"What do you mean?"

"I think I've just explained this. I work for the Forces of Darkness, Christopher, but on a freelance basis. Meaning, I'm employed by Tch'muchgar."

"Tch'muchgar? But you just killed him. Do you mean, Tch'muchgar - the Vampire Lord?"

"Christopher, it's not a common name."

"I don't understand."

Chet turns and finally looks at me. "Would you like me to explain?" he asks me.

The crickets are calling to one another in gasping choirs.

"I think it would be obvious to you by now, Christopher. Locked up like that with nothing to think about, nothing to do but hate his captors, hate himself for his failure, hate life - the only escape he wanted in the end was escape from his own tedious, circular, dream-starved thoughts. There's nothing Tch'muchgar wanted to do more than die. But of course, he couldn't. Completely powerless. That was the h.e.l.l of it. Couldn't even move, figuratively speaking, to slit his own wrists." Chet stops for a moment. Broods on his tale. Rubs his hand over his face. "G.o.d he was depressing." He sighs.

"Enter: me. I was drifting without direction, disembodied, between worlds, looking for work, when, lo, I heard a voice from on high, saying to me, 'Blessed are the dead, for they rest from their labors.' It was Tch'muchgar - completely suicidal, unable to move, only barely able to cry out.

"An agreement was made; we settled on a price. I reentered your time-stream about twenty years ago and began to make arrangements. I prodded the vampires into action, promised them a Golden Age, another reign of the Vampire Lord. About a year ago, I made a sweep through the area, disembodied, and settled on you as the most likely of several local vampire cubs. You were obviously going to ripen at just the right time. I needed someone who could slip past the vampires, but who would be willing to activate the Arm of Moriator by invoking Light. A vampire would have suspected something. But you? It was all a masterstroke on my part, Christopher. I'm sorry to gloat; it's just that I'm rather wonderful."

The crickets' crazed fluting shimmers around us like music for a wild, nervous dance. The goat dark woods are full of it. I'm wary; frightened; we are alone on the bank, and the forest is wide. He's still smiling at me like an uncle with a five-dollar bill hidden in one of his hands.

"What have you done to me?" I say. "What have you done?"

"Nothing. You were doomed before I saw you." He folds his hands primly in front of him.

"No, you've got to tell me. What about me now?" I try to sound strong. I'm hysterical. He can hear I'm afraid. He can hear I'm almost whimpering.

"What? Now?"

"My vampirism."

"I'm so sorry."

"You lied about that. You lied about being able to help me."

He laughs kindly. "Of course course I lied, Christopher," he says. "What did I just say I am? I'm a freelance agent of the Forces of Darkness. I'm I lied, Christopher," he says. "What did I just say I am? I'm a freelance agent of the Forces of Darkness. I'm supposed supposed to lie. I lie, cheat, kill, make people unhappy, and draw an enormous wage." to lie. I lie, cheat, kill, make people unhappy, and draw an enormous wage."

"I helped you! I did everything you asked!"

"Christopher, Christopher, Christopher! It's not within my power! I can't change what you are. You are what you are. I could remold the matter you're made of to make you human, like a wizard turning a shepherdess into a frog, but you wouldn't be yourself. Everything about you is vampiric. Your jaws are vampire jaws. Your teeth are retractable vampire teeth. Your heart is a vampire heart with little wicked tendrils strapped around your ribs, strangling your other organs. Your mind - cold, distant, hungry - everything - you're a vampire, Christopher. An honest-to-gosh bloodsucking son of the d.a.m.ned."

"What can I do?" I demand, snapping my arms out straight. "What?"

Chet shrugs. "Not much. You're going to die soon, Christopher. Unnatural causes, one way or another. Try to enjoy what little time you have left. You could go on a killing spree, draw the blood you need, but without guidance you'll soon get caught and lynched. It's a shame your little friend Lolli didn't survive," he says with a leer. "That girl was sufficiently acrobatic to liven up the final months of any young man worth his salt."

"I'll turn myself in," I threaten him. "I'll tell them what's happened."

Chet shakes his head. "Is that wise, Christopher? Is that really wise? Don't forget that you're guilty of first-degree deicide. Killing a G.o.d. The Forces of Light will demand to try you. Tch'muchgar was their prisoner. They wanted him to live. They'll find you guilty and commence torture. Believe me, they'll take advantage of the fact that you can't die of normal causes. Do you really want to spend all of eternity that way, Christopher? Being tortured slowly by white faceless glowing beings?

"Of course, you won't be much better off at home. You're going to go insane soon. You're going to kill someone. If for some reason you don't, you're going to fall into a coma, starved. Either way, you're bound to have a stake driven through your heart. This is a diverting little problem, isn't it, Christopher?"

I wait for him to go on. His face brightens and he says, "Here, let's think about this idea."

"What?" I grunt.

"You could go join the vampire band. They'd teach you the rudiments of killing and concealment. Offer emotional support. That might be the only place you'd be safe . . ."

"You think I should?"

"But, of course, you have unfortunately just murdered their G.o.d and sole hope of victory. Soon they'll figure it out; then they'll bite your throat out. So I guess that isn't such a good idea after all." He shrugs. "You know what, Christopher? You're screwed. Well, I'm going now."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I say, stunned. "You are a complete b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Not so far off the truth," he agrees blandly. "Hypostatic parthenogenesis."

"You can't just leave me."

"Of course I can. I'll take a lot of pleasure in it, too."

"You can't leave!"

"Not without slapping you first," he agrees and slaps me for no reason.

I stagger back against a tree.

"It takes so little," he muses, "to cause biological beings pain." His leg swipes upward and catapults into my shin. I topple on the ground, swearing and clutching. "Very strange." He t.i.tters. "I've been given so much power, Christopher, so much in payment for this little gig. I feel almost young again. Do you understand? I'm seeing new things! I'll be like a G.o.d soon! Despoiling worlds! A reign of terror! Ha!" He performs a quick dance upon the summer moss.

I'm rising to my feet as he hops in his jig. I'm careful, slow, ready to attack.

Above him, the horrified moon looks down through the black branches of pine. He trots and skips, chuckling and hopping, clapping and laughing beneath the night sky.

My teeth are now moving, they're sliding and pointing, they're ready for battle and blood in my veins.

He's tapping and spinning and whirling and laughing; he's hooting great names in the still of the night.

I take a step forward.

I scowl.

And I pounce.

Whack! His fist flies out, and I go careening backward, my nose splattering blood down my face. His fist flies out, and I go careening backward, my nose splattering blood down my face.

I'm on all fours again, kneeling in the moss.

Blood in my mouth.

I'm thirsty now. I lick at it quickly.

His shoes move across the moss toward me.

I'm hungry for the attack. I tense my muscles.

"It's bad manners to kick a man when he's down," Chet says, "but it's just Too! Much! d.a.m.n! Fun!" and with each word, he delivers a savage kick in my side or my arm or my head.

I roll.

I can't tell which way is up. I feel the weight of my body, but can't tell how it's falling. My lips are sticky. Sticky. I lick them. I want his blood.

"Why me?" I gasp. I want his blood.

"Why did I choose you, Christopher? Because you threw the Forces of Light off my trail," he says. "They thought that because you were a child, you were innocent, working for them. It took them months to figure out the truth. And by the time they did, you were marked as mine; there was nothing they could do." His voice is ringing in my head - all around me, like a halo of feedback in burning red. "But do you know the other reason I chose you, Christopher? Because I knew you were an incompetent: self-pitying; self-absorbed; self-centered. The perfect teen. I knew you wouldn't ask the right questions at the right time. In other words," he says, leaning down and placing his hand kindly on my crippled shoulder, "I chose you because, to quote Tom, your best friend in this world, you are a complete p.e.c.k.e.rhead."

He stands upright.

I lunge for his feet.

I pa.s.s through them, and he stands with his foot on my head.

He rocks the heel against my forehead. "No, Christopher. You won't win this one."

I am thinking wildly in my head, under his foot. What I realize is he must take me with him. I must become his a.s.sistant. I will help him in his evil; then one day, I will turn. I will betray him.

"You've got to take me with you. I'll help you."

"Good-bye, Christopher."

"You've got to! You made me what I am!"

"No, I didn't. Good-bye."

"Chet! Pleathe! I can help you. We can work together."

"No, we can't, Christopher. I can read your thoughts now, and they're stupid."

"Chet!"

"That's not my name. You don't even know my name."

The foot lifts off me.

I lunge again.

Again I fall through him.

He steps back.

"You can't -"

"I can."

"No, Chet!"

"That's not my name."

"Pleathe!"

"No."

"G.o.d, pleathe!"

"Good-bye."

"I'm tho alone! I'm tho alone! I'm tho alone!" I scream, terrified.

For a moment, the un-celestial being eyes me up and down. Almost with compa.s.sion. Then slowly, whimsically, he recites, "In the midst of life, we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succor, sucker?"

He smiles at me.

Then he vanishes and leaves me appalled; for I know, and realize, that all he has said is true.

I am in my room. am in my room.

I'm grounded for staying out after midnight. Somehow, that does not seem important to me now.

I look at my posters on my wall and at the stack of CDs next to my CD player. They don't seem like mine anymore. I don't want to listen to any of them. I don't want to look at the posters. They are of someone else's favorite thrash bands. They are covered with someone else's clever comments in black and silver magic markers. So I tear them down and crumple them up.

For a minute, I consider drawing big Xs on the walls where they hung. But I can't. It would take too long. Instead, I throw the pen against the wall. I pick it up and throw it again. I can't be violent enough to the pen, so I twist it and step on it until it breaks and spreads ink on the tasteful wall-to-wall carpeting.

Earlier today, I saw Lolli die on TV. We were all sitting around the television, eating together and watching the news, like everyone else in town. They were showing the footage as I came back from throwing up.

Even with the special lens filters they use, Lolli hardly showed up on the screen.

". . . Unfortunately, the police did not manage to get the vampiress inside the courthouse. During the ride from the Rigozzi house, where she was first injured, she regained consciousness. It appears that the substantial contusions, breaks, and fractures she sustained as a result of the automobile impact had healed to such an extent that when the police attempted to remove her from the vehicle, she attacked. Fortunately, her spine was still snapped, leaving her unable to move the lower half of her body. The crowd . . ."

I didn't listen any longer. The words were a babble. I just watched.

It had all happened as Chet said it had. The police went to take Lolli out of the car and transport her into the courthouse. She lashed out. One of the escorts tripped and fell. The crowd couldn't be controlled. They swarmed in around her. She tried to fight them or run, her eyes rolling crazily, her hips lying motionless in the muck of the gutter.

People poured around her with knives, with stones, with bits of gla.s.s. Each one taking their turn to gouge. Piling on top of one another. Screaming and yelling. Then I couldn't see her. People were all around her. They were on top of her. She was gone beneath them. She was gone.

At the back of the crowd, I saw Chet. He was there before the courthouse, standing at the back of the crowd, his face red and distorted with rage, shaking his fist, urging them on to kill her.

". . . of sixteen apparent years of age. Her companion, nicknamed Bat, is still at large. Peter Gallagher, the teen injured in the first heroic struggle with the vampires, was rushed to the hospital, where he is reported to be in serious condition."