Vampire$

their cross-bows and in such a hurry to be killed rescuing a man who wanted to die.

Felix wore no chain mail because he had no intention whatsoever of going up there.

And he said so. Often.

“This is bullshit, Cat! And you know it. And Adam, you oughta know better than this. It’s suicide.”

Cat stubbornly shook his head. “Not if we can get him out of there before they show up.”

“What if they’re already there?”

Cat was silent.

“And what if he doesn’t want to come, Cat? Ever think of that?”

“He’ll come when be sees us.”

“Will he? Cherry, he wants this.”

“You don’t know that,” retorted Cat desperately.

“Then why is he there?” Cat was silent.

But Adam said, “We can’t let this happen to him.”

And Cat added, “How can you?”

Felix turned around in his seat and glared at him. “Because it’s none of my business, either. Can’t you see that?”

“Felix is right,” said Davette suddenly. And firmly. And that stopped the conversation.

For Davette had been silent throughout the argument and the drive, sitting quietly behind the wheel of the Blazer. Now, in her voice was the tone of someone who knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Felix is right,” she said again. “Jack is a victim, just as much as anyone. Just as much — as I was. And… it wears you down.”

She pulled to a stop at a red light and turned and faced the others.

“Sometimes you get so tired. Then all you want is for it to be over. Jack has had it differently from what happened to me. But he’s had it for three years.”

“It’s not the same,” insisted Cat.

Davette’s voice was warm but her eyes were very direct. “You don’t know that, Cat. Jack is tired.”

It was quiet for the next few moments. The light changed, the Blazer began moving again, and soon the Adolphus was in sight. Davette pulled to the curb across the street from the famous entrance and turned off the engine.

For a few seconds, no one moved. Then Cat took a deep breath and reached for the door.

“Don’t do it, Cat,” Felix told him.

Cat hesitated, then ignored him. Both he and the priest climbed out. Felix got out, too, and stood on the sidewalk glaring at the both of them.

This was bullshit!

“Have you ever thought how Jack’s gonna feel if you go down, too?”

Cat’s grin was thin. “At least he’ll be alive to hate me.”

“No, he won’t,” snapped Felix cruelly. “None of you will.”

“Felix,” said Adam slowly, “we just can’t let a Jack Crow die like this.”

“Oh! You can’t. Thanks, God.”

Adam just shook his head and the two of them started across the street.

Then Cat stopped and looked back.

“Tell me this, Felix. You’re so sure Jack wants to die. If he lives through tonight, you think he’d be happy? Or would he just do it again tomorrow?”

When Felix didn’t answer, Cat smiled again.

“He’s down, now. Annabelle… But he’ll come back if he can get the chance.”

Cat smiled again and waved.

“Don’t worry, Gunman. We’ll get a taxi.”

And then he and Adam tripped across the street to the hotel entrance.

Ouch.

Felix stood there a long while, watching them enter the lobby. Then he lit a cigarette. Then he looked at the Blazer, at Davette sitting behind the wheel. Then he got inside and closed the door and stared straight ahead.

Ouch.

Davette started the engine and they pulled away from the curb a few yards to the light and stopped again.

Ouch.

“Felix…?” she began.

But be shook his head.

Ouch. Ouch!

Because hadn’t there been a moment, lying there on the bishop’s rug, when he’d just wanted it over with? When he wished Jack would just give it up and let them get him? Stop prolonging the inevitable?

Wasn’t there?

Wasn’t there a moment like that? And wasn’t he glad Jack had kept it up?

Shit.

Shit!

“Pull over.”

“Felix! You can’t—”

“Pull over,” he repeated and his voice was hard.

“Felix! Please…” she urged. But she began pulling the Blazer to the curb.

“I know,” he said harshly. “I know, I know I know!”

And this time his disgust was all for himself.

He got out of the truck. An elderly couple, both black, were staring at a window display of garish, cheaply made leather shoes.

Is this the last store I’ll ever see?

He looked at Davette. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Did you know I love you?”

She smiled grimly, nodded.

He nodded back, shook his head, and sprinted across the street to the hotel.

The polished bronze doors opened smoothly, almost silently, onto the twenty-first floor and…

Ha! There in the thick, rich carpet — the impressions of chain-mailed boots! The Two Stooges were here!

If he had laughed — and he almost did — it would have been a wild, broken cackle.

Felix had never known such fear.

Such anger.

Such… disgust.

He knew his face would frighten a passing stranger.

He knew he was going to die.

He knew he was never going to see Her again and he knew he couldn’t have Her unless he went ahead.

He knew it was madness.

It was out of control.

Two ways into this prestigious hallway. The fire stairs at one end, the half-open oaken double door to the Governor’s Suite at the other. He glanced briefly toward the fire stairs, then strode boldly along the footprints in the carpet and pushed the suite’s door open all the way and then just stood there and waited for something to happen.

But nothing did.

Not going to be that easy, eh? Fine.

He stepped into the room.

Magnificent room. Antiques and imported carpets over polished hardwood floors and fifteen-foot ceilings and flowing diaphanous curtains pushed in from the steaming terrace breezes. The terrace ran the length of the