Print edition of the book coming to Createspace

The e-book revolution hasn't quite reached everyone.  Many expressed interest in the book but had no desire to read it on an e-reader. 

I understand completely.  E-readers have many advantages but there is an unmistakable tactile quality to a paper book, not to mention the reduction of eye strain.

So I am making the book available on Createspace, a print-on-demand subsidiary of Amazon.com.  That means that you will be able to order up a print copy of the book and have it delivered to your home.

The book will be available soon, but in the meantime you can check out this exclusive preview.  It contains an never before seen excerpt from a later chapter called "The Diner" that I know you'll love.  It's the moment that Miles, Tim and Schuyler first meet the book's title character, Nephys, the child of Limbo's Child.

Hope you enjoy it.  Here's the link.  And as always the book is still available on Kindle.

The Weeping Woman

Some people have asked me if any of my characters are based on existing myths and legends...

So Ok, no one has asked me but the answer is yes anyways.  Amarantha/Amanda is based on the legend of La Llorona.  Mexican folklore tells of a woman who drowned her own children, so in punishment she is doomed to wander the earth looking for them.  She is described as a tall spectral figure with long black hair.  Sounds familiar?

I plan on weaving more of the La Llorona legend into the third book when our protagonists actually travel to Mexico and Aztec mythology will be a significant part of the second book, which I'm writing now.

Can't wait to get there.

J.

Musical Inspiration for the Next Book

I'm writing the next book now.  It's tentatively called Silver Chains / Silver Guitar, haven't quite decided yet.

It revolves around a mystical object that is a Silver Guitar, but the silver chains are also important.  Both are objects that have the power to control vampires, and more.

It's a great story, because, well frankly, it's a love story, on the level of Verdi's more tragic operas.  It's about the love between two vampires and how their love gets twisted and nearly unravels the whole world.  There is a lot of early blues and country music involved too.

One of the main characters is one I'm calling Rattlesnake Annie for the moment, but that might change too.

Someday people will ask me my inspiration for her, or at least I hope so, so here it is.  The wonderful Sheila Marshall.

My Nanowrimo Novella!!

Well things have been a bit quiet on the blog lately.  That's a combination of two things really, one, the day job, and two, I've been participating in Nanowrimo, this challenge to write a 50k word novel in one month.

This had been my first year in Nanowrimo, and I'm happy to say I lived up to the challenge and hit the 50k target.  You can check out my stats here.  As you can see, there were a couple of weeks I just blew it off and somehow I still managed to hit the target.  Next year I'm gonna try and hit 75k just to push myself.

I used it as a way to jump start the next novel, but it didn't quite turn out the way I intended.  Instead of advancing the next novel I ended up writing this weird little novella, a kind of prequel if you will, to the second book.  It's mostly about the back story of the two main villains to the second novel and how they come together.  I'm not entirely sure I'm going to put it in the next book as it gives away too much of the story, and it doesn't really fit, but that seems a shame for a couple of reasons.  First, I really like it, and second, it solidified in my mind the villains motivations and characters for the second book.  So it deserves a hearing, but it just might not happen in the book, so I'm considering posting it here.


As usual, this is very rough, I haven't even been through it a second time myself, so please be forgiving of typos or just flat out bad grammar.

Also, THIS IS FULL OF SPOILERS.  It basically gives the plot to the second book away, and reveals several critical things about the bad guys and their goals and powers.  So be warned.  If you haven't read the first book, this will spoil some things, but nothing critical, but it is very spoilerish about the second book, right from the start.

So if you don't like spoilers...go no further...you have been warned.

It also gives a little back history to some of the characters in the first book.  Most of this happens before the events in Limbo's Child.  We get to see Wallach, vampire master of Rivenden in Philadelphia in his prime, and we also find out how one of the minor vampires joined the clan.  Miles is also back for a short but critical role as well.  But mostly it's about our Big Bad for the second book, (well one of them at any rate) The Cowboy, and his sidekick, Rattlesnake Annie.  Hope you like 'em.

So here's the first twenty pages or so.  I'll publish the next twenty in a couple of days.

J.

Night Train

Wallach crossed his legs and examined his clothes carefully and raised an eyebrow and brushed some non-existent lint off of his sharp pinstripe suit. He didn’t much care for the clothes of these days. The cut was too conservative, the fabric too plain. The pants hung loosely and concealed the fit form of the calf and the leg. The suits didn’t fit the man; they fit the job and concealed the man. You couldn’t tell the lean body of an aristocrat who lived in the saddle from the soft body of a bank clerk whose bottom never left the stool except to go home at five o’clock.

He hardly knew if he fit in anymore. The suits had hardly changed in the last thirty years, yet still he wondered. Was the suit out of style? Would people notice? Would they see he just didn’t fit in? That he didn’t belong in this age? Even if they did would they recognize the man beneath the suit? Would they see the fine features of Prussian and Romanian heritage, the latent nobility, the dark eyes and hair of an ancient proud race, or would they just think he was another immigrant just off the boat in a second hand suit? He guessed not. In the old country you could see quality and pedigree even when dressed in a peddler’s cloak. It wasn’t a matter of clothes, it was a matter of bearing, the proud glint of the eye. Here all the Americans saw was money. The suit was rich enough, it would pass. You could put a hobo in a good suit and everyone would think he was a Rockefeller or a member of President Roosevelt’s cabinet. Wallach sniffed. Roosevelt and Rockefeller were little better than hobos in good suits as it was.

America, he thought. What a high-spirited mediocrity. When he had come to America more than a century ago it held such promise for him: revolution, peasants rebelling against the old order, freedom, opportunity. When he was just seventeen he knew he had to come and join the fight. He was so assured of its certainty, its inherent justness. It was so romantic. His father was outraged, both at the very thought of rebellion and that his son would want to join up with a bunch decadent bohemians that spoke of transient nonsense like liberty and democracy instead of honor and duty. Such things were not done. People needed to know their place. Without the aristocracy, there was disorder, madness, chaos. Wallach had disagreed and fled and fought, and survived, after a manner, but now that he was older, much, much older than even his father could have imagined, he knew his father was right. He had seen the country manors and rolling fields of Germantown, swallowed up by the rowhomes of clerks, cobblers, and common merchantmen. The growth of the city was made possible by the whistle of the locomotive, the din of trolley cars and finally the honking of automobiles. Whatever promise this country had had at its birth it had squandered it on idle entertainments and diversions and noise. America was nothing more than an irrational exuberance belched forth on the world, all trace of nobility long since hunted down and strangled by the calmor of machines and ragtime and minstrel shows and now Jazz and talking pictures. No, no one would recognize him as a man of quality, let alone a noble. No one at thirtieth street station or on the train had recognized him as a noble or as second son to a count of a fiefdom that had ceased to exist after the Napoleonic Wars more than a century ago, and not a single soul would recognize that he was a vampire either.

Wallach uncrossed his legs and crossed them again. He looked out the window of the train car at the passing scenery as the scattered moonlight fell through the clouds on the grey autumn landscape. They were in New Jersey, somewhere between Trenton and Newark. Anytime now. Still, he was nervous. It had been a few years since he had left the manor for so long, and he had never been this far from the source before. But it wouldn’t do to have the source so close to him when he first met the cowboy. For this to work, he needed to appear weak, keep the source from him as long as possible, until the very end of the encounter.

He thought about his opponent. It was clever really: a sleeper car on a night train. A little advanced planning was all it required. An accurate schedule, a departure in the early morning hours or early evening, some heavy curtains, and an arrival after dark and a vampire of means could travel anywhere in the country in comfort. Pay off the porter and you could guarantee your privacy during the day, far superior than traveling in a hearse. Despite the gothic novels, vampires didn’t especially like traveling in coffins, but they were the only guaranteed way to travel long distances safely during daylight without arousing suspicion. He had always wondered how he had done it; how the oldest vampire in North America had managed to travel and meet all his appointments, all of his performances. He felt stupid that the he hadn’t thought of it before, but then he didn’t leave the manor very often any more, sleeper cars were still new to him.

He checked his pocket watch. He noticed very few wore them anymore, mostly old men, but the wristwatches were chafing. He wondered if he would outlive all the beloved fashions and habits of his age. Would he only be able to wear the clothes he loved inside the manor, far away from human sight? He snapped the pocket watch shut. He was getting impatient waiting for the person that had summoned him for this meeting. He never came himself. He didn’t even send one of his lackeys. They had only communicated by telegram. The Western Union boys would wander around the walls of the estate for hours and never could find the entrance. No mortal could. At first Wallach ignored these futile attempts to contact him, but his pursuer was persistent. Day after day new boys on bicycles came and they idled on the street corner, waiting. All day they waited. Then they started waiting on the corner past sunset. Then they started waiting until dawn. Forzgrim was practically beside himself. It was like dangling raw meat in front of a mad dog just an arm’s length outside his cage, but Wallach had forbad his hungry lieutenant from taking any action. If the uniformed boys with yellow badges and bicycles started disappearing, there would be uniformed men in blue, and then the attention would never stop. “The Cowboy” would know he was sending the telegram boys to the right place. “The Cowboy,” Wallach sniffed to himself. What a ridiculous name for a master vampire. How cloy. Well the cowboy certainly was very persistent, and annoying.

When the boys started standing on the street corner shouting out “Telegram for Mr. Wallach!” he had no choice but to take action. The boy lived, and returned a message, under the name “Samuel Benjamin Bitten V,” (He only used the name ‘Wallach’ with other vampires.) A reply came the next day, from a “Mr. Travis Lee,” this time addressed to “Mr. Bitten.” This one was sent from a hotel in Oklahoma of all places. It wasn’t galling that The Cowboy had found him, he always suspected he would eventually, it was just insulting that he wouldn’t come in person, or even send one of his Renfields, but when the most powerful vampire still living on the North American continent summoned you, you had to come. Only the chance of meeting him face to face had been enough to tempt Wallach out of his stronghold at Rivenden. He only hoped he was clever enough to come out of the encounter alive, but with some careful planning, he might come back with even more.

After a lot of empty pleasantries the last message had been refreshingly simple. “30^TH ST. STATION. STOP. MIDNIGHT. STOP. COME ALONE. STOP.” At the courtesy counter a first class ticket for a sleeper cabin on the night train to New York was waiting for a Mr. Samuel Benjamin Bitten V. Boarding the train Wallach hadn’t noticed anyone unusual. No one was waiting for him, so Wallach settled into the club car and ordered a glass of wine. He hadn’t been able to taste a thing since a turning a few weeks after the Battle of Germantown, during the Revolution. American wine probably tasted awful anyway, but he could remember. He idly pretended to nurse his wine and read the Inquirer, but he was carefully watching the other nightowls. None elicited any suspicion. He suspected that The Cowboy would remain unseen, partly to avoid him, and partly to avoid his newfound fans. Celebrities were an odd breed. They worked for nothing but fame and notoriety and then once they had it they detested it when it dared followed them anywhere, even in their private moments. It was an odd affectation for anyone to seek out such attention, but even stranger for a vampire. When it was clear that none of them were the cowboy, or even any of his servants, Wallach asked the porter to take him to his sleeper cabin. He gave him a heavy tip to make sure he would be left alone. Since then, he was sulking in the cabin waiting. If the Cowboy was so anxious to meet him he would have to come and find him.
            He didn’t have to wait much longer. On the opposite side of the door to his cabin came a sharp knock. Wallach winced. It was light and jaunty and not at all serious in tone. He debated internally going to the door but uttered only “Come in.” instead. The door swung open slowly to reveal a buxom brunette woman with dark eyes, wearing a red evening dress and a fur wrap and matching red shoes and lurid red lipstick.

“Mr. Bitten?” She said brightly, not a trace of fear in her voice. If anything, it was sarcastic.

“Yes.” Wallach said coolly.
            “My name’s Elizabeth Sherman, but y’all can call be Betty.” She paused when he didn’t respond. “Mr. Lee will see you now.”

To be summoned like a low level clerk to a meeting with his manager! thought Wallach. The insults just kept coming. Wallach said nothing but stood upright slowly. He picked up his overcoat and homburg hat where he had set them on the seat beside him and draped the coat elegantly over one arm. He kept the hat in his right hand. The woman smiled and stepped aside and gestured for him to come out into the hall.
            As he passed she looked Wallach up and down quickly and suppressed a smile that told him the truth. His suit was out of style.

“If y’all just follow me, now,” She said with a wry smile and a slight Texan accent, “Mr. Lee has been just dying to finally meet you.” She even hit him on the arm in a playful way. She walked away down the narrow passage with a confident sashay and a swing to her hips. Wallach followed and as she walked she let the wrap she was wearing fall off her bare shoulders intentionally and turned back to smile at him. He smiled back but in a cold way. She was pretty, in the common familiar and vulgar way Americans appreciated, but she was no vampire. The Cowboy had no clan, no den or family. Rumor had it he surrounded himself with only female Renfields. Wallach guessed she was supposed to be a diversion, a temptation, whether as a potential companion or prey, it didn’t matter.

This whole endeavor, being forced to wait, being summoned like a servant, the girl, as if he could be so easily distracted, was all engineered to make Wallach feel small and inferior. Wallach was angry at himself for how successful it was. They passed down the narrow halls quickly. Most of the other passengers were already in their cabins, but there were still a few porters they had to turn sideways to squeeze by, and they each made every attempt to flirt with the woman. As they crossed from one sleeper car to the next, a rush of cold wind would blow her hair and wrap back in a flurry of snow kicked up by the speeding train. She would toss her hair and giggle like a little girl in her first snowstorm. The porters would hold the doors in the rushing wind between cars and reach out an arm to help her step across the jangling and dangerous gap, using every occasion to flirt some more. Each one got an over-enthusiastic “Why thank y’all kindly,” before she moved on. She actually blew a kiss at the last one. Wallach didn’t know whether to feel relieved that the porters didn’t think the two of them were together or emasculated that they didn’t consider him enough of a threat to care. In his manor in Rivenden no one treated him like this, no one would dare, but he had to control himself. He had to be patient and wait. He needed to know what the Cowboy had to say to him, what he wanted him for.

She led him nearly to the end of the train, passing through several cars until they reached a larger Pullman sleeper near the end. It was brand new from the look of it. Latest model, polished stainless steel, but Wallach hadn’t seen it before on the platform. Yodeling on stage seemed to be paying well; it should, for the cost to your dignity. There was no porter here, the woman opened the door herself and let Wallach pass through first. As she shut the door against the wind and adjusted her hair she spoke absentmindedly.

“Mr. Lee has a private car. He doesn’t like to draw too much attention to himself.”

Then maybe he shouldn’t prance around on a painted pony in a silver fringed suit. Thought Wallach, but if the woman noticed his sneer she didn’t show it.

“We have an agreement with Pennsylvania Railroad. The car was only coupled to the train after all the other passengers had boarded.”

Wallach smiled, but he had already noticed the heavy thump before the train pulled out and guessed as much. She led him down another hallway and opened the door on a clubroom that took up half the car. It wasn’t as bad as Wallach had expected. He had expected saloon doors and knotty pine paneling hung with spurs, branding irons and rusty horseshoes. Instead, it was restrained and modern, art deco, with only a few colorful touches: a cowhide, a Navajo blanket, a lariat and a saddle thrown over a sawhorse. Leaning next to them was an ornate silver guitar, but those were stage props, not decor. The Cowboy’s garish stage wardrobe was there, hanging in an open trunk stood up on end, a tasteless profusion of spangles, leather tassels and ornate silver buckles. The room was full of many trunks and cases, the typical traveling gear of a performer, covered in the hotel stickers from all the places he had toured – Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Tulsa, Cedar Rapids, Miami, Detroit ­– but the Cowboy himself was sitting in a modern leather chair in a rather conservative understated suit, although of a western cut. Even his boots were understated. He was leaning forward over the table looking at what appeared to be his press clippings.

The second Wallach entered, The Cowboy looked up and smiled enthusiastically. He stood up and strolled over to him earnestly like an insurance salesman making a sale.
            “Mr. Bitten! What a gen-u-whine honor! I can not tell you how long I have wanted to make your acquaintance. I couldn’t be more pleased if I were a pig in a holler.” He spoke with the same boisterous and overwrought open-mouthed western accent he used on stage and held out his right hand robustly. He was taller than Wallach had expected, and more handsome too. He looked older than Wallach, like a man somewhere in his early thirties. He was lean, muscular and jocular, seemingly straightforward and without guile, everything a cowboy should be, thought Wallach. He seemed even more charismatic in person than in his press photographs. He had small dark sparkling-eyes and wavy dark hair. He was masculine and rugged looking, unlike Wallach who had his mother’s fine and sharp eastern European features. There was not hint of pallor around him, but he was a ruddy as a workman who spent all day outdoors. No wonder the Americans loved him.

Wallach said nothing but slowly turned back to look at the woman, “Betty” and held up his overcoat. He had deliberately draped his overcoat over the right arm and picked up his homburg hat in his right hand to give him an excuse to avoid having to shake the cowboy’s hand.
            “Yes of course, where are our manners?” The cowboy said brightly, ignoring the sleight. “You’d a thunk we jus’ fell off the turnip truck and that this was our first rodeo! Betty if you wouldn’t mind.” Betty smiled slyly and took Wallach’s coat and hat. “That’ll be all Betty, us two ol’ boys can git along jus’ fine for a minute. We have horse-trading to discuss.” Betty fluttered her eyes knowingly and slowly turned and left the room, sashaying even more slowly than usual. Both Wallach and watched her go. When the door shut Wallach turned back to face the cowboy, who was still grinning, his hand still outstretched. Wallach slowly put his hands in his pockets.

The cowboy just laughed and put the hand down. “Now that ain’t no way to start a friendship, is it now Mr. Bitten.”

“It’s just Wallach actually, Mr. Lee.”
            The cowboy just laughed off Wallach’s snide tone, “That’s a bit better, and you can call me Travis. C’mon…let’s get this pow-wow started.” He slapped Wallach hard once on the shoulder before turning to sit down.

Pow-wow? Thought Wallach. The old vampire certainly was just laying it on a bit thick. The cowboy walked back over to the other side of the room and plopped himself down unceremoniously in the same leather chair as before and indicated silently that Wallach take the one opposite him. Wallach crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of his chair like a man prepared to bolt. “Travis” just leaned back in his like a man confident of his position. There was a large engraved silver-plated six-shooter with a pearl handle in a holster hanging on a wide gun belt slung over one of the arm’s of the cowboy’s chair. Wallach was certain the bullets in the gun belt were silver. The cowboy must have seen Wallach’s eyes flit to the gun and just laughed.

“What this ol’ rig? Aw, that’s nuttin’ but a stage prop, pardner, full of blanks. You ain’t got nuttin’ to fret about.”

There was a long uncomfortable pause where no one spoke until the cowboy broke in again.
            “I’d offer you a scotch or a Cuban cigar or sometin’ but we both know that just won’t do for neider of us don’t we?” The cowboy actually winked at him then. “I could always rustle up some grub if yer want, something fresher, something rarer, if you had the notion.”

Rustle? Notion? Pardner? Ain’t got nuttin’ to fret about? There was something a bit too precious about this performance. What was the cowboy up to? He had to know that Wallach wasn’t one of his starstruck cornfed idiot fans. Why keep up the pretense? Or was he just trying to lure him into a false sense of security by playing the fool? Either way, Wallach had to buy a little more time and play along with the fop for a while longer. Newark was still a ways off.

“I’m fine, Thank you.” Wallach said coldly, folding his hands in his lap. “Tell me, Travis, do you keep up these ridiculous pretenses for the benefit of your fans or have you done is so long you just enjoy deluding yourself?”

The cowboy just laughed again and leaned forward in his chair. “Now why do you have to go and be like that before we even git down to business? We are both self-made men, Wallach, us more than anyone else living. That’s no way for us to act. In this land, is this age we can be whatever we want to be. If you want to be some dried up relic and hermit, fine. Shoot! I don’t care! That’s your business, no skin off my back. And if I want to be a singing cowboy, then that’s what I am.”

Wallach wasn’t looking at him when the cowboy began that little monologue. Instead he was idly pretending to clean his fingernails, but when the cowboy finished he felt compelled to look up, directly into the cowboy’s large eyes. There was something strange about what he had just said, and not just because he had dropped most of the hoakey colloquialisms. He had started rolling his “r’s” instead of dropping them too, but that wasn’t it exactly either. It was the way, he had said it. It was almost…magical. It made Wallach want to listen.

Wallach turned back to his fingernails. “Still,” He began diffidently, holding up the back of his hand to examine his perfectly clean nails, “It is a bit unseemly don’t you think? The last two ancient vampires of any significance in North America, perhaps even the whole Western Hemisphere, meeting on a train passing through New Jersey, around so many mortals.” Wallach tried to sound bored, but he had to shoot a glance the cowboy’s way to gauge his reaction. The cowboy was still smiling. “It would have been so much better to have met at my manor at Rivenden. We could have had some real privacy, perhaps even a genuine feast. I have lots of fresh meat in my larder.”

The cowboy sniffed, “I bet you do,” He leaned back in his chair and smiled and folded his arms across his chest. “But we both know that if I had stepped into that den of thieves of yours I never would have stepped out.”

“Perhaps,” Wallach said not unlike a petulant girl, who’s just been insulted. Den of thieves, indeed. Thought Wallach. Better a master of thieves than a rodeo clown.

There was a pause before cowboy laughed again, great big rolling guffaws and then he slapped his thighs and shook his head. Wallach had to lean back to withstand its intensity.

“The two last ancient vampires in the Western Hemisphere!” He laughed. “Do you really believe that song and dance Wallach?”

“Well, if you don’t count the Turk.” Wallach said casually. “He’s been known to wander to this side of the planet on occasion.”

“The Turk?!” The cowboy laughed. “Aw shucks, I thought he was just a legend. Do you really believe he exists?”

“People have asked me the same thing about you.” Wallach replied coldly.

The cowboy laughed again, even louder this time. Wallach winced at the vulgarity.

When the cowboy composed himself, he shook his head and smiled. “The Turk, The cowboy, The aristocrat,” he said in a mocking tone, “Where do vampires get these dopey names? Huh?”

Wallach raised his eyebrow and tried to contain a spasm of rage. No one had dared called him “the aristocrat” in his presence and lived. We wondered what his Father would have thought, an age where the very word, aristocrat, was an insult. The irony!

“I guess you don’t get to pick your own nickname though do you?” The cowboy went on.

“Quite.” Wallach said simply.

“Still if you’re stuck with it you might as well embrace it and make it work for you.”
            There’s embracing and then there’s abject surrender, thought Wallach, but he said nothing.

“Still, it must have been galling when they used to call you the aristocrat.”

Two thoughts struck Wallach at once. The cowboy was trying to manipulate him, play on his vanity, push him over the edge into recklessly revealing something, but this was overwhelmed by two simple words that surprised him.

“Used to?” He hadn’t meant to speak them out loud. The cowboy was getting to him.

The cowboy leaned back and turned his head inquisitively, then smiled the biggest smile he had all night. “Oh you can’t tell me you haven’t heard what they call you now?! That’s just plum incredible!”

Wallach tensed. He didn’t know.

“Well that’s just too good! That’s just as crazy as tits on a bull.”

Wallach felt odd. The cowboy was so vulgar, so common, but also so compelling. He knew he was toying with him, but he couldn’t help himself. Usually he didn’t care what others said, but now? Now he wanted to know what the rabble was whispering about his name when he was out of earshot, but he looked nervously to the cowboy, and his tight-lipped thin smile. The idiot wasn’t going to tell him. He was going to make Wallach ask. The ignominy of it all. Still, he felt almost flush and warm with excitement. It was a feeling he had not felt since he was mortal, since all those years ago when he first stepped off the boat onto the shores of America to make his way as a hero and a patriot of the new country. All the promise. Since then the closest he had felt was…hungry.

“What do they call me…now?” He blurted out quickly. He couldn’t conceal his interest though he tried to appear aloof and bored.

The cowboy smiled an even broader grin, and then spoke clearly, the phony accent almost completely gone. “They call you the ‘Devil Dog.’” The cowboy spread his hands before him and looked up as if he were reading the name from a movie marquee.

Wallach waggled his head from side to side and looked up. That wasn’t bad. A bit common sounding but it was far more intimidating than the “Aristocrat,” but the cowboy wasn’t finished.
            “Or sometimes the ‘Hound of Hell.’”
Hound of Hell, thought Wallach. That was even better. He tried hard not to smile, but the cowboy still wasn’t done.

“They call you…” the cowboy hesitated and paused on every word, “The Shadow…of…Death.”

And Wallach did smile this time. He even put his fingers to his lips. “The Shadow of Death!” It sounded so appropriate, so resonant, especially the way that the cowboy said it. It was so wonderful, so very perfect, so very…flattering. The warm feeling evaporated instantly. His eyes shot back to the cowboy, who was smiling as always. The cowboy had made him lose his concentration. This wasn’t just common flattery. The cowboy was doing something to his voice, something supernatural.

“What do you want?” Wallach spat out almost defensively.

“Enough small talk huh?” The cowboy laughed. “Now we get to the matter at hand.”

The cowboy stood up and walked around the cabin, pacing around the small coffee table with its press clippings. “You’ve always had a reputation for ruthlessness Wallach. Not many who cross you have ever lived to tell the tale, but something has changed.”

“Changed?” Wallach said curiously.

The cowboy smiled and walked around behind the back of Wallach’s chair. “Not to worry, your reputation is intact, it’s just that there have been certain rumors, rumors that are hard to explain…even for a vampire.”

“How so?” Wallach said idly looking up at the ceiling.

“Rumors of certain new abilities, rumors of specific new…shall we say…powers? Powers rare and unique even among the world of vampires.”

“Oh? And what would those be?” Wallach said playfully. It was time to make the cowboy ask.

“Well the ability to change into smoke or a monstrous dog for one.”

“Oh really?” Wallach said like an indolent spoiled child, who was telling his nanny he no idea how the vase got broken.

“Yes really.” Even though he couldn’t see him, Wallach could hear the smile in the cowboy’s voice. Wallach himself smiled at the thought of what they were saying about him. “They say you can heal from any wound almost instantly, that you can see the future, that you can steal a vampire’s very powers.”

Wallach smiled more as each of these were spoken in turn. It was so gratifying to know how much he was feared. How much he was envied, but then he remembered himself. This was what the cowboy wanted, for him to let his guard down while entertaining flattering daydreams.

And…” and here the cowboy paused for dramatic effect, “they also say that you have the power to walk in daylight.”

Now it was Wallach’s turn to laugh, but it wasn’t a warm laugh like the cowboy’s, it was a cold mirthless one. It was an awkward attempt at concealing Wallach’s growing urge to confess something, like a child bursting with secret pride of some sinful act. In the end he managed to contain himself and stick to the plan, the trap was baited and the cowboy was about to strike. “And you believe these stories do you?”

“You know we wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“And of what interest is my supposed new abilities to you?”

“I have my reasons…but first I need to know if they are true.”

The cowboy had taken the bait. Wallach smiled deeper this time and had to look away to restrain the deliciousness of it all. It had to be played just right from this point out, if it were to work, or Wallach wouldn’t survive the rest of the trip. Wallach sniffed indignantly. “You really shouldn’t be so gullible Travis.”
            “So it’s not true?” The cowboy said, sounding surprised.
            “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Walking in daylight!” Wallach said trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “And who, may I ask, is telling you all these wonderful fables, hmm?”
            “No one I want killed by you.” He said chuckling, “Besides, it’s not who’s telling them that convinces me, it’s who’s not telling them. The Prendergast clan for example.”

Wallach’s smile abated just a little. He fidgeted in his seat and fingered the stitching of the armrest on the leather chair. “You saw them?” He asked not looking up.

The cowboy walked back around in front of Wallach. “I saw what was left of them.” He said simply.

Wallach was practically beaming with delight, as much as he tried to contain it.
            “Oh? They came into some trouble did they?” Wallach looked away like a child trying to avoid his mother’s gaze when caught lying.

“You could say that.” The cowboy laughed. “I’ve heard you’ve done some dirty low things in your time, like those five sisters you killed off in their nightgowns?”

“I was feeling peckish.” Wallach said dismissively.

“But killing off a whole clan? One of the oldest clans in America? That’s excessive, Wallach. Even for you.”

The Prendergasts got what they deserved thought Wallach. It had been fun killing them, the stuffed shirt Southern Bluebloods of the Carolinas, but not as much fun as seeing the shock on their smug little faces turn to panic before he snuffed them all out and eliminated the last major clan other than his own on the east coast.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about.” Wallach said dismissively, but he couldn’t hide his beaming eyes. It was fun being coy for a change, then Wallach stopped short. This was what the cowboy wanted, to see him pleased with himself, to see the confirmation in his eyes. Wallach realized that this was all just another form of flattery. He would have to be more circumspect. He quickly regained his composure. His smile vanished, the cold exterior returned.

“I perhaps have been a little more robust, in my business dealings of late, but I assure you nothing…unusual…has merited the change.”

“That so?” The cowboy said simply.

“Yes indeed. Walking in daylight…I mean honestly Travis. Can you really believe that?”

“That’s what the people are saying.” The cowboy said simply.

“Yes, but you better than anyone should know the power of a…” Wallach paused and thought as if something just occurred to him, “suggestion.” He said flatly eyeing up the vampire sitting opposite him.

“Suggestion?” The cowboy said coolly, narrowing his eyes. Wallach was gratified that he had planted the seed of suspicion in him.
            “Yes.” Wallach said, “One must maintain a public persona, whether a performer or a vampire, or in your case both.”
            The cowboy raised his eyebrows at him.
            “We’ve all heard the legends, haven’t we?” Wallach went on casually. “Vampires that can turn into animals or smoke, vampires that can walk in daylight, a magical green stone that can restore a vampire to mortality, silver chains that can steal a vampires powers, or how about the great Father of All Vampires, what is he supposed to be called?…Oh! Yes!” Wallach said snapping his fingers as if the answer just came to him, but he knew it all along. “Hokharty-Ra! Who will come and restore us and make us rulers of this world. There are so many tall tales, Travis, so many rumors, I merely encouraged a few to take root about my person.”

“Really?” The cowboy said, and for once his smile disappeared and he seemed disappointed.

“Verily,” Wallach replied pompously as he stood up. “Fear is a great motivator, Travis. You can hardly blame me for encouraging it in others.”

“So that’s all this is, just some flim-flam, just some story to keep the other vampires at bay?”

“I’m afraid so,” Wallach said standing up, “Now if that’s all, I’ll have to excuse myself, I really can’t be detained by idle chatter about fairy tales.” Wallach made as if to go, but hesitated, waiting to read the cowboy’s reaction. The bait had been taken, but he needed to provoke the cowboy to act before Wallach’s reserve arrived.

The cowboy shrugged as if disappointed and then stood up too. “Well that’s the way it goes I guess. Y’know, when I heard the stories that’s all I thought they were too, just stories,” he waved both hands in front of him as if to sweep the whole topic away, “I mean shucks, people get spooked and make up all kinds of crazy things, especially when they are scared. Not even vampires are immune to an over-active imagination, if ya get my meaning…so no hard feelings right?” he held out one large hand, and this time Wallach regarded it closely. Wallach felt as if he couldn’t refuse, not in the sense of a polite obligation of courtesy, but as if his mind would not let him refuse. It was strange. He took the hand hoping to get it over with quickly, but the second Wallach’s hand touched his he found himself in an implacable iron grip. Then the cowboy slapped the other hand down hard on Wallach’s shoulder and locked his gaze on him. Instantly Wallach’s will left him. It was like being frozen, paralyzed and Wallach suddenly became very anxious as the cowboy leaned over to speak to him, his faces just inches from his own. As paralyzing as the grip was, the voice was worse, like thick poison dripping in his ear, soft and unstoppable.

“You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Bitten. I didn’t believe the stories either.” The cowboy whispered. “That is, not until just now when you walked into this room and I saw you in person for the very first time.” The one hand squeezed the shoulder and Wallach felt the bones crack. He was frozen. Immovable! Riveted to the ground. But it wasn’t the cowboy’s grip that was doing it. It was his voice!! The rich baritone tone was pouring into his being like hot lead, burning through him, crumbling his spine and drying up his innards and making his teeth clench so hard his molars felt like they were cracking. Wallach was stunned at the power. His eyes were locked in their sockets, rigid, unable to look away from the cowboy and his grinning stupid hammy face. His whole being was breaking down into nothingness and just as when it felt he might crumble into ash and dust, the cowboy let go of his hand and let the other slip from his shoulder and walked away.

Wallach stood panting and if he had been still mortal he would have been sweating. His whole body ached like tetanus, but he managed to look down into his stiff right hand and saw a crumpled press clipping that the cowboy had slid into his hand when he was frozen to the spot. He carefully and painfully uncrumpled the gray piece of newspaper. On the front of it was a picture of a modern and austere skyscraper. Wallach recognized it immediately. It was the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society building on Market Street. The clipping was from the dedication of the building a few years back. The photo was of a large crowd gathered outside the building, waiting to be among the first to go in and see this strange new structure unlike any previously built in Philadelphia, unlike any previous built in the United States. There in the middle of the crowd with a circle around his head in pencil was Wallach, patiently waiting amongst the rabble wearing his Homburg hat. It was small, and blurry, and only half his face was showing, but there was no doubting it was him. He had turned at just the right – or wrong – time, looking back over his shoulder just as the photographer’s flash popped. He was even wearing the same suit as he was now. Wallach crumpled the small piece of paper into a tight ball in his fist with what little remained of his strength.
            “You do not disappoint, cowboy.” Wallach said weakly.

“Thank you, that’s what all my fans say,” the cowboy said graciously, as if he was hosting a friendly cocktail party instead of a showdown between two rival ancient monsters, “Please sit down, if you can,” he added sarcastically as he went back to his seat.

The Cowboy

Many of you know that I'm in the middle of writing the second Novel, Silver Chains, due to be out next October.

I've been writing the thing as part of the NaNoWriMo Challenge. (You can follow my progress here.)

In the future, I will post excerpts of the upcoming novel here on the blog, but I'm just having such fun writing about a particular character I thought I would introduce him today.

This is a bit spoilerish below, but not too much.
He is known as "The Cowboy." 

He is an affable, handsome character, charming, gregarious, friendly, if given to an overuse of hoakey western colloquialism.  He's also a country-western music performer and an internet and YouTube sensation who's about to hit the big time.  He's got a huge loyal fan base and is taking the country by storm.

He's a really compelling character loosely modeled on some of my favorite contemporary country music stars.  If you want to get a sense of his looks, charm and style, just check out the awesome Josh Turner below. 

. 

Oh!  And he's also a 500 year old vampire intent on enslaving the world and that he has to capture and torture the heroes of the first book in order to do it?  Did I mention that?  Hmmm. Must have slipped my mind.

Chapter Nine: Meet Miles and Schuyler

Miles and Schuyler.

I've spoken of these characters before, here and here, and they are two of my favorites.  The two are a natural pair, but not like peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly or Dr. Pepper and Evil.  They go together more like oil and water, fire and ice, cops and robbers, bare walls and graffiti or vampire goths and sci-fi geeks at a comic con.  Their innate qualities make them pair up, or throw them together, but not in a good way.  There is friction to say the least.  To say more, they loathe each other, yet inevitably, like washed-out pop stars and bad mug shots, you can't separate them.

Schuyler is, outwardly at least, the stereotypical teenage vampire: gorgeous, talented, charismatic, distant, romantic, but it's all an act.  Inwardly he's conniving, vicious, vain, self-absorbed and cruel.  Miles, is everything Schuyler is not.

If Nephys and Lucy are the main characters, Miles and Schuyler are their principle foils, the characters that reflect their inner desires, fears, doubts and motivations.  That makes them a bit more stereotypical, a bit cruder caricature of a person than an actual character, but it works, and you'll see why. 

(Oh, and as a side note, when you are more or less writing a parody of the stereotypical teenage vampire, you can't help but mention the elephant in the room.  This is the most direct jab in the whole book that I take at a certain sparkling elephant that will remained unmentioned for the rest of the novel.  It's a gentle poke really.  I had to do it, just to get it out of the way and get on with the story I wanted to tell.  I imagined that in my fictional universe, books about sparkling elephants exist, just as they do in our world, and of course if there were any actual real elephants they would read about the sparkling elephants too.  It says nothing more about my opinion of novels about sparkling elephants than that.  In fact, my whole family has read the entire series of sparkling elephant novels and quite enjoyed it, although to be honest we are on team "shirtless non-sparkling furry elephant."  So to all you sparkling elephant lovers out there, please don't stampede me!  I'm one of your tribe!  Honest!)

Chapter Nine
Miles and Schuyler

From there I got away, My spirits never failin'
Landed on the quay As the ship was sailin';

Miles Killam sang idly beneath his breath and kicked a can down an alley in the early morning hours, somewhere in the dark streets of Chester, Pennsylvania. He was looking for something to eat, a passed-out drunk or addict would do.

When I jumped aboard, a cabin found for Paddy.
Down among the pigs, played some hearty rigs,

He wasn’t having any luck tonight however, or on many nights lately. Widener University often had a few drunken frat boys passed out on weekends, you could always count on that, but some dumb girl had passed out at a frat party and nearly died of alcohol poisoning a few weeks back, so everyone had assumed a greater measure of self-imposed austerity. Fine for co-eds, lousy for vampires though.

The murder rate in the Philly area was high enough to mask a few unusual deaths here and there, but you couldn’t just run up to a drive-by victim and suck him dry before the cops showed up. So you took opportunities where you could, taking a little here, and a little there, the odd drunk or runaway, someone who wouldn’t be missed or noticed. You could get by quite well that way without killing too. Killing was just too messy. It drew too much attention. Any second-rate vampire could dodge a wooden stake, but twelve-gauge buckshot from a shotgun was another matter, and everybody seemed to have one these days. Vampires were fast healers, but they weren’t as fast as they were in the movies. Even if it didn’t tear your head clean off you couldn’t walk around with gaping holes in you. Even in the middle of the night, a walking piece of human Swiss cheese would be noticed. South Street was pretty wild, but it wasn’t that wild.

For all the vaunted advantages of being a vampire – greater speed, strength, agility – you just couldn’t beat the law of averages or dodge bullets forever. Sure, living people were scared of vampires, but they were also bloody crazy, and tended to run in mobs with torches and pitchforks. You can step on a single ant, but you can’t stomp out a million. And today the ants didn’t just have torches and pitchforks; they had shotguns and four ton Escalades. No, it was better just to lay low.

It was easy to lay low for a good vampire, an ancient vampire that knew all the dark arts and tricks. He could take a life, be stealthy, hide in the shadows and disappear into the night like a dream disappearing from memory when one wakes at dawn, but Miles wasn’t exactly a good vampire. He’d been at it more than a hundred years and he still tripped over garbage in dark alleys. Miles was lucky if he could stumble upon a heroin addict passed out in the alley, take a quick nip and be away. No addict ever noticed another couple of extra holes when they woke up anyway.

Tonight was different though. Wallach wanted fresh meat. Wallach was Miles’ bloody aster. Nearly all vampires had clans, safety in numbers you know, but democracy hadn’t exactly penetrated vampire society. They were all ruled by ancient and imperious masters – aristocratic, terrifying and barking nuts. Miles had been slacking of late, so tonight Wallach had up and demanded a token of Miles’ loyalty. He wanted him to pick up some take out and bring it back alive. Miles had been out all night and found nothing promising, and dawn was coming. So he was shuffling down his last favorite hunting ground hoping for a lucky break before daylight.

Danced some hearty jigs, the water round me bubbling;
When off Holyhead I wished meself was dead,

Miles stopped singing and looked around. He was sure he had heard something, but the alley was dead silent, not even a stray rat. Vampires had more enemies than humans, usually other vampires, who were as good at killing bloodsuckers as they were people, but there hadn’t been a turf war in Philly in decades. Miles paused and looked up and down the alley but saw nothing. He went back to idly kicking at the rubbish.

Or better for instead on the rocky road to…

WHAM! Something from above knocked Miles hard to the ground and then swept him aside as if he were an empty jacket. Miles scrambled to find the wall and pull himself up in the narrow alley, blindly swinging, but hit nothing. He stood up and looked around, but saw nothing, and heard only laughter.

“You stupid mick. You never look up, do you, Killam?”

Miles just sighed and leaned back against the alley wall, closed his eyes and thumped the back of his head on the wall in frustration.

“Schuyler!! Saints and angels!! Ya scared the livin’ piss outta me!” He looked all around and up this time but still saw no one. “C’mon out for cryin’ out loud!”

Instantly, a tall, thin and handsome boy dropped out of the early morning sky right in front of him. He had windblown, shoulder-length blond hair and a handsome, boyish face, aged permanently seventeen years. He wore crisp white jeans that never seemed to get dirty, checkered Vans sneakers (no socks) and a black silk blazer over his otherwise naked torso. He never wore a shirt. He liked to show off his lean and toned hairless physique at all times.

“Geez Miles, you’d think you’d learn something about being a vampire in what…a hundred years?” the vampire sneered around a large sucker. Schuyler always had a large lollipop everywhere he went, but he never put it in his mouth the regular way. Instead, he reached around the back of his head and stuck it in the side of his mouth. He had a lot of weird affectations like that. He thought it made him look cool or something.

“Hundred and two,” Miles said flatly, “And what in the blue blazes are ya doin’ here?! This ain’t your huntin’ ground!”

“No, I don’t usually go slumming it, it’s true,” Schuyler snidely remarked, “But luckily I wasn’t far. I got this honey up at Swarthmore College. Y’know, the lonely bookish type? Freshmen get real homesick, just dying for someone to listen.” Schuyler thought of himself as quite a ladies’ man. Miles just sighed and endured the tedious monologue of Schuyler’s exploits. “…I tell you, every teenage girl out there today has daddy issues. My dad used to beat me every night as a matter of routine, but one of these rich brats doesn’t get a pony on their sixth birthday and they have to spend the rest of their lives as grad students in Gender Studies to work it out in their head.”

Ugh. This was going to be a long one. Schuyler went on and on. Miles ignored most of the recitation until he heard something new.

“So after I give her the story of how my dad disowned me because I wanted to go to art school…”

“Art school?!” Miles interrupted. “You never went to art school!”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”

“But you can’t even bloody draw, Schuyler!”

“So what?! Neither can anyone else these days. Besides it’s not about rote mechanical draftsmanship anymore but inner expression.” Schuyler had spent a lot of time around Logan Square and the all-girl’s art college near there so Miles figured that’s where he had picked up that meaningless bit of lingo.

“Anywho, so after the sob story I give her the quiet far off stare.” He pursed his lips and widened his eyes to model the stare for Miles, then he went back to his banal smirk. “It totally sold her. I’m telling ya, I’m gonna be milking her for months.” He took the lollipop out of his mouth in his usual backwards way and passed it under his nose like smelling a fine wine.

Miles nearly retched. Schuyler always had some girl on the hook, but it never seemed to come to much. Still Schuyler wasn’t drudging around alleys for passed out addicts. Schuyler didn’t play as well as he talked, but he was rarely on the outs with Wallach and Miles had to admit, even though Schuyler was more than fifty years younger than him, he was a much better vampire than he was.

“And you just happened by my alley, did ya?”

Schuyler put the lollipop back in his mouth in an equally odd fashion and spoke around it. “Actually, truth is, Wallach told me to check up on you.”

Miles shoulders just slumped. In the clan hierarchy, Schuyler wasn’t exactly an A-lister, but he at least had proper vampire pride and ambition. Still, to have to be checked up on by Schuyler was pretty low.

Schuyler took out the lollipop and pointed it sternly at Miles, “Frankly you’re lucky he didn’t send Ulami or Forzgrim after you. They’d just as soon tear you apart as babysit you.”

“I don’t need anyone to babysit me,” Miles said sullenly.

“Really?” Schuyler put the lollipop back in his mouth, raised his shoulders and turned slowly from side to side. “Well excuse me, I guess I had a hard time seeing that through the enormous pile of victims at your feet.” And with that, he did a graceful back flip landing perfectly on the edge of the dumpster across the alley and looked down on Miles like a smirking cat. Miles had to admit it was an impressive move.

“Shut up,” Miles muttered.

“No you shut up. I’m not the one schlepping around alleyways at three in the morning, trying to sneak a bite out of passed-out junkies. I mean…come on! What’s the matter with you Killam?! You’ve been at this fifty years longer than me and you still don’t know the first thing about being a vampire. If you come back to Wallach empty-handed he’s going to stake you out ‘til dawn and use your charred corpse to roast marshmallows.”

Schuyler was right. Miles was almost out of time, and if he didn’t come back with something…someone…then he might as well be dead…well…dead again. Wallach didn’t take kindly to disobedience. Running wasn’t an option either. Wallach and his goons, Ulami and Forzgrim, had run down every vampire in the Mid-Atlantic from Baltimore to Newark and inland as far as Pittsburgh. Those that didn’t fall in line, he had staked out ‘til sunrise or worse. There just weren’t that many vampires anymore, and Wallach was the oldest and scariest on the east coast. Most vampires could expect to someday master stealth, mind hazing and enhanced strength and agility – well, most vampires other than Miles – but he’d seen Wallach inflict pain on a minion with a glance, enthrall a victim from across a crowded room with just his voice and leap so far he could practically fly. It was rumored that Wallach could even change forms. Wallach scared the living heck out of Miles and everyone else in the clan, including Schuyler. It was Schuyler’s dearest wish to reach the upper echelons of Wallach’s lackeys. He’d make it, thought Miles. He had the looks, the natural grace. Plus, he was a royal suck-up.

Schuyler hopped down from the edge of the dumpster quietly and crossed over to Miles. “Look…you need help, that much is obvious, but it doesn’t have to be a drag. I know you and I haven’t exactly been friends, but we’re in the same boat.”

Miles narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

“Really!” Schuyler said enthusiastically, “You think I want to come back to Wallach and tell him I couldn’t help you?”

Miles wasn’t so sure about that. He thought Schuyler would push you in front of a trolley if he thought you were between him and moving up the vampire hierarchy. Still, Schuyler had nothing to fear from Miles. Miles wasn’t exactly on the ladder ahead of him. Miles wasn’t even on the ladder at all.

“Look man” Schuyler began again. “Whatever it is that’s holding you back, we can work on it together.” His tone got soft and quiet, and he placed a hand on Miles’ shoulder and looked right into his eyes. “I want you to know I’m here for you, guy.” He took the lollipop out of his mouth, without any of the usual gymnastics, and gave Miles a friendly smile.

Was Schuyler serious? Miles let down his guard and decided to open up to him, “Ok, thanks brother… I really…” but before he even got two more words out, the friendly face turned into a smirk and Schuyler contorted with restrained laughter.

“You don’t think I really care do you?” Schuyler snorted.

“Bloody idiot!” Miles pushed Schuyler away from him in disgust and Schuyler laughed uncontrollably for a second. Miles started skulking off down towards the exit of the trash-strewn alley. Schuyler caught up with him and tried to put his arm around Miles’ shoulders.

“Now, now, now, don’t be that way!” Miles pushed Schuyler’s arm off and kept walking. “See! This is exactly what I’m talking about. Just then I totally played you. You’re so naïve, you dumb mick! You let everyone play you, even the dumb drunks, but here in this world WE are the players.”

Miles just rolled his eyes, not this speech again, but Schuyler kept right on going.

“You always have to have an angle see? You have to work these people, and then they will come to you.” Schuyler put his arm back around Miles as they were walking and stabbed the lollipop into Miles chest to emphasize the word “you.” Miles just ignored him. “True, we can’t all be blessed with good looks and natural grace. I mean…look at you. You’re short, dark, pimply, and you look like you’re thirteen.”

Miles turned angrily on Schuyler. “I was sixteen!! Sixteen when I got…” Miles paused and then whispered the word “turned” as if he were ashamed of it.

“Yeah, yeah…boyish good looks I’m sure, but see, that’s what I’m talking about. You have to work with what you’ve got…let’s take your hair, Americans like gingers.”

“Americans like red haired women, you dolt, not boys.”

“Hang on. Hear me out,” Schuyler sounded genuinely offended, “You have red hair, a temper and you’re Irish. Now you’re not much to look at, it’s true, but an angry, short-tempered, possibly alcoholic, sulky, Irish teenager? Oh…we can work with that.”

“Really?”

“Sure!”

“How?” Miles was genuinely curious now.

“All you have to do is go to an Irish pub, pretend to get drunk and start a fight. Win or lose, just make it about the honor of good ol’ Erin’s Isle. Afterwards, you find a lonely corner and sulk for a bit, and then, sure as anything, some Irish-American mick-ette or wannabe will come around to help you cry into your pint of Guinness.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Bad boys!! My friend. BAD boys.” And he thumped the lollipop hard into Miles’ chest. “Women love ‘em!”

“Really?” Miles was confused.

“Yep.”

“But…why?”

“Don’t know really,” Schuyler picked the lint off his lollipop it had picked up from Miles sweater. It wasn’t a real lollipop anyway, but a plastic one. Vampires couldn’t taste much more than blood anyhow and had precious little saliva. This one was one of Schuyler’s many props. He had them color-coded to match his outfits and moods. Today’s color was “saffron.”

“But I suspect women aren’t happy unless they’re meddling, fixing things, it’s the maternal instinct, and nothing’s a better project than fixing some broken boy. Plus, it gives them a little shot of adrenaline. They can stand close to the fire and try to see how close they can get and not to get burned. This is where you spring your secret weapon.”

“My secret weapon?”

“Yeah! You flash them the fangs, reveal your secret.”

“Tell them I’m a vampire?!”

“Of course! Just a taste mind you, just enough to let them know they are standing close to the fire.”

“Why?!”

“Don you get it?! Vampires are the ultimate bad boys!! You’d be an Irish Vampire! That’s like a double bad boy!! A bad boy squared. They’ll be all over you.” Miles looked at him incredulously. “Serious, dude. I’m telling you, it’ll be great. It’s a new era! The ground space has already been prepped for you by a thousand novels and TV shows. It’s all they read or watch anymore!! These girls would willingly give up buckets of their own blood for the chance to meet a real vampire. We just have to give them what they want, do the lonely moody shtick: brooding teenager with overpowering demons and secrets.” He said the last part with a wavering melodramatic vibrato. “Honestly, how do you think I manage to score so many victims?”

Miles narrowed his eyes at Schuyler. He couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he was just messing with him again. “I dunno, sounds iffy,” Miles replied nervously. He had always been more of a scavenger and not a player, but Schuyler rarely looked hungry or haggard, and he never had to get a victim for Wallach.

“Dude. Ya gotta trust me,” Schuyler finally said.

“Yeah…like I trusted you the time you convinced me we should go back to high school?”

“Dude, that was a great idea.”

“It was bloody bollocks! That’s what it was.”

“I was just thinking it would be a great way to meet chicks.”

“Chicks? It was bloody night school! All we met were a bunch of middle-aged drop-outs trying to get their G.E.D.s!!”

“Ok, perhaps it was a bit poor in execution… but it was still a good idea.” Schuyler paused and looked down, “Still not giving up on that one. We just have to find the right venue.” Miles just rolled his eyes again and kept on walking. Their long, slow stroll had led them to near where the alley exited out onto a street corner.

“Hey. Listen to me.” Schuyler stopped and grabbed Miles lightly by the shoulder and turned to face him. Miles stopped and looked at Schuyler. “All I’m saying is that you have to be more flexible…change with the times, cause it sure doesn’t look like trolling for junkies is working out for you that well.”

Miles looked down slightly ashamed. He didn’t know what was worse, that deep down he knew Schuyler was right, or that in this messed up world, Schuyler was the closest thing he had to a friend.

“So, are you ready to let me help you yet?” Schuyler sounded like he was trying to sell Miles a used car. “Are you ready for help from the master?” And with the word “master,” Schuyler made a flourish with his lollipop hand over his naked chest. Ugh.

Miles sighed and put his hands dejectedly into his jeans pockets. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. Now I doubt we will find any honeys out her tonight, we’ll have to work on that later, so first thing’s first.” He clapped and rubbed his hands together. “Tonight we’ve got to find you an easy mark before Wallach turns your hide into a lampshade. It’s getting close to dawn, so let’s go.” Schuyler stepped back, reached into his pocket and took out a small aerosol can. He closed his eyes and sprayed the can generously over his naked chest, neck and face.

Miles wrinkled his nose. “What in the bloody heck was that?”

“Hmm? Oh that? Nothing…just y’know, some body spray. I want to stay fresh in case I run into any ladies. Just in case.”

“Ladies?”

“Yeah, so what?”

Miles quickly snatched the can from Schuyler’s hand and read the label. “Sparkleshot. Cologne with body glitter. Musk.”

“Gimme that!” Schuyler grabbed the can back and looked hurt for a moment before he put it away.

Miles looked up at Schuyler. “Body glitter? Seriously? You’re wearin’ bloomin’ body spray with glitter?”

“Well, y’know…girls today have…certain…” Schuyler looked up as if he were searching for the right word, “expectations.” And then he waggled his eyebrows at Miles.

Miles squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. However much he hated the situation, he was desperate. Schuyler was a much better vampire than he was and right now he needed Schuyler or Wallach was going to use him for a throw rug. “Can ya just get on with this please?”

“Alright, Alright.” Schuyler shook his arms loosely and then craned his neck from side to side. “First we gotta get loosened and up and get in tune with the inner sight, feel the victim’s pain.”

“Really? Ya can do that?” Miles had heard of vampires that could sense victims’ pain and suffering and hone in on it like a bloodhound following a wounded criminal or a shark following blood in the water. They had never said so, but he was certain Ulami, Forzgrim and Wallach could do it. However, he never expected that Schuyler could. He regarded Schuyler closely. Schuyler was stretching, rolling his head around on his shoulders.

“Oh, yeah. Just clear your head and get all the distractions out.” Schuyler shook his whole body and Miles tried to follow along but he felt silly. “Now take a deep breath.” Schuyler got very still and calm and held out his hands, palms up. Miles tried to ape Schuyler’s actions. “Now close your eyes and look into the darkness.”

Miles closed his eyes and saw nothing. “Bloody heck, I don’t see nothin’!”

“Ya gotta give it time, dude, just wait a minute,” came Schuyler’s reassuring reply.

Miles looked inward and saw only darkness, but the darkness turned into a fog…and then in the fog…something…a pig…a duck…what was it? He shook his head. It was nothing, he was imagining things…then something else, a girl in a hospital bed? No…a boy…with a yo-yo. He was seeing something…wasn’t he?”

Schuyler snorted.

Miles opened one eye. Schuyler’s smirk could hardly contain his laughter.

“Schulyer!! Ya bloody prick!!” Miles shouted.

“DUDE! You are SO gullible! I can’t believe I got you twice in like fifteen minutes!” Schuyler burst out laughing.

“You don’ actually have the sight, do ya?”

“Nah man, I’m just messing with you. I keep trying but I ain’t got nothing yet.”

“So ya don’t know where any potential victims are, do ya?” Miles asked.

Schuyler composed himself and wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, or at least pretended to – vampires couldn’t actually cry. Everything was an act with Schuyler. “Actually, it’s your lucky day. I saw someone from the rooftop before I jumped down and scared you out of your shorts.” Schuyler put his arm around Miles and dragged him to the edge of the alley. “C’mon let’s take a look.”

Schuyler walked to the edge of the alley and leaned against the corner of the building. Miles held back and peeked around Schuyler’s shoulders. There, across the street, underneath a dim yellow streetlight hanging from a dilapidated telephone pole, was a thin young man leaning against the fender of a 1970’s land yacht parked in front of a vacant lot.

“There you are, Miles. Whadiddisay? Easy pickings, huh?”

Miles looked over the man. He was wiping his palms over and over again on his pants as if they were sweating profusely. “I don’t like it.”

“Well woo-hoo. When did we get so high and mighty? Dude, you haven’t got time to be picky.” Schuyler was utterly too carefree and far too noisy for Miles’ taste.

“It’s not that,” Miles said hoarsely, afraid they were going to be overheard, “Sometin’s not right. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like it?”

“Yeah, sometin’s fishy. C’mon let’s go find someone else.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Schuyler spat back at him. “We get lucky enough to have someone drop right into our laps and you want to keep looking?!”

“Yeah…there’s sometin’ up with him. We should go.” Miles began tugging on Schuyler’s arm.

“UP with him? C’mon, he’s just a junkie out looking for a hit to take the edge off before he has to go to work, I mean…Just look at the guy.”

Miles did look. The young man did look awfully nervous and edgy like a junkie. Still, it didn’t make any sense. Miles knew most of the regulars in this neighborhood and he had never seen this guy before. On top of that, there weren’t any dealers out this time of the day, so why was he here?

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“So you know every junkie in the greater Philly area now?”

“No, but I still don’t like it.”

Schuyler sighed.

“Look!” Miles said a bit too emphatically. He tried to calm himself. “I know junkies, and sometin’s wrong with this guy. Addicts are creatures of habit, they have their favorite suppliers and they just don’t change for no reason. This guy’s odd. Sometin’s wrong. I dunno, maybe he’s a cop or sometin’.”

“OR… maybe his pusher got pinched and he’s desperately looking for a pop before the early shift. Don’t people come to this neighborhood to buy dope all the time?”

That was true, but there was still something off about the guy.

“So what’d he do? Come out here, park his car in the middle of nowhere, git out to wait and just hope a pusher would come by? It doesn’t make any sense, ya blighter. Addicts don’t park the car and wait for sellers to come to dem, ya bloody idiot. They drive around and don’ stop ‘til they find someone! It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Dude, what doesn’t make any sense is that you are passing up an opportunity to keep Wallach from having Forzgrim turn you into his own personal doormat. He could have set up a meeting with his supplier and the guy is late, that’s all.”

“So what if his pusher shows up?” Miles was nervous.

“Big deal, so we bring two bloodbags back to Wallach – the horror,” Schuyler remarked sarcastically. Miles wasn’t buying it. It all seemed wrong.

“I’m telling you it’s just not right.”

“And I’m telling you, you think too much.” And with that, Schuyler put the lollipop prop back into his mouth and started walking casually out into the street.

“Schuyler, you bloody idiot, come back!!” Miles whispered hoarsely. Schuyler just nonchalantly turned around and kept walking backwards away from him while talking.

“REE-lax will ya?” Schuyler replied, “I’ll just go over…”

“No, don’t!”

“And have a little chat with our friend here…”

“Schuyler!”

“And bring him back over here to the alley where you can jump him, ok? I’ll even help you soften him up a bit before you have to bring him back to Wallach, have a little snack to tide us over. Ok?”

“No…don’t go…Schuyler? I’m serious! Git back here!”

“Dude, you owe me for this one, big time. Don’t worry, you’ll thank me later.”

And with that, Schuyler strolled out into the street and called out to the man leaning against the car.

“WASSUP!! Bro…you looking for a hit? Maybe a date? ‘Cuz, if so, we can set you up proper!” The young man hadn’t noticed Schuyler before this. His gaze instantly turned their way, his body stiffened. Miles ducked back into the alley out of sight. Something was wrong, very, very wrong, but he couldn’t tell what. He couldn’t make out the conversation, but he could tell Schuyler was already well into one of his monologues. He peeked around the corner of the building. Schuyler hadn’t been talking to the guy for more than a minute and he already had his arm around the guy’s shoulders. A minute or two later the man was even laughing, albeit a little nervously, as Schuyler gestured widely with his lollipop as if he was telling some fantastic story. At the climax, both he and Schuyler laughed enthusiastically.

A minute later Schuyler gestured with the lollipop towards the alley. Miles winced and ducked down a little. The guy didn’t seem so certain at first and kept looking over his shoulder. Schuyler just shrugged, said goodbye and started walking away, but the guy didn’t follow. Just when Miles was certain Schuyler had blown the sale, the guy called out to Schuyler and ran to catch up with him, shook his hand and followed him across the street towards the alley. Schuyler looked Miles’ way and winked. Sure enough, Miles had to admit, Schuyler was good at this.

Schuyler entered the alley first. Miles pressed himself against the wall and tried to disappear. Schuyler didn’t even acknowledge Miles as he passed him. The hapless guy followed him in, passed Miles and didn’t even see him. Schuyler was setting this up perfectly. Miles could jump him from behind and bleed him just enough to make him pass out. Clean and easy. Maybe Schuyler knew what he was doing all along after all. Miles wasn’t so nervous anymore; Schuyler seemed to have the whole situation under control.

Miles crept forward for the kill slowly, silently closing in to strike…and slipped and stumbled on a pile of loose newspapers.

“Bloody heck!!” thought Miles, couldn’t he do anything right? The man instantly turned around at the sound and looked terrified. Beyond him Miles could see Schuyler’s blonde head shaking in disbelief, the palm of his hand on his forehead. The man exchanged nervous looks between him and Schuyler and for a moment it looked like he was going to bolt. Fortunately, Schuyler stepped in to save the situation.

“No, no, no!! It’s okay, that’s just my associate, Miles.” He said the word “associate” with particular venom. “Miles, here, is my lookout, see, so we’ll take care of business down here, while Miles keeps a lookout down THERE.” Schuyler’s eyeballs frantically pointed towards the end of the alley. His look was enough to let Miles know he didn’t want his help anymore.

The victim’s face relaxed a little and Miles awkwardly nodded, turned around and walked over to watch the empty street and feel worthless. Miles folded his arms and leaned despondently on the corner of the building. As he did, he heard Schuyler behind him finish the sale.

“Right over here, we can hook you up…”

“Here it comes,” thought Miles, “Schuyler’s moment of glory where he pulls out one of his patented, corny catch phrases, gets the victim and then rubs it in my face for the next three weeks.” All that was left after that was the muffled scream, the sound of frantic thrashing cut short and the long haul back to Wallach with the comatose body.

Schuyler started up again, “Before we do business, my friend, are you hungry? Because if you are, I could always go for a quick…”

Miles groaned. Not that one. “Bite,” Miles completed in his mind. How corny. Only the awful pun never came. In fact, there was no muffled scream or thrashing either. Just silence. Miles was getting nervous again, but then remembered how Schuyler had played him twice already.

“I’m not fallin’ for it, Schuyler! If ya tink ya can trick me again, ya can haul the body back to Wallach by yerself.” He it said without turning around, but there was no response. He shifted uncomfortably. Sky was sure dragging this prank out. After a while he began to wonder if it was a prank, so he took a quick peek over his shoulder, just in case it was a prank he could shrug it off, but what he saw didn’t look like one of Schuyler’s jokes. The victim was crouched, sheltered against the close side of the dumpster nearest Miles, his hands over his head muttering “Man oh, oh man, oh man, oh man,” over and over again, but Schuyler was nowhere near him.

Instead, Schuyler was suspended in mid air by…nothing…or at least something Miles couldn’t see, like a black cloud holding Schuyler up by his throat. Miles was flabbergasted and didn’t know what to do.

He stood there dumbstruck for a while and then, somehow, found the strength to rush to Schuyler’s aid, but he didn’t get far. Before he had taken half a step, a huge hand came down, grabbed him by the neck, lifted him a foot off the ground and held him there, his legs running on air. He twisted around to look at who had him. It was an enormous man in a grubby sweatshirt with a ski cap pulled down over his eyes, but there were no eyeholes. He tried to flail and punch and kick the man, but his blows just bounced off him like he was concrete. “Oy! Sweet Brigid!” Miles cried out. It hurt! A lot. The thing didn’t even act like it had noticed.

He wrenched back around to see how Schuyler was faring. The smoke was gone, or rather it was coalescing into a man, a tall thin man wearing blue-green scrubs and a leather jacket. Schuyler was struggling to free himself with no avail.

“SCHUYLER!!” Miles screamed. The thin man turned his attention to Miles for a moment. Schuyler saw the momentary distraction as an opportunity. He swung his body around ‘til his feet touched the alley wall. In a blindingly fast instant, he ran up the wall to build up momentum and flipped his whole body around to bring both of his feet crashing down onto the thin man’s head. It was an amazing move, the kind that would have floored any mortal and most vampires. Unfortunately, the thin man obviously wasn’t just any mortal or vampire. He bent over backward, nearly in half, avoided the feet and then slammed Schuyler to the floor of the alley so hard it made the dumpster jump. Schuyler, without hesitation, then whipped one leg around in a spinning motion in an attempt to sweep his attacker’s legs out from underneath him.

It was a great move, and Schuyler doubled down on it by using the momentum to spin himself up and land on his feet. However, the man just jumped the leg sweep like an expert double-dutch jump roper, bent Schuyler over and rammed his head into the alley wall hard enough to break the bricks and scatter dust everywhere. But, Schuyler wasn’t done yet. He tried another move, and then another, and then another. Each full of unbelievable back-flips and incredible jackknife twists and helicopter kicks that came out of nowhere – each move more impressive than the last. Miles had no idea Schuyler was so good at this. He had always thought of him as a lover and not a fighter.

Of course, the other guy was still much better. He never let Schuyler land a blow and deftly stepped out of the way of each attack, only to redirect Schuyler’s momentum against him and slam him into another hard surface in the alley. On any other day, with any other opponent, Schuyler’s moves would have been as devastating as a wrecking ball, but today it didn’t look so much like some awesome fight scene in a kung-fu movie as an annoyed man holding an angry and snappy puppy safely away at arm’s length.

Schuyler’s last move was an incredible back flip over the top of his opponent’s head, only to be dropped to the alley floor face first and wind up with the other guy’s foot planted firmly between his shoulder blades. Schuyler lay there panting for a moment before Miles said anything.

“Ya finished Schuyler?” Miles said from his suspended position, feet still dangling.

Between breaths Schuyler forced out “Yeah…I think…I think I’m done now.”

“Ya sure yer ok?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” said Miles. “Because if we ever get out of this bloody mess I’M GONNA KILL YA, YA BLOODY IDIOT!!!!”

“Look, how was I supposed to know the guy was a Renfield!! HUH?!!”

A “Renfield,” in vampire speak, was a human toady, a vampire groupie sent out to do tasks for them that they couldn’t do for themselves, usually during daylight business hours. They were a lot more common in the days before ATM banking and twenty-four hour drive-thru dry cleaning, but they still had their purposes. Every clan had one or two, but they usually didn’t last long. This one had obviously just been used as bait by these two vampires to set a trap for Miles and Schuyler.

“I TRIED TO WARN YA, YA IDIOT!! I KNEW SOMETIN’ WAS UP!! WHY DIDNA YA LISTEN TO ME?!! YA NEVER LISTEN!!” Miles screamed and flailed at his captor, but his moves were even more ineffectual than Schuyler’s had been. The young man crouching behind the dumpster stopped muttering and stood up and walked over to the man standing on Schuyler’s back.

“Hey don’t give me that, this…this is YOUR fault.” From underneath the foot of his victorious opponent Schuyler jabbed his plastic lollipop angrily at Miles. At least he hadn’t dropped that. The eyes of the thin man standing on top of Schuyler concentrated on Miles.

“My fault?!!! I’m the one dat told ya that sometin’ was fishy with this guy!! How in the bloody heck is this MY fault?!!!”

The eyes of the thin man in scrubs and the young man turned back to Schuyler.

“It’s your bloody fault BECAUSE I NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!”

The eyes turned back to face Miles to see how he would reply.

“Oh yeah?! How ya figger dat?!”

The eyes turned back to face Schuyler.

“YEAH!! If you weren’t such a piss-poor vampire WE WOULDN’T BE IN THIS POSITION!!”

The eyes turned back to face Miles.

“YA STUPID GIT!! YA DUMB, ARROGANT PRICK!! I told ya not to do it, I told ya NOT to do it, if we had just done what I wanted…”

“If we had just done what you wanted WALLACH WOULD HAVE HAD OUR EYEBALLS FOR CUE BALLS, you stupid Mick!!”

The eyes turned quickly back and forth between Miles and Schuyler as they continued to trade insults and accusations.

“Ya right VAIN, POMPOUS SUCK-UP…”

“You worthless JUNKIE-SUCKING WANNABE…”

“STUPID GIT!”

“Pimple faced, spud-sucking LOSER!!”
“Manure’s got more brains than you!!”

“ALLEY LEECH!!”

Hokharty tried to take in the situation as the insults flew from one to the other. The one under his foot had given him more sport than he had expected. That was good, and the other short, dark one with the thick accent had senses of which he wasn’t yet aware. Both would make good hunters. Tim had played his part well, Hokharty thought. He had obviously underestimated the young man’s resolve.

From Tim’s perspective, it wasn’t resolve. He was just numb. Getting kidnapped by two re-animated corpses had pretty much buried the needle on his weird-o-meter hours ago, so he wasn’t about to get more upset over a couple of vampires. At this point, he wouldn’t even be fazed if a cat strolled into the alley and started bolting out show tunes. Graber just smiled that dumb smile of his and seemed to be happy. Tim was content that, for the moment, Graber’s huge paw wasn’t on his neck, so that was good.

“GODLESS SON OF A…”

“Blood-sucking REJECT!!”

“CONCEITED, BRAINLESS, STRUTTING PEACOCK…”

“IRISH EUROTRASH!!”

They seemed to have an indefatigable hatred of each other and an endless imagination for invective. Well, that could be made useful too. “Tell me, Tim,” Hokharty began in his usual calm, polite tone, “Is everyone in your time like…this?”

“Well…” Tim shrugged and waggled his head back and forth, “Pretty much, yeah.”

“DIRTY BLIGHTER!”

“Low-rent GUTTER PARASITE!”

This just wouldn’t do. The Necromancer would expect results in a matter of hours, not days, and Hokharty needed their full cooperation if this was going to work. “Gentlemen…” he tried to interrupt them.

“Filthy, Irish, acne-ridden, half-pint…”

“Shirtless emo-freak!!”

“Gentlemen, we have very little time…”

“Ugly, sawed-off, zit-covered, ginger, addict leech…”

“Blow-dried, goth-baiting, eighties-retro wannabe pig…”

“Gentlemen if I could have your attention please…”

“Rotten, mickey, methhead-sucking monkey…”

“Shove it up your arse…Edward.”

“Stinking, Irish…hey? WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!!”

“KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!! CRIMINY!!” Tim finally yelled in frustration.

Everyone fell silent. Of all the things that had happened in the alley that early morning, Miles thought this was the weirdest yet. It was really odd to see a Renfield lash out like that. Usually, they were submissive, whiny, little toadies that clung to the shadows and didn’t dare utter anything more than a “yes, master,” before skulking off to do some dirty work. And Tim wasn’t finished yet; he had a lot to say and was going to get it off his chest.

“Cheese and crackers!! I don’t give a rat’s if you’re zombies or vampires or demons or Amway salesmen!! JUST SHUT UP!! I’ve been kidnapped by dead guys, locked in a morgue and jumped by a couple of teenage emo-freaks and I’ve about had it with all of you!! No one is going to believe what I’ve been through tonight – heck, I’m not sure I believe it!! So, I’ll be lucky to get through this without getting killed or stuck in a mental institution!!! I’ve almost certainly lost my job, or any chance at getting accepted to any Physician’s Assistant degree program, let alone I’ll probably have to sleep with the lights on from now on and for the rest of my life, so I’m not in the mood to put up with any more crap!! I just want this day to get over as soon as possible so I can go curl up in the fetal position in my hovel of an apartment with a copy of Ultimate Avengers…and whimper for ten hours straight!! Now SHUT UP and listen! OK??!!”

Tim’s bellow reverberated down the encroaching silence of the alleyway. Miles meekly nodded his consent. Now he was even more scared. If the Renfield was this crazy, how hardcore were the vampires he was hanging out with? Who were these guys?!!

“Chillax, dude, it’s cool…” Schuyler began. Schuyler never did know when to shut up.

“DID I TELL YOU YOU COULD TALK?!! DID I?” The Renfield bent down to scream directly into Schuyler’s ear. “It is NOT ‘cool, dude.’ It is about as far from ‘cool’ as you can get!! Now SHUT UP!!” Schuyler put his plastic lollipop back in his mouth, folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs.

Hokharty regarded Tim with a faint air of admiration. “Thank you, Tim.”

“Yeah…well…you’re welcome,” Tim said angrily and rubbed his palms on his pants some more.

Hokharty spoke again, “And I promise you, Tim, that all that you have lost this day will be restored to you a hundredfold.”

“Yeah, how ya gonna do that? How ya gonna get my job back and convince them I didn’t steal three bodies or that I’m not crazy, huh?”

Schuyler and Miles raised their eyebrows. They had never heard a Renfield take a mocking tone with his master before. If the tall vampire in the leather jacket and scrubs was offended, he didn’t show it.

“Simple,” Hokharty replied, “I’ll tell them the truth. That you were acting under duress.”

Tim snorted. Miles and Schuyler exchanged glances again. A snort was enough to get a Renfield sucked dry in their clan. These were not your ordinary vampires.

“Trust me, Tim,” Hokharty continued, “I can be very persuasive. I can get your old life back…if that is what you want.”

Tim didn’t actually respond. He just kinda “hmmphed,” but Hokharty didn’t seem upset or anything. He just turned his attention to Miles and Schuyler. “Gentlemen,” he said crisply, “Now that I have your full attention, allow me to introduce myself. I am Hokharty, this is my associate, Graber.” Graber gave Miles a little shake at the back of his neck to let him know he was talking about him. “And, of course, you’ve met my friend, Tim.”

Tim nodded meekly. “Friend” was an odd word to use for a Renfield, thought Miles.

“But, of course, I don’t know your names. You are?” and he gestured to Miles. Graber gave him a little shake to prompt him.

Miles glanced nervously from side to side but eventually just blurted out “Miles.”

Hokharty nodded and then looked down at Schuyler underfoot.

“And your name is what? Edward, I believe?”

Schuyler groaned. “Actually, it’s Schuyler,” he mumbled around the fake plastic lollipop.

“From the Dutch for ‘Scholar?’ How interesting.” Schuyler wrinkled his forehead…was that an insult?

“Schuyler and Miles then. Now gentlemen, I think we’ve established that if we wanted to hurt you we would have done so by now. Agreed?”

Both nodded mute agreement.

“Very good,” Hokharty continued, “We have need of your talents and the talents of others such as yourself.” Hokharty paused to read their expressions carefully. “We mean you no harm, we just want to meet the rest of your,” he paused and chose the next word carefully, “family.”

“Family?” Tim said puzzled.

“Yes Tim. Every vampire has a clan, every clan has a master, and every master has a master, until there is, at last, a master who is master of all.” After this odd piece of exposition Hokharty turned his attention back to Miles. “We just want to talk to yours.”

Wallach? They wanted to meet Wallach? This was bad. Miles must have unknowingly given too much away with his panicked look towards Schuyler because Hokharty didn’t hesitate to follow up.

“You know where their keep is? Are they close?” Hokharty’s gaze was trained solely on Miles, and Graber gave Miles another little shake to prompt him. “Crap!” thought Miles. They’d marked him as the most likely snitch.

They wanted to meet Wallach, but that was impossible. There hadn’t been a vampire turf war in ages and Wallach was not one to be trifled with. Once, a rival clan had moved in to the Kingsessing area thirty years back. They didn’t last long. Wallach had made trophies of their master and heavies. Their skins were strung up as drapes. The underlings didn’t fare any better. They were staked out in the yard to await the sunrise. Real vampires didn’t just explode into clouds of ash when they were hit by sunlight like they did in the movies. It was more like putting a piece of overcooked meat under a heat lamp for too long. It started like a sunburn from hell­ – skin festering and peeling. Then the body dried up and began to smolder like a piece of fine, dry kindling under a magnifying glass. Eventually, it would ignite and burst into flames, but that was no relief. A mortal burned alive would succumb pretty quickly to smoke and heat, but this was one of the cases where a vampire’s added strength and endurance were a genuine disadvantage. A mortal would pass out and lose consciousness before too long, but a vampire felt the burn until it reached the bone and boiled its brains. It could take thirty minutes to die that way, and that wasn’t even the worst that Wallach’s twisted imagination could muster. And now Miles was being asked to reveal the clan’s secret keep to outsiders. Miles had seen many vampires die under Wallach’s hand for far less.

Miles looked to Schuyler who was chewing so far up the stick on his plastic lollipop that he nearly swallowed it. Schuyler almost imperceptibly mouthed the word, “No.”

Hokharty didn’t move his gaze from Miles once. “Or perhaps you would rather wait a few hours until the sun rises?”

Miles gulped. They couldn’t possibly be serious. If they did that they would burn up too, wouldn’t they? They were vampires just like them after all. No, they had to be bluffing, but then Miles took another hard look at Tim, their Renfield, and felt a twinge of doubt. These guys weren’t your typical vampires. He just knew that somehow, these guys had a plan that did not involve them getting burnt to a crisp. So, the choice wasn’t death or not death, but death now or death later. Wallach terrified Miles, but in the question of timing, later always seemed better when one was talking about painful, agonizing death. Who knows? Maybe he would get lucky and Wallach would be so disgusted by him, he would think it was beneath him to dispense with him himself and he’d have Ulami or Forzgrim just quickly tear him to pieces. Yeah, there was always that faint hope.

Miles swallowed hard, but it got stuck mid-swallow from lack of saliva; his mouth was so dry. “Y-yeah…yeah, I know where they are.”

Miles looked at Schuyler. Schuyler twisted up his face into a contortion of pure agony, and then thudded his head against the pavement several times. Hokharty smiled a faint smile.

“I can take ya there…but,” Miles hesitated, “they’re not goin’ to be happy about it.”

“They never are,” said Hokharty, matter-of-factly. He paused to look around and then spoke plainly. “Miles, Schuyler. I’m going to let you go now. Please don’t try to escape.”

Tim snorted a little and broke in and interrupted Hokharty very uncharacteristically for a Renfield. “He ain’t kiddng about that, dudes.”

Hokharty continued unfazed by the interjection. “I am on a mission of the most grave importance. I have much to do and no time for distractions. Just believe me when I tell you that if you attempt escape, it will be futile.” He paused and then tilted his head slightly as if thinking. “If you promise to do all that you are told, I can guarantee you that no harm will come to either of you and that you both be rewarded richly for your service.”

He sounded awfully certain of himself, but what were his promises where Wallach was concerned? As it was, it didn’t much matter. Even if they bolted, Wallach would hunt them down just for failing to bring in a victim for tribute. Either way, Miles’ long, slow, miserable slog as a vampire would soon be over. He honestly could say he had hated every minute of it. It was a fitting end to a lousy career.

Both Schuyler and Miles nodded in silence; what else could they do? Hokharty stepped off of Schuyler’s back unceremoniously. Schuyler laid there for a while, like a whipped dog, uncertain if he should get up or not. Then he performed an action like that dance move called ‘the worm,’ and worked the momentum forward into a handstand, and then, finally, a forward flip onto his feet. He didn’t quite stick the landing; he was still sore and put out from the lesson he had received from Hokharty. It was ridiculously over the top, but Miles didn’t blame him. He was trying his best to recover what was left of his dignity. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from side to side just as if he were flexing before a workout.

“Vain prick,” though Miles, just before Graber dropped him hard on his backside. Miles’ recovery was far less showy. He brushed off his jeans and got up slowly. Graber stepped to the side and gestured out of the alley towards the street like a gruesome doorman. Schuyler followed with Tim and Hokharty taking up the rear. As they exited the alley, Schuyler’s eyes darted quickly down the street. He was contemplating making a run for it.

Tim caught the sideward glance and said, “Dude…don’t bother. Graber is faster than he looks, and the other one has eyes in the back of his head, plus he can turn into snake made of smoke and chase you down if he wants.” Schuyler raised an eyebrow at this as if he didn’t really believe it, but said nothing and continued his somber, casual saunter across the street.

Hokharty stepped into the lead, somehow confident his charges would not try to flee. He walked across the street to the car on the passenger side and motioned for Tim to follow. Tim fumbled in his pocket for the keys and went to the driver’s seat. Graber held the door open and practically shoved Miles into the back, but he waited for Schuyler. From inside the car, Miles could see Schuyler hesitating. All at once Schuyler’s shoulders slumped. The lollipop practically fell from his mouth. On his face was a look of utter disgust and resignation, as if he had finally been delivered the ultimate insult.

“An Impala? Seriously?”