"Come with us," said the returning vampire. "But first..."
He patted Barrett down and removed the .44 Magnum from his shoulder holster. He stared at it a moment, then handed it back.
Barrett hid his shock. He'd never been frisked before.
"Let's go," said the other.
But instead of escorting him to the outer deck, he led him into a stairwell to the left of the elevator bank and down the steps to the eighty-fifth floor. After a short walk along a hallway, he was passed through another set of guards into a bare room furnished with only a king-size four-poster bed. Large sheets of plywood had been bolted over the windows.
Franco paced the room, his hands behind his back.
"There's been some trouble," he said without preamble, without so much as a glance at Barrett.
"Where?" It must be really serious, he thought. "I haven't heard anything."
"You wouldn't," Franco said, his eyes were on the floor as he paced. "I sent Artemis down to New Jersey a few days ago to check up on Olivia and see to it that she was staying on top of things. If she wasn't—as I was sure was the case—he was to take over. This evening I received a report from downtown that—"
He seemed to catch himself and cast a quick sidelong glance at Barrett. What was he hiding? He knew that Artemis and a few of his get lived down in the Village. What had Franco heard?
Franco shook his head and went on. "I heard a report that made me suspect that something might have happened to Artemis. So I sent a flyer down to check." Finally he looked up at Barrett. "Artemis is dead. So is Olivia."
"Oh, shit," Barrett said. It was the best he could do. He was all but speechless.
Artemis dead? Barrett couldn't wrap his mind around it. Was there a tougher undead son of a bitch in the world? He doubted it.
"How?"
"Staked. Same as Olivia."
"Her guards too?"
"All dead."
"A massacre! Who—?"
"I suspect it has something to do with that vigilante priest. That's the only answer."
"But he's one of you now."
"His followers aren't. Maybe when they found out that we turned him, instead of being demoralized, they went berserk. I don't know."
Barrett heard opportunity knocking. Here was a chance to stand out, to maybe shorten that nine-and-a-half-year wait for immortality.
A plan was already forming. Show up down there, pretend to be another refugee, infiltrate their ranks, wait till the time was right, till they were off guard, then blow them all away.
"Want me to go down and check it out?"
Franco shook his head. "No. I need you here. I want you to gather your men from inside and outside the city and concentrate them around this building. I'm going to organize a counter strike and I don't want any interruptions. By next week I'll have gathered a horde of ferals to set loose down there. No quarter, no survivors. Then I'm going to incinerate the entire area. The flames will be visible for miles. Not one house or church or synagogue will be left standing. The rest of the living will hear and understand the consequences of resistance."
"I don't think pulling in your perimeter is such a good idea. That's like your early-warning system. You don't want—"
"What I don't want is to debate it. I did not bring you up here for a discussion. I'm telling you what to do. Now do it!"
Barrett resisted a hot retort. He held up his hands and said, "You're the boss."
As he turned and walked out, he thought, But you're an asshole.
He didn't care what Franco said, he wasn't going to pull in all the outriders. His ass was on the line here too, and if a caravan full of vampire hunters was headed this way, he wanted to know about it before they reached Fifth Avenue.
Because invariably vampire hunters were cowboy hunters too.
- 12 -
LACEY . . .
Feeling tight and on edge, Lacey sat straight and tall in the passenger seat, scanning the highway ahead and twisting to check out behind as they sped north along Route 35. Her right hand rested on the .45 semiautomatic cradled in her lap.
They'd left before dawn with Carole at the wheel. The Parkway route had been considered, but rejected. It was a wider road, but offered fewer options should they run into any Vichy. Route 35 was local, but it wasn't as if they had to worry about traffic lights or anything, and it allowed them to turn off on an instant's notice. That was good; the sun was rising into a cloudless sky, which was not so good. Lacey would have preferred a cloudy, rainy day. Better yet, foggy. Anything to cut the visibility.
As she spotted a sign that said HAZLET she felt the Fairlane surge forward. Joe—apparently he'd played around with cars as a teen—had identified this one as a '57 Fairlane; he'd checked the engine before they'd left and proclaimed it "hot," mentioning a four-barrel carburetor and other car talk she couldn't follow. She leaned left to catch a look at the speedometer.
"Ninety?" she said.
Carole nodded. She was dressed in some hideous mauve nylon warm-up she'd found last night in a neighboring house. "The road is straight and level here, and the sooner we get there, the better."
"I'll drink to that."
Carole nodded. "I don't know much about cars, but this one handles beautifully."
They merged with Route 9 and headed over a tall bridge. After that it was decision time.
"Turnpike or stay on 9?" Carole said.
Tough question. Lacey did not want to run into any Vichy.
"Let's think about that," Lacey said. "The closer we get to the city, the thicker the Vichy will be. But if I were a Vichy, the last place I'd look for someone traveling would be the Turnpike. It's too open. So I'd concentrate on the back roads."
"You're assuming they think that far ahead. The ones I've met so far haven't been too bright."
"But Joe said they were pretty well organized in the city. Someone with brains is probably calling the shots. I vote Turnpike."
Carole took a deep breath. "All right. Turnpike it is."
They followed the green-and-white signs and got on the New Jersey Turnpike North at Exit 11. They kept to the outer lanes.
As they roared along, Lacey felt herself starting to cook in the sunlight pouring through her side window. She rolled it down a few inches; that helped for a while, but soon she was perspiring.
She was wearing plaid cotton comfy pants and a red V-neck sweater over an extra-large T-shirt she'd found—it came from some restaurant called Pete and Elda's and apparently was a prize for eating a whole large pizza. Eventually she removed the sweater.
"If it gets much warmer we'll have to put the top down."
"I don't think that would be wise."
"Why not? Afraid of developing skin cancer in twenty years?"
Gallows humor. Even Carole smiled—a rare event these days.
Lacey pulled the T-shirt away from her skin and caught a whiff of herself.
"Damn, do I ever need a shower!"
She'd tried to bathe in the ocean but it was freezing.
"Wouldn't you love to be able to take a bath?" Carole said. "I'd give almost anything for one."
"Me too." Lacey decided Carole's cage was due for a gentle rattle. "You know, I wish I believed in the soul. I'd trade mine for one good hot shower."
"Don't talk like that," Carole said.
"It's true."
She glanced at Lacey. "You'd sell your soul that cheaply?"
"We're talking hypothetically here, and no, I wouldn't sell it that cheaply. I'd want at least three hot showers—long ones.
Carole looked as if she were about to reply when she glanced in the rearview mirror. Her expression tightened.
"Oh, no."
Lacey turned and looked through the convertible's plastic rear window. Two longhaired men on motorcycles had just roared out of a rest stop and were closing in on them. They wore dirty cutaway denim jackets and brandished pistols.