John said nothing, for there was nothing to say. He had always had great respect for the bishop, who had done so much to strengthen and maintain the faith throughout the city parishes. In a moment of cold panic, he wondered if his mentor was unbalanced, and if he should notify Hightower's superiors of this.

Oh, yes, call Rome and tell them your bishop has gone crazy. After what happened in Rio, they'll believe you, as much as you believe in vampires.

One of Hightower's wispy brown eyebrows arched. "Feeling a bit skeptical, are we?"

"I don't wish to contradict you, sir," he said, choosing his words carefully, "but to my knowledge, vampires are simply a myth. They don't exist outside folktales, lurid novels, and bad films."

"No need to apologize, my son. I thought the exact same thing before I joined the Brethren. Happily, there is proof." He turned to look at the door. "Father Cabreri, would you join us?" To John, he said, "Carlo is also a member of my order, so he can be trusted."

Hightower's a.s.sistant came in carrying an unmarked videotape ca.s.sette and handed it to John before he took a seat to the bishop's left.

"Play that and see for yourself," Hightower told him.

He could take the tape and play it, or he could save the bishop any further embarra.s.sment. "Your Grace, I am...

flattered, but I'm not... I can't..."

"Stop sputtering and play the wretched thing, Johnny." Hightower settled back into his chair, while Cabreri selected a sandwich from the cart. "Once you've watched it, then we will talk about what you can or cannot do."

John took the tape, inserted it into the VCR player sitting atop the old television set, and started it.

Several seconds of static, and then a picture snapped into place. The film quality was poor, and there was no sound, but it was still possible to see what was happening on the other side of the lens. Three monks, dressed in odd-looking cowled robes, dragged a wounded, naked man into what appeared to be a dungeon.

"This is an interrogation room." Tea gurgled from the pot as Hightower refilled his cup. "The vampires nest together, you see, like the vermin they are. When we apprehend one alone, we question it to find our way to the others."

The naked man, whose blackened legs had compound fractures, and whose feet had been reduced to blobs of raw ground meat, fought as they bound his arms to a large upright stone pylon. His bloodied face twisted into an animal's snarl, but his lips didn't move.

A veteran of jumping fences, too many to count, John recognized what they were using to bind the prisoner. "Why use barbed wire to restrain him?"

"It's made of copper, the only substance besides fire that can hurt them." The bishop's hand flashed up to smother a small belch. "Pardon. It doesn't hurt them for long, once it's removed from contact with their unholy flesh. Observe the wounds."

John went very still as he watched the gashes left on the prisoner's arms stop gushing blood. They began to shrink and close, impossible as that was. John's stomach clenched as his eyes registered not only the horror of it, but the familiarity of it. He had seen this before, in his nightmares.

He had seen it that night, in the alley.

Huddled in a collapsing cardboard box, his arms curled around Alexandra, holding still so the frayed piece of cord around their waists wouldn't rub into her skin. They'd run away from the foster home a week ago, and John tied the rope around them every night now, so he'd wake up if someone tried to take her from him. Like the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d at the corner candy store, who had offered John a hundred dollars for an hour alone with three-year-old Alexandra in the back storeroom. He was probably still spitting teeth from the facer John had planted on him.

Someone giggled nearby. Gee-oh... Heavy, shuffling footsteps drew closer. Oh-gee-oh...

A junkie, or a maniac. There were too many of them on the street. John held his breath and willed the footsteps to move on. Night sky and a s.n.a.t.c.h of alley wall appeared for a second in the hole as something tore back the top flap of the box, and John reached for his pipe. Two big, ugly hands snaked inside, groping. He smashed the hands away, and the jagged end of the pipe dragged as he yanked it back for a second blow. Blood spurted from a ragged gash on one straining forearm.

John's lips peeled back from a silent howl. Got you. Motherf.u.c.kinc.o.c.ksuckinb.a.s.t.a.r.d, got you.

Then the air was gone, and one of the monster's hands dug into John's neck. His eyes bulged, and his neck bones creaked. As he fought, Alexandra began to writhe and shriek, and he looked up to see where to kick. His eyes widened as he watched the edges of the bleeding wound puckering, shrinking- It was a stupid nightmare. John had woken up from it the next morning, still in the alley, still in the box, still tied to his sister. Still homeless and hungry, but alive. He'd looked for evidence. No bruises on his throat, no blood on the box or anywhere. His pipe had disappeared, that was all. What he had dreamed had never happened.

"John."

He looked up, his eyes blind. Cabreri and the bishop were staring at him. "What?"

"You've paused the tape," Hightower said gently. John fumbled with the remote until the tape began to play again. The three monks picked up small clear gla.s.s vials from a table, uncorked the vials, and began to slowly dribble their contents on their writhing prisoner. From the looks of the wisps of smoke and burns spreading over the victim's chest, it was some sort of acid. Was that why the man's legs were black? Had they burned them after breaking them?

When John was a boy, he had run with street thieves, had preyed on winos and panhandlers. He knew a con when he saw one, but this looked real. "They're torturing him."

"Yes."

"With acid."

"With holy water," Hightower corrected him. "That is all the vials contain."

He looked at the screen, then at his mentor. He didn't know what to say. One did not use the word bulls.h.i.t in front of an archbishop.

Cabreri gave him an odd smile and spoke for the first time. "I have witnessed with my own eyes how they burn.

Like G.o.d's fiery hand, it is."

It might be some sort of special effect, like the infamous "alien autopsy" video, but if they were staging it, they would have made the film quality better. Besides, in this day of CNN and investigative reporting, why would anyone fake the torture of a prisoner?

None of the monks showed their faces to the camera, but it was obvious that they were questioning their prisoner.

They paused now and then and bent over the restrained man, who would only bare his teeth at them.

His teeth, John noted, were perfectly normal.

"They call themselves the Darkyn," Hightower said softly. "We believe these creatures began rising from the dead in the fourteenth century, just after the Black Death. 'Dark kin,' their families called them, thinking at first that they had been buried alive-that happened, in those days, with alarming regularity-but then they began to feed on people."

John wondered how, when they had no fangs. "They rose from the grave to walk the night and drink blood, I a.s.sume?"

"They can tolerate sunlight, but they're stronger at night. Garlic doesn't affect them, but holy water does. Holy water that has been kept in copper, that is. We've been using underground copper cisterns to store our order's waters since the fifteenth century."

John didn't worry that Hightower had gone senile anymore. He was convinced of it. "Your Grace, have you shown this tape to your superiors?"

"No, dear boy, Rome knows nothing about this. Only members of my order are entrusted with the Brethren's secrets." His smile faded. "These minions of Satan have powerful allies. When they first rose from the dead and came into the world, their families turned them over to the church. Later on they hid them from us. Perfectly understandable. At that time, if the Templars found maledicti living among family, they would lock them all, human and Darkyn alike, in the nearest church. Then they would burn it down."

Sickened by this fantasy, and the sight of the prisoner's burned torso and the acid now being dripped over the broken bones of his thighs, John reached for the VCR's controls to stop the tape. "I've seen enough. I'm turning this off."

"Not yet," Hightower warned. "You have yet to see the grand finale."

Another man, this one wearing a black trench coat over his broad frame, came into the room. The monks turned and tried to fling their acid at him, but he moved incredibly fast, and knocked the vials from their hands. He drove his fist into the face of one monk so hard it disappeared in gore up to the wrist. John swallowed bile as he saw the man jerk his arm, tearing off the head of the monk in the process. The decapitated body fell over, and blood and ganglia spilled from the neck onto the stone floor.

The black-coated man shook the monk's head from his hand the same way another man might flick off a bit of snot from his finger.

John had seen terrible things, but nothing as baldly, pathetically grotesque as this. "G.o.d in heaven."

The other two monks retrieved the coil of barbed wire and threw it at the intruder. He caught it in his hands, stretched out a length, and began whipping the two monks with it. When they were on their knees, b.l.o.o.d.y-faced and cowering, he tossed aside the wire. His boot caught one monk on the side of the head and drove it into the other's with such force that John could almost hear their skulls fracturing. When the two monks fell over, the intruder slowly used his boots on their heads, stomping on them over and over until nothing was left but pulp.

The torture might have been staged, but this was too real. John swallowed a surge of bile. "Where did this happen?"

"In Dublin," Cabreri said. "The demon freed four of his kind, and killed twenty."

"All the brothers we had there." The bishop sighed. "G.o.d rest their poor souls."

The last minute of film showed the black-coated man quickly releasing the naked, burned prisoner and carrying him out of the chamber in his arms. Before he exited, he looked at the camera, reached out, and grabbed the lens. Gla.s.s shattered-was he really crushing it with one hand?-before the screen filled with static.

"You can shut it off now," Hightower said, startling him again.

John stopped the tape and rose to walk over to the window. Outside, a group of little black girls was playing double Dutch jump rope in front of the sanctuary. They sang a ghetto slang rhyme in high, gleeful voices that kept time with their rapid, bouncing feet.

Mistah, Mistah, ya wanna kiss my sista, Mama, Mama, I saw him kiss Tawanda, One, two, three, four, sneak him in the back door, Four, five, six, seven, shuck yor pants and go to heaven...

John wanted to be out there with them, with those little girls. He couldn't contribute much to their pool of advice on illicit s.e.x, but he might be able to keep time with the ropes. "When did these murders take place?"

"Five days ago." Hightower inspected the luncheon cart and frowned at Cabreri when he saw the empty sandwich plate. "We had some problems dealing with the Garda, but it has been dealt with."

Cabreri, who had devoured all the sandwiches, selected a pet.i.t four and munched it with relish.

The Italian priest's appet.i.te proved to be the final straw. "Excuse me, Your Grace."

John walked rapidly out of the study, turned the corner, and went into the men's bathroom, where he barely made it to the sink before he began heaving. He couldn't vomit, however. Nothing would come up; his insides had turned to stone. A damp paper towel appeared beside his face, and he looked up at Father Cabreri.

"You know it is real," Carlo told him. "This is what makes you sick. You are needed, Father Keller. Join les Freres de la Lumiere, and help us."

The grotesque imagery still spun in his head. "You seem to have the torture well in hand."

"Things must be done. Often terrible things." Cabreri shrugged.

John wanted to hit Carlo. He wanted to go in and scream at the bishop. But the real menace was to the innocent people being tortured because this secret society believed in vampires.

At last, a true enemy to fight-superst.i.tious ignorance. He would enter the order and stop them from continuing this ridiculous quest. If he couldn't, he would gather enough evidence to expose them to Rome. Surely the church would not hesitate to prosecute them.

"I am ready to join the Brethren," John told the Italian. "What must I do?"

Cabreri grinned like a boy. "Pack."

Chapter Eight.

-every emergency room in the state of Illinois," Grace Cho was saying when Alex cracked her eyelids open. "Do you know how many there are? Probably not."

Alex moved her eyes to take in her new surroundings. White walls, beige tile, blue plastic curtains hanging from a curved groove in the popcorn ceiling. No flowers, no cards, a dozen portable monitors. An inpatient room, not surgical, though. She could see through the curtains into the next room, where an elderly woman lay unconscious and breathing off a respirator.

Intensive care. What am I doing here?

Grace sighed. "Well, there are plenty, and I called every one of them."

"Thanks," Alex croaked out. Was that horrible noise her voice, and if so, who had buffed her larynx with steel wool?

"Huh?" Narrow black eyes flared wide before she jumped up from the chair beside the bed and grabbed Alex's hand.

"You're awake-oh, dear G.o.d, I told them you were too tough, d.a.m.n it." Her office manager burst into tears.

Alex's throat hurt; her head hurt; her d.a.m.n eyelashes hurt. She was alarmed at how weak she felt, too-newborn fragile-and discovered that, like one, she was unable to lift her head or turn on her side. Her hand was tethered by an IV, the needle of which stung when she flexed her fingers to squeeze Grace's. " 'Sallright, Gray."

"Boss, my G.o.d, what happened to you?"

"Beats me." She had no idea how she'd ended up in ICU, but her condition and presence here alone told her that she should be grateful to still be breathing. She closed her eyes and held on to her office manager's small hand, drawing strength from it. "Be fine."

Three nurses and Charlie Haggerty were in her room seven minutes after Alex woke up. "Alex?"

She focused on his bearded face, the tall lanky body, and the angry brown eyes. He looks wrong. Why does he look wrong? "Got crackers, babe?"

Charlie sent Grace out with the nurses and examined her himself.

Alex answered his questions, but by the time he tugged her patient gown back up over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she had quite a few of her own. "Why am I here? How long have I been here? Was there an accident?"

"You were brought in last night, unconscious and missing three pints of blood." He jerked his stethoscope from his ears and let it dangle from his neck. "Who did it? Where did he take you? Did you see his face?"

She shook her head. "Can't remember. Everything's all a big blank."

"Baby, you have to." Charlie dropped down and took her hand between his. "You disappeared a week ago. They didn't find you until yesterday, when some lady tripped over you in a restroom at the airport. They took some prints off your Jeep-it was parked in one of the long-term lots-but they haven't matched them to anyone yet."

That didn't sound promising. She looked down at herself. "Any wounds?"

"No injuries. We did a rape kit, but no signs of intercourse. Not a scratch on you, not even a needle mark." He bent over and brushed his mouth over hers. Tears fell from his eyes and made wet spots on her forehead and cheek before he gathered her up against him. "Jesus, Al, Jesus. I thought I was going to lose you."

His fierce embrace made her want to wriggle away, but she let him hold her and pour out his terrors. Odd that she couldn't feel much fear of her own. Something-maybe the blood loss and weakness-seemed to be suspending her emotions in a thick, insulating gel.

Like Charlie, several of Alex's anxious colleagues were unable to explain how she could have nearly bled to death with no physical wounds to justify the blood loss. Alex couldn't help them, either. The last thing she remembered was leaving the hospital and walking to her Jeep. The next thing she knew, she was in ICU and listening to Grace b.i.t.c.h.

It was obvious that she had been abducted, but the when, where, and why eluded her completely, as well as the who. As gaps in the memory went, it was a troubling one and, with no head injury or drugs in her system, d.a.m.ned hard to explain. It was undeniable, however. The police officer who came by to take Alex's statement confirmed that she had, as Charlie had claimed, been missing for six days.

After three more days of subjecting her to every possible test under the sun to explain the blood loss, and still finding no cause, Alex's colleagues threw up their hands and discharged her. Charlie drove her home and stayed to help settle her in.

"I could call your brother," he offered, transparent worry in his dark eyes. "Or stay the night, if you want some company."

John had come to see Alex while she was in ICU, but a nurse told her that she'd slept through his one and only visit. He'd left a card that showed the time and date that a ma.s.s had been said for her at St. Luke's, and on the back had written a terse note about leaving for Rome in a week. But even John's sudden trip and lack of fraternal concern failed to rouse any concern on her part.

She would be fine, and so would John. Everything would be fine. She felt sure of it.

"No, thanks, Charlie." After being poked and prodded for days, she really needed to be alone. On impulse she added, "Quit worrying. I survived."