"By the time he realized who and what he'd gotten involved with, he was happy to settle for his life."

"I'm sure he was. You must have known there was a market for a bioweapon like that," I observed.

"I knew the old lords would value such a weapon, yes, but I didn't know how to approach them."

"Or how to negotiate with them?" I looked from her to Ulrich with meaning.

"It just so happened there was an ancient and learned vampire in our Russian coven who put me in touch with Ulrich, " Diana said.

"Was his name Vanya, by any chance?" I thought of the vampire who was almost clever enough to escape my killing rampage.

Diana's expression betrayed only the slightest hint of-what? Shock? Anger? "I suppose you killed him." It was a statement rather than a question.

"You suppose correctly. In fact, I killed all of them," I said. "And torched the house for good measure. But continue with the story, if you please. It's positively fascinating. I a.s.sume you kept Hugo in the dark about the fact that you were ultimately behind this little project."

"You a.s.sume correctly," she mocked. "Why should I share with Hugo the spoils of my plan?"

"Indeed. He was only your sire and the one who gave you the strength and protection to survive far longer than most females ever do."

"He was a monster," she spat. "He abused both me and my son. He didn't deserve any consideration."

I ignored her. "At some point you had to get Hugo involved to help carry out the plan. But I 'm getting the story out of order.

What happened after you contacted Ulrich?"

"I enlisted the aid of my offspring Reedrek," Ulrich said, taking up the tale. "He had done little enough for me lo these hundreds of years, so I gave him a chance to redeem himself in my eyes.

"I decided that Reedrek should approach his offspring Hugo and ask for his help. Reedrek and Diana let Hugo think that Reedrek was the mastermind and that she knew nothing."

"What did Reedrek promise Hugo for his cooperation?" I asked, having already heard the answer from Hugo's own lips right before I'd killed him.

"Merely the favor and protection of the old lords," Diana said.

"Not a council seat," I supplied, remembering how shocked Hugo had been to learn those were the real stakes in the game.

"He never dreamed such a thing was possible," Diana said. "At any rate, Hugo was hardly Council material, I think you'll agree."

I had no idea what Council material was, but I wasn't going to admit my ignorance. "So you double-crossed Hugo and then Hugo and Reedrek double-crossed you by allowing Will to travel with the virus in such a way as to become infected himself."

"Yes," Diana said bitterly. "We set off for Savannah in the sailing ship and Will was supposed to meet us there after he infected those in the west."

"Which he did."

"Yes," she said tersely.

"Of course," Ulrich said, "she had no idea that her sire and grandsire would make such a dog's breakfast of things, endanger her beloved child, and get Reedrek encapsulated in granite in the bargain."

Beloved child? I nearly pointed out that Diana was incapable of loving anything, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Will was merely a possession to her.

It made me sick to recall how, while in Savannah, Diana had pretended she still had feelings for me as long as it had suited her purposes. Having cast in her lot with Ulrich here in London, she no longer bothered to keep up the pretense. For that, I could almost-but not quite-respect her.

"I wondered how you and your mate knew to hide your intentions the night you sailed into Savannah. I a.s.sume that Reedrek was able to project a warning to Hugo before you reached the harbor," I said to Diana.

"Our arrival was supposed to be a celebration of victory over the New World vampires. Instead, Hugo had to bluff and say we came just to make sure Reedrek was put away for good."

"When did you become aware that you would be meeting me, your mortal husband, in Savannah?" I kept my face as neutral as possible.

"Right before Reedrek sailed on ahead of us. He finally put a name to this legendary vampire whom the old lords wanted to defeat. You can imagine my shock."

"I'm not sure I can," I said. "I could imagine how my human Diana would have reacted to the thought of being reunited with me after such a long separation. But you? The creature you have become is a mystery to me."

She opened her mouth to reply but glanced at Ulrich and decided against it.

"Did the old lords consider the biological attack a success because you were able to wipe out the California colony?"

"At first, yes." Ulrich smiled a brittle smile. "But when word came that your scientist trumped our scientist by devising an effective cure so soon, well, let's just say it was a bit of a black eye. Diana knew that, so in order to redeem me in their eyes, she devised a new plan."

"I believe I know this part," I said. "When she learned that the vaccine was based on Renee's mystical blood, that's when she decided to kidnap her and bring her here to you. If you made such a rare gift as Renee to the old lords, not only would they overlook your little failure, but there's no telling how they'd reward you."

"Yes, but of course Hugo still didn't know of my existence. He thought he would be getting the glory." Ulrich laughed heartily.

"And instead you invited him here to offer him as food to the vampire council."

"Well, he did want to go before the dark lords," Diana said. "And in a way, he was to become part of them."

"Your powers of rationalization are positively astonishing, my dear," I said.

"Sarcasm doesn't become you," she said, showing fang. "I think you would do well to consider your situation before you antagonize us."

"What difference does my manner make? You're going to feed me to the Council in Hugo's place anyway."

"We would not use you as mere food, William. Perish the thought," Ulrich said. "You are more of a prize than that-a prisoner of war, let's say. Diana, how shall we make the presentation? You are my idea woman, after all."

Diana looked at me, and this time she was all sweetness and light. It took me a second to realize that she was trying to use glamour on me. Of all things, she was trying to appear most like her old human self, the Diana I used to know and love. She was trying to seduce me. Her eyes shimmered like sapphires, and her hair shone like spun gold. Oh, she was good. Her cheeks seemed suddenly as rosy as those of any warm-blooded human maiden.

"I believe I know exactly how we should present William as a gift to the Council," she said.

Jack "The evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d shot Carlos in his sleep," Seth said, resting his head in his hand. "The poor little guy never knew what hit him. And then Alonso turned the gun on himself. Connie said it was all over in seconds. When I heard the call on the scanner in my truck I raced back to the apartment, but there was nothing I could do. Carlos and Alonso were dead."

"He killed his own son?" I said, horrified. "Was it one of those ugly 'if I can't have my son, you can't either' kind of custody deals?"

"No, not really. I don't think he wanted the kid. I think he just wanted Connie to suffer for leaving him."

"So he murdered her child in front of her." Poor Connie. I reckoned I must still have a heart, because it was bleeding for her.

Something clicked in my mind. What had Connie said about who she wanted to see in the underworld? Somebody she thought was in a good place and somebody she thought was in h.e.l.l. I didn't have to wonder who she was talking about any longer. If she wanted to make sure her boy was in paradise and his murderer was being eternally tortured in the fiery pit, who could blame her?

"Oh, man," Seth said. "I can't believe I unloaded all that on you. Listen, you can't tell Connie I told you what happened in Atlanta, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"Swear?"

"I don't know what good an oath from a vampire is, but if it makes you feel better, I swear."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

"Dude."

"I keep forgetting."

"You are so wasted."

"You think?"

I sighed. "We've got to get some sleep now or we're going to be wolf meat tomorrow night."

"All right. Do you want the couch?"

"Nope, I keep a spare coffin in the rafters. I'll sleep up there. Oh, but I need to ask you something. I have to go by William's tomorrow night just long enough to check on Mel and the twins. Do you have to change right after sundown or can you put the fight off until I get there?"

"I'll get a mite twitchy, but I don't absolutely have to change until the moon is high," Seth said. "I'll stall until you get there."

"Excellent." I jumped up on a bar stool and pushed up one of the tiles in the suspension ceiling. Then I remembered something else that had bothered me about the story he just told me.

"Seth," I said. "What happened after the murder-suicide? I mean, when you first started talking about it, you kind of made it sound like it ended your relationship."

"It did," Seth said mournfully, pulling off his boots with some drunken difficulty.

"Why? Did it put her off men in general for a while, or what?"

"No, it wasn't like that. It was more like-no matter how I tried to a.s.sure her that I didn't pity her, she was convinced that I did. She was convinced that everybody who knew what happened pitied her. That's why she moved to Savannah, so she could start fresh where n.o.body knew her and how her son had been murdered. That's another reason why I'm warning you not to let her know that I told you. It could ruin your relationship with her, too."

Now that's what I call a pal. "Thanks for looking out for me, man. I really appreciate the warning."

"d.a.m.n," Seth said. "I think I'm sober. I need another beer."

"No, you're not, and no, you don't."

"Oh, okay," Seth said peevishly.

As I climbed into the rafters under the tin roof that got so nice and warm in the daytime, I wondered how I would ever get to sleep after that horrifying story about Connie. Even vampires have bad dreams.

I heard Seth turn the television back on. Strains of Gypsy violins wafted up to me as I settled myself in my spare coffin. Before I closed the lid, I heard a drunken Seth mutter along with the dialogue.

"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."

Sixteen.

William "Tell me, what is your idea, my dear? I am keen to hear it," said Ulrich, as if he were still a gentleman in Victorian England and Diana had just proposed throwing a garden party instead of a grisly sacrifice to Satan's demi-demons.

"Perhaps we could persuade William to come over to our way of thinking and become one of us."

My mind went back to the night I'd first met Ulrich and I saw the brutally dismembered Mary Jane Kelly, the last victim of Jack the Ripper. What other atrocities had he committed through the centuries? Before the advent of the newspaper, such crimes would have become only the stuff of legend and nightmare, pa.s.sed down from father to son and mother to daughter around bucolic campfires. The bogeyman of old went by many names. I would wager that for many a long -dead villager, one of those names was Ulrich.

Did I ever want to be that kind of monster? The blood-soaked memory of that crime scene was so vivid I lost control of the thought, and Ulrich picked it up as if I'd telegraphed it directly to him. He wasn't disturbed by it in the slightest. In fact, his face split into a ghastly smile, revealing his saberlike fangs.

"That's it, my dear boy. Savor that splendid memory. I know I do. This is what we are made for, we vampires. We who have been robbed of life should be dedicated to its wholesale destruction. We sow terror among humanity. We are the architects of nightmares."

I felt his glamour wash over me like a lilting tide, seductive and appealing. While Diana 's glamour had had little effect, Ulrich's sang to me through my very blood. His ancient power was many times stronger than hers, and his skill for glamour had doubtless been honed to a blindingly sharp edge over thousands of years. I held fast to the sleeping Renee as if she were a talisman. "B-but we don't have to do evil," I stammered.

"You misunderstand me, my son," Ulrich purred, coming closer. "Evil is not what we do. It's who we are. This charade you've been living ever since you won your independence from Reedrek is a fool's game."

"A fool's game," I heard myself repeat. My thoughts were not my own. Ulrich plied my mind with vivid images and delightful sensations, all involving blood, buckets of blood. I tried to remember when I'd last fed. Was it from Eleanor? I couldn't recall.

"Feel your hunger," Ulrich said. "Rejoice in it. Your hunger is your gift."

He stood right in front of me now. His breath smelled like the grave. Why was he stoking my hunger like this? What would it gain him?

"You know what you have to do," he whispered in my ear. Then he reached down to stroke Renee's hair.

He wanted me to make Renee a vampire.

Jack I was showered and dressed and out the door the minute the sun went down. Seth had slept late, taken a lot of aspirin, and had drunk a lot of some sports drink. He a.s.sured me he was totally over his bender and waved me off into the night. "Don't start the party without me," I said on the way out.

"Yeah, yeah," he agreed.

When I got to William's, there was n.o.body in the kitchen. Concerned, I went to the den. Nada. Alarmed now, I heard a noise coming from the back veranda that faced Melaphia's little house. Maybe she'd gone home for some of her things and taken the twins with her. I exited through the French doors onto the veranda and saw Deylaud and Reyha standing mesmerized by the scene they were looking down on.

From the height of the veranda, you could see into Melaphia's little garden. I drew up short and froze when I saw what the twins were gaping at. Melaphia writhed like a wild thing. She wore a silk robe of too many colors to count and had tied a blue kerchief around her head. It was the exact shade of blue that warded off evil spirits-voodoo blue, the faithful called it.

She'd built a fire in a brazier, and the flames were licking at a number of offerings she'd put on top. Some type of burning herb created blue smoke and an intoxicating aroma. She danced back and forth to a rhythm only she could hear. The smoke followed her every motion like it was listening to her and obeying. She chanted and prayed, both in English and in languages I didn 't recognize. Languages I didn't think even Melaphia knew, not on a conscious level anyway. Somehow she knew them through her blood.

She paused and c.o.c.ked her head to one side, then broke into hysterical laughter and started dancing again a few moments later. I couldn't tell who or what she was listening to, and I was glad about that. My nerves were so shot, I didn't know if I could stand that dark knowledge on top of the tragic story I'd heard the night before.

Deylaud and Reyha were rooted to their spot on the porch, unable to take their eyes off the show. They clung to each other, afraid but not knowing of what. They could sense the power, though, just as I could. Whatever genie Mel was conjuring up, I just hoped she knew how to get it the h.e.l.l back into the bottle when she was through with it.

My G.o.d, I hadn't checked on them last night. How long had this been going on? The twins were so incapacitated they would have been unable to call me.

"Great googly moogly," I heard myself whisper. Melaphia was dancing so hard, I was afraid she would collapse. I didn't know what to do. Should I go out and stop her before she fainted or fell onto the fire and hurt herself? Or would trying to calm her just make things worse? I kept watching and waiting, afraid to leave until this ceremony, whatever it was, had played out.

I didn't have much time to get to the fight if I was going to watch Seth 's back. He was counting on me. But I couldn't leave Mel alone. I could tell the twins could not help; it was like they were hypnotized. d.a.m.n, what should I do?