There was a shout behind me. But I was nearly blind and deaf now, all my senses turned inward, focusing on an aching emptiness demanding to be filled. I stumbled against the side of the car and yanked on the pa.s.senger door. As the door flew open rough hands grasped my arms and shoulders. I was wrestled away from the car, but not before the dome light came on, illuminating a grisly scene. The rotting remains of a human corpse occupied the driver's seat, held upright by a large wooden stake that transfixed the sternum with the point emerging from the rear of the upholstery.

I managed to shrug off one of my attackers and was just turning my attention to the other two when the hooker in leather stepped up and pushed a potholder for chicken cacciatore in my face.

At least that was my impression just before my head exploded and my eyes turned inside out. Then my legs fell off.

All that I could feel now was the viselike grip of other hands pinning my arms behind me and the hailstorm that had suddenly opened up inside my head.

There was a sensation of movement, though I could not have said whether it was up, down, forward, sideways, or backward. Slowly, my eyes started to pop back into their rightful position and I began to distinguish alternating yellow slashes against a black background. Parking slot lines on blacktop, I decided as we finally reached our destination: another limo on the far side of the parking lot. The trunk lid was popped open and I was heaved up and into the car's cavernous boot. After a lifetime of conventional transportation I was getting two limo rides in one night-how lucky can a guy get?

I moved my head a little, praying that it wouldn't roll off my neck again. Good news: it didn't and, looking down, my legs still appeared to be attached to my body. I looked back up in time to see thesweep of approaching headlights illuminate the trunk lid.

"Here," said a female voice, "if there's trouble, you know what to do. The Doman says we either bring him in or see to it that Pagelovitch doesn't get him back."

There was trouble: all h.e.l.l broke loose just ten seconds later. There was screaming. There was yelling. There was the sound of things breaking: metal things, gla.s.s things, flesh and bone things.

Then a man was bending over me, a switchblade in his hand. Cleverly, I countered with a forearm block. Stupidly, my arm refused to obey my brain and merely twitched.

Then the man was gone, propelled up and over the trunk lid by a white-gloved hand upon his shoulder.

But not before he had brought the blade around in a sweeping arc, slicing through my throat.

As I was drowning in my own blood, I looked up into an increasingly familiar face just before the darkness rolled up and over my own.

Chapter Nine.

"Daddy, look at that smoke!"

I glance in the rearview mirror. "Honey, you need to keep your seat belt on."

"But look, Daddy! I bet there's a fire! Can we go see?"

I keep scanning the road for signs of the outskirts of Weir. Nothing yet. "I thought you were hungry, sweet pea."

"It can't be that far away. Maybe we can go help!"

I look off to the side and, sure enough, there's a column of smoke rising above the fields to the north.

"Baby, we're almost to Weir. We can stop and get lunch-why are you giggling?"

"You sounded funny, Dad."

"I did?"

Jenny lays a cool hand on my arm. "You said 'we're almost to Weir.' It does sound a bit redundant."

I smile. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Please, Daddy?"

I start looking for a turnoff. "Okay, princess. If we can help, we will. But we won't stop if the fire department's there."

"How come?"

" 'Cause we'd just be in the way, then. And we don't want to look like ghouls."

"What are ghouls, Daddy?"

Jenny loosens her seat belt so she can turn to speak to Kirsten. "Ghouls are- . . . flesh-eating monsters that skulk around cemeteries and rob graves. . . .

"-people who like to be around when bad things happen to people," Jenny says. "They're not reallythere to help; they just want to watch other people's suffering and misfortune."

"Like on the news?" my daughter asks.

>The blood is helping.

I chuckle despite the odd distraction. "Yes, honey. Like on the news, sometimes."

Jenny c.o.c.ks an eyebrow. "Sometimes?" she taunts. And grows transparent.

>He's starting to respond.

A gravel road appears at the periphery of my vision. I slow and begin the turn.

>I don't like this.

The smoke is closer now, rising to veil the sun.

>If he were completely transformed the wound would have merely inconvenienced him.

It's getting darker now. And whispering voices are distracting me.

>If he were completely human it would have killed him.

The van fades away completely and I am swallowed up in a smokey blackness.

I stayed in darkness a very long time.

During that time sensations returned and, with them, came pain. Then, gradually, the pain began to ease. Became discomfort. Gave way to la.s.situde. Ennui.

Then discomfort returned: pressure, a weight on my chest. Harder to breathe. My throat began to itch, to tingle. To tickle.

I forced my left eye open. A hill rose before me, brown and blurry. I forced my right eye open. The left eye drooped shut with the shift in my attention. The hill resolved itself into furry haunches.

With a tail.

Two tails.

The cat was lying across my chest, its head nuzzling beneath my chin, and now I could feel the rasp of its tongue licking across my neck.

It was a horrifyingly pleasant sensation.

I turned my head to the left and observed the needles in my arm. The tubes to the needles led up to several packets of blood and a couple of packets of nearly clear liquid. The movement of my head disturbed the cat: it stopped its nuzzling, rising up on its hindquarters to regard me with golden eyes. Then it leapt from my chest to the floor and I heard the whispery sound of its paws as it scurried off, across the floor. A moment later there was the sound of a door and footsteps-human footsteps-coming toward me.

Dr. Mooncloud entered my field of vision, followed by a large, bearded and balding black man.

"You're awake," she said.

"Brilliant diagnosis, Doctor," was my intended reply. I opened my mouth, but only a strangled wheeze emerged.

"Don't try to talk," she ordered. "Your vocal cords have been damaged." She turned and gestured toward the black man in the white ducks. "This is Dr. Burton."

Burton smiled and nodded as he made a notation on my clipboard. "Pleased to see you awake." His voice was surprisingly soft.

I made my own mental notation that the good doctor had fangs.

Now the Doman and Suki appeared. "He's awake," Pagelovitch observed.

Mooncloud nodded. "A good sign. But he's not out of the woods, yet."

Lupe and Luis Garou arrived. Lupe was using a cane, now, circling the bed while her brother asked: "Is he awake?" Lupe took my right hand in hers. "You're awake, I see."

I was surprised that I didn't feel more secure, surrounded as I was by all these brilliant diagnosticians.

The Doman was all business and a little curt. "What can he tell us, Doctor?"

"Nothing, yet. His larynx hasn't had time to heal."

"It's been two days, Doctor."

"I know it's been two days, Stefan," she said. "Considering his stage of transformation, we are doubly lucky that he didn't die immediately and that the blood infusions brought him back."

"But not very far, I see." Elizabeth Bachman was standing in the doorway. "Is he awake?"

I groaned.

"Hush," Mooncloud scolded. "I don't want you doing anything that will interfere with your healing."

"What about a pad?" the Doman asked.

"I'd rather keep the wound uncovered and exposed to the open air."

"Kk," I said, trying to say "cat."

"I meant a pad of paper and a pen or pencil," the Doman said, "so we can ask some questions and he can write the answers."

"You shut up!" Mooncloud said.

Pagelovitch bristled.

"Not you. Him." She pointed at me. "As for the pad, we can try, but I don't want to tire him."

The Doman said something else, but I missed it.

I slipped back into the darkness.

The smoke fills the sky, now, hovering over the farm like an old, mud-spattered shroud. The old farmhouse is still intact though its second story is mostly hidden by thick billows of heavy smoke and flames are starting to show through the windows on the first floor. I look for a place to park the van that won't get us too close and won't get in the way of the fire trucks when they finally do arrive.

"Look, Daddy, there's a man."

I set the parking brake and look around. "Where?"

Kirsten points. "He just went into the barn."

I stumble out of the van and hesitate. The house or the barn, first? And what if no one has called the fire department? There was no sign of nearby neighbors and townsfolk might a.s.sume a farmer was merely burning off part of a field.

I turn and toss the keys through the window. "Jenny, drive into town or find the nearest phone and make sure the fire department knows about this!"

Kirsten pouts. "I wanta come with you!"

"No," I gesture, half pointing, half waving. "I want you to stay with your mother-help her!"

I turn and run toward the house.

The barn.

As I hesitate I hear the van start down the road behind me.

Come to the barn.

I turn and run toward the barn. But not as quickly as I was running toward the house.

Then I was walking.

I was walking through the desert at night.

It was cold and I was thirsty.

Two yellow moons hung in the night skygrowing brighter and brighter chasing the darkness away becoming cat's eyes that watched intently as I struggled back to consciousness.

The cat merrowed and hopped up on the nightstand to lay across the call b.u.t.ton.

Dr. Burton entered the room. "Ah, you're awake."