"I hafta?"

Alek gave him a look. "Please?"

With an exaggerated sigh, Danny huffed off to do as his mother insisted.

When the boy had gone, Alek got up and slipped on his coat.

"You have a good way with Danny," Robyn said. "Do you have kids?"

Alek bit back a smile. "No. No kids."

"Do you want them? I mean, someday?"

He sheathed his sword under the voluminous folds of his long leather greatcoat. "I can't have kids."

"Oh." She looked dumbstruck. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "Don't be. It doesn't really bother me." He held her eyes. She seemed ready to ask something more on the subject, so he decided it was time the subject changed. "What happened to Danny's father?"

Robyn went to straighten up the bed. "Oh...I don't know who he was."

"Was Ashikawa good to Danny when you knew him?"

"You ask a lot of useless questions."

"Maybe."

She turned around. For a moment her eyes went everywhere in the room before centering on him. She seemed to decide herself it was time the subject changed. Looking him up and down, she said, "You look like you're going somewhere."

"I am. I want you to take a taxi to this address and stay there with Danny until I rejoin you." He gave her a slip of paper and his house key. He couldn't think of what else to do. The Covenhouse, at least, was safe.

Well...safer than here. Since moving into his childhood home the Covenhouse was becoming increasingly his. His house. His lair.

Everything in it was a part of him, and that made it difficult for a vampire to approach it. Maybe impossible. That didn't mean Ashikawa couldn't send human agents to take Robyn and her son, but considering the reputation of the house, Alek doubted he would. And bar that, there was Debra, whom he had asked to watch Robyn and her son. Her power was strongest in the house. Debra had huffed and made quite a scene of the imposition, of course, but he knew she would do the job for him.

Even if she did believe he had bad taste in women.

Robyn stared at the address. "Edward might have me tailed."

It would take too long to tell the whole truth. And he didn't think Robyn needed the whole truth anyway. So he told her only a part of it.

"Edward Ashikawa is who I'm going to see."

Robyn bit her lip. "I wish you wouldn't."

"Just get to the house before nightfall, lock yourself and Danny in, and don't let anyone but myself in."

Robyn only looked at him.

Alek tilted his head. "I will protect you, but you have to let me do this my way. Robyn."

15.

He didn't immediately ride off the Ashikawa manor like a storybook knight-errant on a mission. He was impetuous at times, but not stupid.

There were things to do. People to see.

People like the Parisian. He and Jean Paul, the owner and proprietor of the biggest hive of vampires in the Lower East Side, went back a number of years. They were not friends, but Alek counted Jean Paul as one of the few beings in the city of New York who had never actively sought his death. That counted for something. In his years with the Coven, Alek had overlooked many things for Jean Paul's sake. Tonight he intended to call in some of his proverbial markers.

A shadow tagged him within minutes of entering Jean Paul's territory. Alek had detected the vampire's presence long before the creature became aware of him, but Alek was in no hurry. Let it look and feel. By playing their little game of cat and mouse, he was able to hone in on its location like a bat bouncing a sonic signal off a moving victim.

He was annoyed but not really surprised when a razor-edged, stainless steel boomerang shot out at him from the dead end alley he was crossing. He caught the glimmer out of the corner of his eyes, drew his sword and spun all in one smooth steel-and-leather motion, using the flat of the blade to knick the boomerang back to its owner. The shadow slammed itself into a trashcan avoiding the returning weapon.

The boomerang sank into the wall of a derelict warehouse and proceeded to drill its way halfway through the two-foot-thick brick outer surface.

"Mako," Alek said, recognizing the Moorish warrior-turned-street- tough almost immediately, if not by appearance, then by weapon. Mako climbed loosely to his feet, whitish eyes flashing like porcelain in his dark, primal face--a look of pain, defiance and malicious discontent that changed to one of all-over animal-surprise when he realized who it was he had just a.s.saulted.

"s.h.i.t," he whispered.

"Sacrebleu!" came a harsh male voice from somewhere up-alley.

"Mako, my pet, is this how we treat our guests?" The Parisian strolled toward them. He was dressed in his usual immaculate white suit and pressed red tie. His hair was swept away from a cruel and perpetually amused face and glinting grey eyes. His rings glittered and crackled garishly in the spare back alley light, not unlike the bra.s.s head of his walking stick.

"I'm sorry if I broke him, JP," Alek said, leaning against the wall, his sword b.u.t.ting his thigh.

"Je m'excuse, monsieur, the help never know their place." Jean Paul gave his thrall one long hard unsmiling look. Mako lost much of his inborn toughness in that instant. Interesting enough, Alek had yet to see a vampire, thrall or enemy, brave enough to challenge Jean Paul to an open fight.

Jean Paul Dae. There were stories. Besides being connected with virtually every important underworld organization in the city, it was said his slight, almost childish figure concealed a psi power so great it could crack the earth in half like a china plate if he was pushed to it.

Alek had never discovered if the rumor was true and had no interest in finding out. After Mako pulled himself together sufficiently to resume his patrol of the outer rim of Jean Paul's territory, Jean Paul proceeded to go about his usual preening session, brushing off invisible lint on his sleeves, straightening creases that never existed anyway in his perfectly tailored clothing. He knew why the Slayer had chosen to visit him and was only waiting for the cue to begin.

Alek got to the point. "I need to find out everything I can about Edward Ashikawa."

"The Dragon Lord of the Yakuza?" Jean Paul sounded surprised.

"What is there to say? Boring histoire. Human affairs. Why would you think I would know much about that?" Jean Paul tapped his cane and turned smartly on his heels. "Come."

"I don't," Alek said as they strolled together down the alley. "I only expect you to know about the vampire Kage."

"Un desastre," Jean Paul whispered with wonder. "You speak of a disgusting creature indeed."

"How so?"

Jean Paul paused at the back of the alley and spun his cane in his hands. He narrowed his eyes. "Kage is quite old and has been blood bound to the mortals since his birth, about 1200 AD or so, if the stories are true. Throughout history, he served most of the Shoguns and their clans. After the dynasties were wiped out he proceeded to join himself to the Yakuza. He arrived on the sh.o.r.es of our new country maybe...a hundred years ago? That seems about right. He and Kurayami arrived as escorts of the Ashikawa war clan. Le monstre despicable. To think of his power and how he has wasted it on the pitiful humans he has served all this time. I recall he and Kurayami are often found together in the records."

"Kurayami?"

"Oui. Kage and Kurayami. The Shadow and the Darkness. I bid you take care with those two, monsieur. They are like...la chinne to Ashikawa. Like a pet. Bound to him in all ways. They will protect him even unto their own deaths. And there is a rumor that Kurayami, at least, is...more than Vampire."

"More than Vampire. What does that mean?"

"I do not know, monsieur. The last soul to hunt her never returned to tell his tale." Jean Paul tapped the bricks at his back with the head of his cane. "I can tell you nothing more. Quelle tragedie."

"Thank you, JP," Alek said, even as a certain line of thinking involving Robyn and her son began to take root deep inside of him. .

As the bricks began to slide back to reveal a narrow fissure in the wall, Jean Paul said, "Can I not tempt you into even the smallest visit into the private desmonde?" He made a gesture toward the entrance.

The scent of freshly spilt blood and willing flesh was strong and pulsing in the smoky, reddish atmosphere of the club. Even from out here Alek could feel its penetration. Its heat.

The craving returned with a vengeance.

"Perhaps another time," he said politely.

"Be a.s.sured I will hold you to that promise," Jean Paul said.

"But I never promised..." Alek began. He was aware that he had started breathing automatically through his mouth as the taste of the club reached him like fingers, caressing. Eden in a single breath, as Amadeus once warned him. And Eden had the serpent.

Jean Paul smiled demurely. "Please remember: the Pit is always open to you, monsieur," said the master of the hive. Maybe it was meant to sound like a harmless invitation, innocent even. Yet the splinter of mischief in Jean Paul's bloodshot eyes said worlds more.

16.

It was nightfall when Alek arrived at the Ashikawa mansion. It didn't look like a fortress, not to the untrained eye. It looked like a ridiculously expensive country club. It just happened to have a twelve-foot-tall rock wall around it and a black iron automatic gate and a gatekeeper's booth.

Hidden along the walls, where you could clearly see them if you were looking, were electric wires, electric lights, and penetration sensors. A ridiculously expensive fortress, then. As the taxi let him off at the curb, he noticed the heavy in the booth was looking around pensively as if the gentleman were expecting a meteor to hit the house at any point. Alek didn't recognize this one or any of the others mulling about the grounds with their hands in their coats from the night before. These were all older, professional barbarians. Alek hesitated a moment, feeling, smelling. Human. All of them.

Human...but still waiting for his arrival. He felt exposed, unclothed somehow.

The desire to rush home was almost oppressive but he pushed it down into the abyss where he kept his usual fears and cravings and all his serpentine emotions. He reminded himself that he and Edward Ashikawa staying in their respective corners would do nothing for the situation at hand. Nothing but intensify it.

The gatekeeper spotted him and started talking into a discreet cell phone-typething as his eyes followed Alek's long-coated approach.

He reached the gate.

"You have business here?" the man asked.

Alek paused. "I do."

"Is someone expecting you?"

"Edward Ashikawa. Kage."

For a moment the gatekeeper seemed surprised that Alek should know his hosts by name. He seemed confused by the whole thing. Then he said, clearly, into the phone. "He's here."

"I see I'm expected."

The gatekeeper ignored Alek's rib and waited for a response in the ear bud he wore. Yet his eyes kept jumping back to Alek as he received his instructions, like a kid in a zoo watching an exotic animal from behind bars.

Alek decided to be helpful. "Not banpaia...dhampir," he informed the man. "Ask Kage all the details."

The iron gate slid open and the man stood back. Far back.

Alek stepped onto the brick path that led to the house. The other heavies had disappeared inside the house but the feeling of a thousand eyes on him remained. As if to prove the theory true, the grand front door opened moments before Alek reached it and a professional butler-- or was he a henchmen in a really nice suit?-let him into a foyer the size of a dance hall. The house was many times larger than the Covenhouse, and looked and smelled newer in that white plaster-and-bra.s.s pre- fabricated way. The foyer was outfitted with divans, statues and a working fountain. Stairways of blocked gla.s.s swept up and away to secret upper floors. Hallways led off in an impressive and confusing warren to other places.

The butler/henchman politely asked that Alek remove any firearms he had. Alek showed the man the inside of his coat.

"I need to take that," the butler/henchman said.

"You do and I'll rip your face off."

The man blanched but made no move take it.

Good.

The man indicated a pair of cut gla.s.s French doors that led to a sea of muted, glossy lights. Alek headed that way and soon found himself in a vast courtyard. Multileveled terraces sprawled throughout the sculptured gardens and running brooks. Peahens moved here and about among the beds of flowers or nested in the trees growing around small ponds laden with floating orchids. And yet, all of it seemed to be a mere frame for the ma.s.sive marble fountain that was practically an epic unto itself-a sculpted young Asian girl mourning by a brook while a great fish leaped from the water, the girl's two jealous sisters looking on. It was a story Alek had encountered once, a Cinderella tale from the Orient he couldn't quite place the name of anymore...

"The fish's name was Goldeneyes," said Edward Ashikawa as he emerged into the artificial lights of the courtyard. "The young maid's sister were jealous of her friendship with the mystical fish and served him up to her."

Alek looked closely at the fountain. "Family."

With a wry smile, Ashikawa led the way to a gazebo where a traditional j.a.panese tea arrangement was set. Alek had been dimly aware of a presence here since the beginning, but since it was not the presence of a vampire, he had dismissed it as imminently dangerous.

Now he was not so sure. He studied his host. Edward Ashikawa was tall, modern, young-old, of mixed j.a.panese-Caucasian decent, magnetic and seemingly genial. Yet Alek could feel his presence with every nerve reaching.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," Alek said as he accepted the Dragon Lord's invitation to join him in tea. It was rice tea, traditionally used to seal friendships-or served during great a.s.sa.s.sinations. Alek sipped the tea the butler/henchman served. He decided he wasn't much worried about poisons or such. Edward Ashikawa seemed more sporting than that.

"Family," Ashikawa stated. "I tend to believe in it. Perhaps you should too."

Alek tilted his head, his eyes tracking the movements of the peahens out of the corner of his eyes.

"You keep expecting an attack," Ashikawa said. "Interesting."

"The circ.u.mstances of our meeting are a little odd, Ryuujin."

Ashikawa placed his white silk napkin in his lap. "Are you j.a.panese?"

Alek looked at the man. "I don't know. I don't think so."