"Sure," Audrey answered.

"Was Martin there last night?" Benny's current heartthrob usually led the Chasers.

"No, he wasn't. I thought maybe he was with you, to tell the truth. He called in and left a message with the bartender that he wasn't coming."

"Oh," Benny said, and got very quiet.

Rogue picked up his bottle of beer and chugged it. Benny's love life interested him not at all. He took the bottle from his lips, belched loudly, and said, "So what the f.u.c.k was that meeting with J about?"

n.o.body said anything. Finally I spoke. "Not what it seems to be, that's for sure. Something doesn't sit right."

"Yeah, that's what I think too," he said, finishing up the last of his beer and whacking the empty bottle onto the table. "So do we go looking for this ghost ship or what?"

I didn't answer right away, but I looked back at him. He was so much smarter than he played. He also knew a lot more about the spy game than he let on, having worked for the CIA in the past. Finally I said, holding his dark, hard eyes with mine, "I think we go looking for the ship and turn up whatever it is they really want us to find."

"Now y'all are taking turns I don't rightly follow," Benny said. "Spit it out plain and simple, will you?"

"I just meant that they don't need us us to find a missing ship. I'm sure the navy put their own intelligence people on it the minute it happened. But they already know we're connected to this somehow." to find a missing ship. I'm sure the navy put their own intelligence people on it the minute it happened. But they already know we're connected to this somehow."

"How?" Benny asked, her eyes widening.

I shrugged.

Rogue said, "I sure as s.h.i.t don't know, but I'd rather find out before it comes up and bites us in the a.s.s."

Cormac had a tall draft beer in front of him. He moved his fingers up and down the condensed moisture on the outside of the gla.s.s. "Any suggestions on how we do that?" he asked.

"Gather intelligence." Audrey, the shy, quiet one of us, stated the obvious. "I'll fool around on my computer later. See if anything else strange has happened lately. Anything that might connect the dots from the Intrepid Intrepid to us. And I'll check out the technology Rogue mentioned and do some research on military cloaking devices." to us. And I'll check out the technology Rogue mentioned and do some research on military cloaking devices."

"Good idea," I said. "And I'm thinking of gathering some humint. You game, Benny, or are you busy after this?"

She paused, then said, "I want to go someplace later. But I've got some time. Who did you have in mind to talk to, or can I guess?"

I smiled at her. "Guess."

"Our favorite NYPD police lieutenant?"

"Right the first time."

Her sudden laughter rang out like silver bells. "We sure do make him as miserable as a hound dog tied out in the rain, now, don't we?"

"How about you boys?" I asked. "What are your plans?"

"Well, now," Rogue said. "I think we can find something to do tonight. We didn't come to this here bar down at the piers by accident."

I had sold him short again. I was beginning to realize that no matter how he looked, Rogue acted deliberately. In my estimation he went up from the level of something that crawled out from beneath a rock to just a slimy son of a b.i.t.c.h. He seemed to read my thoughts.

"You're not better than me, you know," he said to me in a low voice. "We proved that not so long ago."

My mouth got hard. I glared at him. I was so annoyed, I didn't notice somebody behind me until I felt a hand slide down my back with too much familiarity. I didn't even look to see who it was. I got up, whirled around, and sent a right cross into a jaw.

Sam, the cowboy biker with green eyes, went down like a toppled tree into a drinker with a handlebar mustache at the next table. Dandy Dan the mustache man jumped up and started throwing a punch in my direction. A shadow came between it and me, and the blow bounced off of Rogue's sleeve.

But a chain reaction had started. The brawl rippled out across the room. Screams and yells ricocheted off the walls. The canned music over the sound system changed to a fast zydeco, which egged everybody on.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Audrey like a wild-haired Valkyrie, standing on the table swinging a chair, her eyes gone a little crazy. Benny and Cormac had chosen to get out of Dodge and were heading for the exit. I landed a kick in the solar plexus of some dumba.s.s wearing a backward baseball cap, and he bent over double. Then I launched myself onto the back of the yahoo fighting with Rogue.

His opponent now occupied, Rogue took the opportunity to grab Audrey by the waist while he dodged her chair and dragged her off the table. As he carried her past me he took my arm in an iron grip.

"Hey!" I yelled, and let go of the neck of the guy I was trying to choke.

"Time to go, Rambo," he yelled, and gave me a mighty heave, literally tossing me toward the front of the room. I didn't need to be told twice. I gained my footing and sprinted for the door.

When we got outside the streets had become blanketed in a dense fog. Benny and Cormac waited there until they saw us emerge. They took off down the block. We followed on their heels until all of us were swallowed up by mist. In the doorway of a brick building we finally stopped.

I didn't know what had come over me in the bar; I sort of snapped. Now, without expecting it, I started laughing my fool head off.

"You know," Rogue said, "they're not going to let us back in there if you keep starting s.h.i.t."

I sat right down on the sidewalk and howled. It struck me that I felt better. In fact, I felt good. I guess I had been p.i.s.sed off at everything and everybody, and getting into a fistfight with total strangers had been a release. Not just a release: It was fun. I started laughing harder. After I'd spent more than four hundred years on this planet, my life had reached a point that getting into a free-for-all in a biker bar had become my idea of a good time.

Maybe I didn't know who the h.e.l.l I was after all.

And maybe my heart was finally healing. The sadness had lifted; the sense of loss had dissipated. Suddenly I got up, brushed myself off, and started at a trot back to the bar.

"Where are you going?" Benny called after me.

"Just be a minute," I called back to her. "Hang on."

A number of guys were now standing around in the street in front of Charlie's. I saw who I was looking for and went up to him.

"Sam?" I said.

The cowboy biker gave me a questioning look. He had one eye swollen shut and a bruise starting to darken his jaw.

Despite the damage, his strong face with its wide mouth, straight nose, and high cheekbones retained its good looks. He had pulled his sandy hair back into a ponytail. He looked rugged without the wear and weathering of a real cowboy; his waist was small, his chest broad. By every estimation he was a real hunk and a half.

"You ain't gonna hit me again, are you?" he drawled, and smacked his hat on his thigh in a practiced way, as if to get any dust off. He glanced at me with a look all lazy and sweet. He didn't seem the least bit worried for his safety.

I grinned at him and stuck out my hand. He took it and we shook.

"I'm Daphne," I said.

"Sam," he said.

"Look, Sam, I just wanted to say, hope there's no hard feelings."

Sam smiled. "Nah. I was outta line. You hit like a G.o.dd.a.m.n mule, though."

"Yeah, I know," I said, enjoying this. "I have to go," I added.

"Maybe next time, Miss Daphne," Sam answered with a warm smile.

I started to walk back to my friends, but looked back at him and winked. "Sure, Sam. Why not? Maybe next time."

Benny called Det. Lt Moses Johnson from her cell phone. He told her that he'd drive to West Street to pick us up in five minutes. He didn't say where he was, but he had to be somewhere close, in Chelsea or the Village.

Meanwhile Audrey caught a cab. She would go home and get to work, but was stopping off at her vampire club first. Rogue and Cormac headed back toward the bar after telling us they intended to make "inquiries" into any suspicious activity down along the waterfront or in the vicinity of the Intrepid's Intrepid's dock. I watched the fog swallow them up. Rogue didn't spell it out in so many words, but it was understood that he would ask his criminal friends about any talk on the street that might give us a lead. dock. I watched the fog swallow them up. Rogue didn't spell it out in so many words, but it was understood that he would ask his criminal friends about any talk on the street that might give us a lead.

We needed one. Right now we were looking for a ghost ship and had nothing more than ideas as insubstantial as air. We needed to figure out who had the Intrepid Intrepid, for I was sure someone did, before we knew what the Darkwings could possibly have to do with the situation. A shudder caused my body to quake with such force that Benny noticed.

"You cold? You can borrow my jacket."

I shook my head. My cold was spiritual, not physical. "No, I'm okay. I was thinking about what Rogue said."

"Which was?" she said as she opened her purse and brought out a tube of lipstick. She applied the bright red to her full lips without using a mirror.

"That something is going to bite us in the a.s.s if we don't stop it first."

"That's true, sugar. You ask me, we've been barking up the wrong tree. I don't think we've been thinking too straight on this."

"What do you mean? How else can we think about it?"

"We ain't gettin' the right answers 'cause we ain't asking the right questions. First off, why would somebody steal an old aircraft carrier? Come on, brainstorm with me. Anything come to mind?"

"Um... to use? To take planes near a target and attack?" I mused.

"That's a thought. But who would have the planes and not a ship? Al Qaeda doesn't have an air force. Hamas in Palestine? I guess Palestine might have some fighters. The Saudis have quite a few. Could they be behind this?"

"Not the Saudis. They have a navy. They're rich enough to buy an aircraft carrier if they wanted one," I countered. "And why would they want one? They're allies of the U.S."

"Okay, it's not the Saudis. Think of another reason to take the ship. And why that ship? That particular ship?"

I swear I felt a lightbulb click on in my brain. "That's it! That particular ship: Why that ship and no other?" I felt as if I nearly had an answer. I was seeing through a gla.s.s darkly, but I was seeing something. Excitement raced through me.

"Why? Let's see now," Benny mused. "I can think of three reasons. Its location. Its accessibility. Its symbolism."

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" I said, punching the air. "Location: New York City. Accessibility: easy. She was right offsh.o.r.e but in the open ocean, not a dock. Carried only a skeleton crew. No security. No weapons. Symbolism: U.S. military greatness. You hit it, Benny." I was twirling around, feeling euphoric.

"Not so fast, Daph. Why did the terrorists, if indeed it was terrorists, take it and not blow it up?"

"Obvious. They need it," I said.

"Why?"

I thought for a moment. "Like I said before, to use in some way. Or... or to bargain with. That could be it. What could they want in exchange?"

"I think we're back to who 'they' are. Maybe we have to find the ship to find them."

My spirits faltered. We had gone in a circle. Were we any closer to the answer?

"Don't look glum," Benny said. "We figured out a pa.s.sel of things, and it was as easy as sliding off a greased hog backward. Let's talk to the Looie and see if we can get something more to go on. There he is."

Almost exactly five minutes to the second from Benny's call, a white Chevy pulled up to the curb. The driver's window lowered. I had seen happier faces at a funeral. In fact, Lieutenant Johnson looked like he usually did when he saw me-as if he had bitten into something that had gone rotten.

"Get in the back," he growled in lieu of h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo. "Then tell me what the h.e.l.l you want."

Chapter 6.

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction."-Matthew 7:13

"And good evening to you too, Lieutenant," I said, pushing aside some crumpled McDonald's bags and sliding into the backseat.

"This isn't a date," Johnson said, killing the engine and turning around in the seat so he could see us both. "Cut the small talk. Who's dead, kidnapped, or about to be a.s.sa.s.sinated?"

"None of the above, at least as far as I know," I said sweetly to my nemesis in the NYPD.

"So why'd you call me?"

Benny looked at me. We should have rehea.r.s.ed some joint approach to the grumpy lieutenant. He wasn't going to help us out of the goodness of his heart. For one thing he openly didn't like me. He barely tolerated Benny. He had an old grudge against Rogue.

For another, he didn't believe in vampires. He'd seen both Benny and me in bat form. He evidently put that experience in the category of spotting a UFO: If you tell anybody, they'll think you're nuts. If you believe it's a s.p.a.ceship, you probably are nuts. That means you'd better make up your mind that you saw swamp gas or a weather balloon. We weren't quite swamp gas, but he wasn't buying that we were I've-come-to-drink-your-blood vampires.

I kept my voice light. "We want to work out an arrangement with you. A mutually beneficial one."

"Spell it out," he said.

"An exchange of information. We keep you in the loop when we know something. You tell us when you pick up on a situation we should know about."

Since Johnson bitterly resented other agencies pulling off operations in New York without working jointly with the city police, he didn't say no. He didn't exactly say yes either. He grunted. I took that as a maybe.

Benny jumped in with a reference to our last mission. "Remember what happened with the kidnapped girls? We made sure you got the credit for that, didn't we? We caught h.e.l.l for it too, but both Daphne and I feel-don't we, Daphne?"

I nodded vigorously, although I had no idea where she was going with this.

"-that we could accomplish more and safeguard against anybody getting caught in a cross fire if we coordinated coordinated-that's the right word, isn't it, Daphne?"

I nodded again.

"-our efforts." She smiled widely, which probably didn't have the desired effect, since I'm sure Johnson spotted her fangs. His complexion was such a deep chocolate I couldn't tell whether he got pale or not, but I suspected he did.