Holly was up on the formica-top counter, more cat than lizard in her claw-tipped paws, but with a red-green iguana frill around her neck and a crest rising under her thick-curled wig.

'Kill him, Lambchop,' she advised.

'I'm tryin' to do that little thing, Bloody Holly. Honest I am. But some nights, it gets real aggravatin'.'

'How did you like Greta, Mr Alucard?' asked Quentin, nerving back up to confidence. 'Most of my customers say it doesn't cut it stacked up against the first two Ilsa movies, but I'm an auteurist. I'll take even the lamest Jess Franco flick over any five Don Edmunds pictures you care to mention. Franco draws Dyanne Thorne out like no other filmmaker. The only other male director who can get anything like the same mileage from actresses across the talent spectrum is George Cukor. Greta is Franco's answer to Heller in Pink Tights.'

'We tryin' to have a face-off here, little man,' said Kit. 'Me and Granpa. It might improve your chances of long-term survival to keep your fuckin' yap zipped.'

Holly wound herself around Quentin, flicking a forked tongue at his goatee. The video clerk babbled himself silent.

'Better,' said Kit.

Alucard stood his ground. The Father was with him, was inside him. His mentacles extended, probing around the store. He latched onto Jack Martin - Oh god oh man oh god oh man oh god oh man isn't that John Alucard oh god oh man I'm gonna die oh god oh man wonder if he's read the American Zombie treatment oh god maybe if we have to have survivor guilt counselling together I can bring the subject up oh god oh man who am I kidding I'm dead oh god oh man - and withdrew sharply, then felt around the sub-sentient fudge of the guy on the floor who wasn't dead yet but was on the way out. From the mess of his mind, Alucard gathered he had been an attorney - No one will goddamn care about this gurgle gurgle like Sarah said when she found out about Linda this country thinks there ought to be a bounty on lawyer pelts gurgle gurgle will I come back turned into a pale thing gurgle that might be - and then he was dead, forever. He got a fix on Quentin, who was coping with the situation by recasting it with '70s exploitation actors - I'm like a Slaughter-era Jim Brown coiled and ready to explode into ass-kicking action... Kit is Andy Robinson in Dirty Harry with maybe an overlay of Andrew Prine as the bald psycho in the TV movie Mind Over Murder... the girl is maybe Marlene Clark in Night of the Cobra Woman or Cheryl 'Rainbeaux' Smith in The Other Cinderella... and Mr Alucard stands there like Joe Don Baker playing Buford Pusser in the original Walking Tall, packing a baseball bat in his pants...

- and a soul soundtrack, Bobby Womack's 'Across 110th Street'. Alucard kept Quentin in mind, then wound his mentacles around the girl's head, sliding easily into Holly's engorged lizard brain and simply turning her off. He could have mindwiped her with a wink, but she might be worth saving for later. He gave Quentin a nudge and he took Holly's sudden weight, keeping her from falling off the counter. He picked up her floppy arm and laid a paw over his shoulder.

'So, you're Death. Or Alucard. That's what the geek called you, right?'

'It's a name.'

Kit pondered hard.

'There's something about it. A L U C A R D. Like a crossword puzzle or something.'

'Everyone says that, Lambchop. "Alucard" is "LaDacru" written inside-out.'

Kit didn't get it.

He had been shifting, replacing his lost weapon. His fangs, as impractical as the eleven-inch barrel Alucard still held, stretched his mouth, giving him Godfather jowls, ripping his lips. Triangular bone-thorns sprouted from his fingertips and knuckles, while scythe-spars slid from his elbows. Kit was a less natural shapeshifter than Holly. Each barb cost him effort and pain. He groaned and sweated blood.

'Die, Death,' growled Kit.

He was across the room with vampire quickness, hands about Alucard's throat, scythes at his sides. But his touch was gentle. Alucard saw puzzlement in Kit's eyes and nodded downward. Kit followed Alucard's eyeline and stood back.

The gun barrel was stuck into Kit's chest like a pipe. An inch or so projected from the front, dribbling blood. Kit twisted his neck and looked down at his back. The length of steel hadn't transfixed him entirely. Alucard heel-jammed the end of the barrel, knocking it flush with Kit's skin, pushing the ragged end through the other side.

Kit's heart poured out.

Alucard licked his palm. Kit's blood was polluted with snakebite. He took only a symbolic taste of the fallen vampire.

Shaking his head to clear it, Alucard let everyone go.

The Father thrilled through his blood.

Quentin, the girl still slumped over his shoulder, tore up a sheet of paper. 'You get free rentals here for all time, Mr Alucard. You're like the Fonz of this Arnold's, the Skipper of this Minnow.'

'That's kind of you,' he replied, handing over the paper sack of videos, which he had held all along.

Quentin looked inside. 'There's blood on 'em. Oh well, doesn't matter. What would you like this week?'

Alucard stepped over the shrunken scrawn that had been Kit Carruthers and considered the display of specials. The Video Archives had a name-themed double-bill offer: Stan Brakhage with Stan Laurel, Monty Python with Monte Hellman, Margaret Duras with Margaret O'Brien. None quite tickled his present fancy.

'I'll take Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly in Xanadu. Madonna and Sean Penn in Shanghai Surprise. And Mr Martin's last screen credit, which was, I believe, Muff-Diving Miss Daisy.'

Jack Martin was trying to express gratitude. He hoped Alucard would stick around while he fetched a screen treatment from his car. Maybe Ron Bass would be more amenable for the Dolly Parton thing.

'Xanadu,' said Quentin. 'That's the third time this year.'

'It's an important film.'

'No argument from me, Mr Alucard. From where I sit, Olivia was gypped out of Best Performance in a Musical or Comedy for Two of a Kind. I guarantee she'll be remembered as the Jean Arthur of the '90s.'

The kid lay the girl out on the counter and scouted around for the tapes - he remembered to shut the cash register, which Kit had made him open. The girl shed all her shapeshifts. A ropey mask of reptile skin hung off her face.

'Anything else?' asked Quentin. 'I've got in prime bootlegs of My Living Doll episodes which didn't make it to syndication. Julie Newmar is hot.'

'I'll take the girl.'

Quentin was surprised but not upset.

'Sure. You caught her, you keep her.'

Alucard slung the still-limp kitten over his shoulder and collected his rental videos.

'Explain things to the police, Quentin. I'm in something of a hurry. Meetings.'

'Right-a-rootie, Mr Alucard. Just one more thing...'

Quentin was reaching under the counter, for a script.

'I have to go. We'll talk next time.'

Martin was on his feet, still hyped that John Alucard knew who he was, but just starting to be afraid as well. He saw Quentin's script - some viper thing called Bloody Pulp - and reacted with instinctive territorial hostility.

'Tell Mr Martin about your project,' Alucard suggested.

Quentin's eyes flashed behind his shades and he turned to the screenwriter, prepared to unload a full-length reading on him.

Alucard carried his rentals and the vampire girl out of the video store, stepping around the broken glass on the sidewalk. He slid Holly into the passenger seat of the Camaro and restrained her with the seatbelt. She murmured. In sleep, Holly had now reverted to her original face, freckled and pretty under skag make-up and shed skin. Using her wig, he wiped dead stuff off her and then threw it in the gutter. Older than a new-born, but fatherless. She'd been wasted on Kit Carruthers. He would have Visser dig up background on the pair of them.

She woke up a few minutes later, as he hit the freeway.

'What's happening?' she asked. 'Who are you? What do you want? Where's Kit?'

'Carruthers is out of the picture, honey. I'm John Alucard.'

'What are you going to do to me?'

'I'm going to make you a star.'

'Cool.' She put her heels up on the dashboard. 'You got a radio here. I like to listen to music.'

He showed her how to turn it on. She spun the dial until she hit Cyndi Lauper. As they drove into the city, she sang along with 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'. He didn't join in. When the song was over, she turned off the radio.

'Now you sing, John Alucard.'

He thought a moment, and began 'Hooray for Hollywood'.

9.

Her name was Holly Sargis Carruthers. She and her husband were poor white trash from the hills, turned by a wannabe den-master in 1959. They'd destroyed the elder fool and taken off on a spree. Kit and Holly were the vampires Middle America was afraid of. From nothing and with nothing. Childishly destructive and beyond reason. The couple on the run, on the road. Taking cars, cash and lives. In and out of institutions. In and out of each other's skulls. They'd stuck together because they knew no better. They had no get, which was a mercy.

Unlike Alucard, Holly had a reflection, of sorts, shimmering in and out of focus. An interesting effect.

Visser didn't understand why Alucard had taken Holly in.

'She'll turn on you one night,' he said.

Alucard looked across the moon-lounge at the girl curled up on the couch.

'I have no worries.'

'You're the master, Mr A.'

'Yes, Visser, I am.'

The private detective hadn't been to the estate before. His eye kept wandering to some detail. A painting or a bit of statuary. They didn't impress him as pleasing objects, but he had an idea what they must have cost. It was how he judged Holly too. In the long term, Visser thought the girl would be expensive.

'How are things with the parole board? Are we any closer to securing a ticket-of-leave for Mr Manson?'

Visser grinned.

'Three down, which gives us a majority. Two left.'

'It had better be unanimous.'

'The hold-outs won't be bought easy, but there are grey areas. Always are in their position. Either you keep someone innocent locked up or you let out someone horribly guilty. They can't win. One of our hold-outs gave Janos Skorzeny early release - setting him free to tear through that sorority house. He'll be tricky to persuade, but Manson not being a viper counts in our favour. The other hold-out has a daughter in Immortology. She'll switch her vote if we get her the kid back.'

'That can be done.'

'Thought so. Then, Charles Manson, America's most famous vampire hater, will be a free man for a limited window. You can even fix it to get him over to Europe, just so long as he's electronically tagged. All you have to do is persuade him to get up on a stage with a whole horde of vampires. There, I can't help you. We can get him all the smokes he wants, but he knows he's going back inside and not really coming out. Your Pale Anti-Defamation League types will ensure that.'

'I can swing them, too. Chapman has owed me big time since that breakfast food fiasco. It'll be a great occasion. And Manson is, before everything else, a frustrated performer. All he ever really wanted was an audience.'

Visser's eyebrows went up and down.

The duet of the Short Lion and Timmy V was still under negotiation, but Alucard had another team-up coup in mind to top the first half of the show. He envisioned Charles Manson and the pop singer Ralph Rockula standing side by side among columns of light and dark to belt out a catchy hymn to mutual amity between vampires and the warm. It was all very well to use the proven 'Imagine' for the finale, but for this he wanted a hit whose copyright rested with John Alucard Productions. Chained teams of songwriters were working for hire. He intended to add enough to the lyric - 'Pale and Tan, Man to Man... Warm and Cool, Golden Rule' - to personally get a credit and claim performance rights fees forever.

Visser left. His garlic whiff lingered.

'Don't like him,' said Holly.

'Few do,' Alucard confirmed.

'I like Beverly.'

'Leave her alone, Kitten. She's much too useful as she is.'

'Spoilsport.'

The girl was posing gauchely, letting her kimono fall open. She had tattoos around her arms and across her belly. Several were snakes winding about the name 'Kit'.

'Do we need those? Really?'

Holly was thoughtful. He projected himself into her mind again, feeding her his image of her future self, her final snakeskin, the girl in the spotlight.

'Guess not,' she said.

Her little face screwed up in concentration. Her tattoos dwindled and vanished.

'There now, that's better.'

She looked as if she was about to hiccough. She indicated that she needed a vessel. He gave her a seashell ashtray. She squirted a thin stream of blended inks into it. Holly's body control was remarkable. Alucard had noticed that straight off, when she changed. Kit used to call her his bendy toy. She was plastic fantastic - she could squeeze through a drainpipe or elongate across a room.

He took a handkerchief and wiped her chin.

'Nice Kitten.'

He'd decided to call her that for the moment. Kitten.

'Miaow,' she said, stretching. Her midriff thinned and her backbone popped up a few extra vertebrae. 'Thirsty.'

He was weaning her off warm blood.

She crawled against his chest and fussed with his shirt-buttons.

'Very well,' he said.

With a thumbnail, he drew a bloody line on his breast. Kitten lapped at his welling wound. He gave her just a taste.