"May I walk you to your car?" I asked.

She thought a moment, sizing me up as a potential geriatric Duckman, and made a snap decision in my favor, the most encouragement I'd had since Kennedy was in the White House.

I made it across the diner to her without collapsing.

I had never had a conversation with a vampire before. She told me straight off she was over five hundred and fifty years old. She had lived in the human world for hundreds of years before Dracula changed the rules. From her face, I'd have believed her if she said she was born under the shadow of Sputnik and that her ambition was to become one of Roger Vadim's ex-wives.

We stood on Main Street, where her fire-engine-red Plymouth Fury was parked by my Chrysler. The few stores and homes in sight were shuttered up tight, as if an air raid was due. The only place to go in town was the diner and that seemed on the point of closing. I noticed more of those ornamental crucifixes, attached above every door as if it were a religious holiday. Mojave Wells was wary of its new neighbors.

Genevieve was coming from the East and going to the West. Meager as it was, this was the first place she'd hit in hours that wasn't a government proving ground. She knew nothing about the Anti-Life Equation, Manderley, Castle or a viper named Khorda, let alone Racquel Ohlrig.

But she was a vampire and this was all about vampires.

"Why all the questions?" she asked.

I told her I was a detective. I showed my license, kept up so I could at least do the sub-contract work, and she asked to see my gun. I opened my jacket to show the shoulder holster. It was the first time I'd worn it in years, and the weight of the Smith & Wesson .38 special had pulled an ache in my shoulder.

"You are a private eye? Like in the movies."

Everyone said that. She was no different.

"We have movies in Europe, you know," she said. The desert wind was trying to get under her scarf, and she was doing things about it with her hands. "You can't tell me why you're asking questions because you have a client. Is that not so?"

"Not so," I said. "I have a man who might think he's a client, but I'm doing this for myself. And a woman who's dead. Really dead."

I told the whole story, including me and Linda. It was almost confessional. She listened well, asking only the smart questions.

"Why are you here? In . . . what is the name of this village?"

"Mojave Wells. It calls itself a town."

We looked up and down the street and laughed. Even the tumbleweeds were taking it easy.

"Out there in the desert," I explained, "is Manderley Castle, brought over stone by stone from England. Would you believe it's the wrong house? Back in the Twenties, a robber baron named Noah Cross wanted to buy the famous Manderley-the one that later burned down-and sent agents over to Europe to do the deal. They came home with Manderley Castle, another place entirely. Cross still put the jigsaw together, but went into a sulk and sold it back to the original owners, who emigrated to stay out of the War. There was a murder case there in the Forties, nothing to do with me. It was one of those locked-room things, with Borgia poisons and disputed wills. A funny little Chinaman from Hawaii solved it by gathering all the suspects in the library. The place was abandoned until a cult of moon-worshippers squatted it in the sixties, founded a lunatic commune. Now, it's where you go if you want to find the Anti-Life Equation."'

"I don't believe anyone would call themselves that."

I liked this girl. She had the right att.i.tude. I was also surprised to find myself admitting that. She was a bloodsucking viper, right? Wasn't Racquel worried that she was to be sacrificed to a vampire elder? Someone born in 1416 presumably fit the description. I wanted to trust her, but that could be part of her trick. I've been had before. Ask anyone.

"I've been digging up dirt on the ALE for a few days," I said, "and they aren't that much weirder than the rest of the local kooks. If they have a philosophy, this Khorda makes it all up as he goes along. He cut a folk rock alb.u.m, The Deathmaster. I found a copy for ninety-nine cents and feel rooked. 'Drinking blood/Feels so good,' that sort of thing. People say he's from Europe, but no one knows exactly where. The merry band at the ALE includes a Dragon Lady called Diane LeFanu, who may actually own the castle, and L. Keith Winton, who used to be a pulp writer for Astounding Stories but has founded a new religion that involves the faithful giving him all their money.'

"That's not a new religion."

I believed her.

"What will you do now?" she asked.

"This town's dead as far as leads go. Dead as far as anything else, for that matter. I guess I'll have to fall back on the dull old business of going out to the castle and knocking on the front door, asking if they happen to have my ex-wife's daughter in the dungeon. My guess is they'll be long gone. With a body left back in Poodle Springs, they have to figure the law will snoop for them in the end."

"But we might find something that'll tell us where they are. A clue?"

" 'We?' "

"I'm a detective, too. Or have been. Maybe a detective's a.s.sistant. I'm in no hurry to get to the Pacific. And you need someone who knows about vampires. You may need someone who knows about other things."

"Are you offering to be my muscle? I'm not that ancient I can't look after myself."

"I am that ancient, remember. It's no reflection on you, but a new-born vampire could take you to pieces. And a new-born is more likely to be stupid enough to want to. They're mostly like that Rubber Duck fellow, bursting with impulses and high on their new ability to get what they want. I was like that once myself, but now I'm a wise old lady."

She quacked the duck at me.

"We take your car," I said.

Manderley Castle was just what it sounded like. Crenellated turrets, arrow-slit windows, broken battlements, a drawbridge, even a stagnant artificial moat. It was sinking slowly into the sands and the tower was noticeably several degrees out of the vertical. Noah Cross had skimped on foundation concrete. I wouldn't be surprised if the minion who mistook this pile for the real Manderley was down there somewhere, with a divot out of his skull.

We drove across the bridge into the courtyard, home to a VW bus painted with glow-in-the-dark fanged devils, a couple of pickup trucks with rifle racks, the inevitable Harley-Davidsons, and a fleet of customized dune buggies with batwing tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and big red eye-lamps.

There was music playing. I recognized Khorda's composition, "Big Black Bat in a Tall Dark Hat."

The Anti-Life Equation was home.

I tried to get out of the Plymouth. Genevieve was out of her driver's side door and around (over?) the car in a flash, opening the door for me as if I were her great-grandmama.

"There's a trick to the handle," she said, making me feel no better.

"If you try and help me out, I'll shoot you."

She stood back, hands up. Just then, my lungs complained. I coughed a while and red lights went off behind my eyes. I hawked up something glistening and spat it at the ground. There was blood in it.

I looked at Genevieve. Her face was flat, all emotion contained.

It wasn't pity. It was the blood. The smell did things to her personality.

I wiped off my mouth, did my best to shrug, and got out of the car like a champion. I even shut the door behind me, trick handle or no.

To show how fearless I was, how unafraid of hideous death, I lit a Camel and punished my lungs for showing me up in front of a girl. I filled them with the smoke I'd been fanning their way since I was a kid.

Coffin nails, they called them then.

We fought our aesthetic impulses, and went towards the music. I felt I should have brought a mob of Mojave Wells villagers with flaming torches, sharpened stakes and silvered scythes.

" 'What a magnificent pair of knockers,' " said Genevieve, nodding at a large square door.

"There's only one," I said.

"Didn't you see Young Frankenstein?"

Though she'd said they had movies in Europe, somehow I didn't believe vipers-vampires, I'd have to get used to calling them if I didn't want Genevieve ripping my throat out one fine night-concerned themselves with dates at the local pa.s.sion pit. Obviously, the undead read magazines, bought underwear, grumbled about taxes, and did crossword puzzles like everyone else. I wondered if she played chess.

She took the knocker and hammered to wake the dead.

Eventually the door was opened by a skinny old bird dressed as an English butler. His hands were knots of arthritis and he could do with a shave.

The music was mercifully interrupted.

"Who is it, George?" boomed a voice from inside the castle.

"Visitors," croaked George the butler. "You are visitors, aren't you?"

I shrugged. Genevieve radiated a smile.

The butler was smitten. He trembled with awe.

"Yes," she said, "I'm a vampire. And I'm very, very old and very, very thirsty. Now, aren't you going to invite me in? Can't cross the threshold unless you do."

I didn't know if she was spoofing him.

George creaked his neck, indicating a sandy mat inside the doorway. It was lettered with the word WELCOME.

"That counts," she admitted. "More people should have those."

She stepped inside. I didn't need the invite to follow.

George showed us into the big hall. Like all decent cults, the ALE had an altar and thrones for the bigwigs and cold flagstones with the occasional mercy rug for the devoted suckers.

In the blockiest throne sat Khorda, a vampire with curly fangs, the full long-hair-and-tangled-beard hippie look, and an electric guitar. He wore a violent purple and orange caftan, and his chest was covered by bead necklaces hung with diamond-eyed skulls, plastic novelty bats, Austro-Hungarian military medals, inverted crucifixes, a "Nixon in '72" b.u.t.ton, gold marijuana leaves, and a dried human finger. By his side was a wraith-thin vision in velvet I a.s.sumed to be Diane LeFanu, who claimed-like a lot of vipers-to be California's earliest vampire settler. I noticed she wore discreet little ruby earplugs.'

At the feet of these divines was a crowd of kids, of both varieties, all with long hair and fangs. Some wore white shifts, while others were naked. Some wore joke-shop plastic fangs, while others had real ones. I scanned the congregation, and spotted Racquel at once, eyes a red daze, kneeling on stone with her shift tucked under her, swaying her ripe upper body in time to the music Khorda had stopped playing.

I admitted this was too easy. I started looking at the case again, taking it apart in my mind and jamming the pieces together in new ways. Nothing made sense, but that was hardly breaking news at this end of the century.

Hovering like the Wizard of Oz between the throne-dais and the worshipper-s.p.a.ce was a fat vampire in a 1950s suit and golf hat. I recognized L. Keith Winton, author of "Robot Rangers of the Gamma Nebula" (1946) and other works of serious literature, including Plasmatics: The New Communion (1950), founding text of the Church of Immortology. If ever there were a power-behind-the-throne bird, this was he.

"We've come for Racquel Loring Ohlrig," announced Genevieve. I should probably have said that.

"No one of that name dwells among us," boomed Khorda. He had a big voice.

"I see her there," I said, pointing.

"Sister Red Rose," said Khorda.

He stuck out his arm and gestured. Racquel stood. She did not move like herself. Her teeth were not a joke. She had real fangs. They fit badly in her mouth, making it look like an ill-healed red wound. Her red eyes were puffy.

"You turned her," I said, anger in my gut.

"Sister Red Rose has been elevated to the eternal."

Genevieve's hand was on my shoulder.

I thought of Linda, bled empty in her pool, a spike in her head. I wanted to burn this castle down, and sow the ground with garlic.

"I am Genevieve Dieudonne," she announced, formally.

"Welcome, Lady Elder," said the LeFanu woman. Her eyes held no welcome for Genevieve. She made a gesture, which unfolded membrane-like velvet sleeves. "I am Diane LeFanu. And this is Khorda, the Deathmaster."

Genevieve looked at the guru viper.

"General Iorga, is it not? Late of the Carpathian Guard. We met in 1888, at the palace of Prince Consort Dracula. Do you remember?"

Khorda/Iorga was not happy.

I realized he was wearing a wig and a false beard. He might have immortality, but was well past youth. I saw him as a tubby, ridiculous fraud. He was one of those elders who had been among Dracula's toadies, but was lost in a world without a King Vampire. Even for California, he was a sad soul.

"Racquel," I said. "It's me. Your father wants . . . "

She spat hissing red froth.

"It would be best if this new-born were allowed to leave with us," Genevieve said, not to Khorda but Winton. "There's the small matter of a murder charge."

Winton's plump, bland, pink face wobbled. He looked anger at Khorda. The guru trembled on his throne, and boomed without words.

"Murder, Khorda?" asked Winton. "Murder? Who told you we could afford murder?"

"None was done," said Khorda/Iorga.

I wanted to skewer him with something. But I went beyond anger. He was too afraid of Winton-not a person you'd immediately take as a threat, but clearly the top dog at the ALE-to lie.

"Take the girl," Winton said to me.

Racquel howled in rage and despair. I didn't know if she was the same person we had come for. As I understood it, some vampires changed entirely when they turned, their previous memories burned out, and became sad blanks, reborn with dreadful thirsts and the beginnings of a mad cunning.

"If she's a killer, we don't want her," said Winton. "Not yet."

I approached Racquel. The other cultists shrank away from her. Her face shifted, bloating and smoothing as if flatworms were pa.s.sing just under her skin. Her teeth were ridiculously expanded, fat pebbles of sharp bone. Her lips were torn and split.

She hissed as I reached out to touch her.

Had this girl, in the throes of turning, battened on her mother, on Linda, and gone too far, taken more than her human mind had intended, glutting herself until her viper thirst was a.s.suaged?

I saw the picture only too well. I tried to fit it with what Junior had told me.

He had sworn Racquel was innocent.

But his daughter had never been innocent, not as a warm person and not now as a new-born vampire.

Genevieve stepped close to Racquel and managed to slip an arm round her. She cooed in the girl's ear, coaxing her to come, replacing the Deathmaster in her mind.

Racquel took her first steps. Genevieve encouraged her. Then Racquel stopped as if she'd hit an invisible wall. She looked to Khorda/Iorga, hurt and betrayal in her eyes, and to Winton, with that pleading moue I knew well. Racquel was still herself, still trying to wheedle love from unworthy men, still desperate to survive through her developing wiles.