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Chapter Sixteen

I slapped the gun out of Suanne's hands as I ran past her and then out into the main corridor. Taking the stairs meant that I would bleed that much faster, but the elevators would be way too slow. I pushed the door to the stairwell open and then clapped my good hand across my shattered upper arm.

So much for my renewed enthusiasm for divorce cases. Maybe the Monroe P.D. had an opening for a meter maid.

I was outside Lab Four in less than a minute, but even with the advantage of inhuman speed I wasn't moving fast enough. By now, Báthory and her goons would be up and moving and I was leaving a trail of gore that Mr. Magoo could follow.

I slammed the door open and ran to Chalice. "Come on! We're getting out of here!"

The hazed expression in her green eyes had faded but the anxiety that replaced it was scant improvement. Her gaze slid from my face to a focal point over my drooping shoulder.

"Howdy, Sparks," said a familiar voice. "Long time . . ."

" . . . no see," chimed in a second unwelcome greeting.

I turned slowly. Shock and pain had dulled my reactions but I deliberately kept my movements slow and careful, knowing that any sudden move would likely be my last.

Two men wearing ill-fitting tuxedos lounged against the wall, on either side of the doorway I had just pushed through. The one on the left towered over me. In the fifteen years that had passed since I had last seen him, the muscles of his body had been overlaid with a smooth coating of fat. He still looked as if he was strong enough to tip a Hummer over, though. I saw him do it once. I didn't doubt that he could still do it if sufficiently pissed. "Mouser," I said, "see you've gone for the Jesse Ventura 'do."

Joel Mouse rubbed his gleaming bald head and grinned. "Ya think?"

"A feather boa would complete the look if you wanted to go retro," I offered.

The short, barking laugh of the short, funny-looking man with gray teeth augmented Mouser's answering scowl.

"Fafhrd," I said. "I should have known you'd still be hanging with the Mouser after all these years." Fafhrd wasn't his real name and he most likely still couldn't spell the nickname that had been hung on him all those years ago. Just as well: Fritz Leiber would be turning over in his grave.

Shoot, he'd probably spin like a turbine.

Fafhrd stopped laughing. "Yeah. We even did time together after you spilled your guts to the brass."

"Spilling guts . . ." I scowled. "You're a fine one to talk about spilling guts . . ."

"Looks like someone started yours ahead of schedule," Mouser observed.

"Oh my god!" Chalice grabbed my arm to get a better look. That felt real good. "Sorry," she said, seeing the expression on my face. "Can you get that jacket off?"

"Just cut the sleeve off," I said through clenched teeth. The odds were bad enough at two to one. For all that I knew, the rest of the squad might be around the corner. Remembering the left-handed setup on the sniper rifle I could just about bet the bank on at least one more.

I closed my eyes and started focusing: You will obey me, you will obey me . . . 

"I will obey you," Chalice said.

"That's nice," Fafhrd said. "She will obey you, but don't count on us being your happy little mind-slaves."

The Mouser nodded. "We got that hypnotherapy fix. You bloodsuckers can't mess with our minds now."

That was interesting. Not only were they aware that vampires actually existed, they knew something about my condition, as well. The question was, who was acting C.O. for these Rambo rejects and what was his relationship with BioWeb?

The military connection was a given. But was it legitimate or paramilitary? There was the guy downstairs with the obvious moniker "General" and the not-so-obvious gray business suit. Which meant nothing as he could be legitimate and visiting covertly. Or he could be representing any one of the dozen or so private militias that had long fancied themselves a more legitimate alternative to our duly elected government.

Legitimate or not, the presence of these two soldiers of misfortune, along with Erzsébet Báthory's involvement, suggested really nasty business afoot. Bioweapons are ugly enough. Using them on segments of your own population takes the ugliness to a whole new level. Ike had warned us against the military-industrial complex. I wondered if he had ever, in his darkest dreams, imagined the world that was to come.

"Like you have enough mind to mess with in the first place," I retorted, slipping my hand inside my jacket as if to assist in its removal.

"Uh-uh, Sparky!" Fafhrd slide-cocked the 9mm that had suddenly appeared in his hand. "I ain't supposed to smoke you but I can blow your legs out from under you before you can clear your shoulder-rig."

I just shook my head. Anyone else would already have a round in the firing chamber: thumb the safety off and you've got a head start on the other guy. Not Fafhrd. He still preferred the retardo drama of slide-cocking his nine. Someday that pose would be his undoing.

"Want me to get his gun, Faf?" Mouser asked.

But not, apparently, this day.

"Think you can do it without blocking my shot, big guy?"

He smirked, trying for a knowing smile. "Hey, we're The Elite!"

"The Elite?" I said, and swore. "You bozos aren't anything more than SEAL wannabes. More Special Ed than Special Forces."

"You talk like you weren't one of us," Mouser growled.

"He wasn't one of us," Fafhrd snarled. "That's why he turned on us."

"A court of inquiry asked questions," I said. "I swore an oath to answer truthfully."

"What about loyalty? What about trust?"

I glared at the huge bald man. "What about dead civilians?"

Mouser shrugged. "There are always casualties in war."

"This wasn't war. It was a classic hostage situation and you guys hot-dogged it with no regard to SOP."

"Okay, so there was some collateral damage," Fafhrd agreed. "It was regrettable. We can agree on that. But what was done was done and, afterward, there was no taking it back. What purpose was served ratting us out to a bunch of Monday-morning quarterbacks?"

"You mean telling the truth under oath to my superior officers?" I asked as Chalice took a scalpel from a dissection kit at the edge of the table. She began cutting away my blood-soaked sleeve. "Seems to me to me I'm answerable to them, not to you. Answerable to them and the civilians we were charged to protect and rescue."

"Your first responsibility," Mouser said, circling to my left, "is to the man backing you up in a firefight. You've got to be able to trust every man in your squad with your life or one of you doesn't belong there. Too bad we found out about you after the fact."

"Don't lecture me about trust, Mouse. We were trusted to follow orders and we broke that trust." I winced as Chalice pulled my shirtsleeve away from the wound and fresh blood began oozing from my torn flesh. "If there was any betrayal, it was when you abandoned protocol and started your cowboy shit. I answered the questions I was asked truthfully and honestly. It's bullshit to think that company honor required that I lie for you."

"High-handed talk, Sparks," the little man retorted. "If you're so righteous, tell us why we're still working for the government while you're on their Most Wanted list?"

"I'm on the government's Most Wanted list?" It had been awhile since I had been inside a post office, much less checked the mug shot posters.

Of course, the real question was "which" government were we really talking about?

"Too bad it ain't 'dead or alive,' " Mouser added, reaching for the front of my jacket.

"You know, the sad thing is," I told him, "all these years I thought you were a cowboy; I never figured you for a Nazi."

Mouser's hand jerked to a stop. "Huh?"

"A Nazi, Mouse. In your case, more like a Schutzstaffel."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"I'm talkin' SS Stormtrooper, Herr Rat! I'm talkin' about genocide and gas chambers!"

Instead of grabbing my gun he shoved me back against the counter. "Why're you trash talkin' me like this?"

Faf laughed. "The Mouser is just a foot soldier, Sparks. He don't know policy, he just follows orders."

"But you're a smart guy, aren't ya, Faf? You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

He shrugged. "I hear things. I can add two and two."

"Only we're not talking addition, here, Bucko. We're talking subtraction and in the millions."

"What are you talkin' about?" Mouse demanded to know.

"I'm talkin' about your mama, Herr Rat. How old is she?"

He shoved me again, jump-starting a lawnmower of pain in my arm. "Shut up about my mama, man!"

I focused past the renewed agony and said, "The people you work for are going to kill her, Mouser. The general is using these facilities to manufacture a virus that's designed to kill the elderly."

"Naw, man; you got it wrong," Fafhrd drawled. "The general is going to solve the race problem, old and young. Got nothin' to do with the Mouser's mama, she bein' white. She is white, isn't she, Mouse?"

Mouse suggested that Fafhrd look no further for sexual intimacy than his own genitalia.

"It's both, bozo." I pointed a trembling finger at the little man with the gray teeth. "Your general is collaborating with vampires to produce and disseminate viruses tailored to kill blacks as well as the elderly of any race or ethnicity." I heard Chalice gasp behind me as I turned back to the big bald guy. "Which means your mama, Mouse!"

The Mouser turned to his partner. "Is this true, Faf?"

Fafhrd answer was cryptic. "Urk!" he said.

Or something to that effect as the lab door flew open and smacked the little man back into the wall.

"What the f—"

Mouser never finished his query: I had spun on the balls of my feet and grabbed his throat with my good hand, my fingertips digging into the flesh over his carotid arteries.

"Nobody move!" I yelled. "Drop your guns or JoJo's Adam's apple winds up across the room.

"Suits me fine," said a familiar voice.

Fafhrd contributed another "urk" to the conversation.

I turned and saw William Robert Montrose standing in the doorway. He was holding the door with one arm so that it continued to pin Fafhrd against the wall. Although the old vampire didn't seem to be exerting himself in any way, cracks were appearing in the plaster, radiating out from behind the door.

"Hurry up and feed!" he said. "We've got to get out of here."

"Feed?" I echoed. I was suddenly aware of Mouser's dead weight and the strain on my good arm from holding the unconscious man by the throat.

A brown hand closed on my wrist and helped brace my arm. "What's this about a virus designed to kill blacks?" Chalice hissed.

"I'm a little short on the details," I answered, "but a pattern is starting to emerge."

"What do you mean?"

Between the dreams, the countess' historical MO, a fortune-teller's vague prophecies, BioWeb's sinister projects, and that conversation downstairs between Bloody Báthory and General Goebbels Goering, it was just too difficult to explain.

Especially under the current time constraints.

"Later," I promised. I saw movement behind Count Bubba. A kid squeezed past Montrose and into the room.

He was probably sixteen—or had been when he died. But he looked younger, smaller because of the suit that he wore. Or, rather, it wore him. Electric blue, it was strictly forties era and very zoot. The pants were crotched low with reet pleats and bluff cuffs. Above, he wore a racket jacket with a drapeshape and wide lapels. His keychain, in the hepcat lingo, was "long with links." On his head was a wide-brimmed dicer with a hatband that matched his Windsor-knotted choker. On his feet were two-tone barkers and—I was guessing under the saggy baggy striders—argyles held up by old-style garters. This was my first look at an actual, honest-to-God, zoot suit outside of old photos, and the whole package was totally killer-diller.

"Wowsers!" I said. "Beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar!"

"This him?" the kid asked incredulously. "This the one they're all bumping their gums about?" He turned to Montrose. "What's the wire on this Joe? He's still breathing!"

As if that was some kind of social blunder.

He turned back and peered at me, squinting his eyes. "He still has a heartbeat!"

"Which is mostly the point, I suppose," Count Bubba replied.

Fafhrd made another urky sound. The Mouser was unconscious and silent.

"You gonna eat that or play with it some more?" the kid asked.

I dropped Commando Cruddie and glared at Montrose. "You didn't tell me you were babysitting tonight."

"Hey!"

"We don't have time for this," Montrose said. "J.D. meet Chris Cséjthe. Cséjthe, J.D."

"Charmed," I said.

"More'n I can say about you."

"Now," my undead doorman continued, "take a few swallows of blood before you fall over. . . ."

"I'm fine."

"Casper the Friendly Ghost has more color than you," he retorted. "And neither of us is keen on the idea of carrying you. What's the matter? Squeamish?"

I nodded. "I knew this guy a dozen years back. I wouldn't have let him handle my food then. What makes you think I would consider making him my food, now?"

The kid shook his head. "Besides being finicky about the torpedoes here, I think half-and-half's problem is he ain't got any teeth."

"I've got teeth!" I said, baring mine.

"Not the pointy kind."

He was right. Somehow in the grand melee and my subsequent flight, I had lost my prosthetic fangs.

Chalice had been standing there silently, holding the bloody scalpel by her side while we dithered. "Oh, for heavens sake!" she said now, stepping forward. She brought the blade up and touched it to the inside of her left forearm. "The BioWeb staff is required to take monthly blood tests and I can assure you that I am quite clean." She drew the edge of the blade lightly across her skin and the red line in its wake quickly became a ribbon, then a spreading film. She raised her arm toward me and said, "Come on, Sam. Or Chris. Or whoever you are. We're wasting time and I'd hate to waste any of this on the carpeting." She tilted her head. "What's the matter, don't care for the brown sugar?"

My head was spinning—though whether from blood lost or blood being offered, I could not say. Instead, I said: "What's the ideal woman?"

J.D. cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm a scientist, white boy," she shot back. "I'm curious. And, as long as you don't get greedy, I can spare a little. Besides, you told me, yourself, you haven't got the saliva factor to infect me."

I was in no condition to argue. I took her arm in my hands and bowed my head, bringing my mouth down to the cut. It was a terribly intimate act, and made all the more uncomfortable by the need to hurry and perform it in front of strangers. Chalice, herself, was nearly as much a stranger. All that was forgotten, however, as the first sip of blood entered my mouth.

It was more than drink, more than food.

It was the best sex I could remember and better than that.

It was speed and steroids mixed with honey and jalapenos.

It was molten sunshine seeking out the cold, dark regions of my innermost self.

All the way down to the cellular level I could feel a myriad of switches being flipped, the engines of life being revved.

A swallow and I could tell that my bleeding had stopped.

With a second swallow my head began to clear.

A third and I could feel tissue in my upper arm begin to re-knit. Not a lot but the healing process was already beginning.

A fourth and fifth were all I dared. I needed more for the process to quicken, for my strength and stamina to return to superhuman levels.

But I could not take the risks—the risk of delaying our escape any longer, of bleeding Chalice any further.

And the risk of losing my humanity, of feeding until she was utterly drained.

I raised my head and turned away as I licked my bloody lips. "Thank you," I said, my voice uneven from the twin shocks of my wound and my quickened hunger. "We'd better go now."

As we turned toward the door, Chalice balked. "I can't," she said.

Montrose and the kid looked puzzled.

"Báthory ordered her to come here and wait for her," I explained. "She's having trouble countermanding the geas."

"If she was still tranced," said the kid. "But get a slant on her peepers: she looks like she's wide awake now."

"Báthory must be reinforcing the command telepathically even as we speak," I said. "I've seen this sort of thing before."

"Then all the more reason to leave her behind," Montrose said. "If Báthory has a psychic link with her, she's not only a homing beacon but an open communications link, as well. She could listen in on everything we say; through her eyes, see everything we do."

I shook my head. "I won't leave her behind for that monster."

The kid pulled out a pocket watch, popped the cover, and consulted the antique face. "Time to take it on the heel and toe. Past time. Would-a been easier while the joint was still jumping. Bet it's a quiet riot downstairs, now." He produced an old "police special." At least it was special to the cops back in the nineteen forties. "Good thing you brought your own Roscoe; we may have to squirt metal on the run-out."

I looked back at Montrose. "Where did you find this guy?"

"Don't let the lingo throw you," Montrose said, reaching behind the door. "He's a solid back-up when he's straight."

"When he's straight?"

Montrose retrieved Fafhrd's nine and opened the door enough to let him slide to the floor. "Let's continue this discussion in the stairwell."

"I'm not leaving her!" My previous experience with Dracula's mental control taught me the futility of trying to countermand an older vampire's geas. There was, however, a chance that I could use my own fledgling powers of domination to put her to sleep and then carry her while she was unconscious.

If everyone would shut up long enough for me to concentrate.

"Ah, look," said the kid, shoving the ancient .38 back inside his baggy jacket, "I got an idea." He walked up to Chalice and stuck out his hand like an insurance salesman at a costume party. "Slip me some skin, babe, I'm J.D. and I'm your ticket outta here!"

As she tentatively extended her own hand, in turn, the kid looked up at the ceiling and exclaimed: "Holy crap! What's that?"

I imagine we all looked up: I certainly did. There was nothing to see on the ceiling but we got an earful: the loud smack of a fist against flesh. An unconscious Chalice was sagging into the kid's arms when I looked back.

Montrose caught my arm as I took a step toward them. "You wanted to bring her along. It's the only way."

"I'll carry her," I said.

"With that busted arm?" The kid hoisted Chalice over his shoulder. There was plenty of room: his jacket looked as if it used ironing boards for shoulder pads. "I got your frail. C'mon gate, let's perambulate!"

I wasn't happy about the arrangement but I didn't have a better plan. And it was long past time to go. We exited the lab and hurried down the hall. Choosing an elevator was like playing Russian roulette—with most of the chambers loaded, as a single security guard could cover all the elevators on each floor. The stairs were a slightly better bet—but not by much. Since the back stairs were the logical escape route, we took the front.

Montrose stopped us just above the second-floor landing. "Vamp below," he announced. "First floor."

I reached for the silver-loaded Glock in my shoulder holster.

"Nice heater," the kid observed. "Got a pillowcase to fit it?"

"What?"

"He means a silencer," Count Bubba answered. "Fire that thing off in here and everyone in the building is going to hear it. Time to detour." He reached for the door permitting egress to the second floor. It was a fire door and wouldn't open.

The kid shifted Chalice's center of gravity and kicked the door off its hinges.

"Oh," I said, "that was nice and quiet."

"Button yer yap," the kid said, shifting Chalice to a better position. "There's a bull down the hall wearing tin and packing iron."

"Let me guess: a security guard."

He looked at me as if I were slow. "That's what I just said."

Count Bubba stepped over the broken door. "They're getting away!" he said. "Down the back stairwell! Hurry!" The mental reverberation was making my temples buzz. I stepped through the doorway in time to see the guard turn and start hurrying in the opposite direction.

"Nice," I said. "I would've needed more time to convince him."

"You'll get better at it," Montrose said, "if you live long enough."

"And your odds would be better if we ditched the skirt," the kid added.

"If I ditch anybody, it'll be a certain hepbat," I growled, "who needs his film noir projected where the moon don't shine."

He slid Chalice from his shoulder. "Wanna try me, Tepid? Come on, then," he nodded at my dangling arm, "put up your duke."

"Settle down, Beavis."

"Hisst!" said Montrose. "The first-floor vamp is on his way up!"

The kid bent and moved Chalice away from the doorway. Both he and Count Bubba plastered themselves against the wall on either side of the door. All that was missing was some bait. What luck: I was available!

I started backing down the hall in the direction of the departed security guard, keeping an eye on the opening to the stairwell. As I moved, my shoulder bumped a projection from the wall: a fire alarm. I pulled it just as Báthory's fanged goon appeared in the doorway.

The blaring of the alarm klaxon might be sufficient to cover the noise of gunshots now. I hauled the Glock back out but my companions were quicker. The kid stuck out a leg, tripping the vamp, and Montrose produced a sharpened wooden stake from a pocket in his overalls. Sixteen bars of "Dust in the Wind" and we were back in the stairwell, headed for the ground floor.

Pandemonium had ceased but it was still a disorganized circus. Cops were everywhere, gathering evidence, taking statements, and guiding a handcuffed Suann Cummings into the back of a squad car. Across the parking lot I spied detectives Ruiz and Murray standing between my car and the Nova, which was lopsidedly hiked up on a bumper jack with the rear tire missing. They were questioning a man in dark clothing and a watch cap.

"I'm going to have to bum a ride," I said. "My car's staked out."

"My truck's just down the hill," Montrose answered. "I suggest we split up and J.D. will take Ms. Delacroix with him until we can meet up safely."

I looked over at the kid. "No offense, Junior, but I'm not keen on leaving a living, breathing human in the custody of a vampire."

"Hey, man, for a smoke chick she's a real eye-grabber and I might have been tempted when I was alive. But I heard the dish: her blood's too reet for my tastes."

"So, you're saying . . . what?"

Montrose interpreted. "J.D. has himself a nasty little habit. He prefers to mainline junkies. If they aren't high, he isn't hungry."

"Your steroid buddies back there were more to my taste," the kid added. "Too bad we didn't have more time."

"Well, it looks like there's more where they came from," I said. The man wearing the watch cap had turned his head and I got a better look at his face. It was Lenny. Lieutenant Birkmeister to you, Ensign Cséjthe!

The urge to whistle "That Old Gang of Mine" came and went quickly. "Louie" Lenny spotted us—more specifically, spotted me—and, for a long moment, it seemed that the jig was up.

One would think that carrying an unconscious woman toward the parking lot should elicit some response from the swarm of cops that were all around us. But, between the three of us, we seemed to be doing an adequate job of the old vampiric ability to "cloud men's minds." I doubted this little mental misdirection would be sufficient, however, once Birkmeister alerted Ruiz and Murray.

But he didn't.

A long, searching look and he turned back to answer more questions from my detective twosome. The Chevy's trunk was open but I couldn't see if damning evidence still lay within. If it did, no one seemed particularly concerned with cataloging the contents.

"Okay, what's the plan?" Montrose asked as we reached his pickup.

"Plan?" I hadn't thought that far ahead.

"So far, we're safe," Montrose said. "You're not. Nobody's made us, yet."

"Lieutenant Lenny just saw you with me."

"If he's human, it's too dark and we're too far away for a real description." He turned to the kid. "Get her out of here, J.D. Take her back to my place. That's where we'll reassemble."

The kid nodded once in agreement. Then he looked at me and grinned. "Now who's babysitting?"

I couldn't think of a suitable comeback even after he had dodged off into the darkness with Chalice Delacroix firmly balanced across his excessively padded shoulders. Instead I was thinking of Deirdre, still inside Erzsébet Báthory's BioWeb fortress, surrounded by rings of armed and fanged security forces.

I had never felt so helpless.

"Cséjthe. Cséjthe!" Montrose waved his hand in my face. "Any reason to go back to your place?"

"My place?" I thought about Deirdre

"That's the first place she'll look once she knows you're gone. If you need to grab something, it's now or never."

I thought about Terry-call-me-T whom I'd left on my couch like a complementary mint. I thought about Countess Báthory's tastes for young female flesh. For Deirdre's sake, I prayed that those tastes were confined to living rather than undead flesh.

I nearly pulled the door of the pickup off as I wrenched it open.

"Let's go!"

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Framed

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Chapter Sixteen

I slapped the gun out of Suanne's hands as I ran past her and then out into the main corridor. Taking the stairs meant that I would bleed that much faster, but the elevators would be way too slow. I pushed the door to the stairwell open and then clapped my good hand across my shattered upper arm.

So much for my renewed enthusiasm for divorce cases. Maybe the Monroe P.D. had an opening for a meter maid.

I was outside Lab Four in less than a minute, but even with the advantage of inhuman speed I wasn't moving fast enough. By now, Báthory and her goons would be up and moving and I was leaving a trail of gore that Mr. Magoo could follow.

I slammed the door open and ran to Chalice. "Come on! We're getting out of here!"

The hazed expression in her green eyes had faded but the anxiety that replaced it was scant improvement. Her gaze slid from my face to a focal point over my drooping shoulder.

"Howdy, Sparks," said a familiar voice. "Long time . . ."

" . . . no see," chimed in a second unwelcome greeting.

I turned slowly. Shock and pain had dulled my reactions but I deliberately kept my movements slow and careful, knowing that any sudden move would likely be my last.

Two men wearing ill-fitting tuxedos lounged against the wall, on either side of the doorway I had just pushed through. The one on the left towered over me. In the fifteen years that had passed since I had last seen him, the muscles of his body had been overlaid with a smooth coating of fat. He still looked as if he was strong enough to tip a Hummer over, though. I saw him do it once. I didn't doubt that he could still do it if sufficiently pissed. "Mouser," I said, "see you've gone for the Jesse Ventura 'do."

Joel Mouse rubbed his gleaming bald head and grinned. "Ya think?"

"A feather boa would complete the look if you wanted to go retro," I offered.

The short, barking laugh of the short, funny-looking man with gray teeth augmented Mouser's answering scowl.

"Fafhrd," I said. "I should have known you'd still be hanging with the Mouser after all these years." Fafhrd wasn't his real name and he most likely still couldn't spell the nickname that had been hung on him all those years ago. Just as well: Fritz Leiber would be turning over in his grave.

Shoot, he'd probably spin like a turbine.

Fafhrd stopped laughing. "Yeah. We even did time together after you spilled your guts to the brass."

"Spilling guts . . ." I scowled. "You're a fine one to talk about spilling guts . . ."

"Looks like someone started yours ahead of schedule," Mouser observed.

"Oh my god!" Chalice grabbed my arm to get a better look. That felt real good. "Sorry," she said, seeing the expression on my face. "Can you get that jacket off?"

"Just cut the sleeve off," I said through clenched teeth. The odds were bad enough at two to one. For all that I knew, the rest of the squad might be around the corner. Remembering the left-handed setup on the sniper rifle I could just about bet the bank on at least one more.

I closed my eyes and started focusing: You will obey me, you will obey me . . . 

"I will obey you," Chalice said.

"That's nice," Fafhrd said. "She will obey you, but don't count on us being your happy little mind-slaves."

The Mouser nodded. "We got that hypnotherapy fix. You bloodsuckers can't mess with our minds now."

That was interesting. Not only were they aware that vampires actually existed, they knew something about my condition, as well. The question was, who was acting C.O. for these Rambo rejects and what was his relationship with BioWeb?

The military connection was a given. But was it legitimate or paramilitary? There was the guy downstairs with the obvious moniker "General" and the not-so-obvious gray business suit. Which meant nothing as he could be legitimate and visiting covertly. Or he could be representing any one of the dozen or so private militias that had long fancied themselves a more legitimate alternative to our duly elected government.

Legitimate or not, the presence of these two soldiers of misfortune, along with Erzsébet Báthory's involvement, suggested really nasty business afoot. Bioweapons are ugly enough. Using them on segments of your own population takes the ugliness to a whole new level. Ike had warned us against the military-industrial complex. I wondered if he had ever, in his darkest dreams, imagined the world that was to come.

"Like you have enough mind to mess with in the first place," I retorted, slipping my hand inside my jacket as if to assist in its removal.

"Uh-uh, Sparky!" Fafhrd slide-cocked the 9mm that had suddenly appeared in his hand. "I ain't supposed to smoke you but I can blow your legs out from under you before you can clear your shoulder-rig."

I just shook my head. Anyone else would already have a round in the firing chamber: thumb the safety off and you've got a head start on the other guy. Not Fafhrd. He still preferred the retardo drama of slide-cocking his nine. Someday that pose would be his undoing.

"Want me to get his gun, Faf?" Mouser asked.

But not, apparently, this day.

"Think you can do it without blocking my shot, big guy?"

He smirked, trying for a knowing smile. "Hey, we're The Elite!"

"The Elite?" I said, and swore. "You bozos aren't anything more than SEAL wannabes. More Special Ed than Special Forces."

"You talk like you weren't one of us," Mouser growled.

"He wasn't one of us," Fafhrd snarled. "That's why he turned on us."

"A court of inquiry asked questions," I said. "I swore an oath to answer truthfully."

"What about loyalty? What about trust?"

I glared at the huge bald man. "What about dead civilians?"

Mouser shrugged. "There are always casualties in war."

"This wasn't war. It was a classic hostage situation and you guys hot-dogged it with no regard to SOP."

"Okay, so there was some collateral damage," Fafhrd agreed. "It was regrettable. We can agree on that. But what was done was done and, afterward, there was no taking it back. What purpose was served ratting us out to a bunch of Monday-morning quarterbacks?"

"You mean telling the truth under oath to my superior officers?" I asked as Chalice took a scalpel from a dissection kit at the edge of the table. She began cutting away my blood-soaked sleeve. "Seems to me to me I'm answerable to them, not to you. Answerable to them and the civilians we were charged to protect and rescue."

"Your first responsibility," Mouser said, circling to my left, "is to the man backing you up in a firefight. You've got to be able to trust every man in your squad with your life or one of you doesn't belong there. Too bad we found out about you after the fact."

"Don't lecture me about trust, Mouse. We were trusted to follow orders and we broke that trust." I winced as Chalice pulled my shirtsleeve away from the wound and fresh blood began oozing from my torn flesh. "If there was any betrayal, it was when you abandoned protocol and started your cowboy shit. I answered the questions I was asked truthfully and honestly. It's bullshit to think that company honor required that I lie for you."

"High-handed talk, Sparks," the little man retorted. "If you're so righteous, tell us why we're still working for the government while you're on their Most Wanted list?"

"I'm on the government's Most Wanted list?" It had been awhile since I had been inside a post office, much less checked the mug shot posters.

Of course, the real question was "which" government were we really talking about?

"Too bad it ain't 'dead or alive,' " Mouser added, reaching for the front of my jacket.

"You know, the sad thing is," I told him, "all these years I thought you were a cowboy; I never figured you for a Nazi."

Mouser's hand jerked to a stop. "Huh?"

"A Nazi, Mouse. In your case, more like a Schutzstaffel."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"I'm talkin' SS Stormtrooper, Herr Rat! I'm talkin' about genocide and gas chambers!"

Instead of grabbing my gun he shoved me back against the counter. "Why're you trash talkin' me like this?"

Faf laughed. "The Mouser is just a foot soldier, Sparks. He don't know policy, he just follows orders."

"But you're a smart guy, aren't ya, Faf? You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

He shrugged. "I hear things. I can add two and two."

"Only we're not talking addition, here, Bucko. We're talking subtraction and in the millions."

"What are you talkin' about?" Mouse demanded to know.

"I'm talkin' about your mama, Herr Rat. How old is she?"

He shoved me again, jump-starting a lawnmower of pain in my arm. "Shut up about my mama, man!"

I focused past the renewed agony and said, "The people you work for are going to kill her, Mouser. The general is using these facilities to manufacture a virus that's designed to kill the elderly."

"Naw, man; you got it wrong," Fafhrd drawled. "The general is going to solve the race problem, old and young. Got nothin' to do with the Mouser's mama, she bein' white. She is white, isn't she, Mouse?"

Mouse suggested that Fafhrd look no further for sexual intimacy than his own genitalia.

"It's both, bozo." I pointed a trembling finger at the little man with the gray teeth. "Your general is collaborating with vampires to produce and disseminate viruses tailored to kill blacks as well as the elderly of any race or ethnicity." I heard Chalice gasp behind me as I turned back to the big bald guy. "Which means your mama, Mouse!"

The Mouser turned to his partner. "Is this true, Faf?"

Fafhrd answer was cryptic. "Urk!" he said.

Or something to that effect as the lab door flew open and smacked the little man back into the wall.

"What the f—"

Mouser never finished his query: I had spun on the balls of my feet and grabbed his throat with my good hand, my fingertips digging into the flesh over his carotid arteries.

"Nobody move!" I yelled. "Drop your guns or JoJo's Adam's apple winds up across the room.

"Suits me fine," said a familiar voice.

Fafhrd contributed another "urk" to the conversation.

I turned and saw William Robert Montrose standing in the doorway. He was holding the door with one arm so that it continued to pin Fafhrd against the wall. Although the old vampire didn't seem to be exerting himself in any way, cracks were appearing in the plaster, radiating out from behind the door.

"Hurry up and feed!" he said. "We've got to get out of here."

"Feed?" I echoed. I was suddenly aware of Mouser's dead weight and the strain on my good arm from holding the unconscious man by the throat.

A brown hand closed on my wrist and helped brace my arm. "What's this about a virus designed to kill blacks?" Chalice hissed.

"I'm a little short on the details," I answered, "but a pattern is starting to emerge."

"What do you mean?"

Between the dreams, the countess' historical MO, a fortune-teller's vague prophecies, BioWeb's sinister projects, and that conversation downstairs between Bloody Báthory and General Goebbels Goering, it was just too difficult to explain.

Especially under the current time constraints.

"Later," I promised. I saw movement behind Count Bubba. A kid squeezed past Montrose and into the room.

He was probably sixteen—or had been when he died. But he looked younger, smaller because of the suit that he wore. Or, rather, it wore him. Electric blue, it was strictly forties era and very zoot. The pants were crotched low with reet pleats and bluff cuffs. Above, he wore a racket jacket with a drapeshape and wide lapels. His keychain, in the hepcat lingo, was "long with links." On his head was a wide-brimmed dicer with a hatband that matched his Windsor-knotted choker. On his feet were two-tone barkers and—I was guessing under the saggy baggy striders—argyles held up by old-style garters. This was my first look at an actual, honest-to-God, zoot suit outside of old photos, and the whole package was totally killer-diller.

"Wowsers!" I said. "Beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar!"

"This him?" the kid asked incredulously. "This the one they're all bumping their gums about?" He turned to Montrose. "What's the wire on this Joe? He's still breathing!"

As if that was some kind of social blunder.

He turned back and peered at me, squinting his eyes. "He still has a heartbeat!"

"Which is mostly the point, I suppose," Count Bubba replied.

Fafhrd made another urky sound. The Mouser was unconscious and silent.

"You gonna eat that or play with it some more?" the kid asked.

I dropped Commando Cruddie and glared at Montrose. "You didn't tell me you were babysitting tonight."

"Hey!"

"We don't have time for this," Montrose said. "J.D. meet Chris Cséjthe. Cséjthe, J.D."

"Charmed," I said.

"More'n I can say about you."

"Now," my undead doorman continued, "take a few swallows of blood before you fall over. . . ."

"I'm fine."

"Casper the Friendly Ghost has more color than you," he retorted. "And neither of us is keen on the idea of carrying you. What's the matter? Squeamish?"

I nodded. "I knew this guy a dozen years back. I wouldn't have let him handle my food then. What makes you think I would consider making him my food, now?"

The kid shook his head. "Besides being finicky about the torpedoes here, I think half-and-half's problem is he ain't got any teeth."

"I've got teeth!" I said, baring mine.

"Not the pointy kind."

He was right. Somehow in the grand melee and my subsequent flight, I had lost my prosthetic fangs.

Chalice had been standing there silently, holding the bloody scalpel by her side while we dithered. "Oh, for heavens sake!" she said now, stepping forward. She brought the blade up and touched it to the inside of her left forearm. "The BioWeb staff is required to take monthly blood tests and I can assure you that I am quite clean." She drew the edge of the blade lightly across her skin and the red line in its wake quickly became a ribbon, then a spreading film. She raised her arm toward me and said, "Come on, Sam. Or Chris. Or whoever you are. We're wasting time and I'd hate to waste any of this on the carpeting." She tilted her head. "What's the matter, don't care for the brown sugar?"

My head was spinning—though whether from blood lost or blood being offered, I could not say. Instead, I said: "What's the ideal woman?"

J.D. cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm a scientist, white boy," she shot back. "I'm curious. And, as long as you don't get greedy, I can spare a little. Besides, you told me, yourself, you haven't got the saliva factor to infect me."

I was in no condition to argue. I took her arm in my hands and bowed my head, bringing my mouth down to the cut. It was a terribly intimate act, and made all the more uncomfortable by the need to hurry and perform it in front of strangers. Chalice, herself, was nearly as much a stranger. All that was forgotten, however, as the first sip of blood entered my mouth.

It was more than drink, more than food.

It was the best sex I could remember and better than that.

It was speed and steroids mixed with honey and jalapenos.

It was molten sunshine seeking out the cold, dark regions of my innermost self.

All the way down to the cellular level I could feel a myriad of switches being flipped, the engines of life being revved.

A swallow and I could tell that my bleeding had stopped.

With a second swallow my head began to clear.

A third and I could feel tissue in my upper arm begin to re-knit. Not a lot but the healing process was already beginning.

A fourth and fifth were all I dared. I needed more for the process to quicken, for my strength and stamina to return to superhuman levels.

But I could not take the risks—the risk of delaying our escape any longer, of bleeding Chalice any further.

And the risk of losing my humanity, of feeding until she was utterly drained.

I raised my head and turned away as I licked my bloody lips. "Thank you," I said, my voice uneven from the twin shocks of my wound and my quickened hunger. "We'd better go now."

As we turned toward the door, Chalice balked. "I can't," she said.

Montrose and the kid looked puzzled.

"Báthory ordered her to come here and wait for her," I explained. "She's having trouble countermanding the geas."

"If she was still tranced," said the kid. "But get a slant on her peepers: she looks like she's wide awake now."

"Báthory must be reinforcing the command telepathically even as we speak," I said. "I've seen this sort of thing before."

"Then all the more reason to leave her behind," Montrose said. "If Báthory has a psychic link with her, she's not only a homing beacon but an open communications link, as well. She could listen in on everything we say; through her eyes, see everything we do."

I shook my head. "I won't leave her behind for that monster."

The kid pulled out a pocket watch, popped the cover, and consulted the antique face. "Time to take it on the heel and toe. Past time. Would-a been easier while the joint was still jumping. Bet it's a quiet riot downstairs, now." He produced an old "police special." At least it was special to the cops back in the nineteen forties. "Good thing you brought your own Roscoe; we may have to squirt metal on the run-out."

I looked back at Montrose. "Where did you find this guy?"

"Don't let the lingo throw you," Montrose said, reaching behind the door. "He's a solid back-up when he's straight."

"When he's straight?"

Montrose retrieved Fafhrd's nine and opened the door enough to let him slide to the floor. "Let's continue this discussion in the stairwell."

"I'm not leaving her!" My previous experience with Dracula's mental control taught me the futility of trying to countermand an older vampire's geas. There was, however, a chance that I could use my own fledgling powers of domination to put her to sleep and then carry her while she was unconscious.

If everyone would shut up long enough for me to concentrate.

"Ah, look," said the kid, shoving the ancient .38 back inside his baggy jacket, "I got an idea." He walked up to Chalice and stuck out his hand like an insurance salesman at a costume party. "Slip me some skin, babe, I'm J.D. and I'm your ticket outta here!"

As she tentatively extended her own hand, in turn, the kid looked up at the ceiling and exclaimed: "Holy crap! What's that?"

I imagine we all looked up: I certainly did. There was nothing to see on the ceiling but we got an earful: the loud smack of a fist against flesh. An unconscious Chalice was sagging into the kid's arms when I looked back.

Montrose caught my arm as I took a step toward them. "You wanted to bring her along. It's the only way."

"I'll carry her," I said.

"With that busted arm?" The kid hoisted Chalice over his shoulder. There was plenty of room: his jacket looked as if it used ironing boards for shoulder pads. "I got your frail. C'mon gate, let's perambulate!"

I wasn't happy about the arrangement but I didn't have a better plan. And it was long past time to go. We exited the lab and hurried down the hall. Choosing an elevator was like playing Russian roulette—with most of the chambers loaded, as a single security guard could cover all the elevators on each floor. The stairs were a slightly better bet—but not by much. Since the back stairs were the logical escape route, we took the front.

Montrose stopped us just above the second-floor landing. "Vamp below," he announced. "First floor."

I reached for the silver-loaded Glock in my shoulder holster.

"Nice heater," the kid observed. "Got a pillowcase to fit it?"

"What?"

"He means a silencer," Count Bubba answered. "Fire that thing off in here and everyone in the building is going to hear it. Time to detour." He reached for the door permitting egress to the second floor. It was a fire door and wouldn't open.

The kid shifted Chalice's center of gravity and kicked the door off its hinges.

"Oh," I said, "that was nice and quiet."

"Button yer yap," the kid said, shifting Chalice to a better position. "There's a bull down the hall wearing tin and packing iron."

"Let me guess: a security guard."

He looked at me as if I were slow. "That's what I just said."

Count Bubba stepped over the broken door. "They're getting away!" he said. "Down the back stairwell! Hurry!" The mental reverberation was making my temples buzz. I stepped through the doorway in time to see the guard turn and start hurrying in the opposite direction.

"Nice," I said. "I would've needed more time to convince him."

"You'll get better at it," Montrose said, "if you live long enough."

"And your odds would be better if we ditched the skirt," the kid added.

"If I ditch anybody, it'll be a certain hepbat," I growled, "who needs his film noir projected where the moon don't shine."

He slid Chalice from his shoulder. "Wanna try me, Tepid? Come on, then," he nodded at my dangling arm, "put up your duke."

"Settle down, Beavis."

"Hisst!" said Montrose. "The first-floor vamp is on his way up!"

The kid bent and moved Chalice away from the doorway. Both he and Count Bubba plastered themselves against the wall on either side of the door. All that was missing was some bait. What luck: I was available!

I started backing down the hall in the direction of the departed security guard, keeping an eye on the opening to the stairwell. As I moved, my shoulder bumped a projection from the wall: a fire alarm. I pulled it just as Báthory's fanged goon appeared in the doorway.

The blaring of the alarm klaxon might be sufficient to cover the noise of gunshots now. I hauled the Glock back out but my companions were quicker. The kid stuck out a leg, tripping the vamp, and Montrose produced a sharpened wooden stake from a pocket in his overalls. Sixteen bars of "Dust in the Wind" and we were back in the stairwell, headed for the ground floor.

Pandemonium had ceased but it was still a disorganized circus. Cops were everywhere, gathering evidence, taking statements, and guiding a handcuffed Suann Cummings into the back of a squad car. Across the parking lot I spied detectives Ruiz and Murray standing between my car and the Nova, which was lopsidedly hiked up on a bumper jack with the rear tire missing. They were questioning a man in dark clothing and a watch cap.

"I'm going to have to bum a ride," I said. "My car's staked out."

"My truck's just down the hill," Montrose answered. "I suggest we split up and J.D. will take Ms. Delacroix with him until we can meet up safely."

I looked over at the kid. "No offense, Junior, but I'm not keen on leaving a living, breathing human in the custody of a vampire."

"Hey, man, for a smoke chick she's a real eye-grabber and I might have been tempted when I was alive. But I heard the dish: her blood's too reet for my tastes."

"So, you're saying . . . what?"

Montrose interpreted. "J.D. has himself a nasty little habit. He prefers to mainline junkies. If they aren't high, he isn't hungry."

"Your steroid buddies back there were more to my taste," the kid added. "Too bad we didn't have more time."

"Well, it looks like there's more where they came from," I said. The man wearing the watch cap had turned his head and I got a better look at his face. It was Lenny. Lieutenant Birkmeister to you, Ensign Cséjthe!

The urge to whistle "That Old Gang of Mine" came and went quickly. "Louie" Lenny spotted us—more specifically, spotted me—and, for a long moment, it seemed that the jig was up.

One would think that carrying an unconscious woman toward the parking lot should elicit some response from the swarm of cops that were all around us. But, between the three of us, we seemed to be doing an adequate job of the old vampiric ability to "cloud men's minds." I doubted this little mental misdirection would be sufficient, however, once Birkmeister alerted Ruiz and Murray.

But he didn't.

A long, searching look and he turned back to answer more questions from my detective twosome. The Chevy's trunk was open but I couldn't see if damning evidence still lay within. If it did, no one seemed particularly concerned with cataloging the contents.

"Okay, what's the plan?" Montrose asked as we reached his pickup.

"Plan?" I hadn't thought that far ahead.

"So far, we're safe," Montrose said. "You're not. Nobody's made us, yet."

"Lieutenant Lenny just saw you with me."

"If he's human, it's too dark and we're too far away for a real description." He turned to the kid. "Get her out of here, J.D. Take her back to my place. That's where we'll reassemble."

The kid nodded once in agreement. Then he looked at me and grinned. "Now who's babysitting?"

I couldn't think of a suitable comeback even after he had dodged off into the darkness with Chalice Delacroix firmly balanced across his excessively padded shoulders. Instead I was thinking of Deirdre, still inside Erzsébet Báthory's BioWeb fortress, surrounded by rings of armed and fanged security forces.

I had never felt so helpless.

"Cséjthe. Cséjthe!" Montrose waved his hand in my face. "Any reason to go back to your place?"

"My place?" I thought about Deirdre

"That's the first place she'll look once she knows you're gone. If you need to grab something, it's now or never."

I thought about Terry-call-me-T whom I'd left on my couch like a complementary mint. I thought about Countess Báthory's tastes for young female flesh. For Deirdre's sake, I prayed that those tastes were confined to living rather than undead flesh.

I nearly pulled the door of the pickup off as I wrenched it open.

"Let's go!"

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