PROLOGUE

30 AUG 1975, 7:35 PM
HIGHWAY I-80 EAST, On the way to Reno

 

            Thomas Scarrow lay at the bottom of the hill, down from a broken guardrail and an endless stretch of winding highway.  Spurred by adrenaline, his heart pounded.  He groaned inside the inverted Lincoln.  The seatbelt held him in place.  The sections of windshield still in place were webbed with cracks.  Beyond, the headlights were still on, probably the only part of the vehicle still working.  The illumination was a curse, showing his little girl—hurt, maybe dying.
            She lay outside the vehicle, just out of reach, twisted, cut by broken glass, still—except for the slow rise of her chest.  She stared back with pain-darkened eyes, tears on her face.  Her hair formed raven wings on the rocky ground.  She whimpered.  Her fingers twitched and curled, grasping at nothing.
            “Daddy...?” she gasped.
            Her need burned through the red haze of agony that gripped him, but his voice was weak and broken, as he fumbled at the seatbelt release.  “I’m ... right here, Evie.”
            “It ... hurts...” she said.
            “I know.  I’m sorry.”
            The seatbelt released him.  He crumpled downward, nearly losing consciousness.  Blood dripped down his face, no longer damping his hair.  He realized he’d banged himself on the steering wheel.
            Probably have a concussion...
            He tried to force his way out of the side window, pressing against the partially caved roof that wouldn’t budge.  He couldn’t do anything.  Tears of frustration dripped down his face.

            Oh, Evie...
            She was only fourteen, with her whole life ahead of her.  It couldn’t end this way.  He pounded at the buckled metal, praying for the insane, adrenaline-driven strength that sometimes comes in emergencies.
            It didn’t come.
            “Ughhh!   God, I’m sorry...  Try to hold on, Evie!  Someone will come along soon and help us.”
            The lie was meant to be kind, meant to give hope.  They both knew hope was otherwise occupied that night.
            Evie smiled with tenderness.
            “I love you ... Daddy...”
            “Evie...!”
            Her smile failed as lips grew lax.  The whites of her eyes as well as the irises eclipsed—as if pure darkness were pouring into her, filling the void of a departed soul.  Her small hand twitched, and clenched a small rock.
            It shattered in her grip, becoming a puff of dust and grit.
            He questioned his senses; the dead don’t move—they don’t break rocks with their hands.
            The headlights failed.  Shadows pounced, feeding on his expanding pain.
            “I ... love you ... too ... Evie,” he spoke the words from his heart, but a back corner of his mind shivered in fear.  His thoughts fractured and slipped from his grasp, and he entered a place that bordered dreaming, but led to despair.
            Glazed by moonlight, Evie stirred.  She lifted herself off the ground.  Her shambling feet approached.  A small, delicate hand appeared in the window, seizing the edge of the inverted door.
            Words poured out of Thomas.  Confused, he listened to hear what he was saying, “Careful, Princess, you’ll cut yourself.”
            She didn’t listen.  The metal screeched.  The door came away like wet cardboard.  Evie’s face lacked emotion.  She ignored the blood dripping from her palms.  She dragged him out, and picked him up as though he were the child.
            He fought to stay consciousness as she carried him uphill, each jolt sending red, electric jags into his mind from various injuries.
            She laid him on the shoulder of the road, and stepped back.
            “They’re coming to help you, Daddy.  Don’t be afraid.  I won’t let them hurt you.  I promise...”
            He heard the sound of leathery wings in the night.  A storm of bats passed across the scarred face of the moon.  A moment later, the nearby shadows stirred.  Three figures approached; a man in a black suit with an open necked, scarlet shirt, and two beautiful women in figure-hugging gowns.  The woman on the right was blonde, the other a red-head.  Their eyes burned Thomas from a distance.
            The red-head licked puffy licks.  She started to pass her male companion.
            He stopped her with a gesture.  “No, Natasha.  Not in front of the child.”
            “Then take her first, Wyatt,” the blonde said.
            “No, Lizza, there are a few lines even I will not cross—without greater need.”  His prying eyes became smoldering coals, turning to Evie.  “Come here, little girl.”
            She walked over, the blood dripping from her hands soaked into her pants legs.
            “I will take you someplace to be cared for,” he said.
            “My daddy needs help,” she said.
            “You must forget him.”  The man reached for her hand.
            She seized his coat and tugged him to his knees.
            He gasped in rage and surprise.
            His ladies hissed and came at Evie, their fingernails growing into slender knives.
            A surging wave of darkness burst up from frost-seared ground.  The blackness cast out black wings like a monstrous crow.  The shadow-shape made an instant fog around itself, radiating cold that went beyond reason.  The women were thrown back.
            Thomas stared in fascination as the crow shape folded wings, and collapsed into a ball.  The blackness compressed, becoming a star you could cup in one hands.  His daughter did just that, and then pitched the ball his way.  Right in front of him, the darkness opened.  Now a pitch-black sparrow, it flew into his chest, bringing a numbing cold as it sank in.
            “We are joined,” she told him.  “I can always find you now.”  Evie turned back to the man she’d left standing.  “You don’t want to make me mad.”
            “Why, no, of course not,” Wyatt said.  “But, do you mind if I ask—what exactly are you?”
             She smiled.  Her voice deepened to a growl of thunder, as if another were talking through her.  “I am Darkness.”
            “Darkness?”
            “...I saw the birth of light.  I was here when this world was lifeless rock.  I will be here when the last star dies.  I have slept for a very long time, but am now awakened.”  Evie’s voice became her own again, “Help my daddy, please!”
            The man bowed his head.  “Yes, Princess, we will do as you say.”
            Impenetrable darkness pooled under Evie.  Slowly, she sank from sight, leaving no trace she’d ever been there.
            The man stood slowly, body tense.  His eyes were focused on a distant point, sifting possibilities.
            The women returned to him, makeup smudged, their clothing rumpled and torn.  They clung to the man’s arms, all confidence gone from their posture.
            “Where’d she go?” Lizza asked.
            The question went unanswered, as merciful oblivion rushed in, drowning Thomas, taking away his pain ... guilt ... and everything else.

                                                                          ONE

THE PRESENT
ANGEL FALLS, CALIFORNIA, THE SIERRA MOUNTAINS

High heels broke the silence behind him, as though someone walking on air had suddenly touched down upon the concrete of the parking garage.
            “Johnny...”  The voice was a soft sigh of wind.
            He kept going.
            “I need to talk to you.”
            The smell of violets in the air...
            His heart beat faster, as if with joy, but he quickened his steps to get away.
            Not her—God, not her.
            His car was just ahead.  If he could just get to it...
            A woman’s violet-nailed hand fell on his shoulder, squeezing with inhuman power.
            He was stopped by pain, held effortlessly in place, then forced to his knees on the cold concrete.  It felt like his whole shoulder was coming off.
            Her voice acquired a razor edge.  “What’s your problem?  Can’t take a hint?  I want to talk to you.”
            She released her hold, and came around to face him.
            He saw violet leather boots with stiletto heels, endless legs that begged for caresses, and a mini-dress that seemed painted onto dangerous curves.  The dress was also violet.  You never had to imagine what her favorite color was—Violet always did like dressing up to her name.  He so wished he didn’t know that, and so many other things about the local vampires.
            She hauled him to his feet with one hand, making it look easy.
            Super strength, gotta love it.  He wished he had some, but there were no radioactive spiders around at the moment to help out.
            Her stare hit his face like a slap.
            He looked only at her hair—ink-black wings edged with violet—while he felt his shoulder for wetness.  No blood.  Still, he’d probably have some nice bruises tomorrow.
            Peripherally he caught her frowned.  From past experience, he knew her porcelain skin was threatening to crease between the eyebrows.  This was her patience-close–to-exhaustion look.  He’d once looked forward to cataloguing all her moods and expressions.
            “Why do you avoid me, John?  Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
            She used the voice, attempting to bend his will.  The meeting had become a game, a test of power.
            “Look in my eyes, John.”
            “Guys that do that don’t last long.”
            He dropped his gaze to the rare, violet jade necklace she wore.  He mentally seized a chunk of Shakespeare to create a psychic shield, losing himself in rhythmic prose:

Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play'd
Some tricks of desperation...

            Damn, what was the next line...   Talk about pressure...

“Look in my eyes, John.”

His mind leaped to the next line he could dredge up.

'Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.'

            His heart pounded, as he tried to give her a reason to let him live.  “You don’t want to do this.  The Council...”
            The dark tide of her mind edged away.
            “The Council sent me, Johnny.  They want your help.  We need a human to do what we cannot.  You have enjoyed the Council’s protection.  Out of gratitude for past services, you and yours have been kept off-limits to our kind.  But gratitude can run as thin as blood in a well-used corpse.  Things can change.  Do you want that, Johnny?”
            He thought of his father, retired early at fifty-five, puttering away in the hobby room with his models trains, and Heather, his younger sister, breaking hearts at the local high school.  He thought of them dying, throats ripped out, crimson spraying the air...  It could happen so easily in Angel Falls, a town missing from every map, founded by Vampires in the 1800’s.  Humans lured to the Retirement Communities hereabout often died of unnatural causes, though that’s not what the local coroner—a vampire, of course—put down on the death certificates.
            Visitors that stumbled over the truth, as he once had, were not allowed to leave.  He was an exception to that rule, but then, he had family here, hostages that guaranteed his good behavior.
            “No,” he said.  “I don’t want things to change.  What do you want me to do?”
            “Go to Sacramento.  Something has been killing our kindred there—killing us way too easily.  You need to find out what it is, and how we can stop it.”
            “That’s way outta my league.  I can’t handle something like that, and I can’t afford to lose time from my courses.”  That last was not strictly true .  He was taking correspondence courses from the University of Phoenix.  All he really needed was his computer.
            “We require that special turn of mind you have, Johnny.  You see things most people miss, even vampires.  We’ve had our own kind on this, professional bad asses that were very tough, utterly competent.  They’re no longer around—except in bloody chunks.”  She began to walk around him, trailing her hand along his shirt.  Her nails scraped lightly, a distraction he tried to ignore.  “In the past, you have survived where death was all but certain.  Someone on the Council has a strong belief in the forces of fate and fortune.  Another reason why it must be you.”
            Her orbit brought her in front of him once more.
            “So, I have no choice.”  He took pains to look the other way.  “You said ‘It’?  You don’t think humans are doing this—vigilantes, or maybe the Preternatural Unit of Homeland Security, cleaning up the streets?”
            She drew away, laughing.  “That’s a myth.  Homeland Security has no such unit.”
            The sound shivered him to the marrow, but part of him craved the sound.  He hated that part—the loss of control.
            She said, “Humans aren’t doing this.  You’ll know that when you see what’s left of the bodies.  Go to The Scarlet Thirst, a Goth-bar for vampires and those who emulate us.  You will be contacted there.”
            “Anything else?”
            She stepped closer.  The smell of violets encompassed him.
            Pleasant and dangerous memories arose, assailing him.  He mentally slapped them down, closing his eyes.  He rubbed salt into his own wounds; You know she can’t love, not really.
            Her voice acquired a teasing lilt, “You never answered my question,”
            “What question?”
            “I asked if you thought I was pretty.”
            “No.”
            She laughed, retreating.  Punctuated by clicking heels, her voice trailed between them, “Oh, Johnny ... I can always tell when you’re lying.”
            There were no more echoing steps.  He had the sense that prey get when truly alone, out from under hungry eyes.  He brought his face forward.  The muscles were tight, a mask of iron.  After a deep breath, he went to his car, a midnight green Legend with quite a few miles on it.  He unlocked the door and slid in.  His tattered copy of The Tempest lay in the next seat.
            A black rose rested on top of it.
            The first message had come from The Council, this one was from Violet; she was letting him know that there’d be a lot of roses on top of his casket if he let her down.  He was in her territory, her city, and the vampires’ ruling Council had requested him through her.  Guilt by association was in play; if he failed, she’d look bad.  She didn’t like looking bad.  If he failed her, he’d be lucky if his whole family didn’t wind up in a mass grave in the middle of the woods.
            Hands shaking on the steering, he sat there as his system dealt with the adrenaline in his bloodstream.
            When he could trust himself to drive, he started the engine, backed from his parking spot, and headed for the street.  He emerged into merciful daylight, but with the sun setting.  Traffic outside the hospital was light.  As he drove, he noticed the gauze square taped to the inside of his right arm.  Like other humans living by vampire benevolence, he was required to make a regular tithing in blood.  Violet headed the board of directors for the local hospital, and was a strong booster for the blood drive, one of her hobbies.
            He hated vampires, especially raven-haired ones in violet dresses that left so little to the imagination.  He’d loved her once, and that love hadn’t completely died after he’d learned what she was.  By then, it was too late; he’d moved to be near her, as well as his dad, and hadn’t seen in time that he’d only been another of her hobbies.
            He ripped off the tape.  It hurt.
            Wanting to get out of the big city, his dad had come along to check out the area, deciding to stay.  He actually liked it here, ignorance being bliss.  Johnny needed to keep his father and kid sister alive, blissful in the extreme.  He needed to finish this job before his whole world crashed, because failure was just another name for Death.
            As he drove, he tried to imagine what kind of entity could successfully go toe-to-toe with the undead and win every time.  One of the Masters on the Council could tear apart a regular vamp easily enough, but a master wouldn’t have to hide the action.  It would take more than a few killings for the council to censure one of their own.  A werewolf was a possibility, though they usually just managed to hold their own—but if augmented in some way ... or hunting in a pack...
            He shook his head.  There was no use trying to guess more until he saw the bodies.  Hopefully, they’d give him a few answers.
            He paid little attention to streets laid out in rigid lines, knowing them all too well, and soon rolled up to the security gate protecting the Sierra Vista Estates.  Through his open window, he punched the gate code onto a keypad.  The black wrought iron fence rolled out of his way.  He entered, and followed a curved drive past the bone-hued, stucco walls.  Between windows, the apartments had Italian cypress, and between buildings, covered parking lots lurked.  Behind the second building was a laundry room, and private gym that he used often.  The third apartment building was where he lived.  The structure showed its backside to tennis courts, a heated swimming pool, and a combination sauna and Jacuzzi.  On the opposite side of the road, Evergreens brooded around a little park with concrete pavilions and brick-bound Bar-B-Qs.
            Be it ever so humble...
            He eased into visitor parking since his dad’s Jeep was using their assigned space.  He left his vehicle and following the walkway to the roofed gap where a staircase served every door.   Two steps at a time, he hurried up to the second floor landing while fishing out his keys.  He entered apartment forty-one.  The usual aroma of garlic was augmented by his dad’s infamous all-day chili simmering in the kitchen.
            Johnny sighed.  His dad’s chili was famous across five states.  The concoction had once taken first place in a Texas cook-off.  The ribbon was in a glass-covered frame on the living room wall where savvier folks might have nailed a crucifix.  But they’d had chili for a week now, none of it particularly good.  The old man’s memory was fraying, developing gaps—Alzheimer’s probably.  He was repeating the same menu night after night.
            Johnny didn’t have the heart to tell his dad that he was losing himself in small pieces, but the time was coming when such a talk would be unavoidable, but not now, not today.
            “Dad, I’m home!”
            “Johnny?  I’m in the kitchen.  You’re just in time for dinner.”
            “Give me a few minutes, Dad.  I just got in and want to clean up.”
            He went down the hall, toward his room, pausing outside a closed door that thinned a grunge-rock blast of sound.  He shook his head in amazement.  How Heather could possible concentrate on homework with her stereo pumping angst was more than he could fathom, but he knew she was not only doing homework, but simultaneously texting friends, making occasional phone calls, probably painting her nails, and absorbing the latest article on teen dating as well.  She took multitasking to an all new level.
            He knocked on the door.
            The sound went down, just a little.  A moment later her door opened.  He smelled garlic.  Good, she was using one of his sculptures.  Heather stuck her face out.  A jaw-breaker bulged her cheek.  She looked like a chipmunk gathering sunflower seeds.  Her eyes were grey-green like his.  She shared the same tawny shade of hair as well.  Only different ages and genders kept them from being twins.

            She put out a hand.

            He laid ten bucks across it; her price for humoring him.
            She snatched up the cash.

            “I’m going out of town for a while, maybe a week or two.” He said.  “Keep an eye on the old man for me, okay?”
            She tossed him a sloppy salute.  “Sure.  That all you want?”
            “You know I love you, right?”
            She shrugged, “What’s not to love.”
            “I just wanted to say it.”
            He moved to his room, went in.  The special UV reactive posters on the wall were glowing.  He had a special sculpture on the nightstand, like those scattered throughout the house.  They contained black-light emitting diodes and gently warmed garlic-oil in their reservoirs, making the house smell like a pizzeria.  Unaware of the anti-vampire nature of his little monstrosities, his family thought he was touched in the head.  He didn’t care, as long as the things were kept plugged in and filled up.
            He turned on the lights and packed a bag.

                                                                          TWO

Clad in a tight red dress and cropped leather jacket that matched her stiletto heeled boots, Donovan was conscious of lustful glances burning across her at odd intervals.  Nothing new there.  Her lacquered stick slid over the knuckle ridge of her splayed hand as she teased the cue ball, taking her time.  Her nails were painted crimson, clipped short.  She preferred them that way; upkeep was easier after delivering lethal blows.

The gloom was thick with clacking pool balls, muttered curses, and alcohol induced laughter.  Waitresses circled the red-velvet tables, serving beer.
            The red felt of the table made Donovan thirsty.  Her tongue slid against a fang, feeling its virgin point.  She closed her eyes a moment to chase away the killing impulse.  Unlike most of the vamps in the place, she preferred to fight her inner demons, not let them off the leash.

            “You gonna shoot or what?” her opponent asked.
            Her stick froze.  She swiveled her head, locking shaded eyes on the guy.

            He grew silent.
            After a twenty-count, she returned her attention to the table.  Her stick sawed forward and back a few more times, then came a last, smooth stroke.  The tagged ball plunged across the tabletop with reckless abandon.  Multiple clacks and a kinetic frenzy ensued.  Two of the striped balls fell into pockets, leaving two solid, one of them the eight ball.

Donovan straightened, displaying no emotion.  She walked past the other player, a young stud in full western gear who stood out big time in the gothic bar.  Her stick nosed back to the green, resting on her hand, addressing the cue ball once more.  A straight in shot was not possible.  The white ball’s path to the eight ball was blocked by the remaining solid, a medium blue.  The obvious solution was a bank shot, dropping the eight ball in the side pocket inches away.
            “I’m not taking the bank shot,” she said.

“No?”

“No.  How much money you got left, cowboy?”

“Enough.”

“Enough to cover a small side bet?” Donovan asked.

“How small?”

“I got five hundred that says I sink this next shot without banking it.”

“It can’t be done!”

            “Then it’s a sure thing—for you.  You in or not?”

            The man mulled it over, which included tipping back his black cowboy hat, taking a draw of beer from his glass, and glowering beetle-browed at the table, as if it concealed the mysteries of the universe.  At last, he looked up at her.  “I don’t got that much.”

            “What’s in your pocket?”

            The man turned away to count his cash.  A moment later he was back.  Two-hun’rd an’ fifty.”

            Donovan pulled a roll of bills out and set it on the table’s side rail.  She smiled.  “I showed you mine.  Show me yours.”

            The man slapped his money down.  “There.  Now take your shot!”

            “Sure.  Side pocket, here.”  She pointed with the end of her stick, then leaned out over the table, knowing the cowboy would be checking out her generous cleavage as he and several others had all night.  She didn’t mind.  Distraction of the enemy was a legitimate tactic of war.  The butt of her stick elevated.  The tip targeted a point near the top of the cue ball.  She drew a deep breath and released it slowly—just as she would when squeezing off a round from a rifle.

            She felt many eyes on her.  Players from the surrounding tables had heard the action going down and waited to see the outcome.
            The stick struck like a bolt from the blue.  The white ball hopped over the solid that blocked it.  Its arc brought it down, grazing the black ball.  The eight ball rolled into the side pocket, ending the game.  A small, satisfied smile briefly twitched the corner of her mouth.

            She moved around the table, through a veil of appreciative whistles and awed commentary from the crowd, to scoop up her earnings.
            The man she’d just beat shook his head side to side.  “Leave it.”  The air was suddenly syrupy with menace.  “I don’t know how you did that, but you cheated somehow.  Leave the cash and take a hike, Bitch, or you’re going to get hurt.”

Donovan eased her shades away from her face.  She let the endless hunger torturing her blaze from her eyes, locking stares with the cowboy.
            He paled.  “I … I’m sorry, lady.  Take the cash.  You earned it … fair and square.”

Donavan returned her shades to her face, shuffled through her winnings, and stuffed a twenty in the man’s shirt pocket.  “Keep this.  I never take a man’s last dollar—even when he’s a jerk.”

“Uh, yes ma’am.”

Donovan left the back and entered the main room.  The Scarlet Thirst’s red velvet interior put her in mind of hell on a Saturday night.  The bar was a black marble island on blood-red shag.  She strolled toward it, through a field of gyrating dancers.  She never touched those obstructing her way.  One glimpse of her and they moved, feeling her contempt like a radiant force.  Besides, she was tougher, and ready to prove it.  Her strut said as much, along with the jaunty slant of the crimson beret that hid close-cropped hair many shades darker.

            A metal Goth ballad filled the air. A local band performed on a modest stage, behind a protective wire fence.  Bottles of beer were known to fly at bands that didn’t measure up to customer standards.  The drummer's reverberating backbeat gave the music an extra-spatial timbre.  A starved stray of a girl with black hair and lipstick, wearing silver studded leather, shared the lyrics of her pain:

Painted lips softly sigh, and
Greet the night's infusion—

Dying flesh, so passionate,

Trade lust for love's confusion—

            Donovan reached the bar and caught the bartender’s attention.  “The band's almost good,” she said. “Who are they?”

            “’The Damned’—at least, that’s what they call themselves.”  The bartender donned a protective glove.  “You want the usual?”

            She nodded curtly.

            He produced a silver flask and poured a stream of clear liquid into a crimson shot glass.  “I don't see how you can stand this stuff.  Hey, how about a nice warm mug of O-neg instead?”

            “No, thanks.  The flask … it's from the usual source?”

            “Yeah, St. Michael's 'round the corner.  Pure tap water, blessed and sanctified by a priest.  Enjoy your holy water, if you can.”

            A sharp bark of laughter escaped her.  “I'd be damned if I couldn't.”  She gathered in the drink and raised it in a toast.  “Hail-Mary-Full-Of-Grace”.  Transfixed, the bartender stared as Donovan slammed the glass back, then back down.  Her free hand formed a fist as her eyes closed.  Raw agony drew a red shroud across her mind.  She shuddered, and would have sweat blood—if she had any.
            A new verse sank into her:

Come closer, lover, where we can see—

You're looking rather tasty—

Why don't you scream with us a while—

The feeding frenzy's back in style—

            Donovan threw a crumpled bill on the bar.  “Another.”

            The bartender shrugged.  “You’re a glutton for punishment, know that?”  He poured the drink, handling it gingerly, like toxic waste.  “Why not accept your fate.  You were attacked by a vampire and drained of blood.  You're as un-dead as anyone else in here—except the posers and the band.  Life may have been sweet, but in the end, the scarlet thirst always wins.”

            “The glass, you still got it?”

            “We’re going to go through that again?”  He sighed and reached beneath the bar, drawing out a bar towel.  It held something flat, rectangular.
            Donovan took the towel and unwrapped the mirror hidden within it.

            “Don't wave that thing around,” the bartender said.  “You'll upset the customers.”
            She bent over the glass and saw a suggestion of a face; a pale ghost-image overlaying the ceiling.  As she watched, her features faded away.  Carefully, she rewrapped the mirror and gave it back.

            “So, how long has it been since you've tasted blood?” the bartender asked.  “We've sorta got a pool going.”

            “I never have and I never will.  It's not being bitten that makes a vampire; it's the sacrilege of blood.  I may be un-dead, but I am not damned.  I still have my faith.”

            “Think you're better than us, do you?”

            Donovan turned to face the questioner.  She saw Vito, the club's bouncer.  Their stares meshed, and Donovan measured the moment by the slow tired beat of her heart.  She kept it running by sheer force of will, refusing to let it atrophy.  “I know I'm better than you.  I don’t hurt the innocent.  No one else in here can say that.”

            “Your faith weakens you,” Vito grinned, bearing fangs.  There was lust in his eyes as he looked her over, tensing to spring.  “Blood is strength.  Without it, you're only a mewling kitten.  You know what I do to kittens?”

            Knowing how violent vampire foreplay could be, she pulled a tanto, a gently curved wooden knife, from her sleeve. She held the weapon casually at her side.  “You know what I did to your momma?” she asked.

            “C'mon guys, take it outside, huh?” the bartender said.

            Vito lunged.
            Donovan took a step and quarter-turned her body, letting Vito have the line of his approach.  Donovan shoved from the unexpected angle.
            Off-balance, Vito fell, his heart impaled through the diaphragm.  An older vamp, he burst into dusty fragments.

            Donovan returned to the bar.  “Looks like you need a new bouncer,” she said.

            “I thought he had you for sure,” the bartender said.  “What was that technique you used?”

            “Tai Chi,” she answered.  “The Good Book tells us strength is perfected in weakness.  Kung-Fu agrees.”

            “So what were you, before passing over, lady?  A preacher?”

            “Marine.  One day, I'll go back to that life.”

            The bartender nodded sagely.  “You know, somehow, I believe you will.”

            A breather pushed up to the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention.  “Excuse me ... my name’s Scarrow.  Someone around here’s expecting me.”
            The bartender grinned, showing his fangs.  “I hope it wasn’t Vito.”
            The human looked puzzled.  The name didn’t register.  “I’m here on Council business,” he said.
            The vampires in the room grew silent and rigidly still for a heartbeat, their preternatural hearing absorbing the comment easily through the crowd noise.  Their burning eyes riveted onto the breather.

            He swallowed and muttered, “Oh, crap!”
            Donovan grinned.  This guy was no wanna-be poser.  He was literally sweating bullets over attention that the Goth-freaks would have bared their throats to get.  The murmuring returned, but the atmosphere was storm-charged.
            Carlos approached in a crisp white suit with a black shirt and white tie.  This was his place, a neutral territory where vamps with grudges could meet without instant carnage erupting—in theory at least.  That he’d give Scarrow personal attention, lent weight to the man’s connection to the Council.  There was a group of bogeymen for you.  They were the oldest of the cursed, twisted by time and hunger so they could no longer pass for human.  Thought of them made regular bloodsuckers sleep in their coffins with nightlights on.

            Carlos paused to cast a troubled glance at Donovan.  “The breather a friend of yours, Donovan?”
            She shrugged.
            “The situation is delicate enough as it is.  Your mixing in will not be gladly received,” Carlos said.

            Donovan grinned.  “That’s just breaks my heart.”
            Carlos shrugged in turn.  “It’s your pretty neck.”  He turned to Scarrow.   “You’re the one they call Scarecrow?  From the stories, I expected someone older, more ... formidable.  Frankly, I’m disappointed.”
            Donovan swung her gaze back to the kid.
            Scarecrow?
            The rumors about him conjured images of someone who was half Rambo, half magician.  A wild kind of luck was said to dog his steps—springing him from the jaws of death time and again.
            There must be a hell of a lot more to this guy than meets the eye.  There better be, if he’s supposed to do something about the recent murders ... not that they bother me.

            “Come to my office,” Carlos said.  “We can talk there.”
            Carlos left.
            Scarrow followed with evident hesitation.
            Donovan stayed close behind, dealing herself in.
            Nothing on TV tonight anyway...

                                                                        THREE

            Sandwiched between blood-suckers, Johnny tried not to look as hapless and vulnerable as he was.  It was a small step from looking like a victim to becoming one.  They crossed the room to a hall that led to a private office.  The lighting was brighter than in the bar.  The walls were bare except for a neon sign that advertised a German lager, and a guitar-shaped clock painted with hellfire.  Bills and invoices littered a large teak desk where a computer monitor was on.  A screen saver showed a still of the actress from Underworld.
            Carlos loosened his white tie, dropping heavily into a leatherette office chair.  “Take a seat, kid,” he pointed at a metal chair.
            Johnny sat, watching Donovan from the corner of his eye.  The vamp had closed the door and was leaning his back against the frame so no one else could enter.  He wanted to stare, dangerous as that was, and fought the impulse.  She was more than pretty.  There was a lethal grace he found attractive.  He’d seen leopards at the zoo that move like she did.  He wondered why she was getting involved in this mess.  Maybe she filled her emptiness with danger as well as blood.  It occurred to him to wonder how Donovan would do against Violet.  There was a match he’d pay top dollar to see.
            “All right, kid,” Carlos leaned back in his padded chair.  “I’m supposed to bring you up to speed.  I’m also your contact to the Master of the City.  He wants answers quick, before the killer works up the ranks to him.  He’s giving you open access to whatever you need.  If someone gets difficult, slowing you down, give me their name.  They will become cooperative—quickly, if you know what I mean.”
            “You mean they’ll be leaned on,” Johnny said.
            Carlos nodded, “More likely, they’ll be chained into their coffins until they see the error of their ways.  Wyatt Foxx isn’t messing around.  He doesn’t want the Counsel to replace him, thinking he can’t run his territory.”  He leaned forward, scooped up a manila envelop off the desk, and tossed it toward Johnny.  “Here are crime scene photos and notes on each murder.  The only real clue we got is a witness that identified the presence of a female were in the area during the last attack.”
            “Werewolves are behind this?” Johnny asked.
            Carlos shrugged.  “Or one of the other were-tribes, you tell me.  The killer has managed some things that would challenge even those on the Counsel.  They’re afraid a new player has entered the arena and allied itself with the were-tribes.  This could be the beginning of a war for supremacy.  I know that don’t mean much to you since humans are lower on the food chain, but your kind are bound to get mauled and mangled in the crossfire.”
            Johnny saw the truth of that.  If the Vamps and were-tribes went all out, a lot of human would die.  Certainly, the widespread existence of preternatural entities would be confirmed.  There would be paranoia and panic everywhere, driving governments into action.  Everything would change for the worse.
            Johnny picked up the envelope and peered inside.  Along with the other items, there was a sizable stack of bills to meet his expenses, and a key to a midtown hotel room.  He tucked the package under his arm and stood.  “Anything else I need to know?”
            Carlos grinned.  “Yeah, we’ll be watching.  First sign you’re changing sides on us, you can kiss your family goodbye, what’s left of them anyway.”
            A flush of anger went through him, but Johnny turned for the door without a word.  He saw approval in Donovan’s eyes as she opened the door for him.  Together, they threaded the patrons and left by the front door, entering an overcast night where a storm waited to break.  Out on the sidewalk, he stopped, turning to his vampire shadow.  He was careful not to look her in the eyes.
            “All right,” he asked, “what’s going on here?”
            She smiled.  “I’m riding shotgun.”
            “I don’t need the help.”
            “I don’t remember giving you a choice.”  She brushed past him with a strut that was all invitation.  “Be a good boy, and maybe I’ll let you cop a feel later.”
            As if he wanted another vamp taking an interest in him.  One was bad enough.  Two would probably get him killed sooner, rather than later.

“Where are you parked?” she asked over her shoulder.
            He sighed.  “Across the street, the dark green Legend.”
            “The one with the were-critters all over it?” she asked.
            He stared past her.  There were gang-banger types sitting on his hood and leaning against the doors.  Three of them were guys.  One was definitely female.  The third—he wasn’t sure of.  Their jeans were baggy and slashed, their coats over-large to hide possible weapons.  None of them sported bandanas, but tattoos and piercings were in evidence as they talked and laughed quietly among themselves.
            “How do you know they're were-wolves?” he asked.
            “Not wolves,” she said, something else.  When they look this way their eyes burn green with reflected light.  Besides, I can smell were-critters at fifty paces, especially if they’re not fond of bathing.”
            “Oh.”  He walked up to her side.  “So what do we do?”
            She shrugged.  “We go ask them what they want.  Follow my lead and try not to get killed.  It's not as much fun as you'd think.”