his jacket. “So why haven’t our people caught up with Dracula?”
“Because she can turn invisible,” Judy said, “like a Malkavian,”
Gunter glowered at her. “Or a Nosferatu,” he said. “Or like some others I’ve known, even one or two of you Rabble.”
Afraid that his fellow elders were about to begin a protracted argument, Elliott raised his hand. “Let’s not go down this road again,” he said. “We don’t have time. We all agreed that none of our people could be Dracula. Everyone has a solid alibi for one or more of the murders.”
“Right,” Angus rumbled. The Gangrel was sprawled on the couch beside the model of the Globe Theatre. His huge frame made the office seem cramped and fragile, as if he might knock down a wall simply by shifting his shoulders. Claiming that the release from confinement would help him think, he’d stripped off his suit coat and tie. Shoes and socks had also come off, to reveal a pair of large, callused and extraordinarily hairy feet. Photographs and computer printouts, copies of the pictures and documents that the police and now the FBI were using in their investigation, lay scattered all around him. “And maybe we shouldn’t get too caught up in the idea that we’re chasing an invisible Kindred, either.” .
Puzzled, Elliott cocked his head. “Why do you say that? Isn’t that the most plausible explanation for why we’ve never found her?”
“Not necessarily,” Angus replied. The door opened and Lazio stepped inside, carrying a silver tray loaded with fragrant Cuban cigars and a lighter. Elliott could tell from the human’s lack of expression and downcast eyes that he’d reverted to the role of unobtrusive, deferential servant, the face he generally presented to unfamiliar Kindred like the Justicar.
Angus waved Lazio over and selected a long, almost-black maduro Lonsdale. Nodding his thanks to the mortal, he lit the Havana and took a puff. “Not bad,” he said. “You know, smoking’s a dirty habit, but, aside from torture, it’s the only vice that we can enjoy in precisely the same manner as the kine. I suspect that’s w’hy even a lot of old-timers like me, undead centuries before tobacco was imported to the Old World, take up the practice. Of course, it also helps you to convince the mortals you’re breathing.”
Elliott had noticed that, while Angus might look and often behave like a taciturn barbarian warrior, when discussing the Dracula murders he sometimes slipped into a leisurely, expansive mode of discourse reminiscent of Nero Wolfe and certain other Great Detectives of fiction. The Toreador hadn’t been able to make up his mind whether the phenomenon merely reflected another facet of the Justicar’s personality or was a conscious affectation. Half-irked and half-amused by his mysterious new ally’s latest digression, he said, “You were talking about the killer being invisible.”
“So 1 was,” said Angus. Lazio finished passing out cigars and took up a position by the door. Evidently he meant to listen to the discussion. “A few of Judy’s Brujah have keen senses, and several of Gunter’s more psychic Malkavians have joined the patrols. The sentries I posted — bats, owls and rats — are similarly perceptive. You’d think that someone would have caught a glimpse of even an invisible Kindred.”
Judy grimaced around her cheroot. “Then what’s the answer?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Angus replied.
Elliott realized that, his superhuman vitality notwithstanding, the long, fruitless examination of the evidence had left him feeling immensely weary. We’re not going to make it, he thought glumly. Everybody’s tried so har, and coped with so many problems, but this Dracula business is going to break us. Scowling, he tried to push the despairing notion away.
At the front of the room, Lazio stood studying the map. Gunter in turn regarded him with a slight sneer. “And what do you think, human?” he asked mockingly. “See anything that your masters have missed?”
“No,” the valet replied. “I was just thinking that it’s like Dracula has a hidden path through the city. A way of getting from place to place that our patrols never even check, because it hasn’t occurred to us that it exists. If Sarasota had subways, or Nosferatu tunnels, or a sewer system with pipes a person could walk through — but it doesn’t.”
“Actually,” rumbled Angus, “my rats have been checking the sewers just in case, though I can’t imagine Dracula crawling and swimming through miles of filth to get around. But I agree with you — what was your name?”
“Lazio,” the dresser said.
“I agree with you, Lazio. The rogue is evading us by using some secret highway, or, at any rate, one clever trick that we haven’t begun to figure out.” Abruptly Angus frowned, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. He grabbed a stack of computer printouts and started flipping through them. “What?” Judy demanded. “You have an idea. What is it?” Instead of explaining, the Gangrel tore loose a number of sheets and proffered them to his fellow Kindred. “Look at the estimated times of death,” he said.
Though he’d already pored over every page of the files the police had assembled, Elliott took some of the autopsy reports and began glancing through them again. Citing factors such as body temperature, skin discoloration, degree of rigor mortis, flattening of the eyes from loss of fluid, and the presence of green-fly eggs, each document specified a range of time, generally from four to six hours, during which the murder had occurred. Evidently, as the Toreador had always understood, forensic medicine couldn’t determine an exact time of death: too many factors influenced the rate at which postmortem changes occurred.
Try as he might, Elliott couldn’t see what Angus was driving at. “Dracula kills late at night,” he said at last. “We’d realized that already.”
“We assumed as much,” the Justicar replied. “Since the murdered policemen were in radio communication with their dispatcher, we know that the aquarium killings did indeed happen at night. That, of course, was before you started hunting Dracula, when it was safe for her to operate by dark. It was even useful, given that her purpose was to endanger the Masquerade. But more recently, if your local coroner knows his stuff, the killer could just as easily be striking in the wee small hours of the morning. ”
Perplexed, Elliott cocked his head. “Do you mean, after sunrise?”
Angus nodded. “That would explain why the patrols never run into her, wouldn’t it? By the time she ventures forth, your people are already asleep in their havens, and my nocturnal animals have retired to their lairs.”
“But that’s preposterous!” Gunter exploded. “Dracula needs to sleep during the day also.”
“1 agree,” Judy said. “I’ve known Kindred to stay awake for a single day, when they had a good enough reason. You can do it if you have a lot of willpower and stamina. But Dracula’s been killing steadily for weeks. Nobody could keep it up for that long.”
Angus smiled. “That’s the other assumption we made, without ever really examining it. That Dracula is a Kindred.” “But she must be!” Judy said. “The corpses of her victims are drained of blood. 1 made Potter look at some of the bite wounds, and he was sure they were made by vampire fangs. Hell, you said the same thing. And the way she can pick off any kine she wants, no matter how many locks or alarm systems are in her way, shows that she has supernatural powers.” She hesitated. “Doesn’t it?”
“We aren’t the only creatures in the world with mystical abilities,” the Justicar replied. “And human ingenuity can accomplish amazing things, even when it only has natural tools to work with. I think that some non-Kindred ally of your principal enemies is doing a brilliant job of faking vampire attacks.”
Elliott pondered Angus’ ideas. They seemed plausible if not conclusive. He felt an odd mix of hope and frustration. He desperately wanted the bearded giant to figure out Dracula’s modus operandi. Somebody had to, before the Kindred of Sarasota ran out of time and Palmer Guice presented the domain’s failure to the Inner Circle. And yet, if Angus was right about the murderer, Elliott couldn’t imagine how he and his allies were going to stop her. To him, the daylight hours seemed scarcely more accessible or endurable than the surface of the planet Mercury. The mere thought of trying to remain active after dawn, of risking exposure to the sun’s lethal glare, filled him with an instinctive loathing. “If you’re right,” he said, “I guess our only chance is to send the ghouls out on patrol.”
Angus shook his head. “If the cops can’t catch Dracula, they couldn’t, either. I’ll catch her. I’ve stayed up past dawn a time or two myself. I can do it again. I’ll put the birds and beasts of the day on sentry duty, and when they find her, I’ll go get her.”
“How?” asked Gunter skeptically. “You’ll burn as soon as you stick your head out the door.”
“I hope not,” Angus said. “I’m tough. Tough enough even to bear the bite of the sun, if I take precautions. It’s a Gangrel trait.”
“It’s one of my traits, too,” Judy said. Her voice was as brash as usual, though Elliott thought he saw an uncharacteristic hint of disquiet in her eyes. “You won’t be anywhere near as powerful by day as you are by night. You’re going to need help, so I’ll sit up with you.”
Angus gave her an approving nod. “So be it. Even though it will mean the sun is brighter, let’s hope for blue skies. After centuries of black ones, the spectacle is worth the added discomfort.”
Elliott took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to dissolve the tension in his muscles. “I’ll help, too,” he said.
“No, you won’t,” Angus said. “You don’t have the kind of hardiness it takes to endure the sun.” Feeling a guilty relief at being let off the hook, Elliott wondered how the older vampire could be so sure about his limitations. “Besides, you and the Malkavian will be needed to direct all the other aspects of the defense. Remember, you’ve got plenty of other problems to keep you occupied.”
“I’m not as tough as a Gangrel or a Brujah, either,” Lazio said quietly. “But 1 can stand the sun, I know how to shoot, and I’ve been around the Kindred long enough not to lose my head when someone does something dangerous or uncanny. I’ll join the hunting party, if I may. I’d like a chance to strike back at the people who hurt Roger.”
Gunter snorted, manifestly contemptuous of the notion that the stooped, aging mortal had anything to contribute. But Angus studied Lazio for a moment, then said, “Very well.” He turned to Judy. “Keep the nighttime patrols operating, in case our theory is wrong. And go feed. Gorge yourself. You’re going to need the strength.”
I’m not frightened of the darkness outside. It’s the darkness inside houses I don’t like.
— Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey
Even in the crowded, brightly illuminated theme park, one could find pockets of quiet and shadow: odd spaces between the rides, snack kiosks and gift shops where there was nothing to see or buy and mortals strode by without lingering. That was where the entrances to the service corridors were generally located. Trusting in his limited powers of invisibility to keep him hidden, Dan was lurking in one such area. A black wall, the rear of Mordred’s Haunted Castle, towered at his back, while an artificial lagoon, apparently supposed to be the Lady of the Lake’s lake, gleamed and rippled beyond a low brick wall just a few feet away. With his superhuman hearing, he could hear the squeals and laughter of the tourists inside the glorified spook house as clearly as the roar of the power boats participating in the stunt show on the water. At the moment, the balmy evening air smelled of hot dogs, buttered popcorn, exhaust and human sweat.
Dan hadn’t learned anything by searching Wyatt’s apartment. The experience had merely triggered another wave of regret, leading him to suspect that, irrational though it might be, the remorse he felt over killing the other Kindred was likely to stick with him for a long time. Afterward, he’d been eager to stake out Camelot. He’d hoped that playing spy in the colossal tourist trap, an amusement park as big as Disney World, Universal, or any of Orlando’s other stellar attractions, would take his mind off his troubles.
To some extent it had, but so far that was about the only thing he’d accomplished. Using Wyatt’s scarlet key card, he’d penetrated the miles of brightly lit, antiseptic-looking tunnels that underlay the park. There he’d discovered employee offices, cafeterias, restrooms and lounges. Whirring electric golf carts whisking staff and cargo to and fro. Machine shops. Storerooms full of tinned food, carbonated-drink canisters, costumes, half-assembled audioanimatronic robots and dismantled floats from discontinued street parades. He suspected that, unless he was dead wrong about the park being connected to the war against Melpomene and Sarasota, an enemy base lay hidden down there too; but he hadn’t been able to find it. The complex was simply too large.
Twice during his explorations aboveground, once near the ten-story Firedrake roller coaster and once while lounging outside the Round Table Burger Bar and Pizzeria, he’d glimpsed other Kindred gliding through the crowd, identifiable by their alabaster pallor and the silence of their hearts. Though they might have come to the park merely to hunt, or for diversion, it seemed far more likely that they were enemies. Fearful of discovery, he’d given them a wide berth. But now, frustrated by his lack of investigative progress, he’d decided that his best hope of completing his mission was to shadow another vampire. With luck, the guy would lead him to enemy headquarters, and if he didn’t, well, maybe Dan could jump him and beat some answers out of him.
Around the corner, soft footsteps scuffed along the pavement, unaccompanied by the hiss of respiration or the muffled thud of a heartbeat. Tensing, Dan willed himself to stand absolutely motionless. A moment later, a long-legged, brown-haired Kindred wearing jeans, a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow and a black leather vest strode into view. His pale skin was slightly tinged with pink, as if he’d fed recently, and the faint scent of vitae still clung to him.
He marched past Dan without a glance, pulled a red card like Wyatt’s out of his pocket, and dragged it through the electronic lock mounted on the wall. The door clicked and lurched ajar. The Kindred in the vest went through and pulled it shut behind him.
Dan swallowed. It seemed mad to follow the other undead too closely. As soon as he moved, his shroud of invisibility would dissolve, and, down in the bare, well-lit tunnels, he was unlikely to find the cover or patches of shadows necessary to recreate it. Moreover, it was a good bet that the guy in the vest was Tremere, a member of a bloodline as renowned for keen senses as the Toreador and Malkavians. But Dan was all but certain that if he didn’t follow closely, he’d lose his quarry in the frequently branching service corridors. Feeling like the most reckless fool on earth, he waited only a moment before scuttling to the door and unlocking it himself.
As he’d previously discovered, it opened on a set of concrete stairs not unlike those he’d found in Wyatt’s derelict office building. His quarry’s footsteps clicked and squeaked from below. Dan paused and listened for an instant to make sure they sounded like they w7ere still going downward, then crept after them.
By the time he reached the bottom of the staircase, the vampire in the vest had passed through another door. Cracking it open, Dan saw him striding down a corridor with doors and openings on the right-hand wall.
Dan kept following, trying to move silently without appearing as if he were sneaking. If the other Kindred did turn around and spot him, he wanted to look as if he had legitimate business in the tunnels. To that end, he kept the scarlet card sticking out of his breast pocket. With luck, it would help convince at least any mortal observer that he belonged down here.
Dan’s nerves seemed to thrum with tension. Trying to alleviate the excruciating anxiety, he assured himself that he was going to get away with this idiot plan. The Kindred in the vest obviously didn’t hear him. Either the guy didn’t possess superhuman senses, or he was preoccupied. And at least there were no security cameras in the tunnels. Dan had noticed some topside and made a point of avoiding them, but apparently the builders hadn’t considered them necessary for the parts of the facility the public never saw.
Eventually his jitters grew slightly less severe. Then a stocky, balding, middle-aged mortal in grease-stained blue coveralls stepped out of a branching tunnel just in front of him. Smiling, the human opened his mouth to speak.
Judging from his expression, the mechanic only wanted to be friendly, but Dan couldn’t afford to let him say anything. The other Kindred would surely hear and probably glance backward. Dan lunged at the human, grabbed him by the throat, hoisted him into the air, and squeezed.
For a moment the mechanic clawed feebly at Dan’s forearms, then shuddered and dangled limply. His heart stopped thumping, and he began to smell of feces.
Dan winced. He hadn’t wanted to kill the guy, just choke him unconscious. But, still not quite used to the extra strength that Melpomene’s blood had given him, he’d evidently crushed the mechanic’s windpipe or pulverized the top of his spinal cord.
Scowling, the vampire tried to push his remorse aside. His victim was only a kine — a member of a different species, just as Wyatt had said — and in any case Dan didn’t have time for guilt. He couldn’t lug the corpse along with him, nor would it be safe to leave it sitting out in the open. He had to stash it somewhere quickly, before the Kindred in the vest — fortunately still unaware of the lightning-fast, silent murder that had occurred just a few yards behind him
— got away.
Carrying the dead man in his arms, Dan stalked to the next door along the wall. He couldn’t hear anything moving on the other side, so he tested the knob and found it unlocked. Hoping that he wasn’t about to walk in on a room full of people, he eased it open.
Beyond the threshold was a shadowy storeroom stacked with cardboard boxes. Some had been opened, revealing bundles of postcards, T-shirts stenciled w'ith the Camelot logo, silvery plastic broadswords and plumed, visored helmets, and other samples of the merchandise sold in the gift shops and souvenir stands overhead.
Dan dumped the mechanic behind a heap of cartons in the far corner, where no one peering in from the doorway could see him. Grateful to have resolved at least this one problem so expeditiously, he hurried back to the door, peeked out, and then cursed under his breath. Because the Kindred in the vest had disappeared.
Fighting panic, Dan reminded himself that his quarry had only been out of his sight, for a moment. Surely he could find him again. In all probability the guy had turned down that side passage about fifty feet ahead. Moving faster now, less worried about being quiet than catching up, Dan strode to the opening and around the corner.
The long, straight passage before him was empty.
He scowled. Evidently his quarry had vanished through a door, either one of the few between the storeroom and the intersection of the hallways or one of the several immediately ahead. But by the time Dan peeked through them all, the Kindred in the vest might well have disappeared for good through a second door or around another bend.
Which meant that it was time for a different approach. Time to put his new perceptual powers to work. Closing his eyes, trying to sharpen his sense of smell through sheer force of will, Dan inhaled deeply.
And after a moment, he smiled. Because the sweet scent of vitae, the faint odor that he’d detected emanating from the other Kindred, still hung in the dry, cool, climate-controlled air.
Its presence proved that Dan’s quarry had come as far as this intersection. Sniffing like a bloodhound, reflecting fleetingly that he probably looked pretty silly, the spy followed the scent down the branching passage.
But after a few moments he faltered, because the trail ended abruptly amid blank walls. Either his quarry had backtracked, which seemed unlikely, or he’d ducked through a hidden door.
Crouching, Dan sniffed the smooth gray concrete floor and then the painted off-white walls, trying to find the exact point where the other vampire had exited the hallway, or the spot where he’d pushed some hidden button. He couldn’t: even his nose had its limitations. Staring intently, straining now to sharpen his eyes, he began to give the site a visual inspection.
After a moment, peering at the wall, he began to see countless subtle shadings in what had seemed an even, monochromatic layer of paint. Simultaneously, he became acutely aware of the pockmarks in the surface of the concrete blocks. The bands of grayish white and the tiny cavities combined to form complex patterns, like fractal art generated by a computer.
Viewed properly, the designs were amazingly beautiful. So beautiful, he realized abruptly, that they were hypnotizing him like the murdered painter’s jungle scene. Snarling, Dan squinched his eyes shut and wrenched his head to the side.
He simply stood for a few seconds, trembling, imagining what might appen if some of the enemy discovered him standing paralyzed with fascination. Finally, when some indefinable change inside his head told him that he might be out of danger, he peeked at the wall through slitted eyes. Though he continued to see it more clearly than any mortal could, it was once more just a nondescript, indeed a rather homely, piece of masonry.
Monitoring himself, lest he fall under the same spell again, he kept looking around. And finally he spotted a pale gray shadow, five feet up the left-hand wall.
Or at any rate it looked like a shadow and not anything carved or painted on the concrete block beneath, but there was nothing hanging in front of the surface to cast it. It was a square encased in a circle, with a triangle jutting like an arrowhead from the upper right-hand side of the ring. The combination of the circle and triangle made it resemble the astrological symbol for Mars or maleness, but any Kindred, even a clanless, ostracized one like Dan, would have recognized its true significance. It was the emblem of the Tremere.
Even as he wondered why he hadn’t seen it earlier, it suddenly blinked out of view. He stared at the space it had occupied, and after a moment it wavered back into existence. Obviously non-Tremere weren’t meant to see it, but his superhuman vision had finally penetrated the magical screen masking it.
Okay, thought Dan, I found something. Now what1 The obvious move was to touch the symbol. He gingerly proceeded to do so and then, startled, snatched his hand back instantly. The shadow felt cold as ice.
Steeling himself to bear the chill, he pressed his palm firmly against the sigil. The section of wall behind it evaporated, revealing another hallway.
Except for considerably dimmer lighting, the new corridor didn’t appear much different from the one in which he was standing. But it smelled different. The musky scent of incense and a noxious odor that he associated with high-school chemistry hung in the air. And it felt different. The air seemed to buzz and crawl against his face, as if it were charged with electricity.
Apprehensive but curious as well — it was a rare Kindred who hadn’t wondered about the occult mysteries of the Tremere — he stepped through the opening. It sealed itself behind him like a vampire’s wound healing with unnatural speed. He made sure that there was a shadow-symbol on this side as well, that he had a way out, and then skulked deeper into the Warlock haven, resisting the impulse to take out his automatic. Displaying a gun would destroy whatever forlorn hope he might otherwise have of convincing one of the magi that he belonged here.
Most of the doors along the passage were closed. From behind one came a faint, regular rasp, as if someone were honing a knife, and broken sobbing; a strange, arrhythmic chanting in a language Dan didn’t recognize droned through another.
Feeling horribly exposed in the open corridor, he nevertheless paused to ponder his next move. He couldn’t simply open doors and search rooms at random, not when the Tremere were manifestly all around him. He’d blunder in on somebody; and even if he didn’t, it would take too long. He needed to locate a command center, or the boss’ office. That was the kind of place where the enemy would store the information he needed. Wishing that the Warlocks had seen fit to supply a building directory complete with a you-are-here marker at the entrance, he stalked on.
Eventually the corridor opened out into a broad, gloomy, high-ceilinged chamber lit only by the wavering light of scattered candelabra. Covering one wall was a bookcase crammed with leather-bound volumes, many of which looked and smelled as ancient as the tome he’d found in Wyatt’s haven. The side of the room nearest the shelves was carpeted and furnished with armchairs; it looked like Dan’s notion of a Victorian gentlemen’s club. The other half of the hall was empty, and its bare concrete floor had a drain in the center. He suspected that the magi used the space when they had to draw large pentagrams for group rituals.
It occurred to him that the information he needed might conceivably be written in one of the books in the library, but he was sure that he didn’t have time to examine them all, not even just the modern-looking ones. It seemed smarter to search elsewhere and come back here only as a last resort. He started for one of the doorways in the far wall.
Inside the murky opening something shifted, and cloth rustled. Someone was walking toward him! He hastily stepped away from the doorway and crouched behind a high-backed chair in the shadow of a softly ticking grandfather clock, willing himself to blend with the darkness.
Ponderous footsteps carried the newcomer into the chamber. His heart thudded slowly, like a bass drum beating out the cadence of a funeral march, demonstrating that he wasn’t Kindred. Despite his lethargic tread and heartbeat, his flesh threw off heat like an open fire, as if he were burning up with fever. Even shielded by the armchair, Dan could feel the warmth ten feet away.
Cautiously, he risked a peek around the side of the seat, then stiffened in surprise. Superficially, the hulking figure standing in the middle of the room appeared human, but one close look was enough to dispel the impression. Its skin was too smooth, utterly unlined and unwrinkled, and subtly luminous, as if it were a thin-shelled mannequin with a lamp glowing inside it. Multicolored tattoos, cryptic hieroglyphs like the symbols in Wyatt’s grimoires, mottled its face and the backs of its hands. Lacking both iris and pupil, its eyes shone fiery orange.
Dan supposed that the creature had started out human. He wondered fleetingly if it was a magically transformed ghoul, some sort of zombie, or something stranger still. Then it abruptly turned to stare directly at him.
Dan nearly gave a violent start — nearly hurled himself at the creature, or made a grab for his pistol. But another, cooler part of his mind overrode those impulses, told him to remain motionless until he was absolutely certain that the tattooed figure truly did see him. I’m not here, he thought, silently chanting the phrase as if it were a mantra. I’m not here.
And after a moment, the creature tilted its head as if it were puzzled. As if it had glimpsed something strange from the corner of its blazing eye but, when it lurched around, the oddity had disappeared. Shuffling, it turned in a circle, looking over the room, and then trudged out the doorway through which Dan had entered.
The vampire shuddered as the tension bled out of his muscles. Then he rose and skulked on, hoping that the library represented some sort of dividing line in the communal haven. Perhaps the rank-and-file Tremere occupied the rooms he’d just passed, while officer country was in the tunnels still ahead. He had no evidence that such a thing was true, but it seemed like a reasonable hunch. In any case, he had to start snooping somewhere.
He started down the next hallway, a relatively short one with a black door at the end. For three paces he was all right, and then he felt a sudden jolt of alarm.
Thinking that the creature with the fiery eyes was sneaking up behind him, he spun around. Except for himself, the corridor was empty.
He grimaced. Maybe he was imagining things. God knew, all this cloak-and-dagger crap had scraped his nerves raw. But on the other hand, just because he didn’t see a threat didn’t mean there was nothing there. He hadn’t spotted Wyatt’s homunculus at first, either.
Peering about, still seeing nothing, he hesitated for a moment, then decided that he might as well go on. Now glancing backward even more frequently than he had been, he proceeded toward the dully gleaming ebon door.
Without warning, agony throbbed through his chest and knee. He stumbled as his leg nearly gave way underneath him. The magical wounds the Samedi had given him had healed long ago, but now, evidently, they’d burst open again and were as rotten as before. He could smell the decay, feel the deliquescent flesh slipping away from his bones.
Terrified, he fumbled out his .38. He almost started blasting at shadows, for all that he knew the noise might bring every Tremere in the place down on his head. Instead, struggling against the impulse and the fright that had produced it, he blundered back out of the corridor into the library. Perhaps his tormentor was hiding there.
As he exited the hall, the pain and stink of his injuries vanished. At the same moment, panic loosened its grip on him.
Looking around, he failed to see any sign of an attacker. With shaking hands he tore open his denim work shirt, showering blue plastic buttons on the carpet. His chest was unmarked.
Even a Kindred couldn’t heal that fast. Dan began to suspect that he hadn’t really been injured in the first place. Perhaps someone had woven a kind of illusory magic in the hall that would fill an intruder’s mind with terror, to keep unauthorized personnel from passing through the black door. If so, then that was probably exactly where Dan needed to go. Holstering his gun again — the weapon couldn’t help him against the intangible — he ran,through the doorway, intent on passing through the torture zone as quickly as possible.
Fresh pain ripped through his torso and leg, staggering him. After another stride, a wave of terrible weakness flowed through his muscles and his eyes went dim. He could feel his internal organs swelling and bursting like balloons. He experienced a sensation he’d half-forgotten, the desperate need to gasp in a breath, but he couldn’t make his petrified lungs inflate.
And suddenly he understood what it meant. Thirty years ago, drugged and delirious, his veins and arteries emptied and his heart falling silent, he’d cheated death by becoming a vampire. Now Nature was taking its due. The alternate reality of human science and common sense was rending the immortality out of his body, transforming him into the shriveled, decay-ridden corpse that it had always intended he should be.
No/ he told himself desperately. I’m not dying! What I’m feeling isn’t real! Somehow holding total, crippling dread at bay, he lurched on, finally reeling against the black door.
He tried to grip the knob, but he couldn’t make his stiff, aching fingers close around it. He stumbled back a step, then hurled himself at the raven panel.
Weak as he felt, perhaps he actually still possessed inhuman strength: when his shoulder hit the door, it flew open and struck the wall with a boom. Now completely off balance, he collapsed across the threshold onto the floor.
After a few seconds his head cleared, and his accustomed strength came flowing back. Profoundly grateful, he sprang to his feet.
Had anyone been alarmed by the sound of the door crashing open? There was no way to know. He’d just have close it again and hope for the best. He hastily proceeded to do so and then turned to examine his surroundings.
He was standing in a living room stuffed with dark, massive furniture, much of it upholstered in red velvet. A white marble statue of a Kindred in medieval clothing touching a kneeling woman’s brow — a tableau that reminded Dan of Jesus healing the sick — stood in one corner, while a companion piece, the same vampire with his fangs buried in a struggling man’s throat, occupied another.
Musty-smelling tapestries, depicting scenes of knightly battles, a stag hunt and courtly love, adorned the walls. Surrounded by such antiques, the big-screen TV and the stereo system were jarringly out of place.
Dan listened. He didn’t hear anyone stirring, so he crept on, into a formal dining room. The places around the long table were set with embroidered linen napkins and a variety of gold and crystal goblets, but no plates or flatware. Beyond that chamber was a hallway, and as he glided into it a faint odor tickled his nose. It was like the smell of old, crumbling paper mixed with exotic spices.
Warily he peeked through the next doorway he came to. On the other side was a spacious office, with a drawerless, glass-topped desk on which sat a PC, a phone, a disk caddie, an open ebony box of Turkish cigarettes, and a jade ashtray. The source of the peculiar odor was in the corner: a table on which lay a child-sized, brown, withered, motionless figure. Someone had stripped the brittle bandages away from its head to reveal the sunken, eyeless, noseless, long-dead countenance beneath.
Dan hesitated, uncertain whether to enter the room. The mummy looked inert. Truly dead. But as with the Samedi, such appearances could be deceiving. Finally, losing patience with his own timidity, he slipped inside.
The mummy didn’t move. Keeping a wary eye on it, he sat down and booted up the .computer. The initial screen asked him to enter a password. Frowning, he tried Tremere, Warlock, magic, Camelot and Merlin. None of them did the trick.
A dry chuckle, so faint that no human could have heard it, rustled through the air.
Dan jerked around in his swivel chair. The mummy hadn’t moved. Nevertheless, he was all but certain it was what he’d heard. Reminding himself that he was also an undead entity and therefore shouldn’t feel so spooked, he swallowed and said, “Who are you? What are you? Some kind of Kindred?”
The mummy chuckled again. The sound made the small hairs on the back of Dan’s neck stand on end. “My name is Sesostris, little spy, and no, I don’t share the blood of Caine. Would that I did, to walk free and strong like you! In life, in the Two Kingdoms, I was a mage of sorts and an advisor to kings. I helped Kamose drive out Apophis. Beyond the Shroud, my role has been much the same. I served the Beggar Lord until Durrell bound me inside this husk and so made me his slave.”
Much of what the spirit said had gone over Dan’s head, but he thought he grasped the essential point. He stood up, strode to Sesostris’ bier, and raised his fist over the mummy’s head. One blow would surely pulverize the desiccated creature’s skull. “If you try to hurt me, or yell for help, I’ll kill you.”
Sesostris made a spitting sound. “Are you so afraid of me, then, vampire? Surely 1 don’t look as if I can bound off this table and overpower you, and you hear just how loudly I can ‘yell.’ I’m not a sentinel, I’m a research tool, no different from a reference book or that contraption on the desk. And that’s as well for you, because your threat holds no terrors for me. I yearn to be released from this vile existence. I want to return to Stygia.”
Dan paused for a moment thinking that over, and then said, “If I tore the mummy apart, would that set your spirit free?”
“It would,” Sesostris whispered.
“Then how about a deal,” said Dan. “If you help me find out what I need to know, I’ll cut you loose before I leave.”
“I see by your aura that you’re honest, after a fashion,” said the mummy, prompting Dan to wonder fleetingly how a thing with no eyes could see anything. “Very well, it’s a bargain.”
“Then answer some questions for me,” said the Kindred.
ON-AlWj!KUNCTuffi
“Who’s Durrell?”
Sesostris didn’t laugh, but somehow Dan could sense the ancient creature’s amusement. “Don’t you even know that? You’re standing in his haven. You were sitting in his chair.” Dan grinned. “Just like Goldilocks. I guess it does seem weird, but no, I don’t know. Tell me, please.”
“Sebastian Durrell is the Tremere Regent — their term for the master magus of a city — of Louisville. He also owns a controlling interest in the garden of earthly delights above our heads.”
“Is he masterminding the war against the Kindred of Sarasota?”
“Indeed he is,” Sesostris said. “And he’s rather worried that either his Lord — his superior in the Order of Tremere
— or the prince of Louisville will find out about it before he brings it to a successful conclusion. He’s convinced that neither one would appreciate his initiative.”
“Why did he start a war in the first place?” asked Dan. “What does he hope to gain?”
Sesostris hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure,” the mummy said at last. “He doesn’t always confide in me. Not that he anticipated a spy creeping into his lair to interrogate me, but I’m afraid that my attitude isn’t as sympathetic as he’d like. I do know that Roger Phillips is influential in the councils of the Camarilla, and generally advocates policies of which Durrell disapproves.. And I know that the Toreador of Sarasota have immense wealth. If my master could seize Phillips’ throne, or failing that, arrange for a collaborator to do so, he could take much of the treasure for his own. Yet I suspect there’s more to it. For some reason, Durrell believes that his triumph will serve to further his quest for greater magical power. Like most magi, he’s obsessed with learning new and greater sorceries.”
Dan wondered if the other Methuselah, Melpomene’s opposite number, had promised to teach Durrell new magic
in exchange for his cooperation. Ultimately, he supposed, the Tremere’s motives mattered far less than whatever plans he’d made. “Are Durrell and his main assistants all living here in these tunnels?”
“They are.”
Dan blinked and shook his head. “Then... hell, I’ve got them. My job’s finished. I can pass along the information, the Toreador will stage a sneak attack —” Suddenly frowning, he faltered. Sure, he knew the truth, but could he convince anyone else to believe it? Would the high-and-mighty undead aristocrats of Sarasota assault other members of the Camarilla on the word of a despised Caitiff and a supposed diabolist like himself? Maybe, but he’d rather approach them with some kind of corroborative evidence in hand. “Did Durrell keep any kind of records pertaining to all this?’
“His journal,” replied Sesostris. “In the machine.” The mummy sighed. “When he first captured me, he used to write it by candlelight with a quill pen.”
“Do you know the password?” asked Dan.
“Scorpio,” Sesostris said. “The moon sign under which he was reborn a Kindred.”
Dan dropped back into the swivel chair and typed in the word. Sure enough, the screen shifted to a list of files, one of which was labeled Journal. He opened it, skimmed a section of text near the end, and found it to be all he could have hoped. Durrell not only discussed his designs on Sarasota, he even named the non-Warlock allies, mercenaries and dupes from whom he’d assembled his makeshift army.
The spy grabbed a disk and, having copied the file onto it, ejected it and thrust it into his jacket pocket. Rising, he said, “You’re a real friend, Sesostris.”
“Not so,” the mummy said.
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I told you, Kindred,” Sesostris answered, his shivery whisper an odd blend of gloating malice and regret, “that Durrell enslaved me. My will is not my own. I cooperated with you to hold you here until the demon-bound, my fellow servant, could answer my call.” At that moment the luminous, fiery-eyed figure that Dan had encountered in the magi’s library stepped into the office doorway.
Dan’s fingers twitched with the urge to draw his automatic. But he still didn’t want to make a lot of noise and attract every Tremere in the place. He suspected that the demon-bound was a formidable hand-to-hand fighter, but then, he was pretty tough himself. Emerging from behind the desk with fists raised to strike or block, he edged toward the creature. Its features slack and expressionless, arms dangling at its sides, it shuffled to meet him.
As soon as Dan got within range, he snapped a kick at the demon-bound’s crotch. Suddenly moving fast as lightning, the glowing creature parried the attack. The force of the contact threw the Kindred off balance. Stumbling, he barely managed to avoid a counterpunch to the face.
Okay, Dan thought grimly, now I know. It might be as strong as I am, and its hands are just as fast as mine. But the way it lumbers around, maybe its feet aren't. It’s between me and the door, but if I could get around it, perhaps I could outrun it. He faked a shift to the left, then dodged right, stomp-kicking the demon-bound in the knee as he darted around it. Bone cracked.
For an instant, lunging toward the doorway, Dan thought the maneuver had worked. Then a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him backward.
The vampire used a judo throw to tumble the demon-bound over his shoulder and slam it onto the floor. The creature retaliated by seizing his ankles and jerking his legs out from under him. Grappling, tearing at each other, the two combatants rolled back and forth across the carpet.
Dan tried striking at what, on a mortal or even most
Kindred, would be vulnerable areas: the groin, solar plexus, throat and eyes. Such blows neither elicited an involuntary defensive reaction, nor, when they landed, caused the demon-bound incapacitating distress. Evidently it lacked the reflexes that a skillful fighter like Dan could have used to fake it out, and it apparently was incapable of feeling pain. Since the tattooed monster wasn’t targeting Dan’s pressure points — maybe it didn’t know how — that pretty much reduced the wrestling match to a test of raw strength.
As he battered and wrenched at his opponent, a crimson tide of fury swept through Dan’s mind. Berserk now, snarling, he extended his fangs and bit at the demon-bound. The creature’s blood was too hot and tasted foul, but he kept savaging it anyw'ay.
They wrestled for perhaps two minutes, ripping flesh and breaking bone, neither quite managing to strike a decisive blow. The demon-bound’s body grew hotter and hotter, until every touch of it covered Dan with blisters and burns.
And then it burst into flame.
Terrified that the blaze would consume him, Dan struggled to break the demon-bound’s grip. Finally the monster’s arms loosened. Frantically the vampire wriggled out from underneath it and then saw that the fire had already spread to his clothing. Screaming, he roiled across the floor, smothering the flames. Seemingly indifferent to its immolation, still intent on subduing him, the demon-bound started to crawl after him, but burned to a motionless black stick figure before it could reach him.
Dan knelt on the smoldering carpet, shuddering and reflexively gasping for breath, his broken ribs beginning to knit and his cuts to close. His burns started to heal as well, but more slowly; fortunately they were superficial. Gradually his instinctive dread of fire faded, and he started thinking rationally again. He had to get up and get out of here. Durrell could show up at any time, or Sesostris might be able to summon some other monster. Reminded of the mummy’s existence, he glanced over at the table and then gave a start of surprise.
Sesostris was gone. The ancient magician had lied about not being able to walk, too.
Dan leaped up and dashed back through Durrell’s apartment. When he yanked open the black door, he saw Sesostris tottering down the corridor to the library. Bits of the mummy’s body flaked away with every lurching step.
Steeling himself against another attack of magical fear, Dan ran into the hall. Nothing happened. Maybe the spell only kicked in if a stranger moved toward the door. He grabbed the mummy and slammed it against the wall. “You son of a bitch,” he growled. “Let’s see how far you can go after 1 tear your arms and legs off.”
“Don’t stop there,” Sesostris said. “I want this prison destroyed. Free me! Please!”
Dan snarled. The ancient creature had betrayed him. Why should he do it any favors? But then he realized that it hadn’t really needed to tell him Durrell’s password. It could have stalled him until the demon-bound arrived without giving up a thing. Perhaps in a way it had tried to help him, as much as its bindings would allow. Feeling like a soft touch, a sucker, he dug his fingers into Sesostris’ head and ripped it apart. The mummy’s skull crumbled like a stale saltine.
Dan hastily dusted his hands, wiped his gory mouth on his sleeve and checked his pocket to make sure that he still had the disk. Then, the blood thirst that was the inevitable consequence of rapid healing already drying his throat, he skulked back through the Tremere haven toward the exit.
Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight.
— Francis Bacon, “Of Suspicion"
Laurie Tipton sat in the security station — a stark, square, gray room smelling of industrial cleanser — studying the black-and-white TV monitor. Every few seconds the picture changed, bringing her another view of mortals eating com dogs and cotton candy, standing in line for flume rides, tilt-a-whirls and other attractions, or rushing from place to place, probably eager to experience as much of Camelot as possible before it was time to go home. The anarch reflected sourly that most looked as if they were having a lot more fun than she was.
She supposed that she wouldn’t have minded her tedious job so much if this bastion of the Anarch Movement had turned out to be what she’d expected. What Wyatt in his enthusiasm had led her to expect, though she shied from thinking about her disappointment in those terms. The implied criticism of her dead friend made her feel disloyal.
But it seemed weird that the vampire resistance would control a zillion-dollar business like Camelot. That was something she’d expect of the elders of the Camarilla, who were generally acknowledged to hold the reins of power in both the kine and Kindred worlds. Nor did she understand why so many of the other undead inhabiting the facility seemed secretive and aloof. Sometimes she almost felt as if they were laughing at her behind her back. By the same token, she didn’t comprehend why Durrell, the anarch captain who’d brought her, Felipe and Jimmy Ray to the park, seemed so convinced that Dan was going to show up here.
Dan. Shifting restlessly in her chair, she grimaced. She hated the murdering bastard. How could she not? But there was more to her feelings than that, because she’d liked him so much at first. Like nearly every other vampire — or mortal male — she’d known, he’d tried hard to come across as tough, but she’d sensed a terrible aching loneliness inside him, the same feeling that had tortured her before she met her other friends. It had made her like him instantly, and even now made her flinch from believing him a traitor. She guessed that she really was gullible, loyal to a fault. Even in the Haight in the Summer of Love, when everybody was supposed to love and trust everybody else, people had told her as much.
But she couldn’t grasp why Dan had done what he had! If he was an agent of the Camarilla, why hadn’t he moved to destroy the other members of the anarch cell? Not for the first time, she toyed with the notion that Wyatt’s poor, dying familiar had been confused about the identity of its master’s slayer; but try as she might, she couldn’t buy that either.
She realized that, lost in thought, she’d stopped watching the monitor. Conscientiously she focused her eyes on it again. She just had time to register a familiar silhouette before the picture changed.
Crying out in dismay, she lunged for the control panel on the desk before her. One of Durrell’s associates, a snotty guy who usually wore a black leather vest, had taught her how to use it, but after that first night she hadn’t had the occasion or the inclination to fool with it. Still, after a moment’s fumbling, she managed to flip back to the previous view.
The monitor showed her a rangy figure with light-colored hair striding through a crowd of tourists milling in front of the Sir Lancelot’s Tourney equestrian stunt show. By now he’d nearly reached the edge of the picture, but, frantically pushing buttons and flipping toggle switches, she manage to make the security camera pivot after him and then zoom in for a close-up.
She’d been right. The guy was Dan. His mouth was set in a grim line, and he kept glancing from side to side. His hair needed combing, and he had dark stains on his jeans and jacket which might be bloodstains, scorch marks, or both.
He looked so tense and harried that for a moment she felt sorry for him, and her doubts about Durrell and his associates loomed large in her mind. Then she pictured Wyatt’s affectionate, devil-may-care grin, and the ghastly look and stink of his rotting corpse.
Weeping tears of blood, she grabbed the phone and punched in the three-digit number Durrell had bade her memorize. When someone answered, she said, “I saw Murdock! He’s near the Tourney, moving east!”
To labour and not ask for any reward Save that of knowing that we do Thy will.
— St. Ignatius Loyola, “Prayer for Generosity”
When Dan shoved his way around the crowd of humans watching the motley-clad band of jugglers and fire-eaters obstructing the cobblestone lane, he saw the gate. Like most of the other architecture in the complex, it was a combination of the sort of structures found in any theme park and of phony medieval gingerbread: a row of cashiers’ booths and turnstiles topped with crenellated ramparts, turrets and multicolored heraldic banners. Beyond it lay a fake drawbridge and then the nearest parking lot, still full of cars despite the relative lateness of the hour. Unlike its competitors, Camelot stayed open nearly until dawn.
All right, thought Dan, just a few more steps and I’m free and clear. He started across the plaza, a circular area with a fiberglass replica of Excalibur standing tall in its anvil and stone in the center; then two mortals dressed in red surcoats and gray shirts and pants decorated with a pattern intended to look like chainmail emerged from a doorway on his left.
Dan had poked around the park enough to recognize the uniform. The guys were Camelot security guards, and
probably ghouls to boot. Reminding himself that they weren’t necessarily here to apprehend him, the vampire marched on toward the exit, fighting the urge to quicken his stride.
But after a moment he realized it was no good. The guards were headed right for him. The one in the lead, a chunky Asian who, to Dan’s hypersensitive nose, reeked of cigarette smoke and barbecue sauce, shouted, “Sir! Sir! You, the blond man in the dirty jacket! Wait up, please!”
Dan started to run, lunging around tourists, driving between them or, when necessary, knocking them out of his way. They cried out in protest, and the guards pounded after him. After a moment the exclamations from the crowd took on a different note as people realized that a chase was in progress.
Dan vaulted a turnstile, then dashed on across the drawbridge. The planks groaned and thunked beneath his feet. Glancing backward he saw that his pursuers now had pistols in their hands, but they were pointing them at the sky, not at him.
Evidently they weren’t willing to start shooting in front of the paying customers, which probably meant that none of the enemy knew that he’d penetrated the tunnels. But that might change at any second. Some Tremere could discover Sesostris’ remains and alert his fellows by radio.
A yellow jeep with a line of open carriages in tow sat waiting by the curb to carry tourists to the more remote parking areas. Snatching out his .38, Dan leaped into the seat beside the driver, a slender, twentyish girl with long, chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail, then jabbed the gun into the side of her neck. “Stonehenge Lot, Row M,” he told her. “Fast! Go!” She didn’t move, so he prodded her again. “I said go!”
The driver jerked the gearshift into drive and put her foot on the gas. Two tourists scrambled out as the train lurched forward. Looking around, Dan saw that the guards were catching up with the chain of carriages and might well manage to haul themselves aboard before it picked up speed. He fired twice in their direction, not actually trying to hit them, just discourage them. They stopped running and shot back. Some of the passengers screamed.
“Please don’t hurt anyone!” said the driver. “Please don’t!”
Despite his frequent feelings of alienation from kine in general, Dan felt a pang of sympathy for her. He was sure that she didn’t know that her bosses were vampires, or even that such improbable creatures existed. She was just an employee, maybe a college kid working to pay her tuition. But he didn’t let his pity show on his face. As long as she was terrified, she wouldn’t put up any resistance. “If you don’t want to die, go faster,” he replied.
The jeep sped on through the darkness. The cool wind riffled his hair. The Hunger smoldered in his throat and belly, and he imagined himself climbing back into the passenger cars and feeding on one of the tourists. Even if it had been a practical notion otherwise, there was no time. He’d just have to tolerate his thirst till he got away.
In another minute the train reached its destination. “Now go back to the gate,” Dan said. “Drive just as fast; I’m going to shoot at you.” He jumped from the moving jeep.
The string of carriages swept past him, some passengers gaping at him, others averting their eyes. The train turned in a half'circle and raced back the way it had come.
Dan sprinted to his rented green Lexus, clambered inside, set the .38 on the passenger seat, and turned the key. The engine roared to life. He sent the car hurtling out of the lot and onto one of the roads which, running through acres of thus far undeveloped Camelot property, ultimately connected to a public highway. Weaving through traffic, sometimes with scant inches to spare, veering off the pavement when necessary, he passed one departing vehicle after another. Horns blared.
After he’d gone about a mile, a sedan raced out of the darkness ahead. Its headlights were on high-beam, dazzlingly bright. Squinting against the glare, he tried to determine if the driver was out to intercept him.
Someone leaned precariously out of the other car’s backseat window. Dan couldn’t actually see the gun in the figure’s hands, but he was sure it was there. Trying to spoil his attacker’s aim, he jerked the steering wheel. Then the Lexus’ windshield exploded inward, spraying him with shards of glass. A split second later, the world went black.
As he came to, he cried out at a fierce throb of agony in his head. Slightly lesser pains burned in his legs and right hip. Wiping vitae out of his eyes, blinking in a vain effort to clear his blurry double vision, he peered through the shattered windshield and saw that the Lexus had left the road, hurtled another ten yards and slammed into a live oak. He tried to restart the engine, but the car only made a grinding sound.
He felt his injuries begin to repair themselves, but slowly. This time around he had too little blood in his system to heal efficiently.
If his attackers would only come within reach, maybe he could do something about that. Grunting at the fresh spasm of pain the effort required, he twisted in his seat, peered back in the direction of the road and then growled an obscenity. His two assailants had pulled off the pavement and climbed out of their car, but they were just watching the Lexus with automatic rifles cradled in their hands, not advancing. He suspected that they were ghouls, not Kindred, and, wisely leery of approaching even a wounded vampire by themselves, awaiting the arrival of reinforcements. And he didn’t see how he could go to them, not with two broken legs.
His hands shaking with pain and weakness, he grabbed the Lexus’ cellular phone and punched in Melpomene’s number.
The whirring and clicking as the call was relayed seemed to take forever. Finally, however, the Methuselah’s thrilling contralto voice said, “Dan?”
“I’ve.got the information,” the younger vampire replied. “But I’m in trouble. You’ve got to do something to help me.” “What have you learned?” Melpomene asked intently. “Are you listening to me?” Dan demanded. “The enemy is closing in on me. I’m hurt and can’t get away. I have everything you need, it’s on a computer disk, but you’re never going to get it unless you help me escape.” He had no idea how she could help him, but surely, with her godlike powers, she could do something. It was his only chance.
A silvery glow flowered in the seat beside him. Dan wondered fleetingly w'hat his attackers made of the light. As long as it didn’t provoke them into rushing the Lexus, he supposed it didn’t matter.
In a few moments the phosphorescence coalesced into an image of Melpomene. Desperate for aid, and stirred as always by her extraordinary personal magnetism, Dan felt a surge of affection. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Show me the disk,” she said.
Without thinking, he fumbled it out of his pocket.
“I’m going to see if I can bring this to me,’’ she said. “I mean, to the location of my physical body. Sometimes that’s possible, if conditions are right. If the disk arrives intact, I’ll transport you next.” .
Despite the devotion her presence inspired, he felt a twinge of alarm. Of suspicion. He jerked the disk back. “Move us both at once. If it’s dangerous, I’ll risk it.”
The Methuselah shook her head. “I can only translate one object at a time. When it’s your turn, you’ll have to be naked and empty-handed. Now hold out our prize. Before
it’s too late.”
He did as she’d directed. He wanted to trust her, and he didn’t have any choice anyway.
Her slim ivory fingers closed around the square black disk. Gradually Dan felt the object growing lighter and indefinably less substantial, shadowlike in his hand, until at last he couldn’t feel it at all.
Melpomene lifted it, and then her dark eyes widened in dismay. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asked. The other vampire’s astral projection winked out of existence.
“Melpomene!” Dan screamed. “Come back! Don’t leave me!” There was no reply.
The wounded Kindred grabbed the cellular phone out of his lap. The white plastic instrument sparked, crackled, smoked and grew hot in his hands. He could smell the circuits burning.
For the next few moments he merely sat, stunned and aghast at his patron’s treachery. His eyes ached, but he had too little vitae left in his system to shed any tears.
Grimly, he struggled to goad himself into action. He had to get past his shock, start thinking again, figure another way out of his predicament. What if he got out of the Lexus and fired at his attackers? If he put them both down, he could crawl to them and drink their blood. Considering his spastic limbs and murky vision, it was a forlorn hope at best, but he couldn’t think of a better alternative.
Fumbling the automatic off the floor, he gripped the door handle, jerked it, and sprawled heavily out onto the ground. He rolled, getting himself faced in the right direction, raised the pistol in both hands —
Bullets ripped his throat and hammered his torso. He passed out again.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
-— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Angus and Judy sat slumped in Roger Phillips’ study, waiting for the call to battle. Rap music pounded from the boom box that the Brujah elder had set on the desk. As far as the Gangrel was concerned, the sound was reminiscent of bursts of automatic-weapons fire, and extraordinarily unmelodious.
And yet, though it hurt his head and set his teeth on edge, he was glad to have it. The vent above his head was blowing a steady stream of cold air, and thick velvet curtains completely covered the French windows, but somehow he could still feel the leaden heat of the sunlight outside, pressing down on his mind, trying to crush out his awareness. The grating chant served as a sort of antidote.
In another hour, if nothing happens, 1 can go to sleep, he reflected, then scowled, disgusted by the weakness that had prompted the thought. He wanted one of his agents to find Dracula. If he and his allies didn’t catch the murderer this morning, he’d miss the deadline he’d so vaingloriously set himself; and Palmer Guice, oily, treacherous weasel that he was, would run and tattle to the Inner Circle.
The office door clicked open. Lazio entered carrying a silver tray laden with two crystal tumblers of warm, fragrant vitae. Angus seized one and guzzled it. It took Judy a moment to bestir herself and do likewise. A stray drop of crimson oozed from the corner of her wide, sensuous mouth and down her chin.
“I gather we haven’t had any news,” Lazio said, his tone carefully neutral. Sensing the human servant’s inner desperation, the Justicar had to admire his self-control. Of course, potential prey that he was, his mere presence a provocation to any vampire experiencing the Hunger, he probably couldn’t have survived for long among the Kindred if he weren’t capable of keeping his emotions on a tight rein. “No,” Angus said.
Lazio hesitated. “Do you think you could have been mistaken about the killer operating after dawn?”
Angus shrugged. “Do I think I could have been? Of course. Do I believe I was? No, and I have an instinct about these things. Look you, mortal, we’re taking our best shot, guided by our best reasoning. No one could do more, so it’s useless to worry.”
“It’s easy for you to be philosophical,” Judy said sourly. Despite the blood she’d just drunk, her voice sounded a little hoarse, as if the daylight beyond the curtains were drying her out. “It isn’t your home and your friends on the line.” That’s all the more reason for you to show a proper gratitude for my help, the giant Gangrel thought, annoyed, but he resisted the temptation to say it aloud. He realized that Judy didn’t really want to pick a quarrel with him. The suspense of waiting and the stress of their unnatural wakefulness were making them both irritable.
As he tried to think of a less provocative reply, something rapped sharply on the glass behind the drapes.
Lazio took a step toward the windows. “No!” Angus said. “You’ll scare it away.” He hastily rose and pulled on his long brown overcoat, tan kid gloves, sunglasses and sacklike hood. Judy donned a similar costume, simultaneously withdrawing to the shadows at the back of the room.
When Angus’ towering frame was completely covered, he pulled back the curtain. His first glimpse of the early morning sunlight both dazzled him and drove a lance of weakness and nausea through his body. For an instant his knees went rubbery, and he nearly stumbled. Behind him, Judy gasped in a hissing breath.
Squinting, Angus looked down at the ground. An inky black raven, its eyes bright and its head cocked, stood at the base of the French window peering up at him. He opened the glass door, and the bird flapped into the air and perched on his arm.
He stared at the raven, trying to make contact with its mind. The process was more difficult than it should have been: the sun truly had diminished his powers. But after a moment a parade of images and wordless concepts marched from the avian’s head into his own. “The birds have found Dracula,” he said, stumbling over the words; sometimes it w'as hard to speak like a man when he was telepathically linked to an animal. “She just killed three people in a diner near the courthouse.”
“But where exactly?” Lazio,asked.
“It’s a bird,” Angus snapped, releasing the mind link. “It can’t give me a street address. But its fellows will lead us to her. Come on!”
Half-running, he led Judy and Lazio out onto the dewy grass. For a second the light seemed to crash down on him like a torrent of molten lava, and then the pain grew somewhat less intense. The Brujah fell to one knee. Lazio tried to take her arm and help her up, but she wrenched herself away from his hands, scrambled to her feet, and strode on toward the black Cadillac with the tinted windows.
Lazio jumped into the driver’s seat and the two Kindred into the back, where they’d previously stowed their rifles. The raven, still riding Angus’ forearm, peered curiously about at the interior of the car. As the vehicle sped down the driveway, the justicar turned to Judy and murmured, “Are you going to be all right?”
“Hell, yes!” she said. “I knew I had the power to move around after dawn, but I never actually had to do it before. I just needed to get used to it.” Her voice softened. “You were right, it is kind of cool to see a blue sky again, even if the damn thing is making me sick to my stomach.”
Ignoring stop signs, red lights and speed limits, yielding to no one, Lazio reached the downtown area in less than ten minutes. Peering out the window, Angus saw that, as he’d expected, an unusual number of crows, sparrows, pigeons and seagulls were soaring and wheeling above the streets. “Stop the car!” he said.
Lazio obeyed. When, brakes squealing, the Cadillac lurched to a halt, Angus threw open the door. Judy tensed, possibly straining not to flinch from the unfiltered sunlight that streamed in.
Stepping out of the car, Angus sent up a silent call. A white-winged gull with a hooked yellow beak landed on his free arm, imparted its tidings, and took off again.
Angus swung himself back into the Cadillac. “Dracula’s heading east on Wood Street.” Lazio stamped on the gas; the sudden acceleration pressed the Gangrel back against the soft gray leather seat. “In a red car.”
When they spotted the serial killer her vehicle, a gleaming vintage Thunderbird with sharklike tail fins, was halfway down a block of upscale storefronts occupying the ground floors of five- and six-story buildings. The early morning traffic was still light, but even if there had been other red cars on that section of road, she would have been easy to spot. A number of birds were flying directly above her, frequently swooping down at her vehicle as if to point it out.
Smiling fiercely, looking more vicious than Angus could have imagined, Lazio pulled up even with the Tbird and then jerked the steering wheel. With a crash, the Cadillac sideswiped the murderess’ car, which then jumped the curb and slammed into a fire hydrant. Sparkling water sprayed into the air.
The vampires’ car began to spin. Turning into the skid, Lazio brought the sedan back under control and then to a stop. A few yards down the block, Dracula scrambled out of the Thunderbird; evidently the valet had succeeded in disabling it. She was still wearing her long, dark coat and beret; indeed, except for the blood now streaking the left side of her pale, oval face, she looked just like the image the manatees had conveyed to Angus.
So far she hadn’t reached for a weapon, but the Gangrel didn’t find that reassuring. She must have surmised that Lazio had hit her car because he knew who she was. If she wasn’t going for a gun, maybe she did have supernatural powers.
Employing their inhuman speed, or as much of it as they could muster in the debilitating daylight, Angus and Judy leaped out of the Cadillac and raised their rifles to their shoulders. Cawing, the raven flew off the Gangrel’s arm. The hunters’ guns were loaded with tranquilizer darts. They wanted to take Dracula alive, to make her tell who’d sent her to Sarasota.
The murderess gestured with her left hand. Though she was standing in shadow, the large emerald ring on her left hand flashed. The vampires tried to shoot, then Judy cursed when nothing happened. Both rifles had jammed.
“She’s a mage,” Angus said.
“She’s dead meat,” Judy snarled. She threw down her gun and charged Dracula. Wishing fleetingly that the Brujah weren’t quite so reckless, Angus pounded after her. Meanwhile, moving at merely mortal speed, Lazio clambered out of the Cadillac.
A single stride carried Dracula to the entrance of a trendy-looking women’s clothing boutique. The green stone on her hand glowed as she opened the door - which, at this hour, should have been locked — lunged through and slammed it behind her.
Running won’t help you, Angus thought with the cold satisfaction of a predator closing in for the kill. We’re faster than you, and we can smash down any door you lock behind you. In another minute we’ll have you.
The Thunderbird burst into yellow, crackling flame. The two Kindred instinctively recoiled, then, overcoming their fear, circled around the blaze toward the door through which Dracula had disappeared. Above their heads, something rumbled.
Startled, Angus looked up to see shards of the building’s brick facade hurtling down at him and Judy. He threw up his arms to shield his head, and then the rain of rock crashed over him.
Despite his supernatural strength, it hammered him to his knees, bruised flesh and cracked bones and, most terribly of all, tore his protective layers of clothing. Instantly his exposed flesh began to cook, filling the air with an odor of roasting meat. Terror yammered through his mind.
Grimly, exerting every bit of his willpower, he quashed the panic. Lurching to his feet, shedding chunks of brick, he turned to Judy. Her garments were torn like his, and for a moment she slapped frantically at herself as if her body had burst into flame. Then, evidently overcoming her fear as he’d quelled his own, she scrambled over the pile of ruddy broken stone, kicked the door to the boutique off its hinges, and raced on into the shadowy interior. He dashed after her.
The shop smelled faintly of perfume. Smiling mannequins clad in silk blouses and sequined gowns posed on pedestals. Dracula was nowhere in sight, even though the Kindred were still only seconds behind her.
“Where is she?” Judy snarled.
Angus thought it was a damn good question. Some of the reports of the murderer’s crimes suggested that she could become invisible. He didn’t intend to walk right past her and so let her get away.
He was no Toreador or Malkavian. In human form, he had merely human senses. But his animal forms had their own keen perceptions, and here, out of the sunlight, he could transform himself. It wouldn’t matter that his protective clothing would vanish when he did.
Smiling inside his hood, grateful to get rid of his encumbering garb even if only for a moment, he willed himself to change. Like communing with the birds or simply moving around, the shift was harder than it should have been, particularly now that he was injured and expending vitae to heal. Still, after a moment his garments melted away and a pelt of gray fur spread across his alabaster skin. His jaws extended into a muzzle and a tail sprouted from the base of his spine. Dropping to all fours, he became a wolf.
Suddenly vision was less primary a sense than it had been an instant before. The world was a web of enticing, informative aromas. Sniffing, he caught the smell of his companion, and then the odor of.a human female. The scent trail led to a blond mannequin dressed in a loose green floral-print dress, beaming at nothing in the rear of the shop.
Staring intently, head held low, Angus slunk toward the figure and Judy stalked after him. Rippling like the reflection of a moving object in a fun-house mirror, the dummy turned into Dracula. Her eyes wide, her bloody face finally looking rattled, she scrambled toward a doorway in the back wall. The short corridor beyond it appeared to lead to fitting rooms, a store room and an exit.
Angus and Judy charged. The mage gestured, her ring
51?ATARKUNCTHm
flared, and a portion of the ceiling groaned and caved in on the vampires. It wasn’t as damaging an attack as the avalanche of brick, but by the time they floundered clear of the mass of acoustic tiles, fluorescent-light fixtures and boards that had engulfed them, their quarry had reached the exit. She yanked open the door, admitting an excruciating blaze of sunlight, and dashed outside.
“Dead,” Judy rasped, clearly on the brink of frenzy if she wasn’t berserk already. “The bitch is dead.” Heedless of the daylight now, she charged toward the door.
In large measure, Angus shared her rage. Dracula was making him and his comrades look like fools, and no kine, witch or otherwise, could be allowed to get away with that. He almost scrambled after Judy before he remembered that he needed his clothing back. Snarling, resenting the extra seconds it was taking him to shift, he reverted to human form and then sprinted after the Brujah elder.
Plunging out into the sunlight, enduring another stab of pain, he found himself in an alley. Still visible, Dracula was standing about sixty feet away. Evidently she hadn’t had time to camouflage herself again, or was simply unable to do so. Perhaps, now that the vampires had defeated the spell once, it wouldn’t work on them anymore. The sorceress had struck a melodramatic pose, hands upraised and the gem in her ring glowing like a green sun as if, unable to shake the Kindred off her trail, she were drawing on every bit of her magic to annihilate them.
Midway between Dracula and Angus, Judy was dodging to and fro, trying to come to grips with the human woman. But every time Dracula clenched her fists, a wall of roaring flame erupted from the cracked gray pavement. Only the Brujah’s agility kept her from being caught in one of the blasts. Even so, as more and more barriers sprang into existence, she was gradually being imprisoned in a sort of blazing maze. Soon she’d have no more room to maneuver,
and then, no doubt, Dracula would incinerate her in a final conflagration.
Intent on her work, the kine apparently hadn’t noticed Angus’ emergence into the open yet, but he didn’t doubt that that would change if he rushed her. Then she’d trap him between walls of fire, too. And so, instead of charging, he lifted his eyes and silently called for aid.
Birds hurtled down from the sky at Dracula, pecking and slashing with beak and claw. Staggering, caught by surprise, she cried out, ducked her head and threw up her arms to ward the attackers off. A raven, perhaps the same one that had flown to Roger Phillips’ house, swooped upward, clutching the mage’s beret in its talons.
Taking advantage of Dracula’s distraction, judy managed to extricate herself from the walls of fire. Running at merely human speed now — apparently her wounds and the sunlight were taking their toll — the tail of her black leather trench coat flapping behind her, the Brujah dashed at her tormentor.
Angus charged, too. He felt parched and drained himself, but it shouldn’t matter. In another moment he and Judy would get their hands on Dracula, and then the battle would be over. No mere human, not even one who could witch down walls and draw flame from asphalt, could contend with their superhuman strength once they’d had a chance to bring it to bear.
Dracula cried out an incantation in a language that, to Angus’ ears, sounded like Hebrew. Her ring pulsed with light, and a whirlwind roared into existence above her head, scattering the attacking birds. And then, when Judy and Angus were only a second away from grabbing her, she thrust out her fists at them.
A blast of air smashed the Gangrel in the face, knocking him off his feet and sweeping him back across the pavement. The magical hurricane twisted his hood, blinding him, but he didn’t need to see to know that the wind was ripping the tears in his clothing wider. The fresh bursts of pain as the sunlight seared hitherto shielded patches of flesh were proof of that.
He scrabbled at the blacktop, trying to anchor himself, but he couldn’t find anything to grab. Somewhere behind him, Judy screamed, a shriek of agony audible even over the howl of the wind.
Whatever was happening to her was likely to happen to Angus if he couldn’t stop his helpless tumbling. Reasoning grimly that a few more holes in his garments scarcely mattered now, he attempted a minor transformation.
After one terrible moment, when nothing happened and he thought that his shapeshifting power had failed him, his nails grew into curved, razor-sharp claws which punched through the fingers of his gloves. Using every bit of his inhuman might, he clutched at the pavement again. His talons ripped into the asphalt like the spikes, on a mountaineer’s boots, holding him in place.
He yanked at his mask, which was fluttering madly in the wind, but couldn’t get the eye holes back in their proper positions. After a moment, more concerned about seeing what was happening than guarding himself from the light, he tore off the hood.
Hot pain flared across his forehead, cheeks and nose. Noting that Judy had stopped screaming, he looked around for her, then snarled with rage at what he saw.
The wind had pressed the Brujah against a Dumpster. Obviously she hadn’t been able to anchor herself as he had, and the gale had hurled her through some of the walls of flame. Now she lay motionless, burning, her lithe, lovely, whip-scarred body already blackened and shrivelled beyond recognition. Angus had no doubt that she’d died the true death.
His fangs bared, still using his claws to resist the tempest, he began to crawl toward Dracula. The top of his head felt sizzling hot, and he wondered if his hair was about to ignite.
The wind died abruptly. Perhaps Dracula had realized that it wasn’t going to keep him away from her, and had turned it off to create some other effect. Hoping to deny her sufficient time to do so, he leaped up and ran at her.
The emerald ring glowed, and then the world blazed white with glare. Only Angus’ dark glasses kept him from being completely blinded. Burning pain stabbed across every inch of his body, as if his clothing had become transparent.
He thought he understood what was happening. Dracula’s magic was collecting sunlight and focusing it on him like a magnifying glass. It was a good trick, but, staggering onward, he promised himself that it wasn’t going to be good enough.
Blisters swelled and burst on his face and hands, releasing blood that boiled away to steam. His skin blackened, crackled and flaked off. But now Dracula was only ten feet away. Grateful that she apparently couldn’t maintain this particular spell and retreat at the same time, he stretched out his arm to grab her. And then all the strength went out of his legs.
Angus collapsed. Sprawled on his belly, he struggled to drag himself forward, only to discover that suddenly his arms wouldn’t obey him either. Dracula tittered, a giddy sound that made him think she’d believed he was going to reach her. He wished she’d been right.
Something popped with a noise like a balloon breaking. Dracula gasped and clutched at her shoulder. The dazzling glare surrounding Angus died abruptly, and he saw that someone had shot her with a tranquilizer dart.
Lazio, of course. Because he’d been slow getting out of the Cadillac, Dracula’s first spell hadn’t targeted and disabled his rifle. And now Angus and Judy had detained the fleeing mage long enough for the kine to catch up and nail her.
Dracula swayed. The emerald in her ring flickered feebly for a moment, but no new miracle ensued as a result. Evidently the drugged dart had already muddled her sufficiently to keep her from using any more magic-
The cessation of her last devastating spell, and the sight of her helpless at last, lent Angus a final surge of strength to rear up and plunge his claws into her hip. Yanking her to the ground, he bit her in the throat and began to feed. Lost in the bliss of taking the nourishment he so desperately needed, he didn’t realize that Lazio had come up behind him until the mortal threw a coat over his smoldering head.
War, war is still the cry. “War even to the knife!”
— Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
When Elliott awoke, a dark figure was standing over him. In the blink of an eye he bolted upright and grabbed it by the throat, and then realized it was Lazio. Startled, probably frightened, the mortal quailed.
The Toreador felt the pulse beating in Lazio’s warm flesh. It had been three days since Elliott had fed, and the Beast murmured in the depths of his mind, telling him to rip the human open and drink his fill. Ignoring the impulse, he hastily released the dresser. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was having a nightmare.” It had been his usual one about Mary’s death, but he didn’t see any need to say so. Probably Lazio could guess as much anyway. “And I didn’t remember where 1 was.” He’d moved into one of the lavishly appointed guest rooms in Roger’s mansion for the duration of the crisis. After years of keeping to his own dark, silent, dusty home, it was disorienting to awaken anywhere else.
“That’s all right,” said Lazio, straightening his tie and shirt. His voice was an odd mixture of excitement and sadness. “I shouldn’t have come into your room uninvited.
But I have news, and I didn’t want to wait to tell you. We caught Dracula!”
Elliott felt a thrill of elation, alloyed by a certain wariness. “But I gather there’s bad news, as well.”
Lazio sighed. “Yes. Dracula’s a mage, and she destroyed Judy before we got her.”
The actor stared at him in horror. “Oh, God, no. Not Judy, too. I should have been there! I should have insisted on coming along!”
“It wasn’t your part of the fight,” Lazio replied. “Even Judy and the Justicar could barely function in the daylight. There wouldn’t have been anything you could have done, except possibly lose your own life, too.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” said Lazio firmly. “I was there.”
Elliott decided that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Looking away, he said, “All right. I’m sure that Gunter, Angus and the others want to confer with me as soon as possible. Just give me one moment alone and then HI be down.”
Frowning, the human cocked his head. “You’ll be all right?”
“Yes,” said Elliott resisting the impulse to snap at him. “Just go. Please.” Eyes narrowed, Lazio studied him for another moment, then withdrew.
Elliott’s face twisted, and red tears ran down his cheeks. He wanted to throw himself back down on the ornately carved bed, pull the covers over his head and hide from the world, sobbing his heart out like some anguished mortal child.
Judy was gone. Since Mary’s death, he’d shut the Brujah out, just as he had Sky; now he’d never get a chance to make it up to her, either, to show her just how much he’d treasured her friendship. For a moment his grief and regret were almost insupportable. Somehow emblematic of all his other guilts and sorrows, they started to drag him down into his familiar despair.
But then a flash of realism, of disgust and sheer boredom with the old, crippled Elliott obsessively wallowing in his personal tragedies, cut through his self-flagellation. Judy’s death was a calamity. He was certain that he’d never stop missing her, not even if he survived until the end of the world. But it wasn’t his fault, and the last thing she would have wanted was for him to sit around crying about it. She’d want him to carry on the fight.
Rising, he strode into the bathroom and washed, then dressed and combed his hair with his customary care. Though he’d told Lazio he’d hurry, he was sure that the evening’s business could wait another few minutes. Performer that he was, he understood that the appearance of haste in a leader could arouse his subordinates’ anxieties. And in the wake of Judy’s demise, no doubt that was the last thing any of his fellow Kindred needed.
When he was certain he looked his best, he sauntered downstairs, sighing when one of Roger’s shrieks resounded through the house. As he’d expected, he found Lazio, Gunter, Angus and the mortal prisoner in one of the cells at the rear of the house.
The huge Gangrel’s skin was red and peeling, presumably not quite healed from its exposure to the sun. Elliott noticed with fleeting amusement that, at the moment, the Justicar and the burly, perpetually ruddy-faced Gunter looked a bit alike. Nude, trembling, eyes wide, seemingly unharmed except for a telltale pastiness and scabby puncture wounds on her throat and hip, Dracula lay strapped down on an operating table with an IV drip in her arm.
“Allow me to introduce the terror of Sarasota,” Angus said. He gave the prisoner a leer, lengthening his fangs slightly. She flinched.
“Thank you for catching her,” Elliott said. “I’m glad that you two came through all right.” He looked at Lazio. “And I’m sorry I didn’t say so before.”
The mortal smiled. “That’s all right.”
Angus raised his raw, flaking, hairy hand. He’d jammed an emerald ring halfway down his little finger, which appeared to be as far as it would go. “She used this bauble to work her sorcery.” He gave Dracula another malevolent smile. “She doesn’t seem very magical without it, do you, little one? At least not with my special recipe flowing into your veins.” He rooted in his pocket and produced a steel apparatus resembling an oversized staple-puller with two long, white, pointed teeth for the upper prongs, “She must have used this to simulate a vampire bite; I wouldn’t be surprised if the points are genuine Kindred fangs. And I imagine she employed a spell to evaporate the missing blood.”
“How clever,” Gunter boomed jovially. “And now let’s slice some answers out of her.’*
“Exactly what I had in mind,” said Angus. The nails on his right hand lengthened and thickened into pointed claws. Dracula jerked helplessly in her restraints.
As a general rule Elliott disliked the use of torture. In the case of Judy’s killer it wouldn’t particularly bother him, but he had a hunch that it might actually be more efficient to conduct the interrogation by other means. He walked to the operating table and gazed down at the helpless mortal. “You see how it is,” he said. “What we have in store for you.” Dracula made a visible effort to pull herself together. Though still trembling, she managed to hold his gaze. “It won’t work,” she said with the slightest quaver in her voice. “I’m a mage, disciplined in mind and body. Neither torture nor drugs can break me.”
Gunter chuckled. “You have no idea what a mind is, or how fragile the cramped little prison you call sanity is. But I’d enjoy showing you.”
“We can break you,” Elliott said, beginning to draw on his charismatic powers, making himself appear as intimidating as possible. Nearly as susceptible to the effect as Dracula, Lazio caught his breath. “If all else fails, by compelling you to drink our blood. No sorcerer’s trick will protect you from that. Three nights, three swallows, and you become a helpless slave for the rest of your life.”
Veins of orange, the color of fear, writhed through Dracula’s aura, a cloud of light flecked with the countless sparks characteristic of magic use. But she still managed to look Elliott in the face. “Maybe you don’t have three nights. Maybe you need to know what I can tell you right now.” “You sound,” said the Toreador, “as if you think you can make a deal.”
“I do,” Dracula replied. “My life and freedom in exchange for answers to your questions.”
Gunter made a spitting sound. Elliott altered the pitch of the psychic vibration he was projecting. He still wanted the prisoner to perceive him as menacing, but trustworthy now as well, a man of honor who’d keep his word once given. He pretended to ponder Dracula’s proposal, then shrugged and said, “All right, it’s a bargain.”
“What?” Gunter exploded. “That’s ridicu—”
Elliott wheeled and shot him a glare. The flaxen-haired Malkavian lurched back a step and fell silent.
Dracula studied the Toreador for a moment, obviously-trying to judge if he was sincere. Then she said, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“I suppose you don’t,” Elliott answered. “But I’m through dickering with you. Take the deal, now, or my friends will go to work on you.”
The mage hesitated, then her mouth tightened with resolution. “Okay. You seem... decent, for a vampire. What do you want to know?”
“May I?” Angus rumbled. Since the Gangrel was presumably a skilled interrogator, Elliott nodded and stepped back, permitting him to take over. The actor would keep scrutinizing Dracula’s aura, monitoring it for any indication that she was lying.
Angus approached the table and rested his massive hand on the edge where the mage could see it. His talons were still very much in evidence. “What’s your real name?” he asked.
“Ellen Dunn,” she said.
“Where’s your chantry?” the Justicar said. Elliott knew very little about mages, but he had heard the term Angus had just used. Supposedly it referred to a coven of sorcerers, often consisting of a teacher and his disciples, perhaps the rough equivalent of a Kindred clan elder and his brood.
Dracula — after weeks of thinking of the murderess by that alias, Elliott continued to do so even after hearing her true name — shook her head. “I don’t have one anymore,” she said. “They kicked me out.”
“What was the point of the murders?” Angus asked.
“I sell my services,” Dracula said. “For money usually, and occult lore when 1 can get it. A vampire 1 know, a guy with wealth to burn and mystical secrets to trade, hired me to make it look like an undead was running amok killing people openly in Sarasota. He warned me that there were real vampires in the city and that I’d need to operate just after dawn to keep out of your way.” She shook her head. “I never dreamed you could jump me in the daylight.”
“We’re full of surprises,’’.said the Gangrel ironically. “Who is your client?”
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then said, “Wesley Shue. A Tremere.” Elliott reflected that that made sense; the Warlocks seemed far more likely than other Kindred to have ties to mortal sorcerers. “He lives in Calgary.”
Angus glanced around at his associates, who all shrugged. Evidently none of them knew Shue. “Why did he want you to do what you did?” the Justicar said, turning back to Dracula.
“I have no idea,” the captive said. “He didn’t want to tell, and the pay was good enough that I didn’t push him.” “No,” said Lazio, scowling, loathing in his voice, “you just butchered forty-seven people without even understanding what it was for.”
Dracula curled her lip contemptuously. “They were only sleepers, or as your masters call them, kine. A resource for superior beings to use, and use up, as they see fit. Hell, throughout history the Kindred have slaughtered them by the thousands, often just for fun, and never given it a second thought.”
Gunter chuckled. “She’s got you there, mortal.”
“I’d rather not debate the question of our ethical responsibilities to the human race,” Angus said dryly, “fascinating though the discussion might be. We have more immediate concerns.” He looked down at the prisoner. “What else can you tell us about the campaign against the Kindred of Sarasota?”
“Like I said,” Dracula replied, “nothing. I was hired to fake vampire murders, and I did. End of story.” Elliott surmised from the relatively stable patterns in her aura that she was telling the truth.
“Did you also drive our prince mad?” Lazio asked.
“No,” Dracula said. The dresser scowled in frustration. “What did you mean,” Angus asked, “when you said we might not have three nights to break you?”
Dracula swallowed. “It was a bluff,” she admitted, “to convince you to make a deal.” Turning her head, she looked beseechingly at Elliott. “And wre do have a deal, right? I kept my end.”
The Toreador felt both a surge of gloating cruelty and a pang of shame. “No,” he said. “I’m afraid I lied to you. You killed my friend, you threatened this domain, and now you’re going to pay for it. We’ll hand you over to Judy’s progeny to deal with as they see fit.” He glanced around at his allies.
“Shall we continue this discussion in more congenial surroundings?”
For a moment the murderess simply stared at him, too horrified to speak. But as Elliott walked out the door she began to shout, begging him to come back, she had more information to trade, secrets that he desperately needed to hear. The sound of her pleas and curses followed him and his companions down the hall.
Gunter gave Elliott an admiring grin. “After all the years I’ve known you,” the Malkavian said, “I still believed that you meant to let her go.”
Feeling guiltier and less vengeful now, the Toreador shrugged. “I’m an actor. One with — how did you put it?— a bewitching voice. I didn’t want to make a promise I didn’t mean to keep, but I was afraid that, for whatever reason, she would resist the torture, and that we might need to know what she had to tell us without delay.”
Angus gripped his shoulder. “We’re at war,” he said. “We do what we have to. Don’t agonize over it. Unless I read you wrong, you’re prone to that kind of masochism. I suppose it’s a sign that you still have a fair measure of humanitas, but if a Kindred isn’t careful, over the centuries it can eat him alive.”
Gunter regarded his fellow undead, then clucked'and shook his head. Clearly he had no idea why Elliott felt ashamed. “You did well,” he said to the Toreador, “though I have to admit 1 was looking forward to taking the bitch apart.”
Elliott did his best to mask his distaste. Gunter was Gunter, and it would be pointless, if not counterproductive, to annoy him by reproaching him for his sadism. Besides, having just experienced the same impulse in his own heart, the Toreador would have felt hypocritical decrying it in someone else. “The Brujah will probably let you sit in on the execution. I imagine they’ll do their best to make her suffer.”
The group entered Roger’s study. Elliott sat down behind the desk; the other Kindred settled in two of the leather seats in front of it and Lazio took up his customary position standing by the door. “Are we sure she told us the truth, and that she told us everything?” the mortal asked fretfully.
“I am,” Elliott said. He explained how he knew.
“But it’s not enough!” the dresser exclaimed.
“It certainly isn’t everything we’d hoped for,” Angus said. Reaching into his navy pinstriped suit coat, he produced a cigar and a box of matches. Despite the claws which he had, perhaps absentmindedly, retained, he lit the long, black Lonsdale dexterously. “Our chief adversary has done a first-rate job of making it difficult for us to trace him through his agents. I imagine that Wesley Shue is at best only a lieutenant himself, and that when we inquire in Calgary we won’t find him at home. He may well be lurking here in Sarasota, or somewhere nearby. Still, his identity could ultimately provide the key to this entire situation. You never know just how far a clue will take you.”
“Meanwhile,” said Elliott wearily, “the vandalism of the art and the assault on our financial holdings will continue.” And then a square shadow about three inches across shimmered into existence on the desktop.
Startled, the Toreador jerked his hand away from it, then warily touched it. His fingertip went right through the square
— it wasn’t solid — but he felt a vibration that somehow suggested it was in the process of becoming solid. He pulled back his hand and sure enough, over the course of the next fifteen seconds, the dark form became fully opaque, with sharply defined edges. Now he could see it was a computer disk.
“What the hell is going on?” Gunter growled. The cellular phone in Lazio’s sweater pocket buzzed.
The dresser pulled it out and said, ’’Hello.” After listening briefly, he frowned and handed the instrument to Angus. “It’s the woman who called before to tell Judy and me that there were enemies prowling around near the Tropical Gardens. She wants to talk to you, Justicar.”
Angus raised the phone to his ear and then, a moment later, gave it back. Elliott heard the drone of a dial tone; the person on the other end had hung up. “She said the password is Scorpio,” the bearded vampire said. “The password to open the disk, I assume.”
“Who says?” Elliott demanded. “You know who she is, don’t you?”
“She’s on our side,” the Gangrel replied. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“The hell you say!” Gunter snarled. “We want to know what you know, and right now!”
Angus smiled. “You just think you want to know. I guarantee that the knowledge would only depress you.”
“Vee haff vays of making you talk,” said Gunter, his voice a caricature of a movie Nazi’s. Leering, fangs extending, he sprang to his feet.
Elliott understood the Malkavian’s frustration. He hated the feeling of groping in the dark, of being forced to grapple with phantom opponents and to rely on equally elusive allies in a game whose rules he didn’t understand; the notion that one of his own comrades was withholding information was particularly galling. Yet he trusted Angus: after the way the Gangrel had helped him in Conclave and tracked down Dracula, how could he not? And so, projecting his Toreador charisma, he shouted, “Stop!"
Gunter jerked around to face him. Angus, in the process of rising, slumped back down onto his chair.
“I don’t like all the mystery, either,” Elliott said tp. Gunter. “But I daresay that each of us has his own closely guarded secrets, and Angus has proved himself a friend.” Gunter glared at his fellow member of the primogen for a moment, then sighed. “All right, I’ll let it go for the moment.”
“Thank you for your forbearance,” said Angus dryly. He turned to Lazio. “I assume you have a computer somewhere in this palace.”
“Of course,” the dresser replied. Though his voice was nearly as steady as usual, Elliott sensed how relieved he was that the Gangrel and the Malkavian hadn’t come to blows. “Several, including one in my own office.” He tucked the phone back in his pocket. “Shall we go there?”
As the four men strode through the house, Elliott realized that he’d never seen Lazio’s office. It turned out to be a spacious, well-lit room furnished with the eclectic mix of antiques and exquisite modern pieces characteristic of the house as a whole. A faint scent of fine cognac hung in the air — evidently the mortal had had a drink in here within the last day or so ■— and framed circus posters from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries adorned the walls.
Lazio sat down at his desk and turned on his computer, which chimed and began to hum. As the screen lit up, he inserted the disk in a slot in the side of the machine, waited for the image on the monitor to change, and then typed Scorpio.
The screen altered again, to display paragraphs of text. Crouching, peering intently, the three Kindred spent the next half-hour reading over Lazio’s shoulder.
Finally, feeling giddy, his body light and vibrant with elation, Elliott said, “We’ve got it. There are gaps — it’s not entirely clear why Durrell picked on us — but still, everything we truly needed to know is here.”
“Not quite,” Lazio said. “He doesn’t explain how he and his accomplices made Roger sick. He alludes to it, but he doesn’t go into details.”
“Don’t worry,” said Elliott, straightening up and gripping the valet’s shoulder. “We’ll make them tell us.”
“Assuming that the information is legitimate,” Gunter said.
Cocking his head, Elliott regarded the Malkavian quizzically. “You have doubts?”
Gunter shrugged. “If someone wanted to ruin the Kindred of Sarasota, he might try to trick them into taking hostile action against other, innocent members of the Camarilla. Imagine how that could be made to look in Conclave.” “But obviously, my acquaintance on the phone sent this intelligence,” Angus said, “and as I told you, she’s on our side.”
“I agreed that I wouldn’t try to force your secrets out of you,” Gunter replied dourly. “But on the other hand, you can’t expect Elliott and me to make vital decisions on the basis of your unsupported word.”
“But it isn’t unsupported,” Elliott said reasonably. “By every indication, the journal is the real thing. Look at all the corroborative detail. And remember, it was Durrell who tried to drive me mad in the Assembly — Durrell who just happened to be prepared to work the requisite magic without a moment’s delay.” He shoved away a tiny, nagging doubt that the Tremere could be the satanic demigod Sky had described. Possessing charismatic powers himself, he understood how a Kindred could cloak himself in a semblance of terrible glory; his friend, after all, had been more or less insane. “I’m- as paranoid, as worried about making a wrong move, as you are, Gunter, but if this document isn’t proof enough to spur us into action, I despair of ever collecting enough before the enemy ruins us.”
Gunter scowled, pondering, and then slowly smiled. “You’re nowhere near as paranoid as I am,” he said. “I’m a Malkavian. A trained professional. But all right. I admit that, ninety-nine chances out of a hundred, the disk is for real. What are we going to do about it?”
“You can convene another Assembly,” said Lazio, swivelling his chair to face them. “This time, you take the offensive and denounce Durrell and his henchmen.”
“We could,” said Elliott, “but that would give them advance warning that we’re on to them, and the chance to flee. Or to mobilize allies like Palmer Guice to subvert the cause of justice.”
Lazio looked up at Angus. “Then you could take the matter directly to the Inner Circle.”
The huge Gangrel shook his head. The gold ring in his ear gleamed against his shaggy brown mane. “As I told Elliott, you don’t want to involve my masters in your problems. They have their own perspectives, their own rivalries and their own agendas. They might do something that would appall you, for reasons you wouldn’t even comprehend.”
Elliott sensed that Angus had spoken honestly, but that he also had another, personal reason for not wanting to appeal to the overlords of the seven clans. Perhaps he didn’t want them to find out about his affiliation with the woman who’d sent the disk. But since the Justicar was advocating Elliott’s own point of view, the Toreador could see no advantage in confronting him about his motives.
“Since we know that Durrell is holed up in Camelot,” the actor said, “I propose a sneak attack. Afterward, if anyone challenges us about it, we’ll present the evidence that the Warlock was our foe. Neither Guice nor anyone else will pursue the matter further, not on behalf of a man and a scheme we’ve already destroyed.”
Gunter nodded. “I like it. Revenge should be personal.” Elliott silently agreed with him. He genuinely believed that he had sound tactical reasons for the course he’d recommended, but inwardly he couldn’t deny that a yearning for vengeance, for Judy, Sky, Rosalita and all the rest of the fallen, was motivating him as well.
Lazio grimaced. “If you fight, of course I’ll fight with you. A part of me is eager to. But the domain has taken too many losses already. Sneak attack or no, there are bound to be more.”
“I know,” Elliott said somberly. “But if Durrell disappears, any hope of curing Roger may go with him.”
The mortal sighed. “Okay. When you put it like that.” Elliott turned to Angus. “I understand that you came to Sarasota to apprehend Dracula, and you have. You never said that you intended to march into battle against our other enemies —”
The Justicar snorted. “Oh, I’ll tag along, Toreador, for various reasons. A Kindred in my lofty position” — his rough bass voice dripped sarcasm — “might overlook Durrell and Shue plotting against Roger Phillips and his subjects, but I can’t tolerate them deliberately endangering the Masquerade to do it. Shall we go rally the troops? Maybe your friends Cobb, Jones, McNamara and their broods would like to join the party. McNamara could lead our Brujah....”