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download other formats CHAPTER 25 The President picked up on the fifth ring. Sounding to the Senator not the least bit amused. Less so, after he earnestly stated the case for a mere smidgen of military intervention-an op which could easily be made to resemble an already in-progress training exercise. Senator, do you have some kinda learnin disability? What the hell did I tell you yesterday? Good night, and don t ever wake me up this late again, short of revealing Obama Sin Laden s whereabouts. The call went dead and the Senator threw the phone against wall. The rugged device was sheathed in so much hard rubber it bounced back undamaged and struck him in the shin. He yelped in pain, feeling as impotent as a neutered Yorki. Learning disability? The pot calling the kettle black after smoking some. He didn t bother phoning Unit Three s commander. Instead, he waited for the inevitable update informing him the one called Jequon had eluded them, at which point, the Senator would lie, and complain of having to abort the impending Navy SEAL attack, rather than admit to his own pitiful lack of sway. With so few of them left, this Jequon, the so-called Protector of his wretched race, would be among their last (if not the last) kills. Only this darkness at the end of his enemies tunnel prevented the Senator from going out and murdering a prostitute, or an overly chipper intern, in order to vent his rage. CHAPTER 27 How they were extricated from Mexico and returned to the yacht without arousing the suspicion of U.S. Border agents was a mystery. As before, the Escort Thugs had blindfolded him and maneuvered chaotically over land and sea making it impossible for Henry to keep track of their route. He doubted Cindy s bearings fared any better. He watched her through the one-way glass room divider, unblinking in the artificial darkness of her cell, chained once more to the hard metal floor next to the camp toilet. She sat slumped forward, hugging her knees to her chest, rocking slightly, fore and aft, fore and aft, perhaps in synch with waves jostling the vessel too softly for Henry to register; flotsam and jetsam in a private sea of her own suffering. In shock ever since Detective Hansen s ill-fated rescue attempt in Tijuana. He, too, felt something like shock. It wasn t until he d witnessed their would-be rescuer lying in the grimy street clutching his ruined leg--until after he d watched the Escort thugs holster their weapons and approach their wounded prey with a large syringe while Hansen begged them, unsuccessfully, to blow his brains out instead--that Henry questioned, for the very first time in his life, where his obsession with apocalyptic prophecy had been leading him. His earlier humiliation when the Brotherhood had deemed him unworthy of induction, Cindy s kidnapping and torture, lying to the police...unpleasant, yes-but in anticipation of further personal revelation? Justified. But murder? A murder he couldn t help but feel like an accomplice to While it didn t instill anything so drastic in him as doubt in God (his faith would never crack), it did prompt him to wonder if even He had an editor, if the apparently harsh means to the End Times fast approaching had been crossed-out in a subsequent draft. Sins of omission? Necessary evils? These were blasphemous questions he dared not ask himself. And yet, absent their consideration, Henry was filled with an unease just this side of dread. Put into words: What in God s name have I gotten myself into? Upgrades to his accommodations, made in their absence, suggested something substantial. For starters: his entire personal library. Hundreds of reference volumes carefully arranged in the bookshelves lining the far wall; thick tomes on linguistics, eschatology, religious philosophy, anthropology, the occult, apologetics, and decipherment, among many other topics he d assembled over the years. The fact that so many books could be transported from his apartment in the few short hours they d been away was telling. Either there were far more goons under SOJ employ than the three he d met so far in San Diego, or this yacht was a fairly short drive from his apartment in the southeast corner of downtown. The most compelling addition, however, beckoned to him from the Cocobolo wood conference table. Its presence so captivating, Henry failed to notice Rocky standing in the shadowed corner beneath the metal stairwell for the second time that day. Welcome home Henry. As you can see, job well done is rewarded. Our mutual employer suggested I provide you with certain titles from your personal collection, to help you in your work. But as you ve probably realized by now, I m an all or nothing kind of guy. I instructed my men to retrieve all your reading material. Even the Polaroids of fourteen-year-old Thai girls you keep hidden behind the plumbing access panel in your bedroom closet. I placed them in a shoe box for you and sat it on the nightstand in your sleeping cabin, which is through the door here and on your right, by the way. Henry flinched at the unexpected intrusion of Rocky s voice, and flushed red at the mention of his no-longer-secret (not to mention illegal) collection of naked teens. But he did not-could not-tear his gaze from the beautiful document partially unfurled in the center of the room. Please don t even bother to acknowledge my presence, Henry. I m sorry, he managed, meeting Rocky s eyes with deliberate effort, and then only for an instant-just long enough to note a form-fitting black ski mask in place of the SOJ-style white silken hood. Sorry for exploiting these girls? or sorry for being such an uncultured, classless prick? Both. You don t sound very sorry You know, Henry, I get the feeling your father wasn t around much growing up. You were raised by your mother, weren t you? Wait. No. Not your mother your grandmother-or a widowed aunt. She must ve given you sponge baths until you were ten or eleven years old; fed you homemade oatmeal raisin cookies every night before bed; made you memorize bible verses-that kind of thing I m close, aren t I? Henry shook his head no in that half-assed, underwater way men do when a game s on and their wife asks if they need anything from the mall while she s out shopping. He hadn t the slightest clue what Rocky was asking him; his attention was fixed on the sweet holy crack of script-covered parchment awaiting his blessed expertise. My dad beat the bejeezus out of me, Rocky said, and suddenly he was face-to-face with Henry, blocking the scroll from view as he continued, and when my job brings me into contact with people like you--people without the common decency to look at someone who s speaking to them--I m glad he did. If Rocky was a website, Henry thought, his link to sanity came up Error 404: File Not Found every time you clicked on it. He d be wise to appease him. I didn t mean to be rude. It s just I don t understand what my, my... Childhood. -Yes, or any of my personal life for that matter, has to do with the work the Brotherhood needs me to complete. Brotherhood? Is that the codeword they re using with you? Interesting. Codeword? Never mind. Not important. But to answer your question-you know, like civilized adults do when having a conversation-your personal life has absolutely nothing to do with your mission here. I m just boning up on my psychological profiling skills. You might think this job is all fun and games-and don t get me wrong, I love what I do-but for every Cindy, there are a hundred lice-covered towel-heads to interrogate, and they don t look nearly as good naked. Self improvement helps me stay plugged in all the down time. Last year, I taught myself a little Mandarin so I could feel comfortable eating in authentic Chinese restaurants. I don t eat those people s food anymore, and nor should you. And I could write a book on a persuasion: HOW TO BREAK LIMBS AND INTERROGATE PEOPLE--just need an agent. So, in the spirit of my continued personal growth, would you mind confirming my suspicions? Were you raised by your grandmother? An inappropriately affectionate aunt? I was an orphan. No shit. Well, just goes to show you can t believe everything you read. Henry gestured toward the conference table, May I? Rocky had remained within head-butting distance ever since beginning his critique of his social skills, and Henry was eager to regain some personal space before the man decided that smashing his nose might help to pass the time. Alright, Henry. I can take a hint. And I respect your work ethic. I do Right, right, right-so, ground rules: Most important, you are not to leave this room, except to use the head, which is across from your cabin down the hall. All other portions of the yacht are off limits. Closed doors are locked doors and you re not to attempt to open them. That includes Cindy s cell. She is there for inspiration, not companionship. Do your job, stay cooperative, and that s as bad as things will get for her--oh, and stay off the intercom. You ll be tempted of course, but this is the only warning I ll give you. Talk to her and my men will make her earlier suffering seem like a spa treatment. When you re hungry, say so, and we ll bring you a meal. Anything else you need-reference material, coffee, an aspirin-just ask, we ll hear you. With me so far? Henry nodded. Good, good, good Right. OK. Your orders are to provide a translation, in English, of the text you seem to be so infatuated with on the table. You have one week to complete the translation. If at the end of one week, your work is not complete, there will be penalties assessed. Naturally, Cindy will be the one penalized, as your continued productivity is my top priority. What kind of penalty? you might be wondering...well Henry, I m glad you asked. As before, you ll get to choose between two equally painful...oh, let s just call them treatments, which Cindy will believe you control in terms of their duration, and you will be required to watch. Each missed deadline will result in successively more agonizing treatment options. Nothing to worry about, Henry, given your obvious genius, just a friendly FYI. Right, right, right--so: You will use a digital camera to photograph fragments you translate, and you will attach each image to an email comprised of the corresponding translated text. Capture and send the portions you complete ASAP; in other words, our employer wants to know everything you know the moment you know it. The computer we ve provided you for this purpose can also be used for research, but be advised, all outgoing communication is restricted to the email address you ll be using to send your translations. No chat, no Skype, no Twitter, etcetera. Search engine queries are fine, but they ll be monitored and filtered if necessary. Expect a lag while one of our techs approves each query. I am told this document is an original and there are no copies. If you attempt to damage it in any way, I m instructed to kill both you and Cindy in the slowest, most creatively agonizing way imaginable. Questions? Comments? Concerns? I don t think so, Henry answered. Good, good, good You ll find further instructions, to which I m not privy, inside the sealed manila envelope beside the scroll. Alright then. I ll leave you to it. Finally. He waited for Rocky to walk up the metal stairway and exit out the door leading to the upper deck. Then Henry approached his destiny. Slowly. Savoring the moment as serious climbers must their first steps onto the base of Everest. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats CHAPTER 23 (continued) She stomps on the gas pedal and ratchets the wheel all the way to the left. Perfect doughnut, like she d raced in NASCAR. Nice. My dad was a stunt driver. Which way? Left. I was afraid you d say that. She s worried about the bridge. I m worried about the guys in suits and shades and slicked-back hair streaming from the front entrance, some running our way, others to their car. Now s not the time to fret over traffic signals or stop signs, I say. The tenor growl of eight fuel-injected cylinders in beautiful haul-ass harmony tells me Mercy can take a hint. Unfortunately, Orange Avenue dinner-date traffic pulls the reigns on all 300 of the Mustang s horses. We re stuck dead last in a long line at the first light we come to. Shit! I m sorry! There s nowhere to go! I know, it s not your fault. Jequon, master of the obvious. Mercy, now s not the time to- and I see her wink at me. You having fun? Better believe it. Life s short. Yeah it is. In the rearview, three vanilla Chryslers with red flashers on the dash fishtail our of the Del driveway. Now I bet you re wishing we would have took the Strand, she says, referring to the traffic. Get out. What? Get. Out. I wait until she looks worried before I wink and say I m right behind her. Gotcha. Not funny, she says, buy her smile s on my side. Splitting lanes at the front the line, a guy with a braided beard and more embroidered patches than denim on his denim vest straddles a beautiful Harley Electra Glide. I take Mercy s hand and jog up to our new ride, (hopefully before the light changes). Hey! Big guy on the bike! Of course he can t hear me over they Harley s brain liquefying exhaust, but we beat the green and I tap him on the shoulder and now I have his attention. Yeah? Sorry to bother you, but you see those suits with guns running toward us? He glances over his shoulder in the direction I m pointing. Yeah. Well, if they catch up, they re going to shoot us. Me, I probably deserve it, but I think you ll agree, letting this angel die in the crossfire would be tragic. Bet your ass it would. Hop on sweet mama. Now there s a response I didn t expect. And poor Mercy, she s rubbernecking back and forth between us like it s Sophie s fucking choice. I d laugh if this shit wasn t so funny. Uh I was hoping you might loan me the bike? Yeah man. Of course. I was just fuckin with ya. You definitely need it more than I do right now. We trade places and he gives Mercy his skull-cap style helmet to wear after she climbs up behind me on the saddle. I owe you big--what s your name bro? Friends call me Deany Hopper. Ask around in OB, you ll find me. My shit s way insured but I gotta report it stolen case you dump it, dig? Understood. Hold on, Mercy. No hesitation. Just the warm union of her cheek against my shoulder. The form-fit of her breasts against my back; arms encircling my waist, holding on for dear, infinitely more tenuous life. With standstill traffic and narrow streets no longer a problem, we put some serious distance between us and the bad guys. In a matter of minutes we re approaching the bridge, doing ninety. I have no idea how far back our pursuers are, but with two miles of arcing blue steel and concrete between us and the relative safety of downtown, I m game to widen the gap by at least half that. It s no crotch-rocket, but 120 shouldn t be a problem for the Harley. We accelerate past the decommissioned toll plaza like demonic doves cast out of heaven. Speed limit 50. Doubling that easy. We dodge, we weave, we split lanes. The centrifugal force molds the tires into narrow discs of rubber that barely make contact with the asphalt, and it feels almost like we re soaring high above the waiting city. Well that was too good to last. After we crest the midpoint of the bridge it s clear a bad day is about to get worse. They ve set up a roadblock. Out run by radio. I lock my elbows and brace for rapid deceleration. Hang on tight! I say and brake hard, front and rear, just shy of a skid. Now what s wrong? With her face buried between my shoulder blades Mercy couldn t see the three black sedans lined up at a right-angle to the guardrail and the center divide; nor the Mr. Smith-from-Matrix-looking-motherfuckers plugging the gaps. Oh. Climb off and try not to get run over. She does but I can tell she s not happy about it. She hates heights. I motor on a guess-timated distance toward the roadblock and then slide sideways to a stop in the slow lane. There was a big rig we passed right after the toll bridge and it should be topping the hill any time now, massive spools of steel cable in tow. Hopefully I ve given the driver enough space to stop. I don t want to so much as scratch Deany Hopper s bike if I can help it. I motion for Mercy to join me. She looks almost paralyzed with fear leaning against the center divider where I left her. There s no pedestrian traffic allowed on the bridge, so of course the lookey-loo s are slowing down to stare at her; pulling out their cell phones to 911 another jumper. Damn. She s not going to move is she. But as the semi rumbles into view, Mercy shuffles a step in my direction. Two steps. And before I can say road kill she s jogging down the slope towards me, picking up speed as the driver of the Volvo Diesel locks em up and downshifts and no doubt swears profusely. Mercy s sprinting now--the tractor trailer--threatening to jackknife. If that trucker hasn t already crapped himself, he ll be shitting diamonds at the next rest stop. Mercy doesn t have a cab door to contend with so I hear her first. Have you lost your mind? You tell me. You re the therapist. And now the truck driver: What in God s name are you doing! He s stomping towards me, brandishing one of those wooden mini-bats they sell in truck stops. This one has Fuck Carjackers engraved into the side. I think: nothing in God s name for damn sure, but I only tell him I m sorry for the close call. Pointing out the roadblock at the east end of the bridge I add, You ll have to stop anyway. Relax. Enjoy the view. And put that bat away. The trucker slows but doesn t stop. Adjusts his grip a little lower on the bat handle. I don t want to hurt you. And I really didn t until he clocks me right under the ear with his redneck stun gun. Lucky me, the mouth-full-of-Doritos sound is the bat-barrel shattering and not my skull. Ouch, I say on his behalf, foreshadowing the left-hook I land to the point of his chin. Mercy s flabbergasted. Are you alright? Nothing an aspirin won t fix. But he just broke a stick across your face-are you sure? Let me see. I turn my head so she can get see I m no worse for wear, glad to distract her for a moment from the impending two-hundred-foot drop. Wow. A red mark. That s it. You should be concussed or worse after a blow like that. Lucky I guess. Come on. Stay close. I walk to the end of the semi trailer and loosen the rigging which secures the rearmost spool to the flatbed. Hop up on the deck and shove as hard as I can it until it starts to tip toward the middle lane. Fortunately, all the cars behind us decided to sit tight and watch the two crazy people blocking the road. If this spool were to fall on a passing motorist, it would kill them. It s about the size of a Mini Cooper. Stay back, I call out to Mercy, and give the spool a final push onto the roadway. The massive cylinder of braided iron and wood thuds home, wobbles for an instant, settles, and starts to roll down the ___-degree incline like a medieval weapon of war. I jump down after it, grab the free end of cable and give the giant wheel another push to get it moving even faster. As it builds momentum in the passing lane, I tie off this end around the nearest light post. Mercy s already back at the concrete lane divider, arms crossed, trembling. I run over and try to comfort her while the spool deposits the rest of its cable on the roadway, rolling ever faster down the grade like a gigantic runaway yo-yo. It s never as bad as you think it s going to be. You promise you ll help me find Cindy? I gave you my word. I don t waste time making the same decisions twice. Then I m cool with ignoring every voice of reason in my head telling me to stay put right here until the cops come. I know you re scared. You have no idea. I hold out my hand and she just looks at it. Wait a sec . I want to say a quick prayer. She bows her head and folds her hands together. We so don t have time for this. Mercy... She ignores me. Mercy! Come on. We can t stay here. Her lips mouth: in Jesus name, amen, and then she finally relents. OK, I feel better. God will watch over us. You, maybe. We trot downhill after the now completely unraveled spool. The cable only stretches to within a yard of the next lamppost down from the one I secured the opposite end. Best guess: a-hundred, a-hundred twenty feet between each lamppost. Not two-hundred feet, that s for sure, so we ll be high and dry at the end of our rope. Death by clich . There s worse ways to die. So what s with the cable? Mercy asks. I thought you d have it figured out by now. Uh, no. We have to get off the bridge. Both ends are blocked off... I tilt my head in the direction of the waiting abyss. Me Tarzan, you Jane. I ll be going over the edge when hell freezes over and Winston Churchill builds an icehouse to fish for Nazis. Why don t we just turn ourselves in? Explain to them you re an undercover agent and that there s been a misunderstanding? I pick up the cable, don t say anything. It s as thick as a beer can which explains why the spool held such a short segment. Sometimes girth is better than length-especially for what adrenaline junkies call a pendulum swing. You re not a secret agent are you? I put my arm around her waist, don t say anything. Turn her around so her back is to me. Coil the steel around my forearm for a better grip. Her hair smells perfect. I back us up to the edge. Jequon, I don t know if I can do this. You can. For Cindy. Yeah. For Cindy. Ready? She nods, then shakes her head no . Her body quivers against mine, rigid, vibrating like a tuning fork. I press my lips into her hair and whisper warm, soothing, reassurances. Hug her a little tighter. We both flinch as a bullet strikes the barrier, punching loose a fist-sized chunk of concrete. I peer over my shoulder and watch it fall until it makes a tiny splash. I figured a traffic jam wouldn t keep them at bay forever, but who knew they d have three five-minute milers among their ranks. Already the lead gunner is sprinting past the big rig. Another ten seconds he won t need a lucky shot. It s now or- Just jump already! Mercy yells. We don t fall straight down. After the first twenty-five feet or so, enough of the cable laid out on the roadbed above us has changed course to allow the friction between it and the rough lip of the guardrail to as a fulcrum of sorts; a fulcrum which not only adds a horizontal component to our descent, but also a substantial braking force as the contact point between the bridge and braided steel grinds its way uphill toward the lamppost I tied one end to-the exact opposite of the effect experienced by water skiers when their fulcrum (the boat) motors in a direction counter to their angular momentum in a turn. That s the good news. The bad news is, gravity has over a hundred-feet to overwhelm these otherwise favorable laws of physics. I m holding Mercy with one arm while the other arm strains to keep our combined weight attached to the cable. Except that, at the bottom of our arc, it s not just our combined scale weight I m fighting against, but a three-or-four G multiple of it. A thousand pounds or more linked to our lifeline by four fingers and an opposable thumb. I thought I could manage. I was wrong. I let go (of the cable, not Mercy) just before we start swinging back up-still a good seventy feet or so above the water, a fatal height for most humans unless they go in the water perfectly: toes pointed, legs and torso locked and straight, arms overhead with hands clasped-which we re not going to do given our angled trajectory. We re going to bounce like a ground-rule double. Water doesn t compress, it can only displace, which it doesn t readily do when struck by objects moving in excess of 85 miles-per-hour. Fortunately for Mercy though, ribcages, pectoral muscles, and other parts of me do compress. I twist our bodies so we face skyward, press down on her forehead with my free hand to stabilize her neck. Impact: like getting bitch-slapped by the Statue of Liberty. Twice, because we skip. I let her go and swim to the surface, still alive enough to breathe. Mercy? You alright? She manages a yes between coughs to clear the salt water from her lunges. Are you a good swimmer? I grew up in Minnesota. Land of ten-thousand lakes. Good. They might have rifles, so we need to stay submerged as long as possible. I want you to hold onto my shirttail while I get us to shore. Take deep but quick breaths and tap my leg when you need another. Don t blow bubbles. Aye-aye, Jequon Cousteau, she quips, and before I finish thinking, damn I love this-she slaps woman clean out of the monologue. That s for almost getting us killed. She scissor-kicks her way closer. I deserve whatever abuse she wants to dole out so I don t move away. She stops kicking. Wraps her legs around my waist. Kisses me. Kisses me hard and violent. Softer now-a feint-punishes my lips, parts them with her torpedoing tongue. We re ten feet under water before I remember I m kicking for the both of us. It s like this when you cheat death. You want to damage things. To laugh. To scream and cry, to fondle and fuck But more so with Mercy. I could drown inside her right now. We come up for air and she finally pushes me away. That s for almost. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 22 A half-mile up the curving incline of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, Mercy asks me to change lanes. Sure. But I thought you might enjoy the view from up here. The concrete guardrails are low-less than three feet high--but so is the Mustang, and she won t be able to see the downtown skyline or all the sailboats in the water below if another vehicle pulls abreast of us on the passenger side. Thanks, but I m a little scared of heights. Traffic s light so I sneak a peek over at her: one hand gripping the shoulder restraint, the other white-knuckling the side of her seat, eyes riveted to the center divider-shallow breaths; no color in her face. More than a little scared.Restore Text As a therapist, she must know the best way to get over a phobia is through repeated exposure to that which you fear (easy for me to say; in 9,000-plus years, the odds are you ll confront a bunch of frightening situations more than once). But I m not the kind of asshole who gets a kick out of scaring people, and I need her to trust me. I cruise into the passing lane. Is that better? Much. Thank-you. She doesn t say anything the rest of the way across, and I pass the time counting the number of suicide-hotline signs mounted to light posts every couple hundred yards or so. Thirty-six of them on this side unless I missed one. At its highest point, an empty aircraft carrier can pass through underneath, between two of the thirty mission-style concrete arches reaching some two-hundred feet up to the road bed. It s not a straight-shot to get across the bridge. It arcs ninety-degrees to the North as we head to the namesake island it connects with the rest of the city. In fact, as we make our way off the bridge on Southbound Highway 75, we re actually traveling due North for a time, before taking a left onto Orange Avenue which leads west into the exclusive shops and eateries of downtown Coronado. So where are we headed? she asks. I need to take care of some business at the Hotel Del. I love the Del. It s beautiful. I go there for the Sunday brunch buffet in the Crown room whenever I have friends visiting. It s really something. I m surprised you re willing to suffer the bridge so frequently. I don t. I take highway-75 up from Imperial Beach through the Strand. It s a little out of the way, but it s still a pretty drive. And I don t have to worry about having a panic attack. I nod. Yeah, that s probably for the best. I don t suppose you re going to tell me what sort of business you have at the hotel? Nope. But it s related to Cindy s kidnapping, right? Yes. So why can t you tell me? Like I said, it s classified. This time it s even harder not to laugh. Well then how am I supposed to help you if you keep me in the dark about what s going on? By staying in the car with the engine running. I might need to leave in a hurry, so valet parking isn t going to cut it. I ll need you to circle, preferably with the top down. Look, I don t want to be involved with anything illegal. Really? So what would you call the lie you told to police about Cindy s age? Law abiding? I can t do that one-eyebrow-up thing she does, but my sideways smile is pretty good at amplifying the sarcasm. OK. Guess you have a point. But if I m in so much danger I had to ride with you over here, then isn t it too dangerous to weev-da-widdle-woman-alone-awe-by-hur-self? She did the eyebrow thing and a perfect impression of my naughty boy grin-with simultaneous air quotes around danger, followed by that sick baby-voice beat down. Behold: the new smartass champion, ending my centuries-long reign. It s liable to be much more dangerous in the hotel. Please, can you just trust me on this? Sure, she says. I ll trust you. Wow. That was- But before I can think easy, she whistles a few bars of Tammy Wynette s Stand By Your Man. Mercy! Please! I will give you no Mercy! For I am invincible! The deflator of men! Despite the circumstances, it s hard not to laugh. Guess I m a sucker for a girl with a good sense of humor. I just hope she can keep smiling if people start shooting at us. With a mile or so to go before we get to the Del, I pull the Mustang into a bank parking lot so she can take over behind the wheel. When we get there, drive right up to the main entrance and drop me off. Then pull a U-ey and hang a right out of the driveway. Your first chance to turn around will be at the second light down, across from a condominium complex. Just keep turning around there and circling back in front of the hotel. If anyone hassles you, give them the finger and say something to let them know you re a spoiled, entitled trophy wife waiting on her wealthy, powerful husband to emerge from the inside the bar. If they keep hassling you, lay on the horn two long blasts. I ll hear it, and I ll try to wrap up my business as quickly as possible and come back to the car. If I m not back here in fifteen minutes you can stop circling, at which point your next stop should be the airport, followed by a medium-sized city in the Midwest you ve never visited, that no one but the ticket agent knows you re going to-though I know full well you d stay here to look for Cindy. At least you ve been warned. So, any questions? Only about a thousand I know you re not going to answer. Thanks for trusting me. Do I have a choice? For the time being. But not if I want to see Cindy alive? You d be betting the long shot. And my odds if I keep betting on you? Higher. How much higher? Well I don t want to frighten you, you re scared of heights. That good? Everything s relative. Not everything, she said. As two of the hotels distinctive red-shingled turrets come into view I m content to let her have the last word as I start scanning the grounds for SOJ lookouts. No easy task. Completed in 1888, the Hotel Del Coronado is a massive white-painted all-wood beach resort-one of the few remaining-and it still stands as the largest beach hotel on the North American Pacific Coast. Of the six-hundred-plus rooms, a hundred or more have windows facing our approach. Too many to peer into in search of binoculars as we cruise past. Nor is the Del s size my only obstacle. Its sprawling asymmetrical architecture offers endless opportunities for surveillance on the sly: Dormers circumnavigating cupolas, pediment protected porticos...archways, bay windows, balconies...architecture buffs call the style Queen Anne Victorian. I call it ornate chaos. New beachfront construction adds to the sensory overload. As do the sidewalks brimming with sightseers and fat-cat hotel guests waddling back from the shops and restaurants we passed on our way in. Any of one of them could be an undercover sentry scouting for a thirsty Naphil. My only consolation is that we stopped for disguises before we left PB and our appearance is so different now, that if there are lookouts, they probably won t recognize us. For Mercy, a platinum blonde wig, hot-pink lipstick, and wraparound sunglasses did the trick-and hell--she looks like she could turn one (but in a good way); likewise, a dozen rolled-up beach towels, three rolls of athletic tape to hold them in place, and a triple-XL nylon track suit combine to turn me into a lard ass. Add to that a curly black wig, fake mustache and goatee, mirrored lens aviators, and a fake gold chain, and bada-bing, bada-boom: fat guido and his gold digging goomah. We turn into the driveway and join the line of vehicles slowly idling their way to the ill-designed port-cochere. For all the Del s elegance and style, this car-clogged threshold disappoints, running contrary to the air of leisure one would expect from a four-star resort. Another casualty of paved roads and the automobile.# Mercy wishes me luck and I get out, waving off the valet and the bellhops before they can add to the congestion. As she pulls away I stride into the narrow vestibule which leads inside to the lobby, dodging piles of luggage as if this were an airport instead of a historic landmark. A cautious approach isn t an option. If I stop, so does everyone behind me. Once inside the lobby, however, the foot-traffic situation improves. As does the vibe. The torchiere sconce and chandelier-lit space is all that and a cup of Earl Grey tea. Framed by hand-carved railings of a second floor mezzanine, and paneled in rich, dark mahogany (not unlike the library of a Basque castle I once owned), it instills a craving for single-malt scotch and pipes filled with the finest Stoved Virginia tobacco. I ll miss it. The draw of establishing a safe house in a world renown property like the Del, the Algonquin, or the George V in Paris, owes as much to common sense and convenience as it does to our centuries-refined good taste: We seduce those from whom we feed. Ecstasy in exchange for life everlasting. Although the proportion of O-neg visitors to the hotel is no greater than the general population s immune base, the relative number of delicious young women in search of no-strings romance is much higher than you d find at, say, a Holiday Inn Express. And since we integrated our donor databases with the computerized hotel registration systems, it freed us from wasting so much time merely identifying the O-neg guests. Not that licking sweat from nubile flesh, and tasting for A or B antigens isn t appealing-it is-but with Veingel quotas to adhere to, entertaining so many pretty young things before finding a donor got to be work. Now (before we got hacked, that is) we simply check in to the perpetually reserved (and purportedly haunted) room 3327, and read over the special addendum to the room service menu--replete with age, height, and headshots--updated daily by a Veingel cleaning lady. Nice while is lasted, but I don t have time to keep indulging my nostalgia. I let the eager beavers behind me peel off for the front desk or the courtyard beyond. Pretend to admire the flower arrangement establishing the geometric center of the room as I scan for SOJ operatives posing as hotel employees or guests. No one looks suspicious. I m burning up underneath all this physique-blurring bulk. I wipe away the sweat from my brow before it beads up and drips into my eyes. The fact my people can no longer savor the pleasures of this place infuriates me. The fact I look like a Thanksgiving turkey dressed in a parachute infuriates me. And the fact I can t even take a deep breath with this tape cinched so tight around my waist also infuriates me. My pulse pounds a cannibal s drumbeat. I m here to warn my people and their Veingels and all I can think about suddenly is killing--killing every oblivious smiling face in the building just to make sure at least one among the dead is SOJ. A fire would do it: Disable the retrofit sprinkler system. Barricade the doors...all this wood? Oh how it would burn. Like my waiting hell. But that s just the vengeance talking and I am not my vengeance. Not yet. Killing innocents isn t an option I m willing to consider outside of a dark fantasy. The usual procedure would be to request an extra key for room 3327 from the front desk, but that s out because I haven t checked the bulletin boards for the name the reservation is under this week. Wouldn t matter if I had, since the SOJ probably has control of the hotel computers, same as they do our databases. Still, there are other protocols I can rely on. I make my way up the stairs leading from the lobby, ignoring a sign that announces only hotel guests are allowed beyond this point. I meet no one in the halls. I see no cameras. Undetected and un-harassed, I arrive in front of 3327, the infamous room where Kate Morgan spent her final night among the living, and where, according to superstition, her spirit still haunts. It s no accident this is the room we selected to keep reserved for our exclusive use. The legend of Kate s haunting provides a convenient explanation for why the room is booked years in advance: Why, we re ghost hunters, or, we re mediums trying to make contact with Kate, is what we say if anyone asks. The shit people believe. As for the strange noises which hundreds of guests have reported emanating from the room? Well, the giddy women responsible might not classify their sighs and moans as natural, but they aren t super -natural, either. Strange. The door handle is bare. The door is locked. No self-respecting Naphil would occupy a safe house room without hanging the Do Not Disturb placard on the outside door handle as a courtesy to other Nephilim and Veingels who might be visiting the hotel. Whether or not the SOJ operatives know of this custom I have no idea, but my guess is they don t. Our databases are just that: places to store data. Essential, useful data. They re not an encyclopedia of Nephilim etiquette and culture-most of which, thank our fathers in darkness, is still an oral tradition. So the room is either empty, or occupied by SOJ assassins. I flatten myself against the wall adjacent to the door just in case someone inside heard footsteps and gets curious. The hallway s clear, but I could still be spotted through the peephole. I ease in to the edge of the door jamb where the hinges and the door butt up against the frame. Inhale deep and slow and quiet, sampling the air for traces of human scent seeping out through the joints. A lot of good a heightened sense of smell does me when a dirty room service tray sitting in front of the adjacent room overpowers any telltale whiffs of cologne, or halitosis, or hard-to-hide foot odor. Likewise on the sound front, as their blaring TV masks the meat-moist thud of a hidden heartbeat, or an eye-blink s precious percussion. Decision time. I usually gage intervals of time by my pulse. A second per. But now it feels like I m counting down instead of keeping track. The longer I stand here thinking about it, the longer nothing useful gets done. This isn t like me. It s a simple choice: bust in like a badass, break in like a burglar, or walk the fuck away. And yet here I stand, sweating it out like a prize fighter worried about making weight. What is wrong with you, Jequon? Have you forgotten your father? The pep talk s not working. Any second now, hotel staff could appear in the hallway and demand to see a key. Any second now SOJ hit men could appear in the hallway and shoot me. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats. I m still glued to the wall. I wipe the sweat from my forehead a second time. I can feel the towels taped around my upper arms begin to sag as they grow heavy with wicked-up perspiration. Fifteen heartbeats. Damn t Jequon. Kick it, pick it, or the hell with it. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. I wasn t even nervous on the way over here. All I could think about was saving someone--anyone. Like a hitter trying to end a slump, I just wanted to make contact with the ball...I didn t need a homerun...prevent just one Naphil from walking into an ambush, have him start warning the others while I stay on the attack. I felt like I knew the next pitch, like I could sit on it, assured of a base hit. It s not ambush if you know it s coming, I told myself. And I knew I d blend in with this disguise; knew they d have to do any killing in private to avoid a media frenzy and homicide investigation, which meant quick-and-dirty in one of the rooms, and plenty of time to clean up. Otherwise why go through the trouble of clearing Whitmore and discrediting Mercy? Best case: the SOJ didn t have the necessary manpower to setup at all our safe houses, and the Del wasn t yet a deathtrap; even if no Naphil happened to be feeding, I could leave a note in the room service menu and alert them of the danger when they did arrive. Worst case: I ambush the ambush. Vent a little. Yeah, I had it all figured out Except I didn t. Still don t. Because if I get all Dark Ages on an (un)welcoming party stationed in the room, I give up the only true advantage I have: my location (and easily inferred from that) and my presumed ignorance of their translator s identity. They ll know I m on to Whitmore. Just as bad, they d know I m in San Diego, and since I m the only Naphil alive even aware of their new threat, the SOJ would be able to concentrate their forces here to hunt me down. Hell, I already identified these risks before boarding the plane in St. Louis on the way here. It s not Alzheimer s, so I must be suffering from selective memory loss. It s like my brain and my gut are doing battle. Instincts vs. intellect. Reason vs. rage. One of them has to win out or I m not going anywhere. And if I go? It s not that I m afraid of dying-I m afraid of all of us dying. I m afraid of a world free from reminders that God s not perfect after all. We were His first mistake. I don t want us to be his last. So that s what has me immobile. The enormity of what s at stake here. The question is, am I going to choke now that the pressure s on? What if? my way out of an opportunity for retribution? A chance to save someone? All these centuries I ignored the Council and killed the enemy whenever they killed one of us, Codes be damned. What? now that they re all dead I m suddenly going to abide by their don t-make-waves approach? No way. If I was right then, then I m right now, and right now is always the most important time in life. I need to work with that. Stop thinking, start doing. I retrieve a fork from the discarded room service tray. I break of three of the four curved tines, and bend the remaining tine until it s no longer curved, straight with respect to the handle like a dagger or prison yard shank. Using my molars as a vice, I bite down near the tip of the pointy end and bend only the last sixteenth of an inch to form a right angle. Now I have a crude torque wrench, one-half the toolset needed to pick a lock. The narrow, flexible wire-frame of my aviators completes the package. I break off the left earpiece at the hinge and remove the plastic cover from the curved end. A couple adjustments and I m good to go. This isn t a completely silent operation like in the movies, but it beats knocking. I ll just have to go slow and hope no one has their ear up to the door. For most locks, the tumblers are on top of the barrel, and raking the up out of the way into their chambers isn t much different than gesturing come-hither on a lover s G-spot. By dexterity, or experience, I can t say, but the process goes more quickly that I expected. I slowly rotate all the slack out of the knob. The moment of truth. I throw the door wide open and dive into the room headfirst, tucking and rolling into a somersault so the door clears my legs as it slams shut behind me on the rebound, finish in a low crouch. Ready to spring, to strike, to slide under the bed. Nobody s in here. I check the closet. Clear. The bathroom. Clear. Balcony? Empty. All the things we worry about that never happen The emptiness gnawing at my stomach could be the sushi I resisted in PB, or it could be the paradoxical regret I sometimes feel when impending violence calls in sick. I made good use of the room last time I visited San Diego. Since then the interior s been upgraded. The bedspread used to be a practical red. Now it s an aqua-hued floral pattern. But other than the decorative touches, the room s how I remember it. A king bed. An easy chair. A media center hiding a TV made to look like a wardrobe. A writing desk I suppose I should make use of before Mercy gets impatient. Realistically though, it could be weeks before a Naphil or Veingel checks into the Del. We have almost a thousand safe houses around the world. Nor is there any law in the Codes which requires we feed at one of them. They are (were) merely a convenience. The only way a written warning will do any good is if the SOJ don t set up shop in the hotel before the next Naphil checks in And now it hits me, like a crate of Elvis records: The SOJ kill squad doesn t need to be waiting in the room before one of us arrives. With our database telling them where to look, they can simply monitor the individual reservation systems for each safe house remotely, wait til a reservation goes through for one of our special rooms, and then, at their leisure, send a team to take us out when we re suitably distracted and at our most vulnerable. Bottom line, they don t need to be everywhere all at once as I previously imagined. With a limited number of known (and unsuspecting) targets, anywhere on short notice is good enough. They could cover the globe with as few as three or four, four-to-five-man units standing ready near major international airports. Bottom line, I m an idiot. The only shot I had at warning anyone here is if they happened to have checked in already-and if they had, then the SOJ would have most likely beaten me to the punch. At least I don t need to keep looking like an idiot. No sentries, so no need to keep wearing this disguise. The wig is my first casualty. I throw it and everything else except the track suit into a plastic laundry bag I find in the closet. Tie it off and set it against the door so I don t forget it on my way out. I suppose leaving a note-just in case-is better than doing nothing. But dammit I wish there was something else I could do. The enemy perpetrates genocide against us, and so far my response is to write a letter. Fucking pen to a gunfight It s the memories that keep me from going pyro on this wooden wedding cake of a building, not the architecture. The good times. And for the record, yeah, I m the one who shot Kate Morgan. My Veingel, my responsibility. I don t care how depressed you are, or how good looking, poaching sailors when you ve already reached your quota, then killing them-but only halfway, so the bodies don t pile up and give you away--fuhgidabowdit. Took me three weeks to finish off all the vampires she created. As for the legend of her haunting this room after she died? It was a good cover story to explain why it s always reserved. Speaking of cover stories, Mercy s probably getting anxious for her secret agent to wrap this up. If turning on my cell phone was at all prudent, I d call hers and tell her to park. I haven t slept much save for the tranquilizer induced coma on Air France and this mattress is first-rate. Maybe she d like to cuddle. Am I still a dirty old man if I don t look a day over thirty? I take a seat at the desk and use the complimentary pen and hotel stationary to write the letter. Very similar to the warning that got intercepted in New York, a little less wordy. I stash it in front of the room service wine list. As I m browsing the Del s selection of Napa Valley cabs, I hear footsteps out in the hallway. Big, heavy steps. Confident, sober strides. Either a sumo wrestler, or three men walking in lockstep. Getting closer. I get up and shuffle over to the door leading to the balcony, never taking my eyes off the front door. Reach behind my back and undo the deadbolt in case I have to leave in a hurry. The footsteps in the hallway are very close now. They stop. Knock-knock-knockety-knock-knock. Add: never underestimate the enemy to the list of sound advice I ve ignored lately. Room service. As in service revolver barrel-to-glass on the peephole. Still facing the front door, I slowly turn the knob on the door behind me. Pull it towards me, slowly, carefully, aiming for total silence. But the hinges could use some oil and they screech exactly like door hinges inevitably do when a little stealth might save your ass or your marriage. Real subtle. About as subtle as the explosion of wood splinters ushering in the red polyester clad bellhops packing suppressed pistols. Thanks, Dad, for my blinding speed, and I m hurdling the balcony rail. The guy on point must ve tripped over my guido-bag just as he was squeezing the trigger; his first three shots miss. I land hard on the red shingled roof, so steep it makes all comparisons to vertical academic. My feet shoot out from underneath me as two more bullets pfft past overhead. I start sliding toward the gutters, fast enough to melt a hole in the nylon of my ADIDAS pants. Yes All Day, I Dream About--surviving three-story falls--and just before I run out of roof (which my sandpapered ass definitely thinks is on fire) I pull my knees into my chest for leverage and spring into the air superman style toward a palm tree, avoiding three more slugs which tap dance harmlessly in my wake. I slam into the trunk with all the grace of a one-eyed flying squirrel with no depth perception. Maneuver to the opposite side to put wood between me and the shooters; eventually these assholes might get lucky. Note to self: where a cup next time you decide to shimmy down a Royal Palm. Half way down now. A bullet grazes my forearm. Too close. Fuck it. Sliding down poles is for strippers. I back-flip away from the tree. Bust a half-twist midflight because I m cool like that and hit the ground running. Mercy is just pulling into the driveway for another pass as I round the corner and streak past the recently completed day spa. She waves and I signal for her to pull a U-ey. I remind myself no one runs this fast and deliberately slow down to a jog the rest of the way to the Mustang. Hopefully the inhuman blur of pumping arms and piston-like strides didn t just blow my cover. Go! Go! Go! U-turn it! What s going on? Later. Just drive. 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download other formats Chapter 1 2:00 AM. New York City. Jequon. Shoot. My name is Uri Kolenkov. Five-hundred-thousand dollars. Cash. The Russian speaks heavily accented English. Not the language anyone who should have this number would use. Dollars is rendered dole-irs. Cash, cawsh. You bring the money to Sarajevo and I ll guard the body a little longer, he says. Guard who? His name is Lucian...a few hundred years old perhaps? Young for your kind. Understood. I ve never met this twice-removed cousin of mine, but I am very close to his father, the Council member, Samsaveel. Twenty-four hours. Then I leave him here, he says. I ll be there. Now I m starting to worry. 23 Hours Later. Sarajevo Train Depot. You know that bass-heavy techno beat they play whenever the badass motherfucker first appears onscreen in a Hollywood blockbuster? Where they slow down their trench coat, dark-shades-strut until it s choppy and lethal? You wouldn t believe how accurate that is-almost verbatim the soundtrack cranking in my head right now. And I ve gotta tell you, it pisses me off I had to wait the better part of 9,000 years to enjoy a synthesizer, or the adrenaline boost from an electric guitar. Tribal drums, the harp, the lyre-it s just not the same. Off the train, briefcase in hand, I step out of the way of my fellow travelers and let them pass, eager as they must be to reach their destination before sunset. Aside from the deadly instrumental in my head, my whole world is three things: don t quit, don t die, get answers. Most importantly, find out how these fundamentalist fuck-stains have quadrupled their kill-rate after centuries of merely sporadic success murdering my people. I remain on the platform for a beat, soaking in every possible avenue of attack available to the enemy. So far, no obvious threats. Ordinarily I might stand here another ten minutes pretending to smoke, just to be sure. But the clock s ticking. Clear enough. I hustle through the station and out front to the cab line. The streets are loud with honking and revving engines as people navigate their way through the logjam of suitcase toting pedestrians. I stick to the curb and try to get the attention of a taxi. At six-foot-three-inches, and two-hundred-thirty-pounds, I m no giant-at least not by today s standards-but in this country, where much of the populace grew up malnourished, I m a muscled blonde tower. A young, stern-faced mother stands beside me, clutching her little girl s hand even harder than I grip my five-hundred G s. The pig-tailed princess smiles up at me, maybe proud of her tiny painted fingernails, before returning her attention to the other side of the street. Grandma! she exclaims, waving frantically at an elegantly dressed older woman who smiles and waves back to her. She wriggles free of her mother s hand, and darts triumphantly away toward the oncoming traffic, not a worry in the world. I reach out for her before she s pattered more than two steps. I might have made a good father if not for- The first bullet hisses as it passes harmlessly over my head-a curb higher than my temple-close enough to tousle my hair. The second bullet slices cleanly through the triangular wedge of muscle above my collarbone and beside the neck. A chest shot if I hadn t tried to save Pig Tails. Now it s nothing but screeching brakes and a blaring horn, and mom shrieking no-ooo! behind me, frozen as her pride and joy prances into certain death. But she s safe. She s in the crook of my arm, gaping up at me with wide eyes. So far, no one notices the little rivulets of blood streaming out of the exit wound and down the same arm I clutch her with. People applaud, cheering my heroic act. I turn and hand off Pig Tails to her mother who s too stunned to say anything. She s aware of nothing except her precious Sabine as she repeats the girl s name over and over and kisses her hair. Now I m starting to feel it. I turn back to the street and practically fall into the backseat of the waiting cab; the little girl had risked everything to hail it for me. Drive, I say, more of a grunt than a request. The pain is intense even though it s masked by endorphins. Where to? I ll tell you in a minute. I lie down across the length of the backseat, trying to get my head lower than the windows. I m pretty sure the cabbie sees the mushroom of blood wicking through the leather of my overcoat. Is everything alright sir? He sounds very alarmed. Hasn t even remembered to start the meter. Fine, I say. Just give me a minute. Drive wherever. I fish the address Uri gave me out of my pocket and hand it up to him with a shaky hand. There, I say. Go there. Quickly. I force my mind to focus on the last sixty seconds. The bullets came from opposite directions. Two gunmen. Suppressed rifles, both; no sound except the turbulence as the first bullet whooshed past. The one that hit me punched right through, which means it was a jacketed round, the kind snipers use to protect their precision barrels. Normally a sniper wouldn t bother silencing their weapon, because the extra hardware impedes accuracy, and they re usually so far away from their target that no one can pinpoint their location anyway. They must ve been close then, ready to finish me off in case I didn t drop-or in case I did drop, and they needed to kill the part of me that won t die so easily. The cabbie calls out to me from the front seat, Sir! You are bleeding, sir! There s no hiding it now. My right sleeve is saturated, and droplets fall from the cuff onto my pant leg. My undershirt clings to my spine as it channels the blood from the entry wound down into the groove between my spinal erectors, and then past my tailbone and into my ass crack. I lie, I m fine, keep driving. I will take you to a hospital. There is one ahead. No, I say. Keep driving. Then you will have to get out of my cab, sir. You will ruin my seats. This is my livelihood. I am sorry sir. The cabbie slows and pulls to the side of the road, his unblinking eyes fixed on me in the rearview. I can t blame him. And I m in no condition to argue. I have to save my energy. I nod to the mirror and say alright. I crack the lid on the briefcase and grab a bound stack of crisp hundreds. Ten-grand worth-no time to fiddle with loosing one from the bundle. I hand it up to him and get out. Go get your seats cleaned, I say. And you never saw me. He nods and speeds off. I start walking. Here the road parallels the banks of the Milijacka river. From what I remember of the city, the address is not far. For the time being, another ambush is unlikely. The shooters only saw the direction I m traveling, and that s obviously no secret. But getting dropped here was pure happenstance, and they d have no way to know in advance where best to position another sniper. Instead, they ll wait until I get closer. Don t quit, don t die, get answers. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Microsoft Reader version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats I m very hard to kill. Knowledge that gives me confidence in situations like this. I ve been shot before. I survived. So I know what I can withstand. And what I can t. I m bleeding out. Simple as that. My life isn t the clich flashing before my eyes; this is a slower death; past deeds crawl to recollection...love lost...promises Like the one I made to my father--to all of our fathers, whether they could hear me or not-to outlive His wrath, to spite his judgments with our continued prosperity Broken promises if I give in to this attempt on my life. Damned or not, I d sooner live. I have maybe fifteen minutes left before I go cold and numb, and right now to do something about it, the ever present eternity. First things first: I have to stop the bleeding, or at least slow it down, and I have to change clothes. I can t afford drawing attention to myself. I cross an invisible, yet tangible line and enter into the Turkish Quarter where most of the capital s hustle and bustle takes place. At this late hour the usual din of haggling merchants and street musicians has given way to laughter and the occasional drunken ballad. There s a men s specialty shop adjacent to the alley on my right which should work for the clothing. They should stock something I can use for the bleeding, too. I duck into the alley and walk far enough back so that I m invisible from the sidewalk among the shadows. The top of the building is about sixteen feet overhead, and I hope there ll be access on top which isn t barred up like the front display. I squat down and explode upward, clear the edge of the roofline just enough to grab on, and then pull myself up. Superhuman, I m not. More like: genetic freak--human1.5. Still, what would normally be an easy maneuver has me dizzy and gasping. The endorphins have worn off completely. I sit still and grit my teeth. The burning in my wound subsides. Thank our fathers there s a skylight near the center of the roof. I crawl over to it on my stomach and remove the metal flashing and tar along one side to expose the plastic lip. I get a fingernail under, and then another, and now a decent grip with most of my left hand. I jerk it hard and the trashcan-lid-sized bubble pops free. I lower myself in and strip off blood-drenched clothes on the way to the cash register. The machine sits on top of a glass display case doubling as a countertop. Inside the case are wallets, drinking flasks, cigar cutters, tie clips, handkerchiefs, and decorative lighters. The cans of lighter fluid beneath the cigar display are an added bonus. I remove a handkerchief and a lighter from the case, palm the lighter, and lay the handkerchief flat on top of the glass. I douse it with lighter fluid from one of the cans until it puddles. With the cotton completely saturated, I roll it up so it forms a narrow, flammable cylinder and search for something I can use to snake the fluid-soaked rag through the hole in my neck. The pencil lying beside the register will have to do. I insert the tip of the handkerchief into the front of my trapezius with the sharpened tip of the pencil, like I m crocheting myself. The fluid stings. I guide the handkerchief-wrapped pencil deeper into the wound. Sweat slicks my forehead, even though I m nude and the temperature is probably no more than sixty-five degrees. My eyes tear up involuntarily, and I can taste stomach acid at the back of my throat. My bowels quiver, threatening to let loose as my body tries to shut down everything except what might help me escape from this demon of agony which has me pinned down. It s everything I can do to stay conscious. I press the handkerchief deeper still. The inflamed flesh parts away from the probe as it burrows deeper, a sound like maggots writhing in spoiled meat. The tip pokes through on the other side of my neck just when I think I can no longer stand the pain. I unsheathe the pencil from the handkerchief and pull it free from the wound, leaving the fabric in place. Leaning away, with my left ear on my left shoulder, and shielding my vulnerable cheek with my left hand, I light the handkerchief. It erupts into a wedge of orange heat, whooshing like the lost breath from a sucker-punch as it licks at the edges of its own fumy aura. I smell the hairs melt from the back of the hand protecting my face, and then the flame contracts nearer to the surface of the makeshift fuse. Vapor spent, the rag doesn t burn quickly. The tiny flame inches closer to the opening of the bullet hole like the sail of a miniature ghost ship, propelled by an imperceptible wind. The edges of the wound start to bubble from the heat. I squeeze my eyes shut so tight against the pain, that for an instant, I m afraid I ve crushed my eyeballs-that the tears which stream from the corners of my lids are juices leaking from wasted orbs. I m relieved only for a second, and now horrified as I watch with eyes still intact the flame sputtering out, the blackened stump of the handkerchief extinguished no more than a millimeter inside the wound. Fire requires oxygen (which I must not be getting) in addition to fuel-as does the brain to remember Boy Scout facts like this. Hypovolaemic shock, it s called, resulting from blood loss. I ve seen it before, just never on the receiving end. Am I already this gone? When I lost her all those years ago--lost them--I consoled myself, told myself I had forever to create another warrior in my image. The lies we believe to carry on. I ll have to pull out the handkerchief and start over, and I have to be quick about it. My pulse is dangerously elevated now. I m losing blood even faster from the rear of the wound as my heart struggles to maintain circulation to the rest of my body--and the more blood I lose, the harder its job. I m starting to shiver. My limbs feel heavy. Don t be a pussy! I taunt myself. Remember your father, Jequon, watching you from his chains. I turn up the music in my head to stay awake, to refocus-to stay alive one heartbeat at a time. With my singed hand, I reach over my right shoulder and tug free the still protruding handkerchief out the backside. The pain is so intense I m no longer able to feel it the same way. It merges with me; there is no more separation. I am the anguish. I am Where am I? A shiny metal canister materializes in front of me as a hand steadies a flickering blue-tipped Zippo beneath it. Minutes pass? Hours? ...Father? Is that you? The hand holding the flask brings it closer to my face and then behind me where I can t see it. I hear sizzle and hiss and then the hand returns with the flask. Reheats it. Raises it again and presses the metal to the right-front side of my neck. It feels good, like an ice pack. I smell roasted meat and it reminds me of when I was a boy and we hunted mammoths. # The girl sighs in the throes of a pleasurable dream, waking me from mine. I m kneeling, and I cradle her head in my palm as she lies limp across my thigh. Her hair spills down my shin, the silken locks mere inches from the cold grime of the alley. I have no recollection of finding her, no memory of saving myself, getting dressed, or exiting the store. The pain of the bullet wound is now replaced with an almost pleasant tingling and a persistent itch near the surface of the skin-a sure sign of healing. I m not fully recovered, but for that, I d have had to drain her of all precious life--cursing her to the animated decay that is vampire, a crime forbidden by the Codes. The revulsion toward such an act must be ingrained in my subconscious. I kiss her on the forehead, and ease the sleeping beauty down onto some cardboard, tuck her in with a brand-new overcoat I must ve grabbed from inside the store. It s a chilly night, and being a pint short won t help her circulate warmth. When she wakes, she ll be a Veingel. Not the filthy animal her blood--still moist on my lips--spared me from becoming tonight. The urge to watch over her...to hold her...to be with her when she wakes up, more alive and more sensual than she s ever felt in her life Instincts I have to fight off to remember why I m here: Lucian. Ezekiel, and all the others; a chain of murders stretching back to when our enemy still huddled together in caves and passed the time copying the white lies of their God onto papyrus scrolls; His latest mercenaries. Instead I slip a copy of the Codes beneath her bra and keep moving. 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download other formats The Flood didn t get all of us. After the waters receded, His Chosen People also failed to wipe us out though they tried in Canaan slaughtering entire cities just to get to a handful of our kind who lived among the region s populace. Eventually, the Israelites were distracted by other tribes returning their murderous favors. So He entrusted the task to a more devout sect of fanatics: The Sons Of Jared (SOJ for short), a small clan who could trace their bloodline all the way back to their revered prophet, Enoch, and to their namesake, Enoch s father the seventh from Adam according to legend. From such progeny sprang Methuselah, and later, Noah so fair-skinned and light-haired they feared he was one of us. Ah! the irony amusing, were it not for their deadly persistence. For centuries, culling away only our weakest helping to sustain the natural order, some of our leaders argued (a view I never shared). Now that the SOJ are becoming a more serious threat, I hope my more proactive stance might gain support from the Council out of necessity. # The last time I visited Sarajevo was in 1984, when the capital of the former Yugoslavia hosted the Olympic Winter Games. In my absence, civil war and ethnic cleansing ripped apart the region, threatening to crumble its most beautiful city. She s recovered, though not without scars. As I move deeper into The Quarter, the streets and walkways are patched increasingly with red-painted cement in the shape of flower pedals. Sarajevo Roses. A solemn reminder of the mortar rounds which rained down from the surrounding mountains during the war. Men like Uri are another type of scar upon the city. Organized crime is always the first business to prosper in the wake of socialism an inevitable progression of the black markets that operate beneath the radar of any communist government. Here in particular, the Russian Mafia sprouted up like poison mushrooms on the dung of oxen, still thriving today even after newly elected officials have sworn to crack down and to restore the rule of law. I rub the quickly fading circle of scar tissue embossed on my neck. It would be easy to assume Uri sold me out. But aside from his own self interest, it s just as likely he s an ignorant pawn. There s too much I don t know to jump to conclusions. For instance: Did the SOJ intercept his call and place snipers at all my likely points of entry into the city? Or, was the attack just an extension of their standard operating procedure? bait me with an opportunity to investigate their first target, and then hope to get lucky, when Jequon, the ol half-angel of vengeance arrives on the scene? Uri could have discovered Lucian s body after they were long gone. They might not even know he stumbled upon their latest damning (an SOJ euphemism, not mine) or, they might have made a deal with him weeks before they showed up at Lucian s apartment, buying right-of-passage from Uri and a blind eye toward their duffels bulky with sharpened wood stakes, heavy mallets, and holy-water. Or maybe, just maybe, Uri got lucky and interrupted their ceremony and luckier still for me managed to take out a few of them on my behalf. I m not known for luck (you might say Providence isn t on my side), but this latter possibility intrigues me on many levels it must because rushing in here like I did, taking none of the usual precautions, was stupid, stupid, dumb; an act of desperation, which I ve seen kill otherwise cunning warriors more often than any other mistake except for bedding the wrong woman. And yet, my gut tells me it was the right decision. I do think Uri is holding something back, but I don t think he s in league with the SOJ. Sure, they could pay him same as me. And one could argue that cash in hand is worth two full briefcases en route. But if that was the SOJ s plan, did they really think I d fall for it so easily? I don t think so. They re more sophisticated than that. And there s the matter of what Uri knows, that he shouldn t know, that no one could have possibly convinced him of in the midst of a business deal: Lucian s actual name. What he was even his age, though his face must ve claimed no more than thirty years (give-or-take, depending on his preference, and how many feedings he was forced to skip over the years during plagues). What s more, Uri knew how to reach me. Knowledge no human should have. Only Lucian could have given him this information. It s not something he would have written down in an address book where prying eyes could find it. Lucian must ve told Uri of my existence, along with the only circumstance in which he dare call. The punishment for such an infraction is two-hundred years in a lightless pit. So the fact Lucian would take such a risk earns Uri a grudging credibility. After all, here is a man who seems to know who I am, what I am, and the unique role I serve in protecting my people. And if he knows all that, then he realizes beyond even a shred of doubt, that I am not to be fucked with. Which can only mean Uri has something else for me. Something more than Lucian s body, too sensitive to speak of over an unsecured line. # Thousands of the city s youth are out, most of them twenty-something girls with glitter adorning their necks in place of the lace and lockets of another era. The war decimated their available dating pool, and it shows in their hungry eyes and revealing dress. A seductive waif I pass sways into me as if the streets were much more crowded than they actually are; testing me with a hardened nipple, inviting me with the muscular curve of her thighs. She is not the only one. Not so long ago, nights like this were heaven. Looping trance music greets me a block from where Uri waits, like the chanting of Gregorian monks gone electronica. I hug the walls and dart under awnings as I move in. If this a trap, I m getting close enough to show up on the SOJ s radar. Up ahead I see the foil-covered windows of what must be Lucian s apartment. It sits on the second floor of a brown brick building; below it, on street level, an all-night caf advertising espresso and blintzes; and in the basement turned speaker-box, some kind of dance club I would suspect Uri s in charge of. Not what I would call an unusual location for a 3rd Generation s bachelor pad. Convenient as hell. I slip into the last remaining alley before the rendezvous and scan the approach. The air here is an interesting mix of raw dough, mixed drinks, and concrete. I m looking at church towers, unlit windows with a view of the street, and anywhere else another sniper could be hiding. Nothing stands out, which leaves three possibilities of any likelihood: A) the SOJ put all their eggs in one basket at the train station, thinking there wasn t a devil s chance in the church choir that two world-class shooters could miss me; B) they don t have the manpower in place to take another potshot from the perimeter; or C) I m wrong about Uri, and they plan to ambush me inside Lucian s apartment. I m leaning toward A or B, but I could live with C. The more numerous the enemy, the better the odds one of them will talk. I saunter up to the door adjacent the caf and walk in. A poorly lit stairwell leads up to the second floor. I hunch forward to avoid the angled ceiling frosted with cobwebs on my way up. The wooden treads groan like banshees with every step. Fortunately the music is even louder in here, and should mask my progress. At the top of the steps there s a cramped landing bracketed by two numbered doors, Lucian s on the left, neighbor s on the right. Still no sign of an ambush, but I m ready if there is. Close-quarters combat is my world. I get down on one knee three feet in front of the entrance to his apartment and listen. My hearing is an order of magnitude more sensitive than a full-on human s, but any breaths or heartbeats I might otherwise detect are drowned out by the revelry below in the club. I duck even lower. If someone shoots through the door, they ll aim for my chest first. Uri, it s Jequon. I don t want to surprise him. Do you have the money? Yes, I say. I m surprised how relaxed he sounds. Good. Come in, slowly, with both hands on the briefcase where I can see them. He knows what I m carrying, so he must have me on camera. That s not the way it works, I say. I m paying you. You get the door. I hear him stand up from a metal folding chair, and then the unmistakable schlack-klack of a pump-action shotgun as he chambers a round. Don t worry, he calls through the door, according to Lucian, you d kill me before I even raise the barrel and shoot. The gun is my escort back downstairs. Hand me the money as I pass. You ll want to spend some time alone with your friend, yes? You re not leaving, Uri. I have some questions for you. The door creaks open about six inches and a plume of clove-scented cigarette smoke and vodka fumes billows out into the hall. It masks but does not cloak the warm coppery scent of blood a lot of blood. The tip of the 12-guage pokes through the crack first, and Uri uses it to lever the door open the rest of the way while he remains obscured in the darkness of the room. I ll be in my club. Come ask your questions when you are finished. He staggers through the doorway without making eye contact. He is drunk. I stand back up, briefcase in hand, and he reaches for it. I hand it to him. A deal s a deal. But if Uri thinks he s going anywhere before I ve had a chance to look at the body, he ll just have to sober up and get to know my friend, Reality. Sit tight, I say, and grip him hard on the shoulder not enough to hurt, but enough to let him know I m not asking. First I make sure I m getting my money s worth. Uri nods, then drops the briefcase as if he s too tired to hold it. I look suggestively at the shotgun. Safety on? Uri nods again. I confirm, visually, that it is indeed on safety. Good. Now pick up the briefcase and hold it. He does. Now turn around and face the neighbor s door. I wait for him to turn. If I hear your feet move even a millimeter, I will kill you. If you set down that briefcase, I will kill you. If I hear you click off the safety, I will kill you. Understood? Yes, he says. I m actually not as fast as Lucian led him to believe, but I am quick enough to take him out before he could click off the safety, drop the briefcase, turn, and raise the barrel to fire. I step inside and open up the door all the way behind me. Flip on a light. The apartment is one room plus a bathroom, sparsely furnished with a chair, a dresser, and an unmade bed that looks like it doubled as an autopsy slab. Lucian hangs from the far wall like a dying Christ; naked, suspended by ash stakes protruding through his crossed ankles, wrists, and chest. His face is mangled. His eyes gouged out. His throat meat-cleavered clean to the vertebrae. Any of these wounds would have been fatal not just the symbolic, stake-through-the-heart clich . I move closer. Close enough that I can smell the faint vapor of perfume on his skin, a remnant of the beautiful young thing they must ve distracted him with. But something isn t quite right with the body. Something s missing or rather, different. I lean in to examine Lucian s forehead, where the SOJ burn a unique brand at the completion of their formal ritual. Unbelievable! It s the wrong Jequon. Long time no see. The words cut short my thought. In fact, they make it hard to think at all, because I hear them in the sacred tongue of my people. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Microsoft Reader version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 3 Artemis. First Generation. Always wanted my job. Which is reason enough not to like him. But standing there dressed in all black motorcycle leathers, the ridiculous epitome of a B-movie vampire costume that s enough to piss me off especially when he shows up unannounced. I ve called him on his outfit before, and he always reverts to his I collect Ducatis excuse. Whatever. In medieval Ireland, pimped out in armor polished to a mirror-like finish, his line was: I m a knight. The poser. Why are you here? I ask in English, playing stupid, buying time. I deny him the courtesy of responding in the Angelic Tongue of our fathers, the Watchers. The question is, Jequon, why weren t you here earlier? That throws me. What the hell is he talking about? I locate Uri in my periphery, keeping my eyes on Artemis the whole time. The Russian hasn t moved. Don t worry about Uri. He doesn t even realize I ve been in the room with him for the better part of the day. I had his errand bitch from downstairs bring up a special order. Snuck in and rolled underneath the bed after I heard him snoring What? you think a Russian gets that soused from vodka alone? Uri pipes in from the hall, It s true comrade, it has been my water ever since Chernobyl. I have never seen this man before. He drugged me. I Shut-up Uri. Artemis removes a brass and red plastic shotgun shell from his pocket and wiggles it in Ur s direction; then he moves toward me a step. So what s your excuse this time Jequon? You re The Protector, remember? Who exactly are you protecting? Clearly not Lucian. You keep telling the Council you ve got it under control, and meanwhile, our people are getting slaughtered by these chumps. Too bad it takes an emergency to get them to listen me. I say, Jequon s lost his edge, they say, impossible. But when they heard you were desperate enough to make half-million-dollar deals with a human a Russian mobster at that well, let s just say the Council has finally taken heed of my warnings. Typical Artemis steam. Are you through admiring the sound of your own voice, I ask. You asked me a question and I d like to answer. Artemis moves closer another step. There will be plenty of time to answer when I escort you before the Council, he says, and tries to disguise this bullshit with one of his trademark smirks a leer so self-righteous even Lucifer couldn t top it. Artemis closes the gap between us by one more careful step. Don t make this difficult, he says. He reaches inside his coat I tense up, ready to spring and he removes a set of Nephilim-grade, solid plate design, titanium handcuffs. Unlike his neck, I can t snap these, even on a good day. Council orders. They thought these might make you a more agreeable travel companion. Sure. I understand, I say. For a Naphil looking to kill one of his own, he d be hard pressed to find a better cover story: Just stage the crime scene to look like a Sons Of Jared killing, and who s the wiser? Me. That s who. Although he gets props for posing as a Council investigator a wholly original embellishment his research into the SOJ s methods came from an unreliable source. Hold out your wrists, Artemis says. I hold them out. Artemis knows, of course, that after the SOJ kill their victim in a formal ceremony, they finish the ritual by branding the word damned onto the forehead. But the real SOJ spell damned in Aramaic. Artemis made the brand on Lucian s forehead using letters from the Angelic alphabet letters no human understands not even the ancient scroll-scribbling SOJ. I leaked this bogus detail to my people centuries ago, anticipating the eventuality of a traitor like Artemis. Holding the cuffs open in his right hand, Artemis reaches across his body and grabs hold of my left wrist. In this textbook position, he has the most leverage to secure the cuffs, and the best chance to defend himself if I were to make any sudden movements. In theory, by holding my wrist with his opposite hand, he will be able to feel any motion in my arm much faster than he could see it, allowing him to sidestep an attack, and (as practiced thousands of times by anyone trained to make arrests) disrupt the balance of his attacker as he pivots behind to subdue him in some other way. In theory. In practice, Artemis bumps one side of the cuff closed on my left wrist and pivots the other side to secure my right which doesn t happen because in the millisecond it takes for the bracelet to travel down its narrow arc, my palm is halfway to his chin. Artemis sidesteps the blow and barely manages to keep the base of his skull attached to his spinal column. With a firm grip still on my wrist he immediately shuffles to one side, countering the momentum of my missed strike as he begins his pivot to get behind me. Textbook execution on his part and he s good. Real good. Even for a fellow 1st Gen. But I m counting on his prowess. I meant to miss with the palm strike. I just wanted to get him moving. Instead of lunging forward off-balance, like he expects me to do after such a ferocious miss, I jerk my left elbow down, freeing my wrist from his grip, sending him stumbling forward as he tries in vain to hang on. Now I plant my left leg and torque my entire upper-body clockwise, leading with my chin, rotating every inch of my two-hundred-and-thirty pounds of pissed-off Protector-grade Nephilim on the ball of my foot. My other leg hangs loose, trailing slightly behind, accelerating, building momentum like the supersonic tip of a bullwhip. As I complete the turn, I can see Artemis with his hands up, expecting a spinning back-fist, the most common strike thrown from my position. What he gets instead, just as he drops his hands, is the outside edge of my boot heel slamming between his eyes like a lead pipe. Even if Artemis had defended for the kick, and left his guard up a split-second longer, it wouldn t have mattered. His face would still be caved in. His eyeballs still hanging loose from their disintegrated sockets. His brain still leaking out of his ear-holes in a bloody soup. Our fathers in darkness, what have I done? This is the first time I ve killed one of my own, and the act runs so contrary to the way I m wired I almost forget where I am. Uri s yelling at me. We still have a deal? Yes? Screaming it over and over. Shut! Up!, I yell over him, we still have a deal. But it s not finished until you answer some questions. Uri gets a hold on his trembling. I tell you anything. We ll get to that, I say. First go get a hammer. Technically, I have twenty-four hours to finish Artemis, but it d be stupid to wait. The last thing Sarajevo s populace needs is a 1st Gen-turned-super-vamp in their midst. He d make their history of ethnic cleansing seem like the good old days. Lucian keeps one in his dresser, Uri says. Just in case Put down the shotgun and the briefcase and go get it, I tell him. How he knows so damn much about what Lucian keeps in his dresser ranks high on the list of questions I want answered. Uri produces a heavy steel mallet. I point to Lucian. Pull one of the stakes loose from his wrist. While he s prying the stake free, I open the window a crack and risk a look out at the street. Nothing suspicious as far as I can tell. I nod toward Artemis. I take it you know what to do. Yes. Our kind give up the ghost the same as any talking monkey: either still the pulse of our blood, or drain it from our body. Just like generating a magnetic field from the flow of electrons in a wire, the flow of DNA in the bloodstream generates a soul. And as much as I hate reinforcing pop culture vampire lore, I have to admit, puncturing the heart can be more practical than draining all the blood from a corpse. Uri sets down his tools beside the body and then roles Artemis over onto his back. Straddling him at waist level, he pulls open Artemis s shirt to expose his chest. He picks up the mallet and the stake. He probes for a gap between the ribs, directly over the heart and then he slams the mallet home with a metallic clang. And again two, three, four more times until the stake pins Artemis to the floor. I flinch with every strike. I knew him since he was a boy. I take it you know how to dispose of a body? A rhetorical question. Uri nods. Good. Now you re going to answer my questions. You can start by explaining why someone shot a hole through my neck at the train station. I know nothing about you getting shot. He s telling the truth. If he was lying, he wouldn t have frowned. His eyes would have darted up and to the side first, and then he would have looked surprised. Humans don t have much control over their facial expressions; I lick my lips of course neither do I when I m this thirsty. Uri s face goes from confused to a portrait of abject fear. Relax, I say, and motion down toward his club. Why don t we get a drink. He has nothing to worry about. I m not about to feed on the second pastiest Russian I ve ever seen. I d rather go gray. Other Formats: download .mp3 audio version right click link & choose 'save as' download Microsoft Reader version right click link & choose 'save as' download Palm & Mobipocket version right click link & choose 'save as' download Adobe PDF version right click link & choose 'save as'

download other formats Chapter 5 Alt Country replaces the keyboard-heavy chanting I heard earlier. Sounds a little like Green Day doing a Hank Jr. cover, with some 1980 s Bengals mashed in. To each their own. Which seems to be the underlying theme of this place. Something for everyone. Three elevated stages centered against adjacent walls, three different types of action: girl-on-girl, girl-on-guy, girl-on-self no penetration, so I guess you could call it dancing. Technically. Enclosed by this panty-triage triangle, a massive dance floor, with its sea of sweaty flesh undulating to the pull of a moon which only orbits the exstacy-soaked consciousness of ravers. Uri escorts us past the past the bar and toward a VIP room on the far side of this hipster / swinger / stripper hybrid. I m hoping it doesn t double as the lap-dance lounge. I don t want a lap-dance. I want a drink. First one: chilled, next one body-temp. Vodka? he mouths back to me. I nod. He holds up two fingers to the bartender and then points to the back. He leads the way. I m surprised these kids don t part like the Red Sea before him. Guess he s not that kind of gangsta. There are many Veingels in the crowd. Their heads, eyes meeting mine in almost perfect unison. I acknowledge their presence with a nod. Like attracts like in the harmonics of the spiritual. Their bond with Lucian would have been even stronger. We get to the door labeled Keep The Fuck Out in English and Uri knocks twice. One of his heavies escorts us inside and then leaves us. We sit down at a poker table that s seen better days and Uri slides the five-hundred G s less-change under it. How long was Lucian up there before you went to check? Forty-eight hours, almost to the minute, Uri says. How long did you wait to call me? If Uri s not what he appears to be, I want to catch him in a lie as soon as possible. The Veingel presence pretty much rules out SOJ involvement, as does Artemis being behind Lucian s murder but what can I say? the two snipers outside the train station leave me suspicious. Jequon, you I call immediately. I consider this: forty-eight hours, plus another twenty-four for me to arrive meshes with the condition of the body, anyway. Lucian, he was supposed to do a job for me north in Tuzla, but I hear he never make the trip. Not like him. Lucian doing a job for Uri? What the fuck? Back up. You said you sent Lucian on a job Maybe you d better fill me in on how a Naphil finds himself under the employ of a human? Lucian, he started coming to the club a year ago. Quickly he becomes friendly with the ladies. Paying customers, they like him, and my dancers, they like him too. Before long, the club, it s earning triple all girls, until the guys, they figure out where they went, and then they come also. Lucian, he is good for business. I see this. I ask him, what can I do to make your time here more enjoyable? He ask for nothing. Still, his money was no good to me from then on, and I make sure the girls, they keep him happy. But I start to get jealous of him. I nod and take a sip from my drink. You are an ugly motherfucker, I say. The girls who work for me, I get what I want. But knowing I repulse them it s not the same. Uri digs in his pocket and comes out with a pack of clove cigarettes. Do you mind? Yes, I say, Put them away. He doesn t argue. But Lucian, he is still just a man I think this at the time so something else must be behind his effect on the girls. Something I can learn from him. I ask Lucian, he will tell me his secret, yes? I empty the vodka and crush an ice cube between my teeth. As written in the Codes, the penalty for revealing our true nature to a non-Veingel human is severe. Not even donors realize what we are, as the feedings are disguised as part of the sex act. Anesthetic enzymes present in our saliva render the bite painless, often pleasurable. Nor does the wound need to be so deep as to scar, since our saliva also thins the blood as it mixes below the skin. And so he just came clean and explained to you he was a Naphil. Just like that? I ask. What did you offer him? Uri points at our empty glasses and holds up two fingers to the closed-circuit security camera mounted to the ceiling in the corner. The damn things are everywhere. Like cell phones. At first, Lucian, he plays dumb. Says he doesn t have any idea what I m asking him about. I tell him it s nothing, and change the subject. But later I ask him why I find a dancer crying in the dressing room. This girl, she d been with me one week before and now Lucian, he does not talk to this girl, even though he spent much time with her in the past. It was an awkward conversation. Lucian, he was eager to change the subject. So I ask him again, what can I do for him to improve his experience here anything at all, I tell him and I say it so he knows I would be offended if this time he turn down my offer. And? I ask. This time he mentions a few things. He asks me if I could provide him a supply of absinthe, which has been outlawed for some time in this country. I say yes. What else? I say. Lucian, he wants girls from Novaya Kutaya a Russian town so small you d have to be a comrade to know of it. And these girls, they must undergo a blood test he says. Not for STDs which I check for anyway but for blood type. Lucian, he says to me, bring only girls with type O-negative blood. And these girls, he makes clear, are off-limits to anyone but him. I can see where this is headed. Lucian wanted a private stash of O-negs. Immune girls from a farming community so backwater they wouldn t appear in any of our donor databases. Uri looks expectantly into the security camera and taps at his wristwatch. Oh, I almost forget: he also want the apartment upstairs. The rent is no more than an hour s worth of his admirer s bar tabs, so I give it to him. Did he tell you what he needed these girls for? No. Lucian was loyal to your people. He didn t tell me what he was until much later. And by then, I guessed something that. Unfortunately, The Green Fairy, she demands her own loyalty. The absinthe. This is starting to make sense. With a private supply of O-negs Lucian could keep word of his indiscretions from spreading to other Nephilim in Sarajevo, and make it less likely that word of his crimes would reach someone like me or an overeager asshole like Artemis, as it turned out. So let me guess: Lucian starts getting all Van Gogh from the wormwood, and at some point, he fucks up. Did he feed too long on one of your girls? something like that? Uri shook his head. No. But every dancer in the club, he s already bitten before he requests the type-O girls from Russia. These Veingels, they know nothing of your donor database. He tells them nothing of the ways of your people until after it s too late. There weren t enough of the Russian girls to go around at first. I m sure you can do the math. Shit. Math indeed. Math is why we have the Codes. Why we need donors. If Veingels were to feed indiscriminately on non-donors, in defiance of the strict quotas dictated by the Council each year, then the entire 6.5 billion human inhabitants of Earth would become Veingel in just ninety-seven days. The immune O-negs, outnumbered fifteen-to-one, would be sucked dry even sooner, as their newly infected neighbors overwhelmed them a quart at a time. Since we re having this conversation, you must ve found a solution, I say. Yes. But not before things got hectic. Define hectic. Uri points to the camera. I see you ve noticed our security measures. I nod. We used to offer lap dances in this room. Naturally the girls safety is a concern, but who wants a bouncer around when you re busy dry humping? Turns out though, the patrons, they needed the protection. Because The dancers were hungry, I finish for him. So you put two-and-two-together: the O-neg request, the dancer s new iron-rich diet, and their infatuation with Lucian how long before you confronted him? A couple days. Of course, I assumed he was vampire I only had the usual Hollywood bullshit to go off of. Let me tell you, I was scared shitless. But I was even more scared of my captains. I cannot say to them, my production is down because of blood suckers. So, I figure, fuck it, this has to stop. Lucian, I go to him, I figure, vampire or not, he seems like a reasonable guy. And he was. Lucian, he hears me out said I was right for coming to him. He sets me straight about your people, about Veingels and vampires the Sons of Jared, the donor databases, how blood works all of it. Lucian, he know he fucked up. He