Vampire$

won… ! It staggered her, it raced her blood and breath through her soul. She felt the stirrings of something deep within and long lost and she reached for it, reached deep down inside her until she could grasp it and identify it and… and it turned out to be her. The her that once, so long ago, had been.

And then she remembered that this man, this Crow, was going to die, too, and she tried to hide it all away.

Because he would die. You couldn’t stop these monsters.

So she went along and listened to his plan and did just what she was told, dressed up and put on her Reporter Face and straightened her extra-clean clothes and went up to that great mansion on the ridge over Pebble Beach and knocked on the front door.

And she met them and she liked them and she refused to notice she liked them and she confirmed that this Crow person, Jack Crow, it turned out, wouldn’t be there until the next day and she went back and told Ross and he was furious and thought about killing them all, all the others in the house, before Crow came back, but…

But he couldn’t afford to frighten Crow off. He couldn’t afford to fail again.

But neither would he leave. Just before dawn he closed himself in the trunk of the rental car and sealed the seal he had devised that no one could possibly break alone.

And she lay down in the front seat and went to sleep expecting to help him feed the next night.

But then… but nothing, not really. Crow’s car driving past her had awakened her and when she awoke she awoke to the fourth day without being bitten and enslaved and maybe, just maybe, she had some extra strength and will and hidden crying hope…

So she just got out of the car and went up to meet this fool who thought he could stop evil with his drunken little band and…

And she met him and he was, yes, special, but not that special — no one was special enough for this job. And she played reporter and he walked her through those empty rooms of his dead comrades’ — was it seven? Yes, seven who had been insane enough to follow him — and he told her their stories and they were wonderful stories…

And then he’d said they were going and asked if she wanted to go along and then she’d heard that music from downstairs and, well, she…

She just went. She just did it.

She didn’t know how she managed such spectacular courage.

But she suspected the music.

“What was that music playing downstairs?” she asked Jack suddenly.

“Downstairs? Downstairs when?”

“When we were in California and you asked me to fly back with you?”

Jack frowned. “Oh. When we were in the zoo… That was Stevie Ray Vaughn. Texas rock and roll.”

And she smiled. “Yes! Rock and roll. That’s it!”

Cat, along with the others, found himself smiling at her smile. Because it was the first one in so long. But…

“But I don’t get it. What’s the music got to do with anything? Don’t you like rock and roll?”

And she laughed. She really laughed.

“I love it. But Ross hated it. All vampires hate rock and roll.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” she giggled, sitting up straight. “He told me on that trip. All vampires hate it.”

“What do they like?” Kirk wanted to know.

“Opera,” replied Davette. “All kinds of opera.”

“Figures,” muttered Father Adam and they all turned and smiled at him.

“So,” finished Jack. “That was it. You just… ran. When you heard that music, you just…”

“I just did it. I didn’t think about it. I just went.”

“And that’s all?”

She sighed, looked at him. “That’s all.”

And it was quiet for a moment while they thought about this, this sweet golden human made slave and a swine, about all that she had been and all that she had lost and all that had been done to her and…

And Carl Joplin stood up and stepped over to her and looked down and smiled and held out his huge chubby hands to her. She hesitated, then put her two small hands in his and he pulled her up out of her chair and his smile went wider and he said, “You’re a good, good girl.”

Then he gave her a bear hug that almost hid her from view.

The other smiles glowed upon them from all around the room.

Chapter 21

Felix didn’t know what he felt about all he had heard that night.

He was shocked? Yeah. Stunned and… repulsed? No. Not really. Not for her. Just stunned a bit. And dazed. Too much story. Too much data. Too much monster.

They really know how to rip up Life, don’t they?

But how did he feel about her? How did he really…?

Say it, you stalling buffoon! Do you still… love her?

Yes, he thought at last.

And he smiled.

Now what, he wondered, am I smiling about?

The only other door to the room — the one to the bedroom used by the ladies — opened. It was Annabelle.

“Is she okay?” he whispered.

Annabelle first closed the door carefully behind her.

“I think she’ll sleep,” she said. “You should try to do the same.”

Felix looked around at the empty room filled with smoke and overflowing ashtrays and half-empty glasses. The others had gone to their rooms.

“I’ll just give her a few minutes.”

Annabelle smiling knowingly. Sometime during Davette’s tale she had busied herself knitting some large multicolored whatever. She resumed her seat and picked it up again.

“You were wonderful for her tonight,” she said.

Felix shrugged. “Not hard to do.”

“Then what took you so long?”

“What do you mean?” he asked innocently. “I’ve only known her for—”

“Felix!” she intoned, sounding like everyone’s mother.

He stopped short, grinned. “Yeah. Well, I’m not used to this falling-in-love-at-first-sight stuff.”

Annabelle grinned at him. “That’s better.”

“And…”

“And what?” she asked.

He turned around and busied himself making a drink he didn’t need.

“I was angry that she was with Crow.”

“What?” Annabelle gasped. “You thought that she and Jack were…”

“Huh? Oh, no. Not at all. But…” He lit a cigarette and looked at her. “See, I’ve been waiting for my wife to come along all my life and, well, avoiding this kind of shit at the same time. Then I see her and there’s Jack and…” He shook his head. “I shoulda figured I couldn’t have one without the other.”

She thought he looked almost embarrassed. “She loves you, too, you know,” she said.

He looked up. “You think?”

“I know so.” She eyed him carefully. “Don’t you?”

He looked at her quickly, looked down, smiled. “Yeah.” This time he was definitely embarrassed.