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Chapter Fifteen

The first thing I noticed was that there were fewer cars in the parking lot than when we had arrived. It was too early for the evening's entertainment to wind down and I knew of no other social events likely to siphon off the crowd tonight.

Three more cars drove off while I stood and looked over the lot. At least there had been one new arrival in the past hour: a green Chevy Nova was parked four spaces over from my car.

I affected a casual amble, moving across the lined asphalt in a roundabout route to see if anyone was loitering in the vicinity.

Nope.

As I drew near, I noticed that my car sagged a bit: the right rear tire was flat. So much for a quick getaway.

Upon closer examination the problem was clear: a slitted puncture in the sidewall of the tire. Stiletto? No . . . the slit was three times the width of a stiletto blade. More like the signature of an Army combat knife. One end of the cut was even abraded as if caught by the back saw-edge of such a blade.

I looked across at the Nova and then back at my poor, abused coupe. Talk about adding major insult to injury . . . 

Whatever happened to the good old days when vampires rarely traveled by coach and spent most of their time lurking around castle corridors?

I opened my trunk, hauled out the jack and the spare. Took off my jacket and proceeded to set a new world's record for a tire change outside of a raceway pit crew. Put my jacket back on and grinned: now the element of surprise had shifted.

I looked back over at the Nova. There was room to shift it some more.

I put my ruined tire and my jack back in my trunk and looked around. Wondered a bit about security cameras. Remembered that my image worked about as well on videotape as it did on mirrors.

I hefted my tire iron and walked to the far side of the Nova. Doing my best Minnesota Fats impression, I poked a hole in its rear tire. Now we were even.

Except I was ahead of the game now.

But not enough ahead, I decided, curling my fingers under the lip of the Nova's trunk. I pulled and lifted using a little of the preternatural strength that my tainted blood had granted as a benevolent side effect. The catch popped with a groan of stressed metal. If I couldn't bend it back to close tight, they might still believe it was the sudden dive into the ditch that left it sprung.

Or they might not once they found out that I had popped their spare, as well.

The spare was not readily accessible. Under the amber wash of the parking lot lights I could make out tarpaulin bundles that lay across the flooring and wheel well. I pulled one of the edges back. Looked. Started opening the other bundles.

The handguns were on top: a couple of 9mm SIG Sauer P226 pistols, a .357 Magnum S&W revolver, and an HK 23 SOCOM .45 caliber handgun with suppressor and laser aiming module.

Four rifles were underneath: a Carbine automatic M-4 A1 5.56mm, a Chicom Type 56 (think AK-47), and two 7.62mm M-14 automatic rifles. Next to them were a couple of 12-gauge Mossberg shotguns, pump action with folding stocks.

This was bad with a capital B.

What made it infinitely worse (with a capital W) were the bundles on each side.

On the left I saw an N91 left-handed 7.62mm bolt-action sniper rifle. Next to it, a Barrett M99 .50 BMG bolt-action, magazine-fed sniper rifle. The sewing machines lay on the right-hand side of the trunk: an MK43 7.62mm machine gun and two submachine guns, MP-5 series, 9mm.

I didn't open the ammo boxes: I was afraid I'd find grenades.

I rewrapped everything and closed the trunk lid, pushing the lip back in so it would catch on the frame and hold shut for the time being.

I tossed the tire iron in the back seat of my car and pulled out my cell phone. I only used it for emergencies as it gave me headaches. I had already learned to step back while operating a microwave oven. It was fortunate that I had the number for the Monroe cop shop stored in memory: my hands were shaking so badly I would have had trouble punching in 911.

"Monroe Police Department," answered a voice. "How may we help you?"

"Uh, I'd like to report a probable crime."

"What sort of a crime? And may I have your name, please?"

"Name? I thought I could report a crime anonymously."

"Well, yes, but—Haim? Is that you?"

"What?"

"This is Detective Murray, Mr. Haim."

"Detective Murray?"

"Yes. I'm just covering the phones while the desk sergeant is using the can."

"I didn't know you worked the late shift."

"Well, truth be told we were just getting ready to come back out and see you." His voice held the easygoing tone of a man suggesting a pleasant social visit. Sometimes Murray's affable smile and pleasant tone suggested that he might be more dangerous than Ruiz for all her vinegar-and-piss attitude.

"We?"

"Lieutenant Ruiz is here."

I felt my heart sink: could this night get any more complicated?

"Seems your corpse has turned up missing again," he continued all too pleasantly.

"My corpse?"

"Yeah, Kandi Fenoli. Remember her? She's showed up at your place twice, now. The lieutenant thinks third time's a charm."

There was a brief mumble and fumble then Ruiz's voice blared in my ear: "Haim? I don't know how you're getting her body out of the morgue but I'll have a warrant tonight if I have to wake up every judge in Ouachita Parish! I'll commandeer a backhoe! I'll dig up every inch—"

While Ruiz bellowed my sinking heart found its Peter Pan "happy thought" and began to soar.

"No need to go all L.A.P.D., Detective," I said when I could finally squeeze in a word edgewise. "You know you've got nothing on me except a vague circumstantial and you've got nowhere else to look. You keep shaking my tree, hoping something will fall out."

She sputtered but I kept on talking.

"Well, to show you there's no hard feelings, I'm going to help you break the case. I think I know where the body is."

"What?"

I almost said "nice Gladys Kravitz impression" but why throw fuel on the fire at that point. "I think it's locked in the trunk of a green Chevy Nova in the guest parking lot in front of BioWeb Industries."

"What's it doing there? How did you get this information?"

"Well, I saw this Chevy Nova parked in the woods near my place this evening and remembered that I had seen it in the neighborhood on the other occasions when that corpse turned up on my property."

"Are you certain about this?"

"I walked over to see what was going on and found the car empty and the trunk open."

"What about the body?"

"Didn't actually see a body."

"Then why—"

"Though there was this tarp that might have been wrapped around a body."

"That's hardly—"

"I almost looked inside but there were all these guns."

"Guns?"

"Illegal stuff. Auto and semi-automatic weapons. Sniper kits. If these bubbas are going hunting, they sure as hell ain't looking for Bambi."

"You're telling me you saw contraband firearms in the trunk of this car?"

"And I think I saw a shovel," I said, "and maybe a bag of quicklime. I decided I'd better get out of there fast. Then I saw the same car right here."

"Parked in front of BioWeb?" Her voice had lost its bluster and taken on that vague distracted tone that meant she was writing everything down. I would have to choose my words carefully.

"You might want to bring a SWAT team, Lieutenant; these guys are loaded for bear."

"You're sure you saw automatic weapons? You know what to look for?"

"I did some time in the military. This was special ops stuff. Better get down here before they drive away," I admonished. And gave her the license number just to be on the safe side. "Gotta go."

"Wait!"

I disconnected and turned the phone off. I had intended to report an illegal weapons cache, hoping the police would come out and muck up the works for whoever was shadowing me in the Nova. Getting Ruiz had been sheer serendipity. There'd be hell to pay when Kandi Fenoli didn't turn up and Ruiz went looking for tire tracks in my woods, but the immediate fireworks would likely get both the police and the vamps in the Nova off my back for tonight.

If it was vamps in the Nova.

I was making more than one assumption, here. I hadn't actually seen how many occupants there were in the car when I had braced it on the trip in. I was assuming undead because that's where my current problems seemed to lie.

But the past has a funny way of blindsiding you when you least expect it, I thought, remembering the left-handed setup on the N91 sniper rig.

Let the police handle it, I decided. I was strictly limited to divorce cases from here on out. I almost felt a wave of contentment, having juxtaposed two problems into a single solution—that old "two birds with one stone" thing again. I almost whistled as I pulled the Glock out of my own car and fished a spare shoulder-rig out of my trunk.

Maybe my luck had turned, but I'd lived and died long enough to know the importance of making safety your first priority. I jacked the silver loads into the Glock, holstered it, and pulled my jacket across the forward thrust of the butt as I walked back toward the front entrance.

I had been gone only—what? Thirty, forty minutes?

During that time there had been a "sea change" in the main ballroom. The crowd had diminished by a good third or more, but it seemed more a result than a causal factor. It felt as though the air had been pumped out of the room and replaced with some thicker, viscous gas. The lights seemed dimmer, the music more harsh and edged. Last night's air of unease was a feeble precursor to tonight's atmosphere of dread.

The murmur of conversation had doubled in volume even as the numbers of conversants had dropped. Here and there, high-pitched laughs verging on hysteria spiked above the noise like an auditory flare requesting rescue.

" . . . Mosquitoes!" an old man was saying. "All that spraying and larvicide just a couple of years back and they're saying the numbers are twice what they were during the encephalitis epidemic!"

"But no viruses so far," Dr. Stoli responded.

Stoli taught American History at the university and reminded everyone but his students of a jovial Russian bear. "No West Nile, no Equine or St. Louis." He wasn't Russian, and Stoli wasn't actually his name. Lithuanian by birth, "Stoli" was an approximation of the first two syllables of his first name. "Mosquitoes are tiny down here. Up in Michigan they are huge. Bite through blue jean denim. Carry off babies!" He made a large gesture that threatened to slosh his drink in a ten-foot arc.

"Been to Michigan," the old man argued. "Ours may be small but they've got way more attitude. Travel in larger packs. Some carry switchblades. . . ."

As I passed beyond their orbit and set course for the crowd's epicenter, I saw a maelstrom of bodies rotating slowly at the center of the room, circling some eye of social power at its center. I thought about Poe's The Masque of the Red Death as I moved deeper into the melee and started trolling for Chalice and Deirdre.

"Sure, a lot of their work is theoretical," my banker opined, off to my left, "but there's government money involved and that most likely means biological counteragent development in the back rooms. If there's another terrorist incident you'll see BioWeb stock go through the roof!"

Mrs. Stein, old and rich and thrice widowed cocked a silvery eyebrow. "You're so sure the government would only be interested in counteragents?"

Sweat sheened the faces of those false vampires I passed as I nodded pleasantly to nothing in particular to maintain some social camouflage. The real vamps seemed to have thinned out but the two I passed within a ten-minute interval were clearly affected, as well. They stood still, eyes closed and nostrils flared open, oblivious to the press of the throng around them.

"For God sake," a young, thin man was ardently protesting, "you people think every instance of misfortune is some external conspiracy to oppress you and keep you down! It's the flu, for God sake!"

An elderly black man stood stiffly, staring back at him, through him, beyond him, as if contemplating some ancient fork in the road that led to different and alien landscapes.

I stopped a little ways beyond them.

Closed my eyes.

Sniffed.

A kaleidoscope of scents thundered through my head: the sweat and musk of a hundred bodies overlaid by a multitude of perfumes, colognes, and aftershaves, all lubricated with various soaps and powders, deodorants and antiperspirants. Makeup: foundation and lipstick and gloss and polish and spray with tobacco chasers tucked away in pockets, pouches, and cases. The food bar, the alcohol with three-dozen different blends spilling atomized distillations across my olfactory nerves.

And something else. Something sweet and sharp and exciting and familiar but—

It came to me.

The lunar cycle was not the only tidal force at play this night. Other cycles had converged for some of the female attendees. The sweetest perfume yet.

Yet . . . 

Something more.

Something greater than the possible cyclic alignment of every woman on the premises . . . 

I turned my head, searching.

The perfume wafted from the center of the social storm.

I turned and began a slow approach trajectory designed to bring me there in a great, arcing curve.

"All I know is the Social Security trust fund was in enough trouble before Bush instituted that irresponsible tax cut. The subsequent war footing has done so much damage to the economy and the surplus that my own kids are never going to see one dime of their retirement, never mind my grandkids . . ."

I had initially worried about making a spectacle of myself upon reentering the party. My clothes were rumpled, my knees stained, elbow scorched—if the vampires didn't take notice, I figured the social mavens would.

But no one did.

It was as if they were distracted by their own conversations, trying desperately not to look around. Some appeared to be listening to music that no one else could hear. Darkness seemed to be gathering in the corners of the room like shadowy dust bunnies.

Why do we do this? I wondered. Dress up and surround ourselves with the trappings of evil and pain and death?

Is it ancient mummery, designed to appease the elder gods with ritual obeisance? Or the modern trend of mocking that which we fear? Over the years I had rolled my eyes with every fundamentalist letter to the editorial page bemoaning the pagan observance of Halloween. Prissy, self-righteous, ultraconservative Christians with their panties in a wad over children in costumes going door-to-door to extort candy on October thirty-first. Satan worship, they railed. And the rest of us wondered who was really giving the devil his due: children embracing a yearly opportunity to dress up and collect free goodies or pinch-faced adults who feared such activities would lead them down the path of sin and degradation?

We honor that which we fear.

And in fearing something, we grant it power over us.

But perhaps we are wise to leave our bonfires dark on All Hallows E'en. If we light no fires we leave the shadows trapped in the greater darkness. When we burn, we call them to the edge of our guttering light.

Where they wait their opportunities . . . 

I was closing in on the center of the room now and found Chalice first. A tall, thin, bald man stood beside her and had one arm twined with hers while the other hand gripped her wrist in what could be a simple gesture of affection or an artful pose to prevent her leaving. The bald guy was in animated conversation with a woman wearing a man's black tuxedo. "Government entitlements are like a lifeboat," he was saying. "Try to load too many people on board and it sinks: everybody drowns!" The woman wore her tux much better than he wore his. I wasn't sure about her but my client definitely looked as though she needed rescuing.

"Ah, there you are!" I said, working my way toward my last hope for humanity. "What about that dance you promised me?"

Chalice jerked her head toward the sound of my voice but the relief in her eyes was veiled by caution.

I got more enthusiasm from Chrome-dome the Cadaverous. "Ms. Delacroix, could this be our mystery man?"

She shook her head as I shook his hand. "Name's Haim," I said as I pumped his fishlike hand, allowing Chalice the opportunity to disengage. "Samuel Haim, private eye."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Haim," he answered. His voice had a nasal quality that would have rendered it unpleasant even without the rest of him showing up to put you off your feed. "Would you be our mystery donor?"

"I solve mysteries," I answered in my most chipper tones, "I don't donate them. Ms. Delacroix has hired me to look into a family matter for her."

"Oh really? What sort of case is it?" he asked.

"A sort of a private case," I answered with a smile. "Which makes it serendipitous as I am a private investigator."

His smile held but his eyes had a bit of a blank look pass across them. "Ah! Well! Perhaps we might avail ourselves of your services . . ."

"Getting divorced?"

"What? No. What I mean is we have a bit of a mystery here in our own laboratories."

"Ah," I said, nodding as if I were contemplating the Great Mysteries, myself: "research."

"Well, yes, of course," Baldy dissembled. He peered at me closely. It was like being examined by a suspicious vulture. With halitosis. "But the mystery that we are currently discussing has to do with some blood samples."

"Oh," I said, "now that I can probably help you with."

"You can?" He smiled. Yep, a vulture.

"Most assuredly. For example, it's standard practice to collect at least two five-milliliter tubes of blood in purple-top tubes with EDTA as an anticoagulant for DNA analysis. For drug or alcohol testing one collects blood samples in gray-top tubes with sodium fluoride. I always identify each tube with the date, time, subject's name, location, my name, case number, and evidence number." Baldy was trying to get a word in but I wasn't about to let him. "But procedure doesn't end there," I continued with scarcely a breath. "You have to refrigerate, being careful to not freeze your blood samples. And when you have to ship or transport them, you pack the liquid blood tubes individually in Styrofoam or cylindrical tube containers with absorbent material surrounding the tubes, layered with cold packs, not dry ice." I paused and when he opened his mouth to speak, I added: "It's important to label the outer container with phrases like 'Keep in a cool dry place,' 'Refrigerate upon arrival,' and 'Biohazard.' "

"That's not what we're talking about!" the dome sputtered when I finally ran down.

"It's not?" I replied, all innocence.

"Dr. Krakovski is the Head of our Viral Mutagens Division," Chalice explained. My dumb and annoying act seemed to be serving some purpose: Krakovski was off-balance and Chalice looked a little steadier than she had upon my arrival.

"We're dealing with unknown blood samples," the "Head" clarified.

"Oh!" I said, "why didn't you say so up front instead of letting me go on and on about something so irrelevant as collecting known blood samples?"

"Well—" he began.

"Now collecting unknown blood samples—that's a real challenge!" I was off and gauging my rhythms and pauses to Krakovski's vain attempts to get this conversation back on track. "For instance, you got two kinds of blood when you're collecting it from a person—living or dead. For your liquid blood, you use a clean cotton cloth or swab—but you gotta leave a portion of it unstained as a control. Then you air-dry the cloth or swab and pack it in clean paper or an envelope with sealed corners. You don't use plastic containers—this is one of the mistakes you commonly see on TV."

The woman in the tux started backing away.

"Now dried blood is pretty much the same, believe it or not. You still use a clean cotton cloth or swab only you moisten it with distilled water. And, of course—" He chimed in with me on: "—you gotta leave a portion of it unstained as a control."

"Right," I said.

"Then you air dry the cloth or swab and pack it in clean paper or an envelope with sealed corners," he continued sourly.

"You don't use plastic containers," I reminded.

"It's one of the mistakes you commonly see on TV," he concluded. "Are we done?"

"Don't you want to know how to collect blood samples from various kinds of materials or surfaces?"

"Not really."

"Or in snow or water?"

He shook his head.

"Well," I said, "there are some variations, mostly in storing and transporting. But you've got the bulk of it with the cotton cloth or swab technique." I joined Krakovski in looking around. "Where did Ms. Delacroix go?"

"You're the private eye," he said with ill-conceived contempt, "why don't you go detect or something." He turned away and stalked off in a huff. I stared after him: I hadn't actually seen someone leave "in a huff" since I was back on the playground in grade school recess.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and looked into undead eyes.

Bluffing was out of the question. It was obvious from first glance that this guy knew who I was and had sought me out deliberately. Worse, I've seen scary-looking vampires but this guy would super-size your goose bumps even if he was still human. Built like a muscular bowling ball, he was all heft and weight and hardness—nothing soft about this Bloody Harry.

"So," I said with the most pleasant smile I could barely muster, "every vampire I know was bit on the neck when they were turned. Since you haven't got one, how does that work, exactly?"

He linked his arm through mine. It was like being handcuffed to a steel I-beam. "She wants to meet you," he growled.

There was never even the slightest question of whom he was talking about.

"Growling? You're a hyper-mesomorph with fangs and, on top of all that, you're growling? I think someone is overcompensating."

He tugged and there was also no question of whether I would come along or balk: I staggered and the floor began polishing the soles of my shoes.

"Tell me the truth . . ." I whispered, " . . . you've got a little one, don't you?"

As he dragged me toward the center of the maelstrom of flesh and fear, I glanced down to see if I'd wet my pants yet.

So far, so dry.

The night, however, was still young.

A woman stood at the center of the room, her back turned toward me.

I knew even before she turned in profile that I was in the presence of the Blood Countess, the Witch of Cachtice. The fact that she bore little resemblance to the blurry images provided by surviving woodcuts was of no importance. Her aura of power and menace marked her more surely than any forensic technology of the twenty-first century.

Deirdre and Chalice stood beside her, one on each side, but I couldn't focus on them because her presence demanded my attention. She wore a black leather dress that blended well with her long, black hair and blacker eyes. It had a vulgar cut that seemed well matched to the woman wearing it. Individually, her features suggested that she should be beautiful. The combined effect had been spoiled, somehow, as if her beauty was skin deep and something unspeakable lurked just beneath her epidermis.

The neckline of her dress plunged and narrowed to the nexus of her cleavage then parted again, angling out to form an hourglass-shaped cutout baring her pale midriff. As if the "black widow" motif was too obscure, there were additional spiderweb cutouts on either side, artfully designed to show a great deal of flesh as she stood and even more when she moved.

I tried not to stare but failed miserably. It wasn't sexy; it was a crude attempt at sensuality that came close to failing as even a caricature. She turned as I approached and gave me one of those stagy "come hither" looks that just about completed the whole tacky tableau.

I arrived, "dragged" hither more than anything else.

Her eyes looked me up and down and then invited me to reciprocate.

I reciprocated. Smiled. "Wow," I said, "did Madonna have a garage sale?"

The bowling ball's hand tightened painfully on my biceps. "You will show respect to your betters!" he hissed.

"Sure, sure," I agreed quickly, my knees starting the transformation from solids to liquids. "Just trot 'em out here—"

"Sandor, be nice." Her voice was low and husky and triggered an involuntary shiver down my spine. I like it when a woman has a little more testosterone than estrogen jazzing her hormonal balance. But I'm still insecure enough to prefer that my T-levels be higher than hers—I'd met pre-op transsexuals who were more feminine than Sandor's lady boss.

I looked over at Deirdre. She only had eyes for the lady in leather. Ditto Chalice. Beside me Sandor the bowling ball was practically a-quiver like some great mastiff whose mistress has promised him a yummy doggie-treat if he will obediently sit until she tells him to move.

Which meant that, until then, I wouldn't be moving either.

"Mr. Cséjthe, I have been looking forward to meeting you for such a long time," the lady in leather said, extending her arm. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Elizabeth Cachtice."

Sandor extended my arm for me. "That's not your real name," I said sullenly. A startled expression passed across her features so quickly that I almost missed it.

"Really? What makes you say that?"

"You're Erzsébet Báthory. Ouch."

Sandor had involuntarily tightened his grip but the Witch of Cachtice was more prepared. Her eyebrows rose politely and she said: "What an amusing idea. But please, call me Liz."

"How about I call you 'next week'?" I growled. I'd been taking lessons from Sandor.

"What?" Nice lift of the eyebrows again. "Oh. I see." She smiled. "Your reputation precedes you, Chris."

I smiled back. "As does yours, Bitch."

Sandor squeezed and it felt as if my radius and ulna were rubbing together. I forced my smile up a notch but couldn't do anything about the beads of perspiration that were erupting across my forehead.

"Mr. Cséjthe, I would love to continue our little conversation after I finish some business here. So, please stay for awhile," she said, her voice echoing in my ears, in my head. <We have much to discuss and I want to give you my full attention.> 

And—that simply—I suddenly had no desire to leave. Sandor released my arm and I stood there, even more trapped that I had been a minute before.

Spiderwoman turned her attention back to a gray-haired gentleman in a gray suit who appeared to be in his late fifties. The fact that he wasn't wearing a tuxedo or fangs should have made him a standout in this crowd, but his nondescript appearance had the opposite effect: he seemed to fade into the background as if gray was the ultimate color scheme in camouflage and protective coloration. "You were saying, General?" she said.

I looked again: this was the man in the first photograph I had snagged from subterranean altar. I suddenly remembered that the Ogou pantheon manifested its military aspect in the form of one Ogou Baba.

As the gray-haired, gray-suited and—I looked more closely—gray-eyed gentleman looked around, his face hardened into an expression of displeasure. "I hardly think it appropriate to continue this discussion out here, in the open, and certainly not in front of outsiders."

"Dr. Delacroix works for me—"

"She's not cleared!" he snapped, cutting her off.

"She works for me," Báthory repeated, putting some heat and force behind the words. The "general" winced as if in pain. "It is now necessary to provide her with the essential clearances and briefings for her to continue her work."

I looked at Chalice. Her eyes had grown hazy with confusion and the anesthetization of mental domination.

Deirdre's eyes were different. I couldn't seem to get a reading on her.

"Mr. Cséjthe is about to become a major contributor to the Greyware Project," Báthory continued. "In a manner of speaking, General, he's about to become your very best friend. Yours and your friends on the council back in Virginia and Montana."

Walk away, Cséjthe, I told myself. Move. 

I couldn't.

"I thought you started final testing three weeks ago," the general snapped.

"Of the virus? Oh yes. And aside from a little fine-tuning, I think we've cleared all of the major hurdles." Her smile twisted into a smirk. "But we've still got a ways to go on perfecting the vaccine. Mr. Cséjthe's hemoglobin may prove more effective in stabilizing the telomerase than pure vampire blood. And, unless the council is composed of superpatriots, I think you'll be waiting for the antidote before authorizing the broad-spectrum release."

The general looked thoughtful and I looked around for the exits. I had been able to resist Dracula's mental domination: Why couldn't I leave now?

"What about Phase Two?" he asked.

The brunette turned abruptly and spoke to Chalice. "Go upstairs to Lab Four. Wait for me there. Do not leave."

Chalice turned silently and headed toward the main hallway.

I tried to follow her.

I couldn't get my legs to move.

"We've begun testing on Operation Blackout," Báthory said as Chalice disappeared. "In fact we're mixing some of our clinical trials."

"Why?" the general asked. "Won't that just confuse the results?"

As much as I wanted to hear where this conversation was going, I knew that the longer I stood there, the slimmer my chances became of exiting of my own volition. Straining against the mental command to stay, I felt the straps of my shoulder rig begin to chafe my ribs. An idea began to glimmer.

"Not for us," Báthory answered. "The piggybacks are activated by two different triggers. For the Greyware virus, it's the length of the telomeres. For the Blackout piggyback, it's the racial subsets of DNA. That still requires a bit of fine-tuning, but since we're not even trying to develop any counteragents for the second solution, it's taken less time to get to the trials phase."

Gently, slowly, carefully, I raised my right arm, as if to adjust the front of my suit. Moved my hand toward the opening above the button at my waist.

"But you're right in that releasing both piggybacks will lead to some confusion. It should slow any effectual diagnosis and response on the part of the public health sector and the CDC." My fingers were just inside my jacket lapel and inches from butt of the Glock as she added: "I shall become very cross with you Mr. Cséjthe, if your hand gets any closer to that gun."

Cross? I'd show her frick'n cross! I grabbed the Glock and pulled.

"You bastard!"

I flinched as a gunshot boomed and waited for the shock of the bullet tearing through my armpit to reach my brain.

I heard a second gunshot about the time I realized my fingers were nowhere near the trigger and the voice wasn't Báthory's. Heads turned; mine with them.

The Snow Queen commanded the entryway to the main hall through which Chalice had passed just moments before. The beaded black sheath dress that Suanne Cummings wore wasn't cut for a proper shooter's stance—which was probably why she had failed to hit anything of consequence, yet.

The room erupted in screams—some of them feminine—and half the occupants threw themselves to the floor while the remainder rushed about in a variety of directions. Most of them ended up on the floor, as well, tripping over the already prone or colliding with other rushees.

"You bastard!" Suanne repeated. And Hyrum Cummings broke from the pack as his cover went down and ran in search of other shelter.

"Where is she?" Suanne shrieked. The hem of her dress gave way with a ripping sound as she spread her feet and the seams on both sides unzippered to her thighs. The nickel-plated, snub-nosed .38 came up in a two-handed grip and tracked her husband as he ran . . . 

. . . toward us!

The temptation to lay down suppressing fire passed through my mind without tapping the brakes. I released my grip on my own gun and made a quick sending: DROP THE GUN! DROP THE GUN! 

Suanne didn't quite drop her weapon but she did fumble with it. Another shot boomed like doomsday thunder and a bullet tore a bloody chunk out of my left biceps while Dr. Cummings was still twenty feet away. The countess and the general hit the floor simultaneously. I was suddenly free of Erzsébet Báthory's compulsion. I ran toward Suanne, hemorrhaging like an Internet start-up.

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Framed

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Chapter Fifteen

The first thing I noticed was that there were fewer cars in the parking lot than when we had arrived. It was too early for the evening's entertainment to wind down and I knew of no other social events likely to siphon off the crowd tonight.

Three more cars drove off while I stood and looked over the lot. At least there had been one new arrival in the past hour: a green Chevy Nova was parked four spaces over from my car.

I affected a casual amble, moving across the lined asphalt in a roundabout route to see if anyone was loitering in the vicinity.

Nope.

As I drew near, I noticed that my car sagged a bit: the right rear tire was flat. So much for a quick getaway.

Upon closer examination the problem was clear: a slitted puncture in the sidewall of the tire. Stiletto? No . . . the slit was three times the width of a stiletto blade. More like the signature of an Army combat knife. One end of the cut was even abraded as if caught by the back saw-edge of such a blade.

I looked across at the Nova and then back at my poor, abused coupe. Talk about adding major insult to injury . . . 

Whatever happened to the good old days when vampires rarely traveled by coach and spent most of their time lurking around castle corridors?

I opened my trunk, hauled out the jack and the spare. Took off my jacket and proceeded to set a new world's record for a tire change outside of a raceway pit crew. Put my jacket back on and grinned: now the element of surprise had shifted.

I looked back over at the Nova. There was room to shift it some more.

I put my ruined tire and my jack back in my trunk and looked around. Wondered a bit about security cameras. Remembered that my image worked about as well on videotape as it did on mirrors.

I hefted my tire iron and walked to the far side of the Nova. Doing my best Minnesota Fats impression, I poked a hole in its rear tire. Now we were even.

Except I was ahead of the game now.

But not enough ahead, I decided, curling my fingers under the lip of the Nova's trunk. I pulled and lifted using a little of the preternatural strength that my tainted blood had granted as a benevolent side effect. The catch popped with a groan of stressed metal. If I couldn't bend it back to close tight, they might still believe it was the sudden dive into the ditch that left it sprung.

Or they might not once they found out that I had popped their spare, as well.

The spare was not readily accessible. Under the amber wash of the parking lot lights I could make out tarpaulin bundles that lay across the flooring and wheel well. I pulled one of the edges back. Looked. Started opening the other bundles.

The handguns were on top: a couple of 9mm SIG Sauer P226 pistols, a .357 Magnum S&W revolver, and an HK 23 SOCOM .45 caliber handgun with suppressor and laser aiming module.

Four rifles were underneath: a Carbine automatic M-4 A1 5.56mm, a Chicom Type 56 (think AK-47), and two 7.62mm M-14 automatic rifles. Next to them were a couple of 12-gauge Mossberg shotguns, pump action with folding stocks.

This was bad with a capital B.

What made it infinitely worse (with a capital W) were the bundles on each side.

On the left I saw an N91 left-handed 7.62mm bolt-action sniper rifle. Next to it, a Barrett M99 .50 BMG bolt-action, magazine-fed sniper rifle. The sewing machines lay on the right-hand side of the trunk: an MK43 7.62mm machine gun and two submachine guns, MP-5 series, 9mm.

I didn't open the ammo boxes: I was afraid I'd find grenades.

I rewrapped everything and closed the trunk lid, pushing the lip back in so it would catch on the frame and hold shut for the time being.

I tossed the tire iron in the back seat of my car and pulled out my cell phone. I only used it for emergencies as it gave me headaches. I had already learned to step back while operating a microwave oven. It was fortunate that I had the number for the Monroe cop shop stored in memory: my hands were shaking so badly I would have had trouble punching in 911.

"Monroe Police Department," answered a voice. "How may we help you?"

"Uh, I'd like to report a probable crime."

"What sort of a crime? And may I have your name, please?"

"Name? I thought I could report a crime anonymously."

"Well, yes, but—Haim? Is that you?"

"What?"

"This is Detective Murray, Mr. Haim."

"Detective Murray?"

"Yes. I'm just covering the phones while the desk sergeant is using the can."

"I didn't know you worked the late shift."

"Well, truth be told we were just getting ready to come back out and see you." His voice held the easygoing tone of a man suggesting a pleasant social visit. Sometimes Murray's affable smile and pleasant tone suggested that he might be more dangerous than Ruiz for all her vinegar-and-piss attitude.

"We?"

"Lieutenant Ruiz is here."

I felt my heart sink: could this night get any more complicated?

"Seems your corpse has turned up missing again," he continued all too pleasantly.

"My corpse?"

"Yeah, Kandi Fenoli. Remember her? She's showed up at your place twice, now. The lieutenant thinks third time's a charm."

There was a brief mumble and fumble then Ruiz's voice blared in my ear: "Haim? I don't know how you're getting her body out of the morgue but I'll have a warrant tonight if I have to wake up every judge in Ouachita Parish! I'll commandeer a backhoe! I'll dig up every inch—"

While Ruiz bellowed my sinking heart found its Peter Pan "happy thought" and began to soar.

"No need to go all L.A.P.D., Detective," I said when I could finally squeeze in a word edgewise. "You know you've got nothing on me except a vague circumstantial and you've got nowhere else to look. You keep shaking my tree, hoping something will fall out."

She sputtered but I kept on talking.

"Well, to show you there's no hard feelings, I'm going to help you break the case. I think I know where the body is."

"What?"

I almost said "nice Gladys Kravitz impression" but why throw fuel on the fire at that point. "I think it's locked in the trunk of a green Chevy Nova in the guest parking lot in front of BioWeb Industries."

"What's it doing there? How did you get this information?"

"Well, I saw this Chevy Nova parked in the woods near my place this evening and remembered that I had seen it in the neighborhood on the other occasions when that corpse turned up on my property."

"Are you certain about this?"

"I walked over to see what was going on and found the car empty and the trunk open."

"What about the body?"

"Didn't actually see a body."

"Then why—"

"Though there was this tarp that might have been wrapped around a body."

"That's hardly—"

"I almost looked inside but there were all these guns."

"Guns?"

"Illegal stuff. Auto and semi-automatic weapons. Sniper kits. If these bubbas are going hunting, they sure as hell ain't looking for Bambi."

"You're telling me you saw contraband firearms in the trunk of this car?"

"And I think I saw a shovel," I said, "and maybe a bag of quicklime. I decided I'd better get out of there fast. Then I saw the same car right here."

"Parked in front of BioWeb?" Her voice had lost its bluster and taken on that vague distracted tone that meant she was writing everything down. I would have to choose my words carefully.

"You might want to bring a SWAT team, Lieutenant; these guys are loaded for bear."

"You're sure you saw automatic weapons? You know what to look for?"

"I did some time in the military. This was special ops stuff. Better get down here before they drive away," I admonished. And gave her the license number just to be on the safe side. "Gotta go."

"Wait!"

I disconnected and turned the phone off. I had intended to report an illegal weapons cache, hoping the police would come out and muck up the works for whoever was shadowing me in the Nova. Getting Ruiz had been sheer serendipity. There'd be hell to pay when Kandi Fenoli didn't turn up and Ruiz went looking for tire tracks in my woods, but the immediate fireworks would likely get both the police and the vamps in the Nova off my back for tonight.

If it was vamps in the Nova.

I was making more than one assumption, here. I hadn't actually seen how many occupants there were in the car when I had braced it on the trip in. I was assuming undead because that's where my current problems seemed to lie.

But the past has a funny way of blindsiding you when you least expect it, I thought, remembering the left-handed setup on the N91 sniper rig.

Let the police handle it, I decided. I was strictly limited to divorce cases from here on out. I almost felt a wave of contentment, having juxtaposed two problems into a single solution—that old "two birds with one stone" thing again. I almost whistled as I pulled the Glock out of my own car and fished a spare shoulder-rig out of my trunk.

Maybe my luck had turned, but I'd lived and died long enough to know the importance of making safety your first priority. I jacked the silver loads into the Glock, holstered it, and pulled my jacket across the forward thrust of the butt as I walked back toward the front entrance.

I had been gone only—what? Thirty, forty minutes?

During that time there had been a "sea change" in the main ballroom. The crowd had diminished by a good third or more, but it seemed more a result than a causal factor. It felt as though the air had been pumped out of the room and replaced with some thicker, viscous gas. The lights seemed dimmer, the music more harsh and edged. Last night's air of unease was a feeble precursor to tonight's atmosphere of dread.

The murmur of conversation had doubled in volume even as the numbers of conversants had dropped. Here and there, high-pitched laughs verging on hysteria spiked above the noise like an auditory flare requesting rescue.

" . . . Mosquitoes!" an old man was saying. "All that spraying and larvicide just a couple of years back and they're saying the numbers are twice what they were during the encephalitis epidemic!"

"But no viruses so far," Dr. Stoli responded.

Stoli taught American History at the university and reminded everyone but his students of a jovial Russian bear. "No West Nile, no Equine or St. Louis." He wasn't Russian, and Stoli wasn't actually his name. Lithuanian by birth, "Stoli" was an approximation of the first two syllables of his first name. "Mosquitoes are tiny down here. Up in Michigan they are huge. Bite through blue jean denim. Carry off babies!" He made a large gesture that threatened to slosh his drink in a ten-foot arc.

"Been to Michigan," the old man argued. "Ours may be small but they've got way more attitude. Travel in larger packs. Some carry switchblades. . . ."

As I passed beyond their orbit and set course for the crowd's epicenter, I saw a maelstrom of bodies rotating slowly at the center of the room, circling some eye of social power at its center. I thought about Poe's The Masque of the Red Death as I moved deeper into the melee and started trolling for Chalice and Deirdre.

"Sure, a lot of their work is theoretical," my banker opined, off to my left, "but there's government money involved and that most likely means biological counteragent development in the back rooms. If there's another terrorist incident you'll see BioWeb stock go through the roof!"

Mrs. Stein, old and rich and thrice widowed cocked a silvery eyebrow. "You're so sure the government would only be interested in counteragents?"

Sweat sheened the faces of those false vampires I passed as I nodded pleasantly to nothing in particular to maintain some social camouflage. The real vamps seemed to have thinned out but the two I passed within a ten-minute interval were clearly affected, as well. They stood still, eyes closed and nostrils flared open, oblivious to the press of the throng around them.

"For God sake," a young, thin man was ardently protesting, "you people think every instance of misfortune is some external conspiracy to oppress you and keep you down! It's the flu, for God sake!"

An elderly black man stood stiffly, staring back at him, through him, beyond him, as if contemplating some ancient fork in the road that led to different and alien landscapes.

I stopped a little ways beyond them.

Closed my eyes.

Sniffed.

A kaleidoscope of scents thundered through my head: the sweat and musk of a hundred bodies overlaid by a multitude of perfumes, colognes, and aftershaves, all lubricated with various soaps and powders, deodorants and antiperspirants. Makeup: foundation and lipstick and gloss and polish and spray with tobacco chasers tucked away in pockets, pouches, and cases. The food bar, the alcohol with three-dozen different blends spilling atomized distillations across my olfactory nerves.

And something else. Something sweet and sharp and exciting and familiar but—

It came to me.

The lunar cycle was not the only tidal force at play this night. Other cycles had converged for some of the female attendees. The sweetest perfume yet.

Yet . . . 

Something more.

Something greater than the possible cyclic alignment of every woman on the premises . . . 

I turned my head, searching.

The perfume wafted from the center of the social storm.

I turned and began a slow approach trajectory designed to bring me there in a great, arcing curve.

"All I know is the Social Security trust fund was in enough trouble before Bush instituted that irresponsible tax cut. The subsequent war footing has done so much damage to the economy and the surplus that my own kids are never going to see one dime of their retirement, never mind my grandkids . . ."

I had initially worried about making a spectacle of myself upon reentering the party. My clothes were rumpled, my knees stained, elbow scorched—if the vampires didn't take notice, I figured the social mavens would.

But no one did.

It was as if they were distracted by their own conversations, trying desperately not to look around. Some appeared to be listening to music that no one else could hear. Darkness seemed to be gathering in the corners of the room like shadowy dust bunnies.

Why do we do this? I wondered. Dress up and surround ourselves with the trappings of evil and pain and death?

Is it ancient mummery, designed to appease the elder gods with ritual obeisance? Or the modern trend of mocking that which we fear? Over the years I had rolled my eyes with every fundamentalist letter to the editorial page bemoaning the pagan observance of Halloween. Prissy, self-righteous, ultraconservative Christians with their panties in a wad over children in costumes going door-to-door to extort candy on October thirty-first. Satan worship, they railed. And the rest of us wondered who was really giving the devil his due: children embracing a yearly opportunity to dress up and collect free goodies or pinch-faced adults who feared such activities would lead them down the path of sin and degradation?

We honor that which we fear.

And in fearing something, we grant it power over us.

But perhaps we are wise to leave our bonfires dark on All Hallows E'en. If we light no fires we leave the shadows trapped in the greater darkness. When we burn, we call them to the edge of our guttering light.

Where they wait their opportunities . . . 

I was closing in on the center of the room now and found Chalice first. A tall, thin, bald man stood beside her and had one arm twined with hers while the other hand gripped her wrist in what could be a simple gesture of affection or an artful pose to prevent her leaving. The bald guy was in animated conversation with a woman wearing a man's black tuxedo. "Government entitlements are like a lifeboat," he was saying. "Try to load too many people on board and it sinks: everybody drowns!" The woman wore her tux much better than he wore his. I wasn't sure about her but my client definitely looked as though she needed rescuing.

"Ah, there you are!" I said, working my way toward my last hope for humanity. "What about that dance you promised me?"

Chalice jerked her head toward the sound of my voice but the relief in her eyes was veiled by caution.

I got more enthusiasm from Chrome-dome the Cadaverous. "Ms. Delacroix, could this be our mystery man?"

She shook her head as I shook his hand. "Name's Haim," I said as I pumped his fishlike hand, allowing Chalice the opportunity to disengage. "Samuel Haim, private eye."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Haim," he answered. His voice had a nasal quality that would have rendered it unpleasant even without the rest of him showing up to put you off your feed. "Would you be our mystery donor?"

"I solve mysteries," I answered in my most chipper tones, "I don't donate them. Ms. Delacroix has hired me to look into a family matter for her."

"Oh really? What sort of case is it?" he asked.

"A sort of a private case," I answered with a smile. "Which makes it serendipitous as I am a private investigator."

His smile held but his eyes had a bit of a blank look pass across them. "Ah! Well! Perhaps we might avail ourselves of your services . . ."

"Getting divorced?"

"What? No. What I mean is we have a bit of a mystery here in our own laboratories."

"Ah," I said, nodding as if I were contemplating the Great Mysteries, myself: "research."

"Well, yes, of course," Baldy dissembled. He peered at me closely. It was like being examined by a suspicious vulture. With halitosis. "But the mystery that we are currently discussing has to do with some blood samples."

"Oh," I said, "now that I can probably help you with."

"You can?" He smiled. Yep, a vulture.

"Most assuredly. For example, it's standard practice to collect at least two five-milliliter tubes of blood in purple-top tubes with EDTA as an anticoagulant for DNA analysis. For drug or alcohol testing one collects blood samples in gray-top tubes with sodium fluoride. I always identify each tube with the date, time, subject's name, location, my name, case number, and evidence number." Baldy was trying to get a word in but I wasn't about to let him. "But procedure doesn't end there," I continued with scarcely a breath. "You have to refrigerate, being careful to not freeze your blood samples. And when you have to ship or transport them, you pack the liquid blood tubes individually in Styrofoam or cylindrical tube containers with absorbent material surrounding the tubes, layered with cold packs, not dry ice." I paused and when he opened his mouth to speak, I added: "It's important to label the outer container with phrases like 'Keep in a cool dry place,' 'Refrigerate upon arrival,' and 'Biohazard.' "

"That's not what we're talking about!" the dome sputtered when I finally ran down.

"It's not?" I replied, all innocence.

"Dr. Krakovski is the Head of our Viral Mutagens Division," Chalice explained. My dumb and annoying act seemed to be serving some purpose: Krakovski was off-balance and Chalice looked a little steadier than she had upon my arrival.

"We're dealing with unknown blood samples," the "Head" clarified.

"Oh!" I said, "why didn't you say so up front instead of letting me go on and on about something so irrelevant as collecting known blood samples?"

"Well—" he began.

"Now collecting unknown blood samples—that's a real challenge!" I was off and gauging my rhythms and pauses to Krakovski's vain attempts to get this conversation back on track. "For instance, you got two kinds of blood when you're collecting it from a person—living or dead. For your liquid blood, you use a clean cotton cloth or swab—but you gotta leave a portion of it unstained as a control. Then you air-dry the cloth or swab and pack it in clean paper or an envelope with sealed corners. You don't use plastic containers—this is one of the mistakes you commonly see on TV."

The woman in the tux started backing away.

"Now dried blood is pretty much the same, believe it or not. You still use a clean cotton cloth or swab only you moisten it with distilled water. And, of course—" He chimed in with me on: "—you gotta leave a portion of it unstained as a control."

"Right," I said.

"Then you air dry the cloth or swab and pack it in clean paper or an envelope with sealed corners," he continued sourly.

"You don't use plastic containers," I reminded.

"It's one of the mistakes you commonly see on TV," he concluded. "Are we done?"

"Don't you want to know how to collect blood samples from various kinds of materials or surfaces?"

"Not really."

"Or in snow or water?"

He shook his head.

"Well," I said, "there are some variations, mostly in storing and transporting. But you've got the bulk of it with the cotton cloth or swab technique." I joined Krakovski in looking around. "Where did Ms. Delacroix go?"

"You're the private eye," he said with ill-conceived contempt, "why don't you go detect or something." He turned away and stalked off in a huff. I stared after him: I hadn't actually seen someone leave "in a huff" since I was back on the playground in grade school recess.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and looked into undead eyes.

Bluffing was out of the question. It was obvious from first glance that this guy knew who I was and had sought me out deliberately. Worse, I've seen scary-looking vampires but this guy would super-size your goose bumps even if he was still human. Built like a muscular bowling ball, he was all heft and weight and hardness—nothing soft about this Bloody Harry.

"So," I said with the most pleasant smile I could barely muster, "every vampire I know was bit on the neck when they were turned. Since you haven't got one, how does that work, exactly?"

He linked his arm through mine. It was like being handcuffed to a steel I-beam. "She wants to meet you," he growled.

There was never even the slightest question of whom he was talking about.

"Growling? You're a hyper-mesomorph with fangs and, on top of all that, you're growling? I think someone is overcompensating."

He tugged and there was also no question of whether I would come along or balk: I staggered and the floor began polishing the soles of my shoes.

"Tell me the truth . . ." I whispered, " . . . you've got a little one, don't you?"

As he dragged me toward the center of the maelstrom of flesh and fear, I glanced down to see if I'd wet my pants yet.

So far, so dry.

The night, however, was still young.

A woman stood at the center of the room, her back turned toward me.

I knew even before she turned in profile that I was in the presence of the Blood Countess, the Witch of Cachtice. The fact that she bore little resemblance to the blurry images provided by surviving woodcuts was of no importance. Her aura of power and menace marked her more surely than any forensic technology of the twenty-first century.

Deirdre and Chalice stood beside her, one on each side, but I couldn't focus on them because her presence demanded my attention. She wore a black leather dress that blended well with her long, black hair and blacker eyes. It had a vulgar cut that seemed well matched to the woman wearing it. Individually, her features suggested that she should be beautiful. The combined effect had been spoiled, somehow, as if her beauty was skin deep and something unspeakable lurked just beneath her epidermis.

The neckline of her dress plunged and narrowed to the nexus of her cleavage then parted again, angling out to form an hourglass-shaped cutout baring her pale midriff. As if the "black widow" motif was too obscure, there were additional spiderweb cutouts on either side, artfully designed to show a great deal of flesh as she stood and even more when she moved.

I tried not to stare but failed miserably. It wasn't sexy; it was a crude attempt at sensuality that came close to failing as even a caricature. She turned as I approached and gave me one of those stagy "come hither" looks that just about completed the whole tacky tableau.

I arrived, "dragged" hither more than anything else.

Her eyes looked me up and down and then invited me to reciprocate.

I reciprocated. Smiled. "Wow," I said, "did Madonna have a garage sale?"

The bowling ball's hand tightened painfully on my biceps. "You will show respect to your betters!" he hissed.

"Sure, sure," I agreed quickly, my knees starting the transformation from solids to liquids. "Just trot 'em out here—"

"Sandor, be nice." Her voice was low and husky and triggered an involuntary shiver down my spine. I like it when a woman has a little more testosterone than estrogen jazzing her hormonal balance. But I'm still insecure enough to prefer that my T-levels be higher than hers—I'd met pre-op transsexuals who were more feminine than Sandor's lady boss.

I looked over at Deirdre. She only had eyes for the lady in leather. Ditto Chalice. Beside me Sandor the bowling ball was practically a-quiver like some great mastiff whose mistress has promised him a yummy doggie-treat if he will obediently sit until she tells him to move.

Which meant that, until then, I wouldn't be moving either.

"Mr. Cséjthe, I have been looking forward to meeting you for such a long time," the lady in leather said, extending her arm. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Elizabeth Cachtice."

Sandor extended my arm for me. "That's not your real name," I said sullenly. A startled expression passed across her features so quickly that I almost missed it.

"Really? What makes you say that?"

"You're Erzsébet Báthory. Ouch."

Sandor had involuntarily tightened his grip but the Witch of Cachtice was more prepared. Her eyebrows rose politely and she said: "What an amusing idea. But please, call me Liz."

"How about I call you 'next week'?" I growled. I'd been taking lessons from Sandor.

"What?" Nice lift of the eyebrows again. "Oh. I see." She smiled. "Your reputation precedes you, Chris."

I smiled back. "As does yours, Bitch."

Sandor squeezed and it felt as if my radius and ulna were rubbing together. I forced my smile up a notch but couldn't do anything about the beads of perspiration that were erupting across my forehead.

"Mr. Cséjthe, I would love to continue our little conversation after I finish some business here. So, please stay for awhile," she said, her voice echoing in my ears, in my head. <We have much to discuss and I want to give you my full attention.> 

And—that simply—I suddenly had no desire to leave. Sandor released my arm and I stood there, even more trapped that I had been a minute before.

Spiderwoman turned her attention back to a gray-haired gentleman in a gray suit who appeared to be in his late fifties. The fact that he wasn't wearing a tuxedo or fangs should have made him a standout in this crowd, but his nondescript appearance had the opposite effect: he seemed to fade into the background as if gray was the ultimate color scheme in camouflage and protective coloration. "You were saying, General?" she said.

I looked again: this was the man in the first photograph I had snagged from subterranean altar. I suddenly remembered that the Ogou pantheon manifested its military aspect in the form of one Ogou Baba.

As the gray-haired, gray-suited and—I looked more closely—gray-eyed gentleman looked around, his face hardened into an expression of displeasure. "I hardly think it appropriate to continue this discussion out here, in the open, and certainly not in front of outsiders."

"Dr. Delacroix works for me—"

"She's not cleared!" he snapped, cutting her off.

"She works for me," Báthory repeated, putting some heat and force behind the words. The "general" winced as if in pain. "It is now necessary to provide her with the essential clearances and briefings for her to continue her work."

I looked at Chalice. Her eyes had grown hazy with confusion and the anesthetization of mental domination.

Deirdre's eyes were different. I couldn't seem to get a reading on her.

"Mr. Cséjthe is about to become a major contributor to the Greyware Project," Báthory continued. "In a manner of speaking, General, he's about to become your very best friend. Yours and your friends on the council back in Virginia and Montana."

Walk away, Cséjthe, I told myself. Move. 

I couldn't.

"I thought you started final testing three weeks ago," the general snapped.

"Of the virus? Oh yes. And aside from a little fine-tuning, I think we've cleared all of the major hurdles." Her smile twisted into a smirk. "But we've still got a ways to go on perfecting the vaccine. Mr. Cséjthe's hemoglobin may prove more effective in stabilizing the telomerase than pure vampire blood. And, unless the council is composed of superpatriots, I think you'll be waiting for the antidote before authorizing the broad-spectrum release."

The general looked thoughtful and I looked around for the exits. I had been able to resist Dracula's mental domination: Why couldn't I leave now?

"What about Phase Two?" he asked.

The brunette turned abruptly and spoke to Chalice. "Go upstairs to Lab Four. Wait for me there. Do not leave."

Chalice turned silently and headed toward the main hallway.

I tried to follow her.

I couldn't get my legs to move.

"We've begun testing on Operation Blackout," Báthory said as Chalice disappeared. "In fact we're mixing some of our clinical trials."

"Why?" the general asked. "Won't that just confuse the results?"

As much as I wanted to hear where this conversation was going, I knew that the longer I stood there, the slimmer my chances became of exiting of my own volition. Straining against the mental command to stay, I felt the straps of my shoulder rig begin to chafe my ribs. An idea began to glimmer.

"Not for us," Báthory answered. "The piggybacks are activated by two different triggers. For the Greyware virus, it's the length of the telomeres. For the Blackout piggyback, it's the racial subsets of DNA. That still requires a bit of fine-tuning, but since we're not even trying to develop any counteragents for the second solution, it's taken less time to get to the trials phase."

Gently, slowly, carefully, I raised my right arm, as if to adjust the front of my suit. Moved my hand toward the opening above the button at my waist.

"But you're right in that releasing both piggybacks will lead to some confusion. It should slow any effectual diagnosis and response on the part of the public health sector and the CDC." My fingers were just inside my jacket lapel and inches from butt of the Glock as she added: "I shall become very cross with you Mr. Cséjthe, if your hand gets any closer to that gun."

Cross? I'd show her frick'n cross! I grabbed the Glock and pulled.

"You bastard!"

I flinched as a gunshot boomed and waited for the shock of the bullet tearing through my armpit to reach my brain.

I heard a second gunshot about the time I realized my fingers were nowhere near the trigger and the voice wasn't Báthory's. Heads turned; mine with them.

The Snow Queen commanded the entryway to the main hall through which Chalice had passed just moments before. The beaded black sheath dress that Suanne Cummings wore wasn't cut for a proper shooter's stance—which was probably why she had failed to hit anything of consequence, yet.

The room erupted in screams—some of them feminine—and half the occupants threw themselves to the floor while the remainder rushed about in a variety of directions. Most of them ended up on the floor, as well, tripping over the already prone or colliding with other rushees.

"You bastard!" Suanne repeated. And Hyrum Cummings broke from the pack as his cover went down and ran in search of other shelter.

"Where is she?" Suanne shrieked. The hem of her dress gave way with a ripping sound as she spread her feet and the seams on both sides unzippered to her thighs. The nickel-plated, snub-nosed .38 came up in a two-handed grip and tracked her husband as he ran . . . 

. . . toward us!

The temptation to lay down suppressing fire passed through my mind without tapping the brakes. I released my grip on my own gun and made a quick sending: DROP THE GUN! DROP THE GUN! 

Suanne didn't quite drop her weapon but she did fumble with it. Another shot boomed like doomsday thunder and a bullet tore a bloody chunk out of my left biceps while Dr. Cummings was still twenty feet away. The countess and the general hit the floor simultaneously. I was suddenly free of Erzsébet Báthory's compulsion. I ran toward Suanne, hemorrhaging like an Internet start-up.

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