Praise to Allah, the Almighty, the Merciful, the Magnificent.

You idolatrous infidels, traitorous apostates, and turncoat deviants have violated the pure way of the Prophet. Now the splendor of the spearhead of jihad is aimed at your hearts.

We demand the swift and immediate return of our brother, the beloved of the Prophet, cleric Ha.s.san Omar and the holy relic in his hands.

When that which is sacred is restored to us, that which the Great Satan prizes will be returned to you.

If the profane violation of the Prophet-may Allah bless him and greet him-and that of our brother cleric Omar does not cease, a fatwa issued by the gracious brother Abu Masab decrees that your death ship, your liberty, and every living thing around it shall be struck down by the swift lightning of the Almighty.

May G.o.d protect Ha.s.san Omar and watch over him; may his religion, his book, and Sunna the Prophet aid him. We ask the Almighty to bless him, us, and all Muslims. With his divine aid, may our clear victory and Ha.s.san Omar's release from suffering be at hand. We ask the Almighty to gather us as he sees fit for the glory of the next world and the prize of the hereafter.

-The Wahhabi Mujahedeen

"Now jist what do you get from that?" Benny asked.

"About as much as you did, I guess. Audrey's theory about kidnappings and exchanges was dead-on. From what I can figure out, the Wahhib Mujahedeen thinks we're holding the cleric Ha.s.san Omar and some 'holy relic' They want both back in exchange for the Intrepid Intrepid. If they don't get them, they're issuing a fatwa, an order, to destroy not just the ship, but America."

"Do we have this here Omar?" Benny asked, reclining back against the plush cushions and staring up at a huge chandelier.

"d.a.m.ned if I know. Maybe he's one of those 'persons of interest' who J said was in custody."

Benny contemplated the chandelier for a bit longer; then she sat up and took the letter into her perfectly manicured hands. She studied it for a few minutes. "What do you make of this 'relic' business?" she asked at last.

A strange uneasiness sent a shiver up my spine. "It's a guess, but maybe whoever took Omar took something else. I have a bad feeling about it. I'm afraid all h.e.l.l is about to turn loose if we can't get this cleric and his relic back."

"I sure do agree with you. Just holding this here letter makes me real nervous," she said, handing it back to me. I folded it up and put it in the envelope.

She shook her head. "That stuff about 'every living thing around it shall be struck down by the swift lightning of the Almighty' makes me think they're planning some kind of missile strike or explosion unless they get what they want. It don't set easy with me. It makes me think the Intrepid Intrepid might become their weapon to do it. might become their weapon to do it.

"It's got me all worked up. I want to do something-besides just deliver this to our head man, I mean. Any ideas?" she asked.

I took my own long look at the chandelier. The light bouncing off the crystals mirrored the motion of my thoughts as I came at the situation from every angle I could think of. Finally I made up my mind. I stood and offered Benny my hand. "Come on, girlfriend. In my humble opinion it's time to go over J's head. Let's visit my mother."

"Sugar, you sure do know how to rile up that man. He's gonna be madder than a cut snake when he finds out."

I figured J was going to be p.i.s.sed off when he found out about me and Darius. I might as well lump together all the bad news he was going to get. I pushed open the doors of the Palace Hotel and stepped into the warm city night.

I squared my shoulders, descended the stairs, and started down the long path that once belonged to the Villard Mansion, pa.s.sed between the double fountains, crossed through the wrought-iron gates, and stepped out on Madison Avenue. With vampire hunters roaming the city and my heart in critical condition already, I really couldn't worry about J's perpetually bad temper.

I looked back over my shoulder. "You know, Benny, about J? I just don't give a s.h.i.t."

When I phoned my mother, she offered to send her usual car service to take us up to Scarsdale. She asked me to hold for a minute while she contacted them. When she came back on the line, she said the service would pick us up at eleven. I didn't complain about the wait. It gave me time to run an errand.

The FedEx Kinko's on Forty-seventh Street and Avenue of the Americas, conveniently open twenty-four hours, was located only four blocks from the Palace. But two of those were avenue blocks. Neither Benny nor I had on walking shoes. We took a cab.

The fluorescent lights of the brightly lit store bothered my eyes, but I shouldered my way in, Benny right behind me. I was here to take out some insurance.

I had become a cautious person over the centuries. History had taught me some invaluable lessons. Government doc.u.ments had a disturbing way of vanishing as if they had never existed. So as insurance, I not only made copies of Shalid Khan's letter for Benny and me, I slipped another copy in a FedEx envelope and addressed it to myself. Then I had the letter scanned and e-mailed to my home computer. I might be overdoing it, but I was short on trust and long on suspicion.

A few minutes before eleven, Benny and I were back on Madison Avenue in front of the New York Palace, waiting on the sidewalk for our ride as if we had never left.

St. Patrick's lay directly in front of us across the avenue. This view of the building, the largest Gothic-style church in America, was magnificent. The carved gray stone, stained-gla.s.s windows, and soaring arches proclaimed the glory of G.o.d, or at least the glory of the archdiocese of the city of New York. But I wasn't contemplating the architecture.

I was remembering that barely a month ago I was supposed to have my wedding there, me-a vampire bride in a cathedral-wearing an off-white ivory satin dress with a puddle train. Benny and Audrey would have been there too, holding calla lilies. Cormac had promised to show up in drag. And in one of the side chapels, I was supposed to have become Mrs. St. Mien Fitzmaurice.

The fact that my groom wanted a ceremony in a Roman Catholic cathedral officiated by a monsignor should have been a red flag that the relationship was a marriage of heaven and h.e.l.l and doomed from the start. Nevertheless I felt a pang as I looked at the building. At least a man had loved me enough to want to marry me and to spend eternity with me. That's an astonishing commitment. He was willing to make it. I wasn't.

Just as the church bells pealed the hour, a white Rolls-Royce pulled up. It sure wasn't most people's idea of a "regular car service," which at best employed a Lincoln Town Car. But it was Mar-Mar's. And it was our ride.

Benny looked happier than a pig in you-know-what when the chauffeur got out, walked around the car, and said, "Miss Urban? Miss Polycarp? Yes? Please get in," and he opened the door for us.

"Oh, don't pinch me, 'cause if I'm dreaming I don't want to wake up," Benny whispered as she slid across the glove leather of the backseat. "There ain't nothing like this back in the Miz'ora hills where I come from. Shee-it, in the holler where I was born, we thought we're living high on the hog if we had indoor plumbing."

I climbed in behind her, leaned back in the seat, and pulled out my cell phone to check my messages again. Nothing appeared in the window, not even a text message from Darius. It both p.i.s.sed me off and hurt like h.e.l.l at the same time.

My mother was waiting for us outside, standing in front of the door of her Scarsdale house. Although she had pa.s.sed her thousandth birthday, she was pert, pretty, and appeared at the very most to be in her early twenties. Unless one noticed her eyes. My mother's eyes were ancient and wise. Sometimes they were terrifying.

Tonight Marozia Urban wore a floor-length diaphanous black gown with a high collar. It reflected no light. Around her neck on a heavy gold chain hung an amulet-a small vial carved of lapis lazuli, surrounded by an ornate filigree of finely worked metal. Its style was medieval. Its content was a drop of blood said to belong to Dracula himself.

Her attire attested to the vampire she truly was. I was surprised at her choice of clothes. She usually wore jeans and tie-dye T-shirts left over from her Dead-head days. And this was a weeknight at home. Something was going on.

My mother smiled without warmth at Benny, then stood on tiptoe to plant an air kiss by my cheek. Uncharacteristically reserved, almost grave in her demeanor, she appeared less than overjoyed to see me.

Once Benny and I were ushered into the living room, I saw that Mar-Mar was in the midst of a meeting. A dozen venerable vampires sat around a large folding table. All wore black. All had amulets similar to Mar-Mar's around their necks. A few bottles of imported Pellegrino water sat next to some tumblers. A laptop computer loaded with a PowerPoint presentation was projecting a map of the city of New York on a screen.

My mother introduced us. "Some of you have already met my daughter. For those of you who have not, this is Daphne. I believe at least one of you has met her companion, but for the rest of you, this lovely vampire is Benjamina Polycarp, a native of Branson, Missouri."

The six men and six women nodded at us. n.o.body spoke. Everyone looked as sober as a judge. My mother turned to Benny and me. "We are having a council meeting." To the council she said, "Please excuse me for a few minutes, and do carry on with the issue on the table."

I didn't know all that much about this vampire governing body except that my mother, as usual, had her fingers in it. I had asked her about it once upon a time. She evaded my question, but I had figured out a few things on my own.

For one thing, the vampires who held seats on the Vampire Council were very old. I guessed that they could be the world's oldest existing vampires. As for what the council did, I wasn't sure. I did know they could decide who lived and died. My almost-bridegroom, St. Julien Fitzmaurice, had been marked for death by them after I had refused to make him a vampire like me. He ran from them still.

The council's role as a watchdog agency regarding vampire hunters, however, did come as news to me. But I wasn't surprised. I mentally filed the information.

Before we walked away, I tried to take a good look at their faces. I recognized Zoe, the old crone who Benny had met, the mother of the now-dust Louis from New Orleans. Other faces looked familiar, but I couldn't put names to them.

Little by little I intended to learn more about them. Knowledge was power, as they say. Today this select group of the world's oldest vampires were my allies. But tomorrow they could be enemies.

Mar-Mar led Benny and me into the kitchen and shut the door. She turned to me. "You said you had uncovered a code-red situation and it was urgent that you see me. Not your commanding officer, J. You had to see me me. Now, what is it?"

Benny raised her eyebrows. Mar-Mar's daggers usually remained sheathed in front of company.

I was taken aback. Mar-Mar clearly was barely holding her anger in check. Something had really set her off.

I didn't waste time with words. I removed the envelope from my purse and handed it over. She noticed that it had been opened. Only then did I explain. "We obtained this tonight. Once we read it, we decided you should see it without delay."

Mar-Mar turned away from us and read the letter. When she was through, she carefully folded it, put it back in the envelope, then slipped the envelope into a pocket hidden in the folds of her gown.

I waited expectantly for her to discuss its contents with us. Benny's attention too was fixed on my mother, as she awaited her response. She spoke, but not of the letter. Instead she turned to another topic entirely.

"As you saw, I am in the middle of a council meeting. An emergency session. Both of you should know what is going on. Daphne, you were attacked by a vampire hunter earlier this week."

And she doesn't know the half of it, I thought.

"In the past few days there have been dozens of such attacks. We have lost a few members of our community who were surprised and overtaken. As of this evening we have verified that ten vampires have been exterminated. There may be more, but since vampires are loners and few have living relatives, the exact number is hard to validate.

"These attacks came as a surprise to me, and to the council. We thought we had largely reduced the possibility of the Church hunting us down because you, along with J and Cormac O'Reilly, retrieved the dossiers on New York's vampires from Opus Dei headquarters early in the spring."

Yeah, we sure did, I thought. It had almost killed the three of us. When I had received the orders to enter Opus Dei headquarters, I didn't understand why. The Darkwings were in the middle of an important mission: trying to keep a presidential candidate from being a.s.sa.s.sinated. All of a sudden we were ordered to break into the huge brick building that sat like a hulking ma.s.s on Thirty-fourth Street.

All my mother had told me at the time was that the Vatican had given Opus Dei boxes of historical information on the death of my father, Pope Urban VI. I wanted desperately to know what had happened to him.

We found the boxes easily, too easily. We tried to move them, only to discover they had been b.o.o.by-trapped. In the harrowing moments that followed J had been injured. All of us had nearly died.

Later I discovered that my mother had known there was a considerable risk that I, her only daughter, could have been exterminated. I also found out that everything my mother had told me about the boxes was a lie.

The only historical doc.u.ment in the boxes we brought out of Opus Dei's headquarters was something called the Great Book, or Liber Magnus Liber Magnus. Mostly the cartons were filled with files on vampires in every major city of the world. They held nothing about my father at all.

What bothered me the most was that my mother's lie had been unnecessary. I would have agreed to retrieve the vampire dossiers without hesitation. My anger surged at the memory as I brought my attention back to the present. My mother had continued speaking. I watched her mouth moving, wondering how many more lies I'd hear tonight.

"I fear that a duplicate of at least some of the New York files must have remained in the hands of Opus Dei," she said. "The files gave vampire names, home addresses, work addresses, and known a.s.sociates. Now the vampire hunters have targeted specific vampires and attacked them at or near their homes. Some who worked were hit at their offices. Opus Dei's having duplicates of the files is the only explanation for such targeted attacks.

"The council has already voted on issuing an alert to as many local vampires as we can reach. The more difficult issues on the table are how to identify, locate, and rid ourselves of the menace."

So, it had been the crazies in Opus Dei who had sent the hunters after me and after us all. A tremendous feeling of relief washed over me. Darius's arriving at the same time as the hunters had had been a coincidence. But I wanted to be sure. been a coincidence. But I wanted to be sure.

"Are you saying that Darius della Chiesa had nothing to do with the vampire hunter invasion?" I asked.

My mother's lips pressed together in a line. She stared at me, her eyes hard; then she answered as if unwilling to say the words. "I would not conclude he had nothing nothing to do with it. I have it on information and belief that he did, at one time, have a connection to these people. I do not know at this time if he still has such a connection." to do with it. I have it on information and belief that he did, at one time, have a connection to these people. I do not know at this time if he still has such a connection."

Mar-Mar didn't exonerate Darius, but I knew that if she had any concrete evidence that he was involved, she'd use it to discredit him. Hope blossomed in my heart that Darius had told me the truth.

Yet why were my mother's eyes boring into me, angry and adamantine?

She spoke again. "But there is something you should be aware of, daughter of mine. The letter written by an extremist Islamic sect demands the return of a cleric, Ha.s.san Omar."

I nodded.

"Do you know anything about this situation?" she asked me in an accusing voice, ignoring Benny completely. My palms began to sweat. Anxiety tightened the muscles in my chest. When I uttered the word no no it was barely more than a croak. it was barely more than a croak.

"Well, my dear, here is what I I know. Ha.s.san Omar was abducted from the streets of Srinagar by two U.S. intelligence agents. One of those agents was Darius della Chiesa." know. Ha.s.san Omar was abducted from the streets of Srinagar by two U.S. intelligence agents. One of those agents was Darius della Chiesa."

Chapter 12.

"What dire offense from amorous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things."-Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"

The revelation hit me like an electroshock treatment. For the next few seconds I was so stunned, I did not realize Mar-Mar had continued speaking. Finally I gathered my shattered thoughts well enough to pay attention to what she was saying.

"The abduction was a rogue operation," Mar-Mar explained. "Black ops. Not sanctioned. Opportunistic. That in itself has become almost routine." She lifted one delicate shoulder dismissively.

"But sometimes these things blow up in our faces. Remember in the spring of 2007? Italian authorities filed charges against U.S. agents and their Italian operatives for kidnapping a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Rome and taking him to Egypt.

"The incident became an intelligence and public relations disaster. This situation is much worse, capable of triggering a devastating act of terror on American soil."

My face showed that I didn't understand.

"Let me spell it out for you. Darius and his partner screwed up. Big-time. It wasn't whom they took. It was when they took him. They grabbed Omar on a holy day right after he had addressed a crowd of thousands in the huge quadrangle outside of the mosque of Hazratbal."

I looked at Benny. She shook her head. We were both missing something important, obviously.

My mother was growing impatient with what she evidently believed was exceptional ignorance on my part.

"You really don't know? I a.s.sumed that since you have been dealing with Islamic extremists..." She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. I had disappointed her once again.

"Let me explain then. The mosque of Hazratbal is known throughout the world because it purportedly houses a hair from the head of the Prophet Muhammad. The single strand of hair is kept inside a crystal bottle, which is finely decorated with worked silver wire. The location of the bottle is proscribed by ancient ritual, inside a series of containers, like a Russian matroyshka doll.

"To get to it you must begin by pa.s.sing four guards outside a cell, which is the first of four cells, each inside the other. Within the innermost cell is a cabinet. Inside the cabinet is a wooden box that holds a wooden box that holds another wooden box. In the smallest box lies the bottle, which is wrapped in three cloth bags.

"On Muslim holy days, one of the hereditary keepers of the hair takes the bottle out and attaches it to a chain that is locked around his waist. He goes forth to address the crowd outside and holds up the bottle, still on its chain, to display it it to the believers who are waiting in the courtyard of the mosque. to the believers who are waiting in the courtyard of the mosque.

"This act sets off pandemonium in the crowd. People faint, throw themselves on the ground wailing, break into tears. Are you following me now?"

I nodded. "Yes, I get it. The keeper was Ha.s.san Omar, and when he was abducted the hair of the Prophet went with him."