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Chapter Twenty

I didn't do it for her or the countess.

I did it because it would be just like Erzsébet Báthory to kill a hundred over the obstinacy of one. As I walked toward the bayou, surrounded by a phalanx of fanged bodyguards, a large hulking shape rose up out of the shadows.

It was the hunchbacked giant, Brother Michael.

"Do you wish to leave?" he whispered. The whisper rumbled like distant thunder and I fancied I saw a dim flash of lightning as he twisted a great gnarled branch in his huge white hands.

This gentle giant suddenly seemed more dangerous and powerful than any unbent human I could imagine. But whatever his hidden strengths, I knew he was no match for a half-dozen vampires. And even if there had been any possibility of taking Báthory's minions there was still the implicit threat of four additional operatives with flamethrowers back at the pit. I had to defuse this confrontation before it escalated.

"Yeah, Mikey," I answered, "I've got some unfinished business."

The big guardian gazed down at me as if the others were of no consequence, staring as if I were a small child telling an obvious fib.

"Are you leaving of your own free will?"

Ah, that free will thing again. As if any of us truly have free will, choices without price tags . . . 

The vamps around me were tensing, preparing to engage the hunchback if he offered any further resistance. I couldn't let that happen.

"Gotta go, big guy; I'm late," I said, moving toward him and forcing him to give ground. "Gotta see a man about a hearse, gotta make like a banana and split, make like a tree and leave, make like a mule train and haul ass . . ."

Brother Michael stepped aside and allowed us to pass but his face was stony with disapproval. My expression was more pleasant to look at but hurt a lot more. We walked down to the water's edge with his eyes burning into my back like twin laser-sights.

The next part was interesting.

Vampires do not like water.

Which makes hygiene problematical for some of them: Deirdre's excursion in my shower was one of those little triumphs of mind over nature. But the H₂O factor isn't generally too much of a problem unless there's a lot of it and it's headed in some direction: vampires, as a rule, don't cross running water.

One of the charms of a bayou, however, is that it isn't going anywhere. Oh, technically there is a current, but not so's you'd notice: toss a cork in the water on a windless day and that sucker will be floating close to the same spot twenty-four hours later.

So maybe it wasn't such a feat to get half-dozen vampires into a boat and send them to fetch me. But given Countess Báthory's methods and reputation, she'd probably have coerced them to shoot the rapids and go over a waterfall if necessary. We waded into the cold black water with a lot of hissing and feral grunting. We were almost up to our waists when we reached the boat that was anchored about twenty feet from the shore.

As we turned about and paddled away I wondered what would happen if I jumped back into the water.

"Before you make any attempt to escape," growled a familiar voice, "now or in the future, you should remember that we know where your friends are. Your cooperation is a guarantee of their safety."

"Sandor," I said with fake enthusiasm, "you old bowling ball, you! Still jealous that I have a neck and you don't?"

He growled but said nothing more. A moment later the outboard motor coughed to life and we trolled toward the deeper, central channel of Bayou Gris.

"What's that?" Terry-call-me-T asked, pointing off of our starboard side.

I caught a glimpse of a head with long emerald tresses before it submerged. "T . . ."

"Call me Theresa."

I looked at her. "Theresa?"

"It's my name."

"It's . . . Okay, what happened?"

She looked at me with those big, luminous eyes, eyes that weren't so innocent now. "Isn't it obvious? Nobody had to explain it to me."

"I've been distracted."

"The bullet that punched through your body and then mine caused me to bleed out. I died."

"That much I had pretty well figured out at the time," I said dryly.

"Our blood commingled through our wounds before I died," she continued. "It actually infected me faster than if you had opened a vein and allowed me to drink. I died and was reborn in a matter of minutes."

"So," I mused, "I am your Sire." All I lacked for now was the nomination for Deadbeat Undead Dad of the Year. I cleared my throat. "I'm a little surprised at your lack of loyalty, my dear. You know it's considered bad form to betray your Sire to his enemies."

She shook her head. "That's not how it works, my dear Professor Haim—or should I say Cséjthe? It is the countess who rules our clan: all allegiance is due her first, undivided by petty alliances over who made whom. You may be my Sire but she is our mother and my Dam."

"Damn," I said.

Sandor cuffed me. "You will show proper respect. The countess is the embodiment of a great and royal bloodline. Your blood, if related at all, is diluted by generations of common, mongrel stock."

I rubbed the back of my head. "Jeez, Sandy! If you've got such a jones for the aristocracy, how come you're not in Dracula's entourage?"

"My brothers and I are sworn to the Gutkeled Clan. Our fidelity is to the countess and her issue." He cuffed me again and constellations appeared even though the night skies remained overcast.

"Well, that might include me then, big guy. So stop popping me in the head."

"Even the children of royalty must be disciplined. Especially when their mother commands it."

"Too bad you're not a mother, Sandy," I said. "Oh wait, maybe you really are."

He reached out to pop me again and I caught his wrist. I yanked, overbalancing him, and the whole boat rocked. I braced myself, disallowing his recovery as the boat tilted the opposite direction and then yanked again. We both stumbled against the gunwales and I released his wrist to give him a little boost. The boat didn't capsize—a result too good to be hoped for—but Sandor made a most satisfactory splash as he tumbled into the bayou.

The other vamps weren't prepared for such a contingency. They scrambled to the side, coming a lot closer to rolling us over than I had. Thrusting their hands in the water they groped in vain: Sandor had sunk like a stone and wouldn't be coming up again on his own. A weighted rope would have a one-in-a-hundred chance of falling within his flailing grasp and we didn't have one of those on board. The only good their efforts accomplished was to enable me to kick two more over the side before the rest swarmed me.

They were sufficiently pissed and frightened that I only had to endure a dozen or so kicks and punches before the blessed curtain of unconsciousness postponed the pain until the next day.

My jailors brought me word this morning that Erzsi Majorova has been caught and beheaded. There will be no more trials, no more witch-hunts. I, alone, remain; walled up high in my tower, surrounded by crucifixes and selected pages from the Christian Bible that have been nailed to the walls between their binding symbols.  

Katarina visits me some nights when the moon is new and the guards are more restful. Just last week she came to my window and told me that my time would not be long, now.  

I wonder where she sleeps?  

The townspeople all believe her to have quit Cachtice after the first trial. But she is watchful lest I break my promise.   

She is restless for my death, I think. She wants to travel but dares not leave me lest I grow bold in her absence.  

She wants to go to . . . him.

As if he would consort with a Beneczky when Báthory-Nádasdy was not good enough for his patrician ways. 

Still, her power grows.  

Though my dungeons have long stood empty and she must feed secretly and carefully now, her power continues to increase.  

If she lives long enough—two, maybe three, lifetimes—she might equal him in strength, power, and cunning.  

Should that day come not even the old dragon could withstand her.  

And then the world may well burn . . .    

Maybe the concept of an afterlife was overrated.

At least the idea of waking up was proving to have less and less appeal. You can only wake up to pain so many times before the phrase "eternal rest" begins to take on a very literal attraction. Never mind Hell—Heaven in all of its various descriptions must involve some form of participatory involvement and, anymore, I just wanted to sleep the Sleep of Oblivion.

Alas, I had a bladder that wasn't suited for eternity. I rolled over and cracked an eyelid.

My prosthetic fangs sat in a glass on the nightstand just a foot-and-a-half away. They looked all sparkly-clean: maybe someone had dropped in an Efferdent tablet.

A couple of feet beyond, ensconced in a large, stuffed chair was my former student turned undead understudy, Theresa-call-me . . . uh, Theresa. The dark circles under her eyes appeared to be the real thing—no Goth makeup need apply here.

"You're awake," she said.

"You're anemic," I replied.

"Yeah. Well. That's your fault."

I sighed. "That's not surprising. Lately everything seems to be my fault."

"I don't have fangs," she pouted. "Your blood isn't pure."

"Perhaps," I said, pushing back the covers, "but everyone seems to want it." I was naked beneath the covers. "So, you're infected with only half of the combinant virus." I pulled the covers up to my chin. "Where are my clothes?"

She got out of the chair like a reluctant child. "I'm not a real vampire," she whined. "I don't know what I am."

"You're not dead and starting to rot in some cold grave," I said. "You're not a full-fledged monster."

She crossed the room and opened the closet. "I can't bite people. I can't suck their blood. Not without using a knife or something."

"I stand corrected. You probably are a monster." I disconnected from that line of thought and wondered what the dean had said when informed that I hadn't shown up for my night classes this past week.

"So," she asked, her voice partially muffled by the depths of the closet, "what clan are you?"

"Clan?"

"It's pretty obvious that you're not Nosferatu, and I've had enough conversations with you to know you're not Malkavian. You don't dress like a Ventrue."

"That's good to know."

"You don't act like a Toreador . . ."

"Olé."

"That leaves Tremere, Brujah, or Gangrel."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Clans. The Camarilla. The Masquerade."

"I don't go to parties," I said. I certainly shouldn't have gone to that one at BioWeb.

"Our Lady has promised to complete my transformation . . ." Hangers rattled. " . . . if I take care of you properly." She emerged with my clothing. Not what I had worn last but clothes from my closet back home. I looked around the room. It was furnished and appointed like a luxury suite at one of the finest hotels. I definitely was not home.

"Welcome to the Hotel California," I muttered.

"What?"

"We are all just prisoners here of our own device," I quoted.

She looked at me as if I were speaking an alien tongue. I suppose I was.

"And how am I to be taken care of?" I asked rhetorically.

She stopped by the chair. Draped my clothing over its back. Began to unbutton her black blouse.

"I'm not interested," I said flatly.

"How do you know until you've had a sample?" she asked, reaching the belt and undoing the buckle.

"I'm not promiscuous."

"Don't be silly," she said, easing the zipper down on her black slacks. "Everyone is promiscuous when the conditions are right." She shrugged the blouse from her shoulders. She wasn't wearing a bra. "Besides," she continued, shimmying out of her pants, "even if you can't get it up, you'll need to feed. It's easier when there's no clothing to get in the way."

I shook my head. "Poor Theresa-call-me-T-call-me-I-don't-know-what. You've read Goth fantasies penned by failed romance writers who would have you believe the undead nightlife is all fucking and sucking. Well, welcome to the dreary version of the nightfolk's nightmare. It's all about having power over others, trading lives like they were commodities—a means to mastery or mastication. Right now you're special because you're neither human nor vampire. Once you're truly turned, you'll be the lowest of the low on the undead food chain."

She stepped out of the last remnants of her clothing and crawled onto the bed. As twenty-something bodies go, hers was better than most but I had resisted Deirdre's charms and this little would-be vamp wasn't even in her zip code.

More importantly, she wasn't Lupé.

"Get out," I said. "This is the last time I'm going to ask nicely."

"Not until you've tasted my blood." She kept coming, crawling over my legs.

"I don't want your blood."

"Nobody wants my blood," she whined, deliberately slowing her progress as she reached my hips. "They say it tastes funny. It used to taste sweet."

"I'll bet Rod would still like it."

She grinned suddenly. "Once I get turned all the way, I'm going to pay ole Rod a visit." She chuckled in a most unpleasant way and I could see now that the sweet young coed in the coffee shop was forever dead and buried. "Yep. Ole Rod will unlock his door some night when he sees it's me and I'm alone. He'll invite me in and lock the door behind me. And I'll make sure he turns up the music before we start to party." A thoughtful expression flickered in her feral eyes. "I'll have to pick something appropriate. Maybe something by Skinny Puppy or Switchblade Symphony. Something long and loud, though . . ."

"You're going to kill him?"

"Kill Rod?" She considered the question. "Everyone dies eventually. But I'll keep Rod around for as long as possible. It will be easy. He has a couple of pairs of handcuffs and an old, wrought iron bed. Now the master will become the pupil and the pupil, the master." She giggled. "I shall sip from his testicles."

That did it. I tossed the covers aside, bundling my unwanted bed guest, and got up. By the time she was able to unwrap herself I was stepping into my underwear.

"Don't leave!" she cried.

"Don't stay," I shot back.

"She'll punish me if I don't do as I'm told!"

"Dammit!" I threw my pants back down on the chair and grabbed her as she crawled to the edge of the bed. "It doesn't matter what you do!" I yelled, grasping her by the upper arms and shaking her like a rag doll. "She'll punish you anyway! That's what she does! That's what she is!" I threw her back on the bed. "Look, I'm sorry you took a bullet that was meant for me! I'm sorry that you died! I'm even more sorry that you've come back the way you are now! If I had any guts I'd do you the immense favor of twisting your head off right now!" I stumbled back and sat heavily on the chair arm. "But that's not my call. I can't be held responsible for anything anyone, here—you—or she—or her merry band of mutants—does! I can only take weight for what I do. Or what I don't do! If she puts a gun to your head, I won't be hostage to her finger on the trigger!"

I looked up at the ceiling and shook my fist at the room in general. "I don't know where the microphones and cameras are hidden but I know you're watching and listening. You can hold me! You can kill me! But I won't let you twist me! So let's stop playing these silly-ass games and get on with it!" Easy words to say. I wondered what I would actually do when push turned to shove.

I stood up and started dressing.

"What about me?" Theresa whimpered from the bed.

"Get dressed," I said. "I'll help you if I can. I just don't know that I can. Where's Deirdre?"

"Your blood slave? She's Our Lady's blood slave now."

"What! What do you mean?" All sorts of horrific images crowded to the forefront of my consciousness.

Before she could answer, the door opened and four very scary-looking people entered the room. I say "people" but that's not strictly true. They had been people once—a couple of hundred years ago. Now they were just people-shaped avatars for something far older and way less human.

And they were big. Had we all been human, any one of them could have beaten me to a pulp, five minutes max. Preternatural biology taken into account, I might last thirty seconds going hemo y hemo, tag-team style.

The nastiest-looking one stepped forward. "Put in your fangs," he commanded. "You are a ridiculous creature without them."

I slapped my biceps and pumped my arm. "Bite me, fangboy." Hey, if they were going to kill me, I might as well hurry the process.

"You killed Sandor," the spokesman answered with a severe look. "And Klaus and Gyorgy, alone and outnumbered."

I put my hands on my hips and just stared. "I didn't order you guys to get into a boat and go out on the water. It wasn't my fault you weren't wearing the mandated floatation devices. And it wasn't my idea to be piped aboard the Sloop John V. So don't be busting my chops over something that never would have happened if you cretins would just leave me the hell alone!"

"Before that, you dispatched Medea and Ivor with the assistance of your wamphyri servant."

I supposed he was talking about the little incident as Deirdre and I were leaving for the sucky BioWeb gala.

Then he did something unexpected. He smiled. "You are an unnatural creature. . . ."

"Oh, gee," I said. "Coming from someone who sleeps in graves and is a sniveling lapdog for that crazy Romanian slut, well that just stings. A little."

I didn't think a vampire could go all apoplectic but three of the fearsome foursome looked like they were about to stroke out. "Do you know," another one of the bloodsuckers sputtered, "of whom you speak? Do you know who our Dark Mistress is?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving dismissively, "she's Ronald McDonald and we're all supposed to be her Happy Meals."

The one to the right snarled and lunged for me. Although starting from clear across the room, he was practically on me in a half of a second. He was certainly faster than me but I was anticipating this and I wasn't moving in a blind rage. I fell back on the bed, swinging my foot up. I caught my assailant right between the legs and launched him over me to go crashing, headfirst, into the wall on the other side of the bed. Pity; while he was unconscious he would miss out on all that invigorating throbbing where I had kicked him.

I sat up and looked at the remaining three. "Next?"

The leader had folded his arms across his chest but now flung one arm to the side to restrain the other two. "As I was saying, you are an unnatural creature—no fangs and lacking the full power of The Chosen. But you killed Sandor. And that earns you my respect. If you fully Become, you will be a most formidable warrior!"

"But . . . but . . . he dishonors Our Lady," one of the vamps protested.

"Perhaps," he agreed slowly, "or perhaps it is she who dishonors herself. But his blood may be hers and so our oath may bind us to him, as well. In any event, we have our orders and it is for her to choose his reward or punishment."

I stood up, knowing it was too late to bait them into making any further mistakes. But I could certainly keep trying. "You know, all that Master/Mistress/Slave/Sire/Blood-oath crap was all the rage three or four centuries ago—but this is America and the twenty-first century now. Wake up and smell the democracy. Feudalism is futile-ism now, and you people are way overdue for a paradigm-shift. If you don't like our all-men-are-created-equal policy then go back to the old world and hang with the guys who still dream of building empires with car bombs and ethnic cleansing."

"A pretty speech," said a new but familiar voice from the doorway, "but you lack an understanding of the importance of family." Erzsébet Báthory smiled from the doorway. "Prosperity aside, just to survive one must be able to trust in those about one. To have and give loyalty when the rest of the world would hunt you down and destroy you. And it is the natural order of things that the place of some is to obey while others are to be obeyed."

"Don't be lecturing me about the importance of family," I seethed. "My family is dead."

"Because of Dracula," she countered. "And we will speak of his whereabouts soon. But in the meantime I want to run a couple of tests." She reached behind the doorway and then entered the room dragging Deirdre by the arm.

Dragging was the operative word: Deirdre was practically unconscious, her legs splayed loose and unresponsive behind her as she was pulled across the carpeting and deposited at my feet.

"What did you do?" I knelt down and slid my arm beneath her shoulders. Deirdre's head lolled back and I could see her bruised face and the multiple bite marks on her neck and throat. The little black dress was shredded, and her normally pale skin was nearly translucent and marked with more wounds. Some were teeth marks.

Some were not.

"She would not help us find you," the countess said matter-of-factly. "I know you share a Blood-bond—much stronger and better appreciated than your link to this one." She pointed at Theresa, who cowered among the bedcovers.

"You've tortured her!" I slid my other arm behind her legs and lifted her up. Theresa barely got out of the way in time as I laid Deirdre on the bed.

"You make pretty speeches about equality, but the truth is she is so much your Thrall that I was unable to open her mind with mine. That left the old-fashioned methods. . . ."

"And you love the old-fashioned methods," I said bitterly as I realized how badly I had misjudged the redheaded vampire.

"Yes," Báthory said, seeming to savor the memory. "And her blood was sooo sweet. I didn't know whether to take her to my bed or my bath."

"My blood used to be sweet," Theresa whispered.

"Well, it's not now!" the countess said with sudden viciousness. "And since he has no interest in it or your body, your only value to me is what you can tell me about the power in his blood!"

"But I don't know anything," she whimpered.

"Maybe your mind is ignorant," the countess replied, "but your flesh knows some secrets. Perhaps they will yield them to the knife." She turned. "Graf, take this piece down to Dr. Krakovski in Special Research and tell him to prepare for a detailed vivisection."

"What? No!" I tried to body-block her fanged footman but he was on-balance and expecting resistance. He threw me into the same wall that had backstopped his fellow servitor just minutes before. He even had the time to be gentle so that I didn't completely pass out. That was thoughtful: I was able to appreciate Theresa's frenzied screaming as she was hauled out of the room. I wasn't able to regain my hands and knees until her wails had faded down the length of the outer hall.

"Kurt, help him up."

"Yes, my lady." Mr. Spokesman grabbed my collar and hoisted me into the air.

"Put him on the bed. Next to the other test subject."

I was deposited into a loose embrace with Deirdre. She moaned and leaned into me.

"She needs blood, Cséjthe. She's been drained to the point of Second Death."

"Why? For what purpose?"

"I want a demonstration of what your blood can do."

I raised myself up on an elbow. "You know what it can do. It makes Theresa taste funny."

Erzsébet Báthory shook her head. "It raised her from the dead. Vampire blood does not have that power."

I didn't like where this was going. "Sure it does," I argued. "That's how you make more vampires. You drain a human to the point of death and then give them your blood."

"Almost to the point of death," she corrected. "They must still be alive to drink. Your little resurrect took place after she died. And she's not strictly a vampire now. Laboratory analysis of the samples you gave Dr. Delacroix indicates anomalous elements that aren't consistent with living or undead hemoglobin. Your blood is different. Why? How did that happen? I need to know what it can do."

I thought about the tanis-leaf extract I had sampled last year and its effect on the resurrected flesh of Kadeth Bey. Then I remembered how the secret sharing of lycanthrope blood had elevated me to another level of undead existence—the rarified status of a Doman with the power to translocate.

Except I wasn't undead so there really was no precedent for what I had become. And no map or manual for what I would become. I looked into Erzsébet Báthory's eyes and vowed I would stop my own heart before I divulged Lupé's role in any of this.

"You want a taste?" I asked, thinking, if she would just get close enough . . . 

"Drink from you without knowing what secrets are locked in your veins? Even without the Ogou Bhathalah warning me against its power, I would have waited to see its effect on another, first. I have not survived the centuries and become voivode of New York by being reckless."

"Voivode?" I hissed. "Of New York?" I shook my head. "Hey lady, I remember Rudy Guiliani. I watched him on TV. You're no Rudy Guiliani."

"So here's my first lab test," she continued, ignoring my response. "I've seen how your blood affects a human who was already dead. I want to see what happens when one of our kind receives the Dark Gift from your veins." She nodded toward Deirdre. "She will die the Second Death unless she feeds within the hour."

"Maybe it would be better if she did," I said slowly.

"That will be up to you."

I shook my head. "I didn't do this to her, you did. Her death is your responsibility."

She laughed. "You parse words like a lawyer, Cséjthe. Do you think her death will move me in any fashion? The question is, will her death move you? One way or another, I will have my test. How that test is assayed is in your hands." She gestured toward Deirdre's still form. "She needs sustenance and her time is running out."

I waited for her to "push" me.

Based on our previous encounter, the mere idea of defiance would be ludicrous: better than a marionette, she could work me like a hand puppet.

But she didn't push. No mental coercion followed the verbal command. She would not, however, wait forever: if she wanted to see a vampire sample my blood, she probably had a long line of loyal and willing volunteers waiting in the wings.

Screw them; I would resist as best I could. Under the circumstances it would be a totally futile attempt to exercise free will, but a man has his pride. With Deirdre, however, it was different. My culpability in Damien's death and her suicide put me under an obligation that Báthory had no need to invoke or press. I owed Deirdre a life—hers, if not mine.

And I could not bear to see her suffer.

I reached across her white, motionless body and retrieved my artificial fangs from the glass on the nightstand. Instead of fitting the prosthetics over my natural teeth, I used them to open a vein in my forearm—much as Deirdre had done when she had used them to savage her own wrists the year before.

Blood welled up, overflowing the cut as I pressed the wound to her slack lips.

For a minute, maybe two, there was no response. Then she shuddered, swallowed convulsively, and I felt the ghostly trace of her tongue as it explored the opening in my flesh.

"Come on," I whispered in her ear, "your turn to pull at it."

She moaned against my arm and her eyes fluttered open. Focused on my face. "Chris," she gasped, breaking the seal of her lips upon my skin. Her eyes roamed about and fixed on the countess. "No . . ."

"Hush now," I murmured, smoothing her tangled hair away from her battered face. "Let's get you strong again."

I moved the wound back to her mouth but she turned her head away.

"No," she protested weakly. "She's using me to get to you."

"She's already got me," I said calmly. "And if you don't take my blood, someone less deserving will." I turned her face back toward mine. "The blood-bond, remember? This is my favor returned." I used the teeth to deepen the wound and brought it to her mouth again.

She allowed it but just lay there passively, her eyes locked on mine, as the blood followed the path of gravity down her throat.

"How touching . . ." Báthory said sardonically. "Kurt, why is it that your Brethren have ceased to show such solicitousness toward me?"

"My Lady," I heard the alpha vamp answer, "we are as devoted and steadfast today as we were when we entered your service two centuries ago."

"That is not entirely true, Kurt. Sandor's devotion had only grown since he took his oath to serve the House of Cachtice, but I have sensed a growing disenchantment among some of the rest of you. Now that he's gone, I feel less secure." Maybe, but the tone of her voice suggested she wasn't exactly quaking in her stiletto heels.

"Madame, I assure you—" If Kurt meant to assure anyone, he would have to work on getting more sincerity into his vocal inflections. Deirdre was beginning to suck gently on my arm, the extra glands beneath her tongue secreting anticoagulants to counteract my own blood's accelerated clotting factor. While Báthory accused and Kurt remonstrated, the bruises on Deirdre's face began to fade and a pink blush began to infuse the unearthly pallor where her skin was unmarked. The discussion retreated into a background of white noise and my vision faded into a red haze that persisted even after I closed my eyes. I laid my head down beside hers as I felt something more than the blood pass between us. My head began to spin and I wondered if she would be able to stop before I was drained dry.

Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

She stopped.

She began to convulse.

"That's interesting," I heard Báthory say.

"Deirdre!" I gathered her into my arms. "Somebody help me here!"

"We'll need a diagnosis." Báthory snapped her fingers. "Jahn, Kurt, get her down to Krakovski. Tell him to prepare Red Clinic Two."

As the other two vamps moved toward the bed, Kurt cleared his throat. "Gold Clinic One is just down the hall."

"Red has a double setup. We may want to do a side-by-side."

My head snapped around and I stared at her. "A what?" Jahn and Kurt started to take her out of my arms. "Are you talking about a double vivisection?"

"It won't be a vivisection if she's dead, it will be an autopsy."

I shook my head and refused to relinquish my grip. "You can't autopsy a vampire! Not unless you're doing spectrographic chromatography of the ashes!"

Deirdre's seizures suddenly stopped. Between that and the superior strength of two vampires, I lost my grip and fell back on the bed.

"Be thankful, Mr. Cséjthe, that I'm not sending you down to Krakovski's lab for analysis." She didn't add the word "yet." She didn't have to.

I wasn't thinking about that, however. I was focused on Deirdre as Kurt and Jahn carried her toward the door. If I had let Deirdre die I would have saved her. Instead, my act of "mercy" was going to make her remaining existence one of utter horror.

I heard a moan rising up from the floor behind me: the vampire I had thrown into the wall was beginning to stir. There were three other fully conscious vampires in the room. If I'd had my silver-loaded Glock, the odds would have still been out of my favor. Unarmed and woozy from blood loss, I didn't have a chance in Hell.

Which was pretty much where I was now, I figured.

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Framed

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Contents

Chapter Twenty

I didn't do it for her or the countess.

I did it because it would be just like Erzsébet Báthory to kill a hundred over the obstinacy of one. As I walked toward the bayou, surrounded by a phalanx of fanged bodyguards, a large hulking shape rose up out of the shadows.

It was the hunchbacked giant, Brother Michael.

"Do you wish to leave?" he whispered. The whisper rumbled like distant thunder and I fancied I saw a dim flash of lightning as he twisted a great gnarled branch in his huge white hands.

This gentle giant suddenly seemed more dangerous and powerful than any unbent human I could imagine. But whatever his hidden strengths, I knew he was no match for a half-dozen vampires. And even if there had been any possibility of taking Báthory's minions there was still the implicit threat of four additional operatives with flamethrowers back at the pit. I had to defuse this confrontation before it escalated.

"Yeah, Mikey," I answered, "I've got some unfinished business."

The big guardian gazed down at me as if the others were of no consequence, staring as if I were a small child telling an obvious fib.

"Are you leaving of your own free will?"

Ah, that free will thing again. As if any of us truly have free will, choices without price tags . . . 

The vamps around me were tensing, preparing to engage the hunchback if he offered any further resistance. I couldn't let that happen.

"Gotta go, big guy; I'm late," I said, moving toward him and forcing him to give ground. "Gotta see a man about a hearse, gotta make like a banana and split, make like a tree and leave, make like a mule train and haul ass . . ."

Brother Michael stepped aside and allowed us to pass but his face was stony with disapproval. My expression was more pleasant to look at but hurt a lot more. We walked down to the water's edge with his eyes burning into my back like twin laser-sights.

The next part was interesting.

Vampires do not like water.

Which makes hygiene problematical for some of them: Deirdre's excursion in my shower was one of those little triumphs of mind over nature. But the H₂O factor isn't generally too much of a problem unless there's a lot of it and it's headed in some direction: vampires, as a rule, don't cross running water.

One of the charms of a bayou, however, is that it isn't going anywhere. Oh, technically there is a current, but not so's you'd notice: toss a cork in the water on a windless day and that sucker will be floating close to the same spot twenty-four hours later.

So maybe it wasn't such a feat to get half-dozen vampires into a boat and send them to fetch me. But given Countess Báthory's methods and reputation, she'd probably have coerced them to shoot the rapids and go over a waterfall if necessary. We waded into the cold black water with a lot of hissing and feral grunting. We were almost up to our waists when we reached the boat that was anchored about twenty feet from the shore.

As we turned about and paddled away I wondered what would happen if I jumped back into the water.

"Before you make any attempt to escape," growled a familiar voice, "now or in the future, you should remember that we know where your friends are. Your cooperation is a guarantee of their safety."

"Sandor," I said with fake enthusiasm, "you old bowling ball, you! Still jealous that I have a neck and you don't?"

He growled but said nothing more. A moment later the outboard motor coughed to life and we trolled toward the deeper, central channel of Bayou Gris.

"What's that?" Terry-call-me-T asked, pointing off of our starboard side.

I caught a glimpse of a head with long emerald tresses before it submerged. "T . . ."

"Call me Theresa."

I looked at her. "Theresa?"

"It's my name."

"It's . . . Okay, what happened?"

She looked at me with those big, luminous eyes, eyes that weren't so innocent now. "Isn't it obvious? Nobody had to explain it to me."

"I've been distracted."

"The bullet that punched through your body and then mine caused me to bleed out. I died."

"That much I had pretty well figured out at the time," I said dryly.

"Our blood commingled through our wounds before I died," she continued. "It actually infected me faster than if you had opened a vein and allowed me to drink. I died and was reborn in a matter of minutes."

"So," I mused, "I am your Sire." All I lacked for now was the nomination for Deadbeat Undead Dad of the Year. I cleared my throat. "I'm a little surprised at your lack of loyalty, my dear. You know it's considered bad form to betray your Sire to his enemies."

She shook her head. "That's not how it works, my dear Professor Haim—or should I say Cséjthe? It is the countess who rules our clan: all allegiance is due her first, undivided by petty alliances over who made whom. You may be my Sire but she is our mother and my Dam."

"Damn," I said.

Sandor cuffed me. "You will show proper respect. The countess is the embodiment of a great and royal bloodline. Your blood, if related at all, is diluted by generations of common, mongrel stock."

I rubbed the back of my head. "Jeez, Sandy! If you've got such a jones for the aristocracy, how come you're not in Dracula's entourage?"

"My brothers and I are sworn to the Gutkeled Clan. Our fidelity is to the countess and her issue." He cuffed me again and constellations appeared even though the night skies remained overcast.

"Well, that might include me then, big guy. So stop popping me in the head."

"Even the children of royalty must be disciplined. Especially when their mother commands it."

"Too bad you're not a mother, Sandy," I said. "Oh wait, maybe you really are."

He reached out to pop me again and I caught his wrist. I yanked, overbalancing him, and the whole boat rocked. I braced myself, disallowing his recovery as the boat tilted the opposite direction and then yanked again. We both stumbled against the gunwales and I released his wrist to give him a little boost. The boat didn't capsize—a result too good to be hoped for—but Sandor made a most satisfactory splash as he tumbled into the bayou.

The other vamps weren't prepared for such a contingency. They scrambled to the side, coming a lot closer to rolling us over than I had. Thrusting their hands in the water they groped in vain: Sandor had sunk like a stone and wouldn't be coming up again on his own. A weighted rope would have a one-in-a-hundred chance of falling within his flailing grasp and we didn't have one of those on board. The only good their efforts accomplished was to enable me to kick two more over the side before the rest swarmed me.

They were sufficiently pissed and frightened that I only had to endure a dozen or so kicks and punches before the blessed curtain of unconsciousness postponed the pain until the next day.

My jailors brought me word this morning that Erzsi Majorova has been caught and beheaded. There will be no more trials, no more witch-hunts. I, alone, remain; walled up high in my tower, surrounded by crucifixes and selected pages from the Christian Bible that have been nailed to the walls between their binding symbols.  

Katarina visits me some nights when the moon is new and the guards are more restful. Just last week she came to my window and told me that my time would not be long, now.  

I wonder where she sleeps?  

The townspeople all believe her to have quit Cachtice after the first trial. But she is watchful lest I break my promise.   

She is restless for my death, I think. She wants to travel but dares not leave me lest I grow bold in her absence.  

She wants to go to . . . him.

As if he would consort with a Beneczky when Báthory-Nádasdy was not good enough for his patrician ways. 

Still, her power grows.  

Though my dungeons have long stood empty and she must feed secretly and carefully now, her power continues to increase.  

If she lives long enough—two, maybe three, lifetimes—she might equal him in strength, power, and cunning.  

Should that day come not even the old dragon could withstand her.  

And then the world may well burn . . .    

Maybe the concept of an afterlife was overrated.

At least the idea of waking up was proving to have less and less appeal. You can only wake up to pain so many times before the phrase "eternal rest" begins to take on a very literal attraction. Never mind Hell—Heaven in all of its various descriptions must involve some form of participatory involvement and, anymore, I just wanted to sleep the Sleep of Oblivion.

Alas, I had a bladder that wasn't suited for eternity. I rolled over and cracked an eyelid.

My prosthetic fangs sat in a glass on the nightstand just a foot-and-a-half away. They looked all sparkly-clean: maybe someone had dropped in an Efferdent tablet.

A couple of feet beyond, ensconced in a large, stuffed chair was my former student turned undead understudy, Theresa-call-me . . . uh, Theresa. The dark circles under her eyes appeared to be the real thing—no Goth makeup need apply here.

"You're awake," she said.

"You're anemic," I replied.

"Yeah. Well. That's your fault."

I sighed. "That's not surprising. Lately everything seems to be my fault."

"I don't have fangs," she pouted. "Your blood isn't pure."

"Perhaps," I said, pushing back the covers, "but everyone seems to want it." I was naked beneath the covers. "So, you're infected with only half of the combinant virus." I pulled the covers up to my chin. "Where are my clothes?"

She got out of the chair like a reluctant child. "I'm not a real vampire," she whined. "I don't know what I am."

"You're not dead and starting to rot in some cold grave," I said. "You're not a full-fledged monster."

She crossed the room and opened the closet. "I can't bite people. I can't suck their blood. Not without using a knife or something."

"I stand corrected. You probably are a monster." I disconnected from that line of thought and wondered what the dean had said when informed that I hadn't shown up for my night classes this past week.

"So," she asked, her voice partially muffled by the depths of the closet, "what clan are you?"

"Clan?"

"It's pretty obvious that you're not Nosferatu, and I've had enough conversations with you to know you're not Malkavian. You don't dress like a Ventrue."

"That's good to know."

"You don't act like a Toreador . . ."

"Olé."

"That leaves Tremere, Brujah, or Gangrel."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Clans. The Camarilla. The Masquerade."

"I don't go to parties," I said. I certainly shouldn't have gone to that one at BioWeb.

"Our Lady has promised to complete my transformation . . ." Hangers rattled. " . . . if I take care of you properly." She emerged with my clothing. Not what I had worn last but clothes from my closet back home. I looked around the room. It was furnished and appointed like a luxury suite at one of the finest hotels. I definitely was not home.

"Welcome to the Hotel California," I muttered.

"What?"

"We are all just prisoners here of our own device," I quoted.

She looked at me as if I were speaking an alien tongue. I suppose I was.

"And how am I to be taken care of?" I asked rhetorically.

She stopped by the chair. Draped my clothing over its back. Began to unbutton her black blouse.

"I'm not interested," I said flatly.

"How do you know until you've had a sample?" she asked, reaching the belt and undoing the buckle.

"I'm not promiscuous."

"Don't be silly," she said, easing the zipper down on her black slacks. "Everyone is promiscuous when the conditions are right." She shrugged the blouse from her shoulders. She wasn't wearing a bra. "Besides," she continued, shimmying out of her pants, "even if you can't get it up, you'll need to feed. It's easier when there's no clothing to get in the way."

I shook my head. "Poor Theresa-call-me-T-call-me-I-don't-know-what. You've read Goth fantasies penned by failed romance writers who would have you believe the undead nightlife is all fucking and sucking. Well, welcome to the dreary version of the nightfolk's nightmare. It's all about having power over others, trading lives like they were commodities—a means to mastery or mastication. Right now you're special because you're neither human nor vampire. Once you're truly turned, you'll be the lowest of the low on the undead food chain."

She stepped out of the last remnants of her clothing and crawled onto the bed. As twenty-something bodies go, hers was better than most but I had resisted Deirdre's charms and this little would-be vamp wasn't even in her zip code.

More importantly, she wasn't Lupé.

"Get out," I said. "This is the last time I'm going to ask nicely."

"Not until you've tasted my blood." She kept coming, crawling over my legs.

"I don't want your blood."

"Nobody wants my blood," she whined, deliberately slowing her progress as she reached my hips. "They say it tastes funny. It used to taste sweet."

"I'll bet Rod would still like it."

She grinned suddenly. "Once I get turned all the way, I'm going to pay ole Rod a visit." She chuckled in a most unpleasant way and I could see now that the sweet young coed in the coffee shop was forever dead and buried. "Yep. Ole Rod will unlock his door some night when he sees it's me and I'm alone. He'll invite me in and lock the door behind me. And I'll make sure he turns up the music before we start to party." A thoughtful expression flickered in her feral eyes. "I'll have to pick something appropriate. Maybe something by Skinny Puppy or Switchblade Symphony. Something long and loud, though . . ."

"You're going to kill him?"

"Kill Rod?" She considered the question. "Everyone dies eventually. But I'll keep Rod around for as long as possible. It will be easy. He has a couple of pairs of handcuffs and an old, wrought iron bed. Now the master will become the pupil and the pupil, the master." She giggled. "I shall sip from his testicles."

That did it. I tossed the covers aside, bundling my unwanted bed guest, and got up. By the time she was able to unwrap herself I was stepping into my underwear.

"Don't leave!" she cried.

"Don't stay," I shot back.

"She'll punish me if I don't do as I'm told!"

"Dammit!" I threw my pants back down on the chair and grabbed her as she crawled to the edge of the bed. "It doesn't matter what you do!" I yelled, grasping her by the upper arms and shaking her like a rag doll. "She'll punish you anyway! That's what she does! That's what she is!" I threw her back on the bed. "Look, I'm sorry you took a bullet that was meant for me! I'm sorry that you died! I'm even more sorry that you've come back the way you are now! If I had any guts I'd do you the immense favor of twisting your head off right now!" I stumbled back and sat heavily on the chair arm. "But that's not my call. I can't be held responsible for anything anyone, here—you—or she—or her merry band of mutants—does! I can only take weight for what I do. Or what I don't do! If she puts a gun to your head, I won't be hostage to her finger on the trigger!"

I looked up at the ceiling and shook my fist at the room in general. "I don't know where the microphones and cameras are hidden but I know you're watching and listening. You can hold me! You can kill me! But I won't let you twist me! So let's stop playing these silly-ass games and get on with it!" Easy words to say. I wondered what I would actually do when push turned to shove.

I stood up and started dressing.

"What about me?" Theresa whimpered from the bed.

"Get dressed," I said. "I'll help you if I can. I just don't know that I can. Where's Deirdre?"

"Your blood slave? She's Our Lady's blood slave now."

"What! What do you mean?" All sorts of horrific images crowded to the forefront of my consciousness.

Before she could answer, the door opened and four very scary-looking people entered the room. I say "people" but that's not strictly true. They had been people once—a couple of hundred years ago. Now they were just people-shaped avatars for something far older and way less human.

And they were big. Had we all been human, any one of them could have beaten me to a pulp, five minutes max. Preternatural biology taken into account, I might last thirty seconds going hemo y hemo, tag-team style.

The nastiest-looking one stepped forward. "Put in your fangs," he commanded. "You are a ridiculous creature without them."

I slapped my biceps and pumped my arm. "Bite me, fangboy." Hey, if they were going to kill me, I might as well hurry the process.

"You killed Sandor," the spokesman answered with a severe look. "And Klaus and Gyorgy, alone and outnumbered."

I put my hands on my hips and just stared. "I didn't order you guys to get into a boat and go out on the water. It wasn't my fault you weren't wearing the mandated floatation devices. And it wasn't my idea to be piped aboard the Sloop John V. So don't be busting my chops over something that never would have happened if you cretins would just leave me the hell alone!"

"Before that, you dispatched Medea and Ivor with the assistance of your wamphyri servant."

I supposed he was talking about the little incident as Deirdre and I were leaving for the sucky BioWeb gala.

Then he did something unexpected. He smiled. "You are an unnatural creature. . . ."

"Oh, gee," I said. "Coming from someone who sleeps in graves and is a sniveling lapdog for that crazy Romanian slut, well that just stings. A little."

I didn't think a vampire could go all apoplectic but three of the fearsome foursome looked like they were about to stroke out. "Do you know," another one of the bloodsuckers sputtered, "of whom you speak? Do you know who our Dark Mistress is?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving dismissively, "she's Ronald McDonald and we're all supposed to be her Happy Meals."

The one to the right snarled and lunged for me. Although starting from clear across the room, he was practically on me in a half of a second. He was certainly faster than me but I was anticipating this and I wasn't moving in a blind rage. I fell back on the bed, swinging my foot up. I caught my assailant right between the legs and launched him over me to go crashing, headfirst, into the wall on the other side of the bed. Pity; while he was unconscious he would miss out on all that invigorating throbbing where I had kicked him.

I sat up and looked at the remaining three. "Next?"

The leader had folded his arms across his chest but now flung one arm to the side to restrain the other two. "As I was saying, you are an unnatural creature—no fangs and lacking the full power of The Chosen. But you killed Sandor. And that earns you my respect. If you fully Become, you will be a most formidable warrior!"

"But . . . but . . . he dishonors Our Lady," one of the vamps protested.

"Perhaps," he agreed slowly, "or perhaps it is she who dishonors herself. But his blood may be hers and so our oath may bind us to him, as well. In any event, we have our orders and it is for her to choose his reward or punishment."

I stood up, knowing it was too late to bait them into making any further mistakes. But I could certainly keep trying. "You know, all that Master/Mistress/Slave/Sire/Blood-oath crap was all the rage three or four centuries ago—but this is America and the twenty-first century now. Wake up and smell the democracy. Feudalism is futile-ism now, and you people are way overdue for a paradigm-shift. If you don't like our all-men-are-created-equal policy then go back to the old world and hang with the guys who still dream of building empires with car bombs and ethnic cleansing."

"A pretty speech," said a new but familiar voice from the doorway, "but you lack an understanding of the importance of family." Erzsébet Báthory smiled from the doorway. "Prosperity aside, just to survive one must be able to trust in those about one. To have and give loyalty when the rest of the world would hunt you down and destroy you. And it is the natural order of things that the place of some is to obey while others are to be obeyed."

"Don't be lecturing me about the importance of family," I seethed. "My family is dead."

"Because of Dracula," she countered. "And we will speak of his whereabouts soon. But in the meantime I want to run a couple of tests." She reached behind the doorway and then entered the room dragging Deirdre by the arm.

Dragging was the operative word: Deirdre was practically unconscious, her legs splayed loose and unresponsive behind her as she was pulled across the carpeting and deposited at my feet.

"What did you do?" I knelt down and slid my arm beneath her shoulders. Deirdre's head lolled back and I could see her bruised face and the multiple bite marks on her neck and throat. The little black dress was shredded, and her normally pale skin was nearly translucent and marked with more wounds. Some were teeth marks.

Some were not.

"She would not help us find you," the countess said matter-of-factly. "I know you share a Blood-bond—much stronger and better appreciated than your link to this one." She pointed at Theresa, who cowered among the bedcovers.

"You've tortured her!" I slid my other arm behind her legs and lifted her up. Theresa barely got out of the way in time as I laid Deirdre on the bed.

"You make pretty speeches about equality, but the truth is she is so much your Thrall that I was unable to open her mind with mine. That left the old-fashioned methods. . . ."

"And you love the old-fashioned methods," I said bitterly as I realized how badly I had misjudged the redheaded vampire.

"Yes," Báthory said, seeming to savor the memory. "And her blood was sooo sweet. I didn't know whether to take her to my bed or my bath."

"My blood used to be sweet," Theresa whispered.

"Well, it's not now!" the countess said with sudden viciousness. "And since he has no interest in it or your body, your only value to me is what you can tell me about the power in his blood!"

"But I don't know anything," she whimpered.

"Maybe your mind is ignorant," the countess replied, "but your flesh knows some secrets. Perhaps they will yield them to the knife." She turned. "Graf, take this piece down to Dr. Krakovski in Special Research and tell him to prepare for a detailed vivisection."

"What? No!" I tried to body-block her fanged footman but he was on-balance and expecting resistance. He threw me into the same wall that had backstopped his fellow servitor just minutes before. He even had the time to be gentle so that I didn't completely pass out. That was thoughtful: I was able to appreciate Theresa's frenzied screaming as she was hauled out of the room. I wasn't able to regain my hands and knees until her wails had faded down the length of the outer hall.

"Kurt, help him up."

"Yes, my lady." Mr. Spokesman grabbed my collar and hoisted me into the air.

"Put him on the bed. Next to the other test subject."

I was deposited into a loose embrace with Deirdre. She moaned and leaned into me.

"She needs blood, Cséjthe. She's been drained to the point of Second Death."

"Why? For what purpose?"

"I want a demonstration of what your blood can do."

I raised myself up on an elbow. "You know what it can do. It makes Theresa taste funny."

Erzsébet Báthory shook her head. "It raised her from the dead. Vampire blood does not have that power."

I didn't like where this was going. "Sure it does," I argued. "That's how you make more vampires. You drain a human to the point of death and then give them your blood."

"Almost to the point of death," she corrected. "They must still be alive to drink. Your little resurrect took place after she died. And she's not strictly a vampire now. Laboratory analysis of the samples you gave Dr. Delacroix indicates anomalous elements that aren't consistent with living or undead hemoglobin. Your blood is different. Why? How did that happen? I need to know what it can do."

I thought about the tanis-leaf extract I had sampled last year and its effect on the resurrected flesh of Kadeth Bey. Then I remembered how the secret sharing of lycanthrope blood had elevated me to another level of undead existence—the rarified status of a Doman with the power to translocate.

Except I wasn't undead so there really was no precedent for what I had become. And no map or manual for what I would become. I looked into Erzsébet Báthory's eyes and vowed I would stop my own heart before I divulged Lupé's role in any of this.

"You want a taste?" I asked, thinking, if she would just get close enough . . . 

"Drink from you without knowing what secrets are locked in your veins? Even without the Ogou Bhathalah warning me against its power, I would have waited to see its effect on another, first. I have not survived the centuries and become voivode of New York by being reckless."

"Voivode?" I hissed. "Of New York?" I shook my head. "Hey lady, I remember Rudy Guiliani. I watched him on TV. You're no Rudy Guiliani."

"So here's my first lab test," she continued, ignoring my response. "I've seen how your blood affects a human who was already dead. I want to see what happens when one of our kind receives the Dark Gift from your veins." She nodded toward Deirdre. "She will die the Second Death unless she feeds within the hour."

"Maybe it would be better if she did," I said slowly.

"That will be up to you."

I shook my head. "I didn't do this to her, you did. Her death is your responsibility."

She laughed. "You parse words like a lawyer, Cséjthe. Do you think her death will move me in any fashion? The question is, will her death move you? One way or another, I will have my test. How that test is assayed is in your hands." She gestured toward Deirdre's still form. "She needs sustenance and her time is running out."

I waited for her to "push" me.

Based on our previous encounter, the mere idea of defiance would be ludicrous: better than a marionette, she could work me like a hand puppet.

But she didn't push. No mental coercion followed the verbal command. She would not, however, wait forever: if she wanted to see a vampire sample my blood, she probably had a long line of loyal and willing volunteers waiting in the wings.

Screw them; I would resist as best I could. Under the circumstances it would be a totally futile attempt to exercise free will, but a man has his pride. With Deirdre, however, it was different. My culpability in Damien's death and her suicide put me under an obligation that Báthory had no need to invoke or press. I owed Deirdre a life—hers, if not mine.

And I could not bear to see her suffer.

I reached across her white, motionless body and retrieved my artificial fangs from the glass on the nightstand. Instead of fitting the prosthetics over my natural teeth, I used them to open a vein in my forearm—much as Deirdre had done when she had used them to savage her own wrists the year before.

Blood welled up, overflowing the cut as I pressed the wound to her slack lips.

For a minute, maybe two, there was no response. Then she shuddered, swallowed convulsively, and I felt the ghostly trace of her tongue as it explored the opening in my flesh.

"Come on," I whispered in her ear, "your turn to pull at it."

She moaned against my arm and her eyes fluttered open. Focused on my face. "Chris," she gasped, breaking the seal of her lips upon my skin. Her eyes roamed about and fixed on the countess. "No . . ."

"Hush now," I murmured, smoothing her tangled hair away from her battered face. "Let's get you strong again."

I moved the wound back to her mouth but she turned her head away.

"No," she protested weakly. "She's using me to get to you."

"She's already got me," I said calmly. "And if you don't take my blood, someone less deserving will." I turned her face back toward mine. "The blood-bond, remember? This is my favor returned." I used the teeth to deepen the wound and brought it to her mouth again.

She allowed it but just lay there passively, her eyes locked on mine, as the blood followed the path of gravity down her throat.

"How touching . . ." Báthory said sardonically. "Kurt, why is it that your Brethren have ceased to show such solicitousness toward me?"

"My Lady," I heard the alpha vamp answer, "we are as devoted and steadfast today as we were when we entered your service two centuries ago."

"That is not entirely true, Kurt. Sandor's devotion had only grown since he took his oath to serve the House of Cachtice, but I have sensed a growing disenchantment among some of the rest of you. Now that he's gone, I feel less secure." Maybe, but the tone of her voice suggested she wasn't exactly quaking in her stiletto heels.

"Madame, I assure you—" If Kurt meant to assure anyone, he would have to work on getting more sincerity into his vocal inflections. Deirdre was beginning to suck gently on my arm, the extra glands beneath her tongue secreting anticoagulants to counteract my own blood's accelerated clotting factor. While Báthory accused and Kurt remonstrated, the bruises on Deirdre's face began to fade and a pink blush began to infuse the unearthly pallor where her skin was unmarked. The discussion retreated into a background of white noise and my vision faded into a red haze that persisted even after I closed my eyes. I laid my head down beside hers as I felt something more than the blood pass between us. My head began to spin and I wondered if she would be able to stop before I was drained dry.

Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

She stopped.

She began to convulse.

"That's interesting," I heard Báthory say.

"Deirdre!" I gathered her into my arms. "Somebody help me here!"

"We'll need a diagnosis." Báthory snapped her fingers. "Jahn, Kurt, get her down to Krakovski. Tell him to prepare Red Clinic Two."

As the other two vamps moved toward the bed, Kurt cleared his throat. "Gold Clinic One is just down the hall."

"Red has a double setup. We may want to do a side-by-side."

My head snapped around and I stared at her. "A what?" Jahn and Kurt started to take her out of my arms. "Are you talking about a double vivisection?"

"It won't be a vivisection if she's dead, it will be an autopsy."

I shook my head and refused to relinquish my grip. "You can't autopsy a vampire! Not unless you're doing spectrographic chromatography of the ashes!"

Deirdre's seizures suddenly stopped. Between that and the superior strength of two vampires, I lost my grip and fell back on the bed.

"Be thankful, Mr. Cséjthe, that I'm not sending you down to Krakovski's lab for analysis." She didn't add the word "yet." She didn't have to.

I wasn't thinking about that, however. I was focused on Deirdre as Kurt and Jahn carried her toward the door. If I had let Deirdre die I would have saved her. Instead, my act of "mercy" was going to make her remaining existence one of utter horror.

I heard a moan rising up from the floor behind me: the vampire I had thrown into the wall was beginning to stir. There were three other fully conscious vampires in the room. If I'd had my silver-loaded Glock, the odds would have still been out of my favor. Unarmed and woozy from blood loss, I didn't have a chance in Hell.

Which was pretty much where I was now, I figured.

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Framed