Alucard didn't argue with the title. Crainic gave Feraru a sharp side-glance. The Romanian scientist thought the English businessman a twit. Already: divisions in Meinster's ranks.

'Your support would mean much,' continued Crainic.

'What kind of support? Surely, you're not here with a begging bowl?'

Seductive 'elders' with red buckets were a plague at the Viper Room and other vampire hot spots, extorting dollars for 'the Cause'. Most were new-borns with bogus titles who'd never been nearer Transylvania than Toledo, Ohio.

'Support doesn't have to mean money,' said Crainic.

'Though dosh would be ever so nice,' put in Feraru.

Striescu said nothing. Alucard knew, without even snooping, Meinster had given the Securitate man provisional orders to kill him. He was unsure of the circumstances which would trigger an assassination attempt. The Baron was ambitious, stupid and ruthless enough to give it a try on the slightest provocation. If Striescu made a move now, Alucard would toss him off the deck and watch him turn into a comet on the long fall to the lawns below.

'Why do you want Transylvania?' he asked. 'Haven't we outgrown the territory?'

'It is our home,' said Crainic. 'It is not just soil. Even you, an American, must feel that.'

Crainic didn't know John Alucard might once have been Ion Popescu. Or was willing to pretend ignorance. Alucard had changed a lot since the Old Country. Meinster would most likely not recognise him, he'd never taken much notice of other, lesser people.

'This is my home,' Alucard said, indicating the city, but meaning America. 'It's a good place for us. Far better than rainy, rocky Transylvania.' The sun was up. Warm workmen emerged to take care of lawns and pools. A small army of Mexican Morlocks came out of underground cottages to see to the many, many jobs necessary to keep Alucard's castillo running. He had imagined and built his estate to exceed the eye-catching magnificence of the palace down the block where Aaron Spelling lived.

'I have the best of the old world and the new,' he said.

'If Transylvania is ours without question, all vampires will be safer,' said Crainic. 'There will always be somewhere for us. Asylum when the warm pass laws we cannot observe, sanctuary when we flee from the justice of cattle.'

'Meinster can guarantee this?'

Crainic nodded.

'Okay,' said Alucard. 'I'll do what I can for the Baron.'

Feraru smiled unguardedly and grabbed Alucard's hand, forgetting the sun for a moment. Crainic looked for a loophole but could see none. Striescu almost imperceptibly stood down.

'I've an idea I think the Baron will go for,' said Alucard, letting Feraru have his hand back. 'A showcase, something to make the world take notice, to raise an enormous amount of money, an occasion for us all.'

Feraru was already interested and enthused.

'Picture this,' said Alucard, raising his hands to frame a Cinerama screen, 'a concert for Transylvania.'

Feraru, who had never lived behind the Iron Curtain, got it at once. Crainic was puzzled.

'I'm not the only vampire in show business. There's a common misconception that to be turned is to lose the creative spark. Some of us have devoted our lives to disproving that. Right now, the top-selling album and single in the Billboard charts is 'Vanitas', by the vampire Timmy V His picture is on the bedroom wall of every warm teenager in the world. He's in the frame to play Peter Pan for Steven Spielberg. Timmy's appeal is mainstream, not ghetto. And I can get him. He isn't the only one. All the vampires of rock, nosferatu and warm, would claw each other to get on the bill. Those who don't make the cut will be in career limbo for eternity. For this, the Short Lion would come out of his latest retirement. That fop is still the biggest name vampire ever to fill a stadium. I see a dusk-till-dawn concert on the site of the original Castle Dracula, with live link-ups to events all around the world. The Hollywood Bowl. Stonehenge. Opar in Kenya. The world's first Draculathon. TV, pay-cable and theatrical rights. Vinyl, cassette, CD, video and as-yet uninvented new media sales to infinity. Constant repackaging, always holding something back for the next release so the rubes will buy it over and over again. T-shirts, buttons, posters, pogs, tattoo transfers, souvenir programmes, coffee-table books, action figures, comic books. We even get a cut of the backlash, licensing our mutilated logo to jaded cynics turned off by the hype but who will happily wear "I Don't Give a Flying Fox for Transylvania" T-shirts. All profits, after expenses, go to the Transylvania Movement. Think of a number, take it to the power of 999.95, and you'd still be underestimating the money. If Americans are led properly, given a story they can follow with a happy ending in sight, they become insanely generous. This will make them all, warm and nosferatu, our sympathisers. I can deliver this.'

'And what do we have to do?'

'Senior academician Crainic, you have to strike with perfect timing - at the climax of the last act, just before dawn,' said Alucard. 'Timmy V and the Short Lion, who have never before shared a stage, duet on the Free Transylvania anthem - John Lennon's "Imagine", the greatest song ever written by a vampire. Then, you must announce that you have taken power. Your Baron must appear among the stars. I know you have trained men and I know the West has covert units to commit to the crusade. I produced Bat-21, remember. What you have never had, not until now, is an occasion.'

'When would this be?' asked Crainic.

'Let me see, when would be appropriate? We've missed the Eve of Saint George's, April twenty-second. That would only play in Romania, anyway. The point is to bring Transylvania to the mall, not stuff old world guff down American throats like some devil-kissed PBS special. Hallowe'en is over-commercialised these days. We'd have to compete with jack o' lanterns, razor-filled apples, John Carpenter sequels and an extended episode of Roseanne. What would you say to December twenty-first? The longest night of the year.'

'The first anniversary of the Timioara rising.'

Alucard had let Crainic make the connection, buzzed by street-fighting flashbacks. The senior academician had joined warm and nosferatu alike in the soccer chant of 'Ole ole ole ole, Ceauescu nu mai e!' ('Ceauescu is no more'). He'd covered a startled priest with his own body when the Securitate opened fire. The best thing about a December date was that a longer night meant more acts, more commercial breaks, more sponsorship, more material for the boxed set.

'Excuse me, please,' rasped Striescu, 'what are "pogs"?'

'Collectible cardboard discs,' Alucard explained.

'I see,' said the thug, no wiser.

'We have six months to put the show together. That'll be my department. I'll give you the rock. You must guarantee me the soil.'

Crainic, cautious, looked to Feraru, who was ecstatic.

'It'll be bigger than Live Aid,' said the new-born, 'than Woodstock. We could even get Cliff Richard.'

Alucard had no idea who that was, but let it pass.

'I'll speak with Baron Meinster,' ventured Crainic.

'Give him my best regards,' said Alucard.

All three visitors were now fully backed up against the wall of the turret that rose above the deck, shaded only by the crenellated frill of a Spanish-tile overhang. Feraru kept forgetting himself and sticking his hands out into the sun, raising welts and giving out little squeals.

'Now we should get you indoors. I can have company sent over if you have the red thirst or any other entertainment needs. This town has very discreet services I think you might enjoy.'

The three couldn't step through the door swiftly enough, the prospect of cool shade more exciting than that of warm blood. Alucard lingered a moment to look up at the sun, safely tucked behind a single thin cloud as if the Father were on high, shading his favoured get.

Pleased with himself, he followed his guests inside.

2.

Holly and Kit were about set to take Judd down when the floor fell away like a gallows-trap. They dropped into a wet basement. All around, rattles and hisses. Yellow eyes shone in dark. Sharp mouths darted and nipped.

'Best place for vipers,' cackled the old man. 'A genuine snake-pit!'

Holly and Kit hissed back, through fangs.

Holly felt Kit's embarrassment and rage. Kit felt Holly's acceptance and determination. Inside seconds, Kit was fang-jabbed half-a-dozen times. Holly shifted, thickening her skin, changing her skeleton, raising scales on her arms and legs. She could be a reptile if she took it in mind, and snakes didn't often bite each other. Kit caught some of her calm, but venom burned in his arms, which swelled like Popeye's after spinach.

'Thought you'd happened on free lunch in Tombstone, didn't ya?' Judd called down at them. 'Took me for a foolhead old man with a rinky-dink museum, just begging to be rent and drained like unto a lost sheep.'

Judd, wooden leg stiff and creaking, peered into the pit. He tapped his grizzled temple.

'I ain't so simple, deadfolks. You figured I was a couple of cowboys short of a posse, but I'm up here and you're down there. Says it all, don't it? Sketches the parameters of our relationship. Left my leg on Guadalcanal, back in the Big War. Since I been messing with the slitherers, I been bit a hundred times. Too ornery to die, that's me. I spit the venom back.'

Holly tried to keep Kit from thrashing and over-exciting the snakes.

The pit was full of rattlers, diamondbacks, copperheads, whatever. Neither knew one serpent from another, though they could tell which beasts were deadly. Everything down here was venomous.

Doctor Porthos, their father-in-darkness and first teacher, had listed things that could hurt them: direct sunlight, silver bullet, stake through the heart. Five nights after he turned them, they'd proved him right. Kit and Holly didn't care to be anyone's 'disciples', not after all the church they'd swallowed back in South Dakota.

Porthos hadn't said anything about snakebite. It might not kill Kit, but it was surely hurting him. Holly put her hand on his fever-hot brow, trying to pull the hurt out of him.

'For live folks, the pit'd be enough. But you're special guests. I got to fetch a prime exhibit. I have Doc Holliday's boots, the ones he wasn't wearing when he died. Bat Masterton's cane and derby hat. Liberty Valance's quirt. You'd sure have appreciated seeing those, I bet. And the shotgun Bob Ollinger used to try to kill the viper Billy the Kid. Ollinger ground up sixteen silver dollars for shot. Billy got the gun away from him and blasted him in the face. "Keep the change, Bob!" That's a true story, deadfolks. An authentic piece of Western history. This ain't none of those, though. It's a special exhibit. A one-of-a-kind item. Hang for a moment. It'll take me a while to hobble there and back. Amuse yourselves. Like I tell the schoolkids, this should be an educational experience. Come up with a good question and I'll give you a piece of sugar candy.'

Kit's mouth was too swollen to get anything out and his brain was on fire. Holly heard a stream of curse words deep in her mind, where Kit always spoke to her. She was in his head too, taking her share of the pain.

The Tombstone Dime Museum was on the outskirts of town. A light was burning when Kit and Holly chanced along after forty-eight hours on the road in a stolen Cadillac. They hadn't had a feed in three states. Judd was right. They'd taken him for easy prey.

The pit was about twenty feet deep, the walls rough for the bottom ten but smooth above that. No handholds. People had died here. Holly knew from the bad air. Sometimes, when she and Kit were inside each other, things played back like a motion picture on a drive-in screen. A series of death scenes, mostly.

They were vampires, but old Judd was a killer too.

They were made this way. What was his excuse?

She found the worst bites on Kit's arms and suckled them, adapting her fang-teeth to the thin snake-needle holes. She drew out Kit's venom-laced vampire blood. The heady mix hit her between the eyes the way gobbled ice cream had done when she was alive. She spat the poison out like a chaw of tobacco. Kit's face looked less like a big purple bruise.

'Bloody Holly, you sure are beautiful,' said Kit, with difficulty.

'Lambchop, you say the sweetest things,' she said, hearing a hiss in her 's' sounds.

She'd snakeshifted, hair flattened against her neck in a cobra hood, diamondback patterns up and down her bare arms, face a flat-nosed mask, tongue forked. Her eyes, almost on the sides of her head, gave her a wraparound view. Serpents raised in lithe s-shapes, hissing tribute, begging her to be their queen, to lead them out of this dark place.

Kit stroked her scales, adoring her. Whatever she shifted to, he was in love with. He always saw inside. It had been like that before they were reborn into this night-life.

'Missy, you're a nasty one,' said Judd. 'Doin' you a favour, puttin' you out of your butt-ugly bitch misery. And your no-account boyfriend's too.'

The dime museum's curator was sat on a stool by the trap. In his lap was what looked like an outsize toy gun, a Wild West revolver.

'A Buntline Special,' said Judd, hefting the gun, stretching his fingers around the handle, skinny thumb on the cock-lever. 'A real collector's piece. Not many made. This is an eleven-inch barrel. Ned Buntline, the Western writer, had them made special. Only a few proud men earned the right to carry iron like this. Men like Buffalo Bill Cody.'

He twirled the gun in his hand, expertly.

'This wasn't Cody's, though. This exact gun belonged to Wyatt Earp, Marshal of Tombstone.'

'You're ravin', old timer,' said Kit, still in pain, but able to speak again. 'Wyatt Earp weren't real. He was a made-up person.'

'Hugh O'Brian,' said Holly.

'That's right, Bloody Holly. Hugh O'Brian played Wyatt Earp on TV He was no more a real person than Clarabelle the Cow. The big gun is probably a prop from the show. TV ain't real.'

An explosion, loud as the crack of doom, vaporised a grapefruitsized chunk out of the wall of the pit. Snakes hissed and rattled and tied themselves in knots. Holly's hearing membranes ached and reverberated.

'Ain't no prop,' said Judd. 'You don't know nothin' about Marshal Earp. Afore there was television, Earp was as real as you or me. An actual historical personage. Cleaned up Dodge and Tombstone. Faced down the Clantons at the O.K. Corral. Left many a badman dead in the dust.'

Holly's hand was webbed, like a lizard's.

Judd opened and emptied the gun.

'Deadfolks have to be treated special. No point wasting lead on you.'

Something gleamed in Judd's hand.

Holly felt that inrush of panic breath, the most intimate thing Kit shared with her. She was the only person who ever knew when he was scared.

She was with him. It didn't matter.

Judd held the shiny bullet between thumb and forefinger.

'This is an antique item, too. Can either of you kids tell me the principal business of Tombstone, Arizona? During the times Earp was lawman here?'

'Cattle,' Kit took a guess. 'Rustlin', ranchin', ropin'. All that cowboy crap.'

Judd laughed. The sound filled the pit.

'That's a no, smartmouth. It was silver mining.'

The old man slipped the silver bullet into the gun.

'Notice all the holes in the ground? Like the one you're in. Why do you think folks dug 'em? For their health? They were after plata, compadres. Bright, shiny metal. Used to be gold was more valuable than silver. Remember that? Then you deadfolks came along, shucking off lead slugs like peas, and silver became the most sought-after stuff on Earth. Not just pretty - practical.'

Judd took other bullets and slipped them into the chambers.

'These rounds were crafted by a man named John Reid. He put on a mask to ride the range, out after your kind. Billy Bonney wasn't the only viper to slither across the Early West. John Reid was the greatest Vampire Slayer of the nineteenth century. I was given these bullets by his nephew, a big newspaperman. Been saving them for a party like this.'

It was time to end this.

Holly had Kit hug her around the neck from behind and pin her sides with his knees, as if she were still twelve giving her younger cousins horsey-back rides. She slapped lizard-hands against the wall, about seven feet off the pit-floor, spreading the finger-webs out to get suction. Her arms, legs and back were extended and flexible.

She zig-zagged up the wall.

Her face was to the rock, but Kit kept his eyes on Judd. Through him, she saw the old man's face gape with shock and surprise. He fumbled one of the bullets, which fell from his fingers and pinged into the pit. His hands were shaking.

Judd saw Kit looking vengeance at him. He tried to close the gun, but they emerged from the snake pit and fell upon him. His pistol skittered away on the floor. Holly and Kit took either side of his scrawny neck. They bit through to the windpipe, kissing in the fountain of blood.

'Bloody Holly,' said Kit.

'Lambchop,' said Holly.