T W E N T Y ~ O N E

We picked up and headed out to the Grimoire, a tense, quiet bunch. Riding in the van, I said to Rick, "Remember all that time I spent persuading you to take the job?" and he looked at me and said, "Yeah?" but I couldn't finish.

"You are getting yourself mighty worked up," Rick said. "That's no good. You were just fine last night facing off those jerks in the truck. Chill out, Tony, or you'll lose before you score the first hit."

"The problem is, I don't really want to hit anybody."

"Yeah," he agreed. "That is a problem."

It seemed like we got to the Grimoire awfully quick. Duncan was on the door as usual. He took a long, thorough look at Snake and didn't bother with the customary questions, just bowed her in. Us, too.

There were a lot of "us" hanging around that night — the regulars. It was almost as packed as the night White Russian performed. Even Archie was helping tend bar. As soon as we spotted him, we trailed over there.

I could relax around Archie and that was a relief since I wasn't feeling all that comfortable around Rick and Snake. They were still busy presenting a united front. Archie set down drinks for them and we all shared some little, introductory-type conversation. Noticed the Bearcat's hands were more curled-up and pale-looking than usual. Mucking around with the ice wasn't good for him. All those bones that had been broken and muscles that had been torn up gave him genuine grief. I hated seeing him like that. It was so unnecessary.

Rick and Snake turned their backs to the bar and scoped out the room, still distant.

"How's the hands?" I asked, quiet.

"You mean claws." Archie sighed. "I'm not going to last back here much longer tonight."

"I'll bring you over. Any time. Let me help."

"It's not your place, Firehair."

"We don't have to go for the whole transformation scene. Just a little drop'll do ya."

I mugged, trying to make him laugh, but it wasn't working. Archie shook his head. Man, I couldn't even give it away.

"You're going to play tonight, aren't you?" Archie went back to drying glasses.

"Yeah."

"I'm looking forward to it."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." The Bearcat cocked an eyebrow like some men would pull a trigger. "What's going on? The new lady's not causing trouble, is she?"

"No. Something happened last night. Someone kicked a ball into my field — like a bomb." I folded my arms on the bar, leaned into it. "Archie, who's David?"

What a reaction. The Bearcat froze like someone had dumped a vat of winter over him except that his hands kept twisting the towel into the glass. Expected it to shatter any second. Rick and Snake caught the vibe and were abruptly looking and listening our way.

"You've met David," Archie said. It wasn't exactly a question.

"Yeah. Who is he?"

"Don't ask me."

"You don't know him?"

"I mean — don't ask me."

"Oh, great. Is this another 'talk to Abby' deal or what?"

Archie sighed again. Frowned. "I wish you wouldn't involve her in this. I wish...."

"Yeah. I know what you wish," I said, cold. "You wish I'd never come here. But I did. You're the one who keeps telling me to fight back, to play ball and all that rah-rah crap. Then you fold. What's the deal, Archie? Who is David? What is David?"

Archie's voice dropped low when he answered, "Evil. Insane. King."

"David's a Regent?"

"Bigger. Land is as precious to them as blood. It's the land that gives them their strength." The eyebrow fired again. "You've been across the water, you know what it's like over there. The Old Blood control who's brought over and who joins into the clans. When the Americas were discovered all those years ago, they made a pact among themselves that no new Blood would be created on this soil. They didn't want another war."

"What war? War among the Blood?"

"I'm not surprised you haven't heard about it," Archie said. "They don't talk about it. Like most family skeletons, they keep it in the back of the vault. Way back. Most of them try to pretend it never happened."

Rick and Snake moved in closer. Archie went through the motions of getting them fresh drinks, scanning the area as he did. A crowded bar can be a good place to talk as long as you keep a sharp eye out and maintain the natural-look.

"Years ago, hundreds of years ago, one of the Regents decided to unite all the clans and place himself at the top as the sole ruler," Archie told us quietly. "Problem is, for all their little social clubs, Blood hunt alone. They didn't go for the one-king concept, especially that king. David had already picked up a reputation, the kind that explodes on impact. He countered their rejection with a declaration of war — on his own people."

"Vampires warring against each other? How do they do that?"

"Attack the food source. You've probably heard or read about it somewhere. It came out of the east, from the first and oldest home of the Dragons, and swept throughout Europe. It raged for centuries, it killed millions."

Rick went an awful shade of green-white and said, "You're talking about the plague, aren't you? The Black Death."

I hadn't had much formal education but even I had heard of that.

"He conjured it up himself, summoning it out of all the worst allies the Blood control — rats, flies, the crap that lives under rocks and more. Chaotic contagion with a dash of madness." Archie's voice was a hurried ghost. "The Black Death spread like riot. It went on for centuries, dying down in one area only to crop up again somewhere else. The more it slaughtered, the stronger it became. The Blood tried to stop David, tried to make him end what he'd started. Other Fae massed against him, too, but he was too powerful to stop. Too powerful to kill. When they finally caught up with him, the damage had been done. The Blood imprisoned him on an island although they knew it would be impossible to contain him permanently. So they offered him regency of the New World and formed a new and, apparently, binding truce. Then let him go. He's been here ever since."

Archie's words narrowed our immediate circle into a tiny nucleus of concentrated horror while the rest of the room snap-danced around us, deranged electrons losing orbit. Bright-light color on dark and bursts of music detonated on the rim of our perception.

"They let him go?" Rick said, incredulous. "Here?"

"Why?" That was me.

"To be King. Any Blood who travels here has to have David's permission first. But he's generous. Lots of Blood have come over to explore, some stay. It's like a hunting and feeding theme park for them here."

"Why?" Again me.

"Think — you'll get it. The old lands were ravaged by disease and famine. The New World was rich with life. The existing natives lived in harmony with their local Fae, primitive-prime and ripe for the taking. The Old Blood knew any vampire made on this soil, from this soil had to be stronger than what was coming out of the old country. They didn't want to chance another takeover attempt and David was the only one strong enough to enforce their decree."

"He'd have the most interest in protecting his own throne, too," Rick said.

"Naturally. We counted on that."

Madame Absinthe stepped into our circle, drawing all of our attention.

"The Americas became our new hunting grounds, yes, but they were our refuge as well," she continued. "We are responsible for their protection."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"During the death years, the Fae hunted David. Mortals hunted David as well through their Inquisitions although they did not precisely know who they were hunting. They destroyed everything, everyone they found. What David began, they finished."

Remembering was still a horror for her and we could see that but Rick wasn't buying it.

"Can you blame them?" he demanded.

"Yes," Absinthe snarled, with as much heat I had ever seen from her. "I blame them."

"How? You were human once, you know what the plague did."

"More than you do, Doctor."

She glared at him with a mixture of fury and sorrow fixed to boil Rick down to Mallock-mush but it didn't work. Black eyes dropped away from blue. She was the first to look away.

"No one can feed on diseased livestock without absorbing the poison," Absinthe said. "Even the Old Blood, who do not feed as often, could not remain unaffected. The plague destroyed so many of us. It changed so many of us ... in ways you could never begin to comprehend. We could do nothing to stop it. We watched our people suffer, both mortal and Fae. You know how the Blood can cure." She looked at me. "This disease was magicked by Blood against Blood and we could do nothing — but watch. We turned to the others for help and sired the beginning of our own persecution. Even the Elven Host was forced to retreat to another existence for a time. The humans spared us nothing. When David was found — and we did find him — we had no thought of destroying or killing. That would have been too nice. He was placed on an island, an island of lepers, where he remained for many years."

"Revenge?" Snake asked, quick.

"Justice."

"Until the billet in America became available," Rick snapped.

I locked onto another topic. "How was Tasia involved?"

I knew she was. Somehow. Deep. It was a key question for me although I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.

"Tasia is David's sister," Absinthe said. "You should know, we called the death Veneno de Gemelo, Twin's Bane."

Well, of course.

All at once, there were a lot of new questions I wanted to put my lips around but nothing came out. What could I say — Why didn't you tell me? But it wasn't Absinthe's responsibility, wasn't Archie's. It shouldn't have been possible that Tasia could surprise me anymore but I had to admit she had a gift for it.

What kind of karmic tab could someone build up committing world-wide genocide? David hadn't exactly struck me as the repentant type. Far from it. What kind of creature could revel in that kind of atrocity? The body count resulting from David Gemelo's personal war would have topped old Adolph's. And yet, they hadn't destroyed him when they caught him. Maybe they couldn't destroy him. No wonder Auberon was anxious about any new Blood joining Gemelo House; no wonder he took precautions.

Tasia stood by her brother. No one had to tell me that. She wouldn't have let anyone kill him no matter what he'd done. She was probably the only one strong enough to have stopped them. What else had she done for him — I had to wonder. How else had she helped him?

Absinthe reached over and placed her hand on my shoulder, not clawed and attacking like before but soothing, the way you'd touch some grieving child. Her face was — sad. That surprised me. Saw pity there, too. I slapped her hand away.

Her expression didn't change.

"Tasia's hair was once the same color as yours," Absinthe said. "The same color as David's. It went white working the magick that stopped him."

"Then his must have bleached out making the trouble to begin with. So what?" Uglier thoughts began to break out of my head. "Is that it? I look like him? I remind her of him?"

"No — no, not at all. Gaea forfend! You are nothing like him."

It was quite an outburst but I was unconvinced.

"There is more that you do not know that you must understand. It is vital. Vital! Tasia was the one who found David, the one who trapped him and bound him. She banished him to this land. I will tell you what you need to know but we cannot speak here safely any longer." Absinthe's gazed darted around the room, came back to mine. "We were expecting you to perform tonight. You should go to the stage now."

As if waiting for that cue, I started for it, moving along on automatic pilot. Had only taken a few steps when Rick caught up to me, Snake fast behind him.

"Where are you going?" Rick demanded.

"You heard Madame. To the stage."

"You're not serious."

"You have another idea?"

"Plenty. But playing sing-along for this lot isn't one of them."

"Then get out." I made my voice as hard, flat and final as it was possible to be. "Think who you're talking to, Mallock. I'm one of the freaks, remember?"

"Not like that," he said.

It took him a second to come back with that. A fairly quick second, true, but still, he had hesitated. He'd had to think about it first.

I said, "Who are you trying to convince — me or you?"

Snake said, "We can talk about this later. Rick is right. We need to get out of here."

"You need to get out. Now."

Something was up with her. She was so pale, her eyes were so bright. It was there, shining like gold and silver twisted and twisting between us — our link, pulling each of us toward the other. I could have stretched out my hand and touched it, wrapped it around my fingers like ribbon.

But I stepped back. Turned my back. Walked away. The pull didn't weaken with distance. Her fear was as strong as blows and I wondered why she didn't just run! God, I would have. If I'd been direct hit with what she was feeling, I would have taken off like a hound.

But I pushed myself away from them through the thick of the crowd towards the stage. Noticed a lot of activity happening behind the mirrors and video screens as I moved along. Mirrors have more magic than anyone would ever guess. They are portals to the other realms, bright doorways into the world of mortal-now. Narcissi induce their special, one-on-one relations with the vain, smiling out from the silvered surfaces of plastic, drugstore hand jobs to full scale, life-size Tiffanies, gradually sucking the soul's essence out of their victim's very pores. Mâdar actually step out of the glass in newborn's bedrooms to cradle the tiny souls away. If the parents are lucky, Mâdar only take and leave nothing else behind. There are dozens of other mirror people. My people, the Wyr. I threw back my head and laughed, pacing along beside them. Listened while my laughter echoed back to me, chorus-voiced.

Blood only show their true reflection in the glass and something kept step with mine so I paused and looked. Something other than me stared back, something that congealed and spread nebulous, glistening with the sheen of spit on oil slicked asphalt. Not Mâdar but something else....

"Any requests?" I smothered the urge to howl out again, stifled the need to smash and rend and tear.

No answer. Whatever it was just throbbed there, grinning. I walked away from that, too.

Setting up on stage is always a strange sensation. Performers are apart from their audience but you got to capture their souls to make the act work. Just can't get away from that vamp business.

Gazed out over the accumulated — all the different Souls, all the varied degrees of mortal and Fae, waltzing around dressed in their own individual, primeval bloom. Rick and Snake — white-faced, both of them — watched from the back of the room. Archie looked drawn and quartered already. What would Absinthe have to say to him later? How pissed would she be at him for flapping the dirty old laundry over the road-kill kid? What more could she possibly tell me? Did I want to hear it?

Stood up there, looking out and ready, Tasia's gift in my arms and in my hands. I had a lot of music, knew hundreds — probably thousands of tunes — but nothing was coming forth. That's what a performer fears most, isn't it? Brain farts and numb tongues center stage — alone. Some other time, it might have mattered.

Not now.

Silence dragged on long enough to catch everybody's attention. Then, from out of nothing — sound. A riff of chords stabbed into that half-dark, half-life room and bounced back, rippling over my skin, too strong for a caress. Not as hard as a fist. Words no one knew I had, least of all me, although I'd crooned a few of them secretly, building verse on verse — always changing. It wasn't rock, wasn't blues but something bred between.

She walked out of the Midnight
Where the water laced the shore,
A candle in the darkness
At the front of Hell's back door.
They said that she was Evil,
I knew that she was cold,
She never answered questions
But the Truth was plain and old.

So I loved her in the nighttime,
When the stars were fierce and bright.
I loved her in the shadow
But I never saw the light.
Now there's Bad Blood between us,
From the first kiss to the last.
Bad Blood binds forever
And the Hunger doesn't pass.

It was my story. It was their story, those who huddled on the floor below me. My voice made the words more cynical than they should have been. What would you do for true love? Would you give your life, your soul? There were those in the room who could have answered that question. It felt like I sang forever ... about Awakening to the Change, the first Blood Communion, the new sense of touch, the new awareness. Prowling and growling — the Hunt. The Night. The terrible sting when you see another in your place that first time, in your love's arms, her teeth on his throat. (For there is no love like that first love, the first Blood Love.) Then resolution — the beauty of the night together, the Hunt together, Life-in-Death together. There is more. There can be more but....

Do you ever long for sunlight,
And warm wind across your face,
Like a child longs for his mother
And the strength of her embrace?
Or water rocking 'round you
In a gently, drifting boat
When the night is thick upon you
And the Kill is in your throat?
But the day is gone forever,
Like the sea and warmth and cold.
Only Midnight lasts forever.
Is it worth it - What you sold?

Complete silence when I finished. Then something began to howl — great, bellowing roars. And abruptly stopped — another satisfied customer — followed by activity in the room, frantic motion. Shrill laughter. And applause. But that one moment of silence told me more than words.

Playing anything else would have been wrong. Besides, I was tapped out, which was unusual because performing almost always turned me on. I prepared to step down and was packing up my guitar when I felt it, another crush of quiet, even stronger than before. When you are tuned into an audience, you can sense the mood shifts. You know when you've lost them. Curious, I came up out of the depths and looked around.

They were looking, too — at the mirrors, at the screens. So that's where my eyes drifted. The videos were running again and their blue-white light ghosted everyone in the room.

There wasn't any dialogue. There wasn't any music, just the visuals. I recognized them instantly — Allen Frank's home movies, the old horror shows. The real horror shows. Naked bodies — mismatched in age, proportion and more. Awkward posing, graceless gestures. Clumsy. But they weren't looking for a polished production.

A sound track started up inside my head and I heard voices no one else could — off camera tutors instructing, "Smile," and other things. The Coney Island Clown, he didn't make pictures, only bought them, financed them, produced them. He liked to watch, standing off camera, smiling his freak uncle's grin, casually conversational, "You're such a cool little shit, Red. What scares you? What scares you the most?"

Me — there! — crouched beneath some faceless, human beast, turning my head to answer, "Not you, fuck face."

The Clown laughed and laughed. Deep inside me someplace, that bastard would always laugh. Did he ever guess I was lying?

I wasn't supposed to answer. Allen sent me some place where they hurt me after. Most times, after filming, he'd leave the kids alone. Let us lay low for a while. But ours was a special relationship.

Now giant blow ups of Danny's paintings began winking in and out between scenes. I recognized most of what I'd found that last night in the shack. Danny's contribution made a perfect finishing touch, like pouring through some rotten family album.

It was there, the painting I'd tried to destroy. God, but Miller was a master of color, invention and craft. He Doesn't Like Mirrors, that's what Danny had titled it. Well, he'd got that part right. I especially didn't care for the little painted visions circulating in the background, the tears looked so wet, the blood so fresh ... the faces and expressions too familiar. On that canvas, I held the whip and raised the fist, I was the one who raped, who dictated the obscenities. In the foreground, Danny's perfect Tony lounged upon a throne of flesh and bone, sated, smiling and inviting. In my painted hand, I held a fancy golden cup whose crimson contents sloshed the rim and poured over my fingers until it became the bloody tear in another victim's wounds — another of my victims. I recognized that golden cup.

So Danny had tracked me onto the beach that day, me and Auberon. Probably followed us into the woods and, after, back to Winter's Garden. What an eyeful that must have been for him. What a revelation.

What an monstrous inspiration.

Tasia had told me these paintings had been destroyed.

My eyes flew back to the old films. I saw again what the cops saw, what those folks in court saw. That was me up there on the wall. My body reacting to touch. My face smiling. No detectable difference between me and anyone else on that screen.

I wanted to look away. I had to. That was worse. Saw too many faces looking back at me, some I knew. It was a sophisticated crowd, they'd seen fuck films before, all surely better than these, but the videos weren't the entertainment. I was still center stage. There were Fae out there actually feeding off me. I could feel the pull now that I saw.

Some feelings are so strong and sudden, you know they should kill you outright. You should just drop right over from the shock of it. I've heard people do.

But I was already dead, all that was left for me was mad! What happened next was all that mad came storming out, a physical force that blasted the room and swept through the halls blowing glass out of windows, tearing wood from hinges. Mortar flexed between old bricks and drifted into the street. All around the room, the mirrors and screens developed spider web splits and bulged impossibly from their sideshow gilt. Straining, like great, translucent wombs, their projected images became distorted and deformed. Then shattered into a fine spray of razor sharp, sparkling diamond mist.

This was Power. This was the strength and essence of the Blood, surprisingly similar to the force I'd used that night with Byron — in the way a thunderstorm is similar to a typhoon. I had finally tapped into what was mine. Still, I was the eye of my storm, I called the shots. I focused on those retreating, pygmy tendrils of feeding and commanded,

<Eat This>

There was such screaming. Had to put my hands over my ears but it went on and on. Then stopped. Brief silence before other voices took it up. Achorus. It was wonderful in the way Nature, unleashed, can be wonderful. An awed, tiny voice in the back of my head gasped out, I'm doing this. This is me.

It was terrible how much pleasure I felt at that.

I looked for the others, for Rick and Snake, Archie and the Madame. Wanted to send out, Do you see me? Do you see who I am? What I am?

But when I glanced towards the bar, the rows of bottles and glasses exploded one by one, rapid-fire, like a string of firecrackers as my gaze traveled its length. Panicked, I gathered and waved the shards away — up into the ceiling where they patterned the wood in glittering blades. The stench of liquor married the swell of blood and fear. I couldn't find Snake or Rick, couldn't spot Archie or Absinthe but I knew they were still out there. Others friendly to me, too, and hurting because of it.

No you know me, I thought. Now you will go.

I left, too. Rising up and up and up with the taste of blood in my mouth. Then away, pulling what I'd unleashed after me. For a time it seemed, others followed.

But I left them behind, streaking into the moonless black. There were buildings around me when I stopped.

I gravitate more to cities, the forests are too pure for me. Too innocent. I don't belong there. I ruin everything I touch. Monsters of corruption know me and seek me out as kin. I cling to them in return. There's no escaping what you are.

There was a construction site, a raw split of earth waiting to be filled. It called like an empty grave, a siren's song of final oblivion.

Down and down I fell.

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