"It's a long story," Lilith replied, still staring at her feet.

"Why am I not surprised?"

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I really, really am. But it wasn't my fault," Lilith said, the words suddenly pouring out of her like water. "We were over at Tanith's place, just goo.ng off. We were bored because we couldn't go to the club. We ended up going to Washington Square Park. . . ."

"Whose bright idea was that?"

"Jules's."

At the mention of Jules, her father softened. "You were in the Village? What for?"

"We were just out partying, that's all, I promise."

"I know you're lying to me, Lilith. Or, at the very least, you're not telling me something. But I've had a very long night and I'm too tired to play any more games with you." He leaned toward his intercom. "If you don't tell me what you and the others were doing in the Village, I'm going to have all your credit cards canceled."

"No! Don't do that!"

"Then tell me the truth."

"Okay. You win," she said, her shoulders dropping in defeat. "We were slumming."

Victor Todd came out of his chair as if it were electri.ed. "You were what?" His voice reverberated so loudly it made the walls of the room shake. "Of all the most dangerous, stupidest things you could have done-! And after everything I have worked to achieve-! The whole point of HemoGlobe is to make risky behavior like that a thing of the past for our people! By the Founders, child, what were you thinking?"

"We thought it was safe this time. . . ."

"Safe! It's like Russian roulette-the odds are against you! Every time you go out in public, you run the risk of being attacked by Van Helsings! You, of all people, know how much you stand out in a crowd!"

"We were keeping a low pro.le, I swear! Everything was going just .ne. Then this New Blood b.i.t.c.h showed up and everything got out of hand. . . ."

"New Blood?" Todd's scowl deepened further.

"Yeah. She's the one who's really responsible for what happened. If it wasn't for her, the Van Helsings would never have known we were there."

"What did she do?"

"She tried to attack me with a bolt of lightning."

"A stormgatherer?" Todd seemed genuinely startled by this revelation. "Are you sure about that? I thought you said the girl was a New Blood."

"Well, I a.s.sumed that's what she was," Lilith said. "I mean, I know all the Old Blood kids, and I've never seen this girl before. . . ."

"Then what happened?"

"Tanith got staked," Lilith replied, her voice drop-ping to little more than a whisper.

"By the Founders," Todd muttered in shock. "Is she-?"

Lilith nodded.

"I see," Todd said. He rubbed his lower lip with the knuckle of his right index .nger, a sign that he was lost in his own thoughts. "Very well. Go on to bed, Lilith. I'll see that Dorian and Georgina are noti. ed."

Victor Todd watched his daughter head out the door of the study. As she moved to shut the door behind her, Lilith looked over her shoulder at him, her brilliant blue eyes shining with tears.

"Daddy?" she asked in a wavering voice."Yes, Lilith?" he replied gently."You're not going to cut up my credit cards, are you?" "No, princess." He sighed. "Of course not."

Chapter 6.

C.

ally lived with her mother on the top .oor of a seven-story building that had originally been a warehouse for pipe organs or something equally Victorian. Their condo was one of many created for the artists, students, and of.ce workers forced out of the Lower East Side in search of affordable rents.

Compared to some of the places they'd lived, the three-bedroom-two-bath apartment they now called home was a palace. Indeed, the living room had excellent views and a large balcony that looked out toward the Williamsburg Bridge. The kitchen was out.tted with all stainless steel Viking appliances, including a six-burner stove-not that it mattered, since Cally's mom had no idea how to cook and no intention of ever learning.

As she exited the elevator onto her . oor, Cally could hear the rumble from the home theater system's subwoofer. She sighed and rolled her eyes. No doubt they were going to get another nasty note from the condo board.

Cally's mother, Sheila Monture, was seated on the antique red velvet fainting couch facing the sixty-inch plasma .at-panel HDTV, watching, yet again, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. Cally recognized the scene as the one where Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves charge into Winona Ryder's bedroom and catch her in the arms of Gary Oldman.

"I'm home!" Cally shouted over the thunderously loud sound track as she unlocked the door. She noticed that the draperies covering the huge picture windows in the living room had been pulled back so her mother could look out at the East River.

Sheila Monture spun around, startled by her daugh-ter's sudden appearance. She fumbled with the remote, and the sound level on the movie dropped from deafen-ing to merely loud.

"Sweetheart! There you are-! I was hoping you'd get home early enough for us to talk!"

As her mother rose to greet her, Cally saw that she was wearing a pale lavender negligee with stylized bat wing sleeves and a long black wig with a white streak in it. Over the years, Cally had come to recognize that her mother chose costumes to express her moods. When-ever she wanted to come across as sophisticated and aloof, she dressed like Morticia Addams; when she wanted to be perceived as motherly and down-to-earth, she dressed as Lily Munster.

"Talk? About what?" Cally asked warily.

"I heard from your father tonight," Sheila said cheerily, ignoring her daughter's tone of voice.

"A lot he cares!" Cally sneered.

"Now, darling, that's not true!" Sheila Monture affected an exaggerated frown as she clasped her hands over her breast. "Your father cares quite a bit about you."

Cally walked across the living room and stared out the window at the bridge, its metal span illuminated against the night.

"Darling, your father is giving you a big chance. Starting Monday, you are going to Bathory Academy," her mother said, clearly savoring the words.

Cally spun around in disbelief. "Why do I have to go there, of all places? I made the honor roll at Varney Hall last year!"

"That's the thing, sweetie. Your father's a very impor-tant, very busy man. He doesn't always have the time to deal with things himself. Normally, I send your report cards to the people who handle his business affairs for him, so it took your father a while before he got a chance to really look at your academic records. But once he did, he was very impressed. He told me tonight that you were being wasted at Varney. It's nice enough and all, but it's still a New Blood school. Your father wants to help you better yourself! Isn't that wonderful?"

Cally shook her head in furious denial. "You can tell him to forget it! I have friends at Varney. I am not going to that Old Blood bimbo house!"

Sheila Monture's too-wide smile faltered and she began to wring her hands, which was never a good sign. "But you have to, Cally. If you don't, your father will withdraw his protection, not to mention his money. We'll have to move again."

Cally put her hands to her head as if trying to keep it from exploding. "Move? I thought you said you bought this condo with the money Granny left you."

"I used those funds to make the down payment, but it's your father who pays the monthly note on the mortgage and all the other fees."

"Perhaps this would mean something to me if I knew who the h.e.l.l my father actually is!" Cally snapped. "I've never seen the man or heard his voice! I don't even know his name! All I know is that he's too busy and impor-tant to spend time with me, he's married to someone else, and he's ashamed to acknowledge me!"

"Cally, please don't talk that way," her mother pleaded. "It's not fair to blame him for how things are between you. My mother had a lot to do with keeping your father away from you, and you know that. Believe me, when your father is ready to reveal himself to you, he will do so. Until then, it's safer that you not know his ident.i.ty. Your father is a powerful man, with powerful enemies, ones who would stop at nothing to make sure they destroy his posterity."

"Is that all I am to him, then? A hedge against extinction?"

Sheila Monture was about to deny her daugh-ter's a.s.sessment, then thought better of it and quickly looked away. Cally groaned in disgust.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. If you need me for anything, I'll be in my room."

As Cally moved toward the hallway, Sheila grabbed her daughter by the wrist. "Please, Cally-I beg you, please do as your father asks. I don't want to move! I like it here in Williamsburg, and I know you do too! The artist community here is very open-minded. I'm comfortable here. It's a lot like the East Village used to be. n.o.body stares at me when I go out, at least not too much. I don't want to have to move again and end up someplace where the neighbors treat us like freaks."

"Mom, don't put this on me-it's not fair."

"Please, Cally?" Sheila asked in a quavering voice. The tears welling at the corners of her eyes were already making her mascara run. "Just go along and do this one little thing for Mama . . . ?"

Cally clenched her jaw and told herself she was not going to give in. Not this time. She tried to pull her wrist free, but her mother wouldn't let go. It would be very easy to make her let go, but Cally had no desire to truly hurt her. Her mother was damaged enough already.

She took a deep breath and let it out in a long, pained sigh. "Okay, Mom. You win. I'll go."

Chapter 7.

T.

he Van Helsing Inst.i.tute was headquartered in a rambling Georgian estate set on seventeen acres in the horse country of Connecticut. For the last eighteen and a half years it had been Peter Van Helsing's home and school. In time, he would no doubt take over the reins of the company, following in the footsteps of his ancestors. Or so he thought until he crossed Cally's path.

Peter moved gingerly across the room to the huge mahogany desk in front of the .replace. If he walked too fast, his newly cracked rib made it feel like someone was jabbing him in the side with a spear. He was glad his father wasn't around, because he still wasn't sure what he was going to tell him about what happened.

Peter glanced up at the portrait of his great-great-great-grandfather hanging over the mantelpiece. Dressed in a dark cravat worn with a wide turnover collar that was fashionable in the 1830s, the infamous Pieter Van Helsing seemed to regard his most recent descendant with a disapproving stare.

A twinge of guilt almost as sharp as the pain in his ribs caused Peter to look away. He dropped his eyes to the sea of folders .lled with printouts, reports, photo-graphs, and newspaper clippings that covered the desk-top. Even though much of what was in the aging manila binders had long since been digitized and transferred into the Inst.i.tute's computer system, his father was an old-fashioned man and preferred having the actual doc.u.mentation close at hand.

As Peter moved closer, he heard the sound of chains rattling. The gargoyle lifted its head from the rug by the .replace with a growl so deep Peter felt it more than heard it. About the size and general build of a bull mastiff, the creature had leathery, grayish-green skin and batlike wings growing from its shoulders. It sniffed the air, and the rumbling growl disappeared, replaced by a friendly whine of recognition.

"Do you want a treat, Talus?"

The gargoyle's hairless, lizardlike tail began to slap against the rug in antic.i.p.ation as Peter .ipped open the lid of an old wooden cigar box. He plucked one of the dead mice from inside by its tail and tossed it to the drooling beast. Talus snapped the morsel out of midair, then looked back expectantly at Peter.

"One's enough." Peter laughed, wagging a . nger in admonishment. "I don't want Dad blaming me for ruining your supper!"

As if on cue, the doors to the of.ce opened and Christopher Van Helsing, president and CEO of the Van Helsing Inst.i.tute, the world's oldest secular super-natural extermination service, entered the room. With his shock of wavy gray hair and the intense, deeply preoccupied look he always seemed to wear, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Beethoven.

"Peter!" Van Helsing said, hurrying forward to greet his wounded son. "My brave boy! How are your ribs?"

"Not too bad, I guess," Peter said, wincing at his father's embrace. "The doctors at the emergency room said I cracked one pretty good, but nothing's actually broken. I'm going to the in.rmary in a bit to have Doc Willoughby tape me up. I'm just waiting for him to .nish taking care of Big Ike and Drummer."

"I'm glad to hear you're okay. In any case, it's a good thing we Van Helsings heal pretty fast, eh, son?" his father said.

"Yes, sir," Peter agreed.

"Are you up to talking about what happened in the subway?"

"I guess so, sir." Peter shrugged.

"Is something the matter?" Van Helsing frowned, surprised by Peter's lack of enthusiasm. "The last time I saw you, you were all pumped up about going solo for the . rst time."

"It's just that you were counting on me, and I feel like I let you down, sir."

"It's not just your fault the mission failed, son," his father replied. "The whole thing was a c.o.c.k-up."

"Yes, sir," Peter murmured, his eyes dropping to the . oor.

"Speaking of which . . ." Van Helsing strode over to his desk and punched the intercom. "Tell Remy I want to see him in my of. ce. Stat."

"Yes, sir," a female voice replied. "He's on his way."