INITIATION NIGHT
"Peter, what are you thinking? You wouldn't... I mean, if you do something to her, you know what the consequences would be. We all do."
Dead Peter waves him off. Yes, he knows. Of course he knows. His expression cold and stony, he approaches the young woman and bows. "Welcome to the House of Night We were not expecting you, Millicent—that is your name, isn't it?"
The young woman is being held by Dunkel and Miss Comfort; other Omega brothers have closed in behind her. Escape is impossible.
Dead Peter smiles at her fear, but before he can say something more, Dunkel interrupts. "I tricked her into coming here. I told her mat her brother needed her."
"Good work," Dead Peter murmurs, though his eyes do not leave the young woman.
She squirms, but remains silent. She knows that she has fallen into a trap.
Dead Peter suddenly closes his eyes and flares his nostrils as if he has caught scent of the most delectable aroma on the planet. "Lower her into the pit"
Voices rustle, some in favor, all in fear. There is confusion. Millicent Gast whimpers and cries. Wings steps up as if to protest, but Dead Peter, in warm, brotherly fashion, puts a cold hand on his shoulder.
'We will only hurt her a little," he says. "Just a little ..."

THE
Fraternity
Stephen Gresham
P
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

One
All good vampires are alike; each evil vampire is evil in its own way.
It is nearing midnight on the campus of Mantis College in Sweet River, Alabama, an unlikely setting for violence. It is a sleepy citadel of learning, diminutive and self-contained, the stately buildings of its quadrangle settled into the ground as if for a peaceful eternity, serving youth and surviving the elements with a benign solidity touching the need of die human heart to feel secure. It seems die safest of places. And yet, beneath die veneer of college life—die professors, die classes, die fraternities and sororities, the parties, and die football games—lurks a quite different realm. A dark world of sadistic cruelty and power.
Here is a campus on the edge of doom. And tragically unaware of it
The potential for horror to erupt resides in a festering corner of die mind of Dead Peter, president of die
Omega	fraternity. He is a young man who dreams passionately of bloody conflict widi the Omega's rival fraternity, Alpha	, the chapter house of which stands directly across the manicured lawn from the Omega House, the latter notoriously known as the "House of Night." As this narrative unfolds, you will come to understand why it has been so named.
Imagine that you see Dead Peter sitting on the front steps of the House of Night, leaning against a stone gargoyle reading a copy, in French, of the Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom. He is smoking a cigarette, a Lucky Strike. It is a warm September night, and the brim of his felt hat deflects the light of a full moon that bathes the quad of the idyllic college. Despite the warmth of the air, he wears a long, black frock coat with a fur collar and feels a chill. When he pushes to his feet, you see that he is tall and unyielding, thin, with a deceptively dignified bearing about him. His face is ascetic, or appears so, and his dark, deep-socketed, penetrating eyes are hidden behind gold-rimmed spectacles. A Y-shaped, pronounced vein anchors his forehead. Scars, cherished scars, track across his cheek and nose and below one corner of his mouth. Beneath the hat, his head is bald and abnormally large. He is all in all an arresting figure. You cannot keep yourself from staring at him when you chance to see him on campus.
Dead Peter is waiting for what wants to come, and he believes that what wants to come is fear. He is correct At Mantis College fear will arrive seemingly out of nowhere on unrelenting, fast-beating wings, and that fear will make Dead Peter smile. But he wants and needs something more, for you see he yearns to impress a fraternity brother, one Fredson Conners, whose vampire name is "Shatterhand," and who, during the previous semester stepped down as president of the Omegas to pursue his ambition to become a great composer of piano music. Shatterhand is the cruelest vampire Dead Peter has ever met, having once seen him ply a young runaway with poisoned corn alcohol, and force her to dance in agony until she dropped to the ground in deathly stillness, whereupon Shatterhand sucked her blood until she rose, undead, to dance obliviously, dance until the seasons changed, and she became a pathetic wraith, wailing to be freed from the music that would not stop playing in her head. All the while Shatterhand kept whispering to his enraptured witnesses: "I will only hurt her a litde. Just a little."
Dead Peter worships Shatterhand. He wants to be like him: truculent, savage, pitiless.
It is rush week. A new semester. So many young bod-ies. So much young, pulsing blood. Dead Peter shivers with anticipation, a frisson of quiet delight, but his face is as cold and hard as that of his gargoyle companion. Administrative duties call. He leans down and murmurs into the ear of the stone figure, "Everything is permit-ted."
Cats, a river of them, shadowy and wild, suddenly swirl at his feet. They have found a shelter in the House of Night where Miss Comfort, the Omega house-mother, tends to them as if they were feral children, teaching them to drink saucers of warm blood and to shun milk and affection.
Dead Peter hunkers down, but he resists an urge to pet them. "I know you," he purrs. "You search for silence and the horror of darkness."
The cats pull him from his book and his thoughts of Shatterhand. In the lower depths of the House of Night an Omega fraternity ritual marking the end of rush week is under way, and it is incumbent upon him to oversee it. The candidates are waiting. Some will be in-vited to pledge with the Omegas, and the lives of those chosen few will be changed forever.

In the distance, a train whistle streams west, a lonely, mournful sound, the kind that pleases Dead Peter. He glances up at the front of the House of Night To his mind, the building is a massive coffin; it is coated in sickly, dying ivy, minute fungi form a patina on the bricks, and if one looks closely one can see a barely perceptible fissure trickling down from the roof to the imposing front door. A lone turret, a faux gothic tower, thrusts up from one corner and perched high under the eaves of the old manse and above the entrance are the gargoyles, sentries of the night bearing inscrutable expressions: are they angry, sad, or indifferent?
Dead Peter flicks away his cigarette, enters the rear of the House of Night, and descends a dimly lit stone staircase into the secret tombs of the building where he is greeted by Miss Comfort, an owlish woman whose large eyes see all, and though she appears sufficiently benign, a sugary sweet southern lady, she is wicked, wicked, wicked.
"We are ready for the ritual," she murmurs. "Daddy-man has brought two black goats, and we have slit the throat of one; the other awaits your signal for the feeding to begin."
Dead Peter nods his approval and slips past her to receive the Omega secret greeting from a beautiful, black-haired, sexy vamp known as "Bliss," a member of Lambda	, sister sorority to the Omegas. The members of said sorority are also playfully referred to as "loose kittens" and "moon dames"; they are followers of Bliss, a young woman who can take her face off and who loves to have people taste what she has tasted. Dressed all in furs, she seems more animal than human, and when Dead Peter feels her seize his wrist and draw blood with a fingernail he closes his eyes in momentary ecstasy. She lowers her lips, hesitates, rather like a kitten about to drink milk, then bites and gently, yet firmly sucks before offering her own porcelain-white wrist to Dead Peter.
The Omegas call the greeting "drinking kisses," but it should be done only in private.
Bliss leans forward and whispers into his ear "Ne pour souffrir."
Dead Peter pitches back to look deeply into her dark and seductive eyes. "Yes, my dean we are all born to suffer."
He presses beyond her through a narrow passageway to a rectangular room illuminated by kerosene lanterns, for there is no electricity in the bowels of the House of Night and torches are not allowed. Omegas cannot abide more than the tiniest of fires; flames larger than the flicker of a match would threaten their very existence.
The room drops into a looming pit perhaps twenty feet by fifteen feet In the pit a frightened goat bleats. When Dead Peter enters the room his fraternity brothers hail him drunkenly, besotted as they are on monkey rum, a bestial concoction that weds local moonshine, molasses, and the blood of an undergraduate, preferably a freshman. In the background, frenzied music is playing on a Victrola: Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."
Chief among the greeters is an ashen vampire with blondish white hair. His name is "Wings," Omega vice president and student of political science who has just finished filling a wineglass with blood from the severed vein of a black goat His arm around an emaciated young woman, Wings offers the glass to Dead Peter, exclaiming, "We have largess of sweet patooties bestowed upon us by the Lambdas." He gestures to a half dozen young, thin, pale women gathered about the rim of the pit.
Dead Peter takes the glass and acknowledges the presence of the young women. And then to Wings he says, "What news from the world of politics?"
Edging toward inebriation, Wings throws back: his head. "Ah, President Hoover says the Depression is about over."
Dead Peter snarls. "Hoover is an idiot. He needs vampires in his administration—a few good Omegas. Or what about that hammy actor, Mr. Lugosi, the infamous Count Dracula?"
There is much laughter before another brother calls out, "Is Franklin Roosevelt a vampire?"
To which Dead Peter responds, "He's wealthy, isn't he? So he must be."
Mirth is in the air like a heavy perfume, and yet pen-etrating it is a studied anxiety. You can see it on the faces of the three or four pledge candidates. You can see it especially in their eyes. They are in awe of Dead Peter. They cast uncertain glances into the pit, and then as things gear up they surrender to the irreverent saturnalia of the moment, applauding as Wings smears blood upon the blue and white flag of the Alphas. They jostle in line as they are exhorted to piss upon the flag, nervously aiming streams of their urine while their full-fledged brethren cheer loudly.
Dead Peter watches. He knows what needs to come. He thinks again of his desire to impress Shatterhand, to show him that the new president of the Omegas is cruel and daring and hates the Alphas as he hates hell's pains. He reflects, as well, on a successful week of rush, satisfied that the remaining candidates understand how recent nights of partying and interviews point to more than mere social acceptance through preferential pledging. To become an Omega one must be more than super-ficially committed to the vampire life—one must practice total loyalty and die in the world to a fellowship of kindred spirits.
The Omega code must be lived in the blood.
The black and red Omega flag must stir the heart of the candidate. Power, submission, humiliation: the Omega motto must have seeped into the marrow of their bones. They must understand that to live the life of an Omega is, above all, to cause pain, that there is no greater joy than cruelty, and that it is better to be obliterated than to resist evil. Through evil one attains not mere transformation, but rather transcendence.
Only Omegas live according to the promptings of their true selves; only Omegas can make others feel a shameful insufficiency leading to emotional annihilation. Only Omegas truly understand what it means to suffer, and more so, to cause others to suffer.
Flush with the blood of belonging, Dead Peter raises his glass, and immediately a hush falls over the shadowy room. The Victrola is switched off; laughter dies. Even the goats grow silent.
"Gentlemen," Dead Peter intones, "we are the monsters of Mantis College."
The room explodes like artillery guns going off before Dead Peter gestures for a return to silence.
In a soft, insistent voice he asks, "What do Omegas believe? Can you tell me?"
In a resounding burst his company responds, "Nothing is certain except cruelty."
And Dead Peter repeats the words haltingly, with the hiss of a serpent: "Nothing... is... certain... except... cruelty."
Caught up in the fraternal spirit of the moment, Wings, his eyes glinting fire, shouts, "Power, submission, humiliation."
The applause is deafening.
Then everyone in the room edges closer to Dead Peter. He holds every ear and eye, and to them he whispers with conviction, "We mean everything to each other."
And it is as if he has put them under a spell. They stand, mesmerized, enraptured as he fans out his fingers as if they were a deck of cards and exclaims, "Now let us see who truly wishes to become an Omega."
There is an utterly indescribable strangeness about the scene. Uncanny. Bizarre.
One brother assists another with a bulky movie camera so that the ritual may be captured on film. All eyes fall upon the darkened pit where a lone goat stutter-steps nervously, its bleats strained, for it senses a threat and cannot determine what it is. Lambda sisters lock arms with Omega brothers as charmed spectators. Bliss snuggles against Dead Peter's shoulder. But the young ladies will not watch for long. It will be too horrifying. And therein lies the test for the gentlemen candidates: can they bear to witness a spectacle of cruelty? More to the point, are they brave enough to participate?
Suddenly Dead Peter snaps his fingers. The camera rolls. The goat takes a step, glances around stupidly, takes a few more steps, then halts as if frozen by the barely audible sound of wings in the near darkness. The goat does not know that it is the target of a blood-hunger. It does not know the black shape circling it, intent upon boldly feeding.
A Lambda sister shrieks as the large vampire bat lands several feet in front of the goat and then creeps toward it, mouth open, showing its teeth, sneering. Its head is cocked; it eyes its prey as if famished.
The goat quivers. Does it understand what it means to be sacrificed?
The watchers sink into a hush so profound that they can hear the goat breathing heavily, rasping, perhaps growing aware, moment to moment, that it cannot be saved.
Suddenly two more bats fly out of the hidden darkness. They circle as the young men and women above them titter and stifle screams and nervous fears, and it appears that the goat has been hypnotized by the wafting of its stalkers. Its eyes are dull and fixed in a hideous stare.
The scene is excruciating to view, but not for the hardened Omegas.
However, for the pledge candidates it is a different matter: imagine their expressions and you will see what terror and repulsion can do to a young man's face.
Soon the two flying bats land, joining the first, and the threesome begins to hop around the goat like toads after a rain. A prefeast dance? The squeaking of the bats is horrid. For no more than an instant the goat lowers its head as if to fend off its predators, but it is no use. The bats savagely attack—one sinks its fangs into the goat's back, another attaches to the neck, and the third to the underside of the belly.
Like spectators at a bullfight, the watchers cheer each act of blood-sucking aggression.
The goat bleats loudly and makes a futile effort to flee; it bucks twice, spins, and jerks its head as a half dozen more of the vampire bats strike it, causing it to stagger weakly before it crashes pathetically to its knees. There is more cheering, but several of the Lambdas turn away, and the candidates pale. One vomits, eliciting a round of boos.
The goat collapses onto its side. An odd silence seizes the gallery, and for several moments the only sound is that of the bats sucking, drinking thirstily. Then, after another minute passes, a death rattle escapes from the goat.
Thereupon Dead Peter snaps his fingers, and the highlight of the ritual begins: the candidates begin tentatively to shed their clothing. They have been instructed. They know what comes next. Naked, they will be lowered into the pit with nothing to protect them selves.
To become an Omega one must endure being fed upon.
But the scene plunges into confusion. Miss Comfort trundles forward, her hands gesturing for matters to cease. She seems at once eager and anxious. Dead Peter frowns. Somewhere behind the housemother there is the sound of whimpering.
Miss Comfort searches Dead Peter's eyes. "There's something of importance," she says. "Someone you need to hear. A candidate. Someone you need to hear."
Dead Peter is obviously annoyed, probably because the other candidates were on time, and now are ready to complete the ritual. Just as Miss Comfort fades off to one side, and Dead Peter says, "Who is it?" a dwarfish young man seeps out of the shadows.
"My name is Dunkel, Charles Dunkel." He is very nervous, and yet obviously excited and more than a little frightened. He glances once over his shoulder in the direction of the whimpering. "I have something for you," he continues, and it is as if those words embolden him, and other words begin to gush from him. "Now, more than anything, I want to be an Omega. But earlier this week I thought I wanted to be an Alpha, a noble vampire—but they're damn frauds. They told me ... they told me straight to my face that my blood runs too cold to be an Alpha. Too cold! They told me I lacked the character to be an Alpha. They told me, in so many words, that I'm a coward. A coward! That I'm yellow! But now I'll show them I'm not"
Dunkel is quaking. His upper body is heaving as if he has used up all his breath and perhaps all of his courage. Oddly enough, he begins to stop quaking only when Dead Peter approaches him.
"What," says Dead Peter, his tone bearing both irritation and curiosity, "is the something you have for me?"
And at this point Dunkel turns and yanks someone forward. A young woman.
An audible gasp fills the room.
Dead Peter stares in disbelief. He cannot quite accept what his eyes are seeing. It is too good to be true. Whatever source of light illumines his mind is suddenly eclipsed. Complete darkness steals his consciousness. He thinks instantly of Shatterhand. The future is ineluctable. In Dead Peter's thoughts it approaches with the passionate indifference of a thunderstorm or the rising of floodwater.
Dead Peter sees it whole, a panorama of conflict, terror, and cruelty. He believes the vampire gods have smiled upon him. His good fortune is stunning. His breathing accelerates; he feels the presence of Shatterhand. Feels his mind. Feels something like a cold hand touching his thoughts from a distance. Could it be that Shatterhand, several miles away, is in control of him?
Blinking out of his momentary reverie, Dead Peter becomes aware that everyone is watching him, waiting for him to say or do something. The tension heightens to an unbearable degree.
Wings, sobered by the dramatic development, is obviously unnerved, and yet his body language also signals that he would abandon all good judgment and plunge into a private Armageddon if his leader called for it. "Peter," he says, "what are you thinking? You wouldn't... I mean, if you do something to her, you know what the consequences would be. We all do."
Dead Peter waves him off. Yes, he knows. Of course he knows. And that's why the decision must be thought through. His expression cold and stony, he approaches the young woman and bows. "Welcome to the House of Night We were not expecting you. Millicent—that is your name, isn't it? Though I understand that you are often called 'Millie.' "
The young woman is being held by Dunkel and Miss Comfort; other Omega brothers have closed in behind her. Escape is impossible. She is small with short, brown hair, bobbed; her eyes are wide with fear, pretty eyes with long, spidery-curled lashes and a tiny, heart-shaped mouth. She bears a striking resemblance to the actress Mary Pickford—everyone says so. As Dead Peter drinks in her anxiety and revulsion, he reviews, in a series of split seconds, what he knows about her. First, there is this: she is Millicent Gast, younger sister of Palmer Gast, president of the Alphas. She holds, in fact, the distinction of "Sweetheart of the Alphas." Some consider her a living saint because of her selfless work with the New Path Home for Damaged and Divorced Children in downtown Sweet River. It is said that she is the epitome of innocence and yet that she is plucky and brave.
Dead Peter smiles at her fear, but before he can say something more, Dunkel interrupts. "I tricked her into coming here. I told her that her brother needed her."
"Good work," Dead Peter murmurs, though his eyes do not leave the young woman.
She squirms, but remains silent. She knows that she has fallen into a trap.
Dead Peter suddenly closes his eyes and flares his nostrils as if he has caught scent of the most delectable aroma on the planet. Could it be that he again feels the presence of Shatterhand? Whatever the reality, he then nods as if he has made up his mind. He glances around and speaks as if instructing his peers—the other Omegas, the Lambdas, the naked candidates who are both self-conscious and amazed—in the ways of the world.
"No kind of sensation," he begins, "is keener and more active than that of pain; its impressions are unmistakable."
There are whispers and mutters of uncertainty. Wings says, "Peter?" but again his leader waves him off.
Dead Peter is on the cusp of something fatal.
A score of heartbeats pass in near silence, and then he says, "Lower her into the pit"
Voices rustle, some in favor, all in fear. There is confusion. Millicent Gast whimpers and cries. Wings steps up as if to protest, but Dead Peter, in warm, brotherly fashion, puts a cold hand on his shoulder.
"We will only hurt her a little," he says. 'Just a little."

Two
Nightingale's is where questing spirits flock. It has been a thriving establishment in downtown Sweet River since Horace Nightingale, owner and operator, returned from World War I over a dozen years ago to pour his energy into it hoping to heal the physical and emotional wounds inflicted upon him by the battlefields of Europe. Conveniently located across from the train depot, the cafe welcomes would-be new citizens, college students, and those merely passing through en route west to New Orleans or east to Atlanta and beyond. Even hoboes are welcome. At Nightingale's one is treated to strong coffee and the best pecan pie in east Alabama. Lunch and dinner specials are filling if not culinary sensations. To the right of the cafe is Block's Barbershop and below the barbershop, reached by a scarred basement door in the rear, is the Blind Pig, a smoky nightspot for dancing, but almost everyone knows it's a speakeasy commanded by Mr. Block's wife, Loretta, a whisper sister without peer. The Empire Theater, a movie house rebuilt after the fire of 1925, shoulders up to the left of Nightingale's, and thus the cafe receives more than a modicum of business from filmgoers eager for coffee, pie, and conversation about the latest splash upon the screen by Garbo or Dietrich or the current Charlie Chan episode.
A widower, Nightingale occasionally lapses into somber, melancholic moods, the aftermath, some will tell you, of encounters with mustard gas, exploding shells, and the sight of too much blood and death; others will dredge up the old rumor that he murdered his wife. Most folks in Sweet River refuse to believe Nightingale could have done it, believing him a quiet, generous, kindly soul who always caters to and shows an interest in his customers. His long counter is ideally positioned for propping elbows and shooting the breeze; Nightingale is a fine listener. And he likes college kids. In one dimly lit corner of the cafe he has, in fact, created an intimate area bounded on three sides by shelves of used books for sale. Nightingale is himself an avid reader, though his eyes are going bad. The quiet, shadowy corner is well suited for Mantis College faculty to gather, or more especially, for students to parade their learning or lack thereof.
It is after midnight. Imagine that you see, gathered at a table in that aforementioned corner, the fraternity leaders of Alpha, a trio of close friends who playfully refer to themselves as "the unholy three." They are drinking cups of Nightingale's sinus-clearing, strong coffee and talking, not about politics, philosophy, or literature tonight, but rather about the success of rush week and the shining potential of a half dozen pledge candidates. Before they left the Alpha House, they signaled the beginning of a new semester when they upended the massive hourglass in the foyer as nervous candidates cheered a bit too exuberantly, knowing that the Alpha powers-that-be would choose new brothers in the coming days. The sands of time are literally on the move.
The Alpha leaders have no idea what is going on in the bowels of the House of Night
The young man you see there in the bowler hat and long coat is Palmer Gast, president of the Alphas. Note that he is rather short and thin but with large, intelligent eyes and a face openly eager to meeting the beneficence of humanity, yet often disappointed. When he was a boy, other children teased him unmercifully about his big ears and his clumsy feet He hates his father and thinks his mother is a saint Gast is holding his beloved dog, Bucky, a fox terrier smart as a whip. The dog is starting to doze because earlier Gast fed him a saucer of coffee laced with two fingers of gin from a flask inside his coat—Bucky, you see, is a bit of a lush. Mind you, however, Gast would kill for that dog.
Sitting across from Gast is Angelus, a pale, dark-haired, handsome, sensitive young man who is painfully virginal. All of the other Alphas want to help him to get laid. The trouble is that Angelus is almost pathologically shy and self-effacing, though being in a fraternity has mitigated things somewhat
Next to Angelus is a pirate replete with an African gray parrot, Rudy, named after the popular crooner Rudy Vallee; the parrot can imitate Vallee's singing voice to a hypnotic degree. Proud to be an Alpha, the pirate is actually named Nickel, and for every rush party he dresses in a different garb from a Lon Chaney movie or "flicker" as he calls them. Tonight he is decked out as "Pew," the blind pirate from Paramount's Treasure Island.
"I wouldn't vote against any of them," says Angelus. "Every candidate has been swell."
Gast nods in agreement. But Nickel offers a challenge: "Not every one. That ugly one—looked like a chimpanzee—Dunkel, I think his name was. Not that one. I sent the fool packing to the Omegas."
"Be careful about that kind of thing," says Gast.
"Oh, don't worry. I can handle him if he gives us any trouble." Nickel pulls out his fake dagger and smiles a mouthful of broken and missing teeth.
Nightingale brings around the coffeepot and reminds them that next month Professor Cloninger will be sponsoring an Edgar Allan Poe reading marathon right there in the cafe and will be looking for volunteers.
"Put me down for 'Ligeia,' " says Angelus.
"Do 'Berenice' instead," Gast follows. "She was definitely a vampire."
"And so are we," sings out Nickel.
There is good laughter. Coffee cups are raised and clinked in agreement.
Nightingale doesn't mind. He tolerates the vampirism of the Alphas; the Omegas, however, he does not invite into his establishment.
Gast leans back and sips at his coffee and strokes Bucky's sleepy neck as Angelus and Nickel return to a discussion of fraternity matters centering on the academic specialties of various Alpha candidates.
Gast loves being an Alpha. Most of the time, he loves being a vampire.
He also adores his little sister, Millicent, whom he believes is cut from the same saintly cloth as his mother. As he contemplates the coming semester, Gast has a deep yearning for uneventful days. He wants peace with the Omegas. He wants a respite from last year's cruel pranks and bloody threats. Matters reached such a nadir that Harrison Davis, president of Mantis College, had to call in Gast and the president of the Omegas for a long, serious talk, ending with a stern pronouncement that expulsions would occur if the fighting continued after the new term began.
Peace is Gast's dream, and he knows that no death of a dream goes unpunished. Along with that dream, he longs to be a writer, to one day see his name in print. He imagines writing a first-person novel in the mode of Dostoevsky in which he narrates what it's like to live the life or not-quite life of a vampire.
When he breaks his musing, he hears Angelus make a surprising remark.
"I've met a girl."
Gast smiles. Nickel chortles, then says, "Not a corpse, right?"
Angelus punches at him. "No. A live girl. A beauty. A real bearcat I met her two nights ago after the freshman mixer. She was walking alone on the quad, and she was wrapped in a fur coat, and her eyes were so striking and her black, black hair—she could have doubled for Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box."
Gast meets the account with a soft barrage of questions: "What's her name? Where's she from? A sorority girl or a barbarian?"
Angelus smiles sheepishly and shrugs. "I... don't... know her name. But I think she's from Atlanta. I think she's a new girl. Probably an independent I don't know."
"She a vampire?" asks Nickel.
"God, I think so. Yeah, she must be. We hit it off right away. I was keen on her in a heartbeat. And listen to this: when I first saw her I think she'd been crying."
Nickel whistles low, his face spreading comically with interest.
Gast says, "She sounds familiar."
Angelus grins, glances first at Gast and then at Nickel. 
'You know what I said to her? I said, 'I have found my love all in tears in the shadow of my blood.' "
Nickel makes a gagging sound; Gast smiles and shakes his head. "And what did she say?"
Blushing, Angelus at first is unwilling to say, but his cohorts pry it out of him.
"Well, she said—and I swear this is it word for word— she said, 'I want you to enter me like a dream.' "
Nickel collapses into shock. Or at least pretends to. Angelus is cheered and patted on the back. Then Nickel says, "Why don't you invite her to the drag coming up? First big party of the year. Tom Brown will be there. I hear he's going to put on a show."
With the mention of Tom Brown, the atmosphere changes, for he is the avatar of the Alphas. Even if he did not possess Gary Cooper good looks, Tom Brown would still be many things every Alpha wants to be: independent, intelligent, brave, and immensely self-controlled. Epitomizing the term "lone wolf," Brown is both a vampire and a magician. When one first meets him, one finds a fairy-tale glow about him that does not quickly fade. But all who come to know Brown quietly accept that they will never truly understand him, never fully connect with what obsesses him.
On the Mantis campus, Brown is known as an exhibitionist who feeds upon attention just as in dark and hidden hours he must, on occasion, feed upon the blood of others. He has often been called the loneliest man you'll ever meet Most on campus are aware that Brown's archenemy is the Omega vampire Shatterhand, but they do not know the deep source of their antipathy for one another. Some write off Brown as borderline insane, as a masochist, a poor soul who has made self-torture an art form.
"I think he has a death wish," Angelus murmurs.
"Pish," says Nickel. "He just doesn't take it all too seriously: death, humor, sadness. That's all there is to life—just a little laugh, a little tear. Most of the time Tom Brown just doesn't give a shit about anything."
"I think you're wrong," Gast follows. "Or at least I know this: Tom is an Alpha. He loves our fraternity with all his soul. He would die for it"
The scene takes on a solemn air. You see that Angelus and Nickel shift into inane conversation while Gast sinks into his own moonlit thoughts. He recalls an approach of dawn in the company of Tom Brown down at the train yard; he recalls a flock of sparrows pocking at scattered kernels of grain, chirping contentedly. He recalls that when the birds, being stalked by a cat, sensed Tom's presence they took flight at him and—could his eyes have deceived him?—they flew into Tom's chest, disappeared, lost voice, then reemerged from Tom's back, loud and safely distanced from their predator. Such was the astonishing nature of Tom Brown.
Gast is glad that he can call Tom his friend, and especially glad that Tom is an Alpha, for they need him. He is the embodiment of the code of the Alphas: a sensitive person who wants to create and explore and discover—not destroy, not be cruel. And he is never afraid.
Be not afraid. It is the motto of the Alphas.
Alpha vampires praise the world. "Being here is magic" is their constant refrain despite the darkness of existence, or perhaps because of it. Alphas believe in duty and true passion. They believe that the vampire life transforms one so that life may be lived more completely; the vampire life galvanizes their senses. And, yes, they acknowledge the pain that they must, periodically, inflict, but their mode of being is affirmation. Deepor spirituality is always a goal.
The vilest of crimes to an Alpha? Oh, that's easy: the violation of a woman's or a child's physical or moral integrity, and such a violation demands the most extreme form of redress. Be not afraid of one's enemies. Protect those who cannot protect themselves, exalt courage, and never, never be a coward.
But in reflective moments, Gast has to admit that he has fears. Bad dreams. Nightmares of neurotic tortures. Like his recurring dream that numbers are multiplying in his brain, growing and surging and threatening to explode, blowing his head off his shoulders. Or the worst one: imagining that he is in a deep, dark woods and that he hears a sound—or maybe it is merely a reverberation from some unknown source—and the tiniest of echoes touches a nearby leaf, then a shuddering of moss, a rustle of tree bark, and suddenly the reverberation is filling the entire woods and he can't elude it; it seizes him, trapping him in a vibrating, wet, sonorous world from which he cannot possibly escape.
Gast breaks from his bleak reverie. "Brothers, a toast!" he exclaims.
They raise their cups, but not before Gast spikes their coffee with a dash of gin.
To the Alphas! Be not afraid!"
Angelus and Nickel second his lines. Perched on Nickel's shoulder, Rudy chimes in with a perfectly pitched echo of their proud words.
"Being here is magic," Gast intones. "Brothers, a out-rance! To the utmost, to the bitter end."
Cups are lowered, and the secret, fraternal gesture of pressing a thumb against the thumb of a brother is completed. Buoyed, the happy trio rips into their own version of "You're the Cream in My Coffee," but, of course, only Angelus has a good singing voice. Bucky howls in protest, and Rudy shrieks, possibly in pain. When the song double clutches to a merciful end, Gast reaches back, smiling, yet only momentarily. Something weird passes. Then a line emerges in his thoughts: "Swift run the sands of time except in the hour of pain." He does not know the source of the line, but it strikes him suddenly as prophetic.
Then the night cants at a deadly angle.
"Listen!" Gast exclaims.
Dog, parrot, and young men drop into silence.
Nickel's face goes slack. He looks scared. "Is it the Snark?" he says.
Gast assumes that only he can hear it the signal whistle. Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." He nods soberly, but his heart is beating savagely. He glances toward the counter. Nightingale meets his eyes; something is exchanged, an acknowledgment
Gast hurriedly slips through the kitchen and lifts a door in the floor of a storeroom. "Ode to Joy" ceases. There is a block of pitch-blackness. Gast poers down into it A pungent smell bites his nostrils. The adrenaline rush is dizzying. He can hardly breathe. He finds himself listening intensely for news from a mysterious advocate known as the Snark, one who for reasons that remain unspoken has the Alpha's best interests at heart
"I'm here," says Gast his voice unfamiliar even to himself. "What is it?"
But suddenly he doesn't want to hear. After midnight news cannot be good. There is raspy breathing below. Shuffling. He imagines something human and yet not quite so. Something intimately at home in the extensive tunnel system under Sweet River, an old system dug during the War Between the States for citizens to escape the Yankees if a raid were to occur.
Gast is balanced on the edge of darkness like a moth on the lip of a waterfall.
A voice clambers up from the blackness; it sounds like torn cloth. It makes Gast's blood run cold. He deciphers the repetition of a few words.
"They have her."
Then more. He listens. The words claw at his brain, his flesh. He is bleeding emotionally. Before he can respond to the voice, it disappears. Withdraws. Dissolves.
On shaky legs Gast returns to his companions. Sadness and anger grip him. He knows what the Snark's message means: the conflict he had hoped to avoid has erupted like a volcano, and the flow of it no one can stop. A season of cruelty and horror has been inaugurated.
Angelus and Nickel watch him approach. They sit in stunned, expectant silence.
Gast chokes out a spattering of words. "Millicent. They have her." And these are the only words necessary.
Multiplying the strangeness of the moment, Rudy, oblivious of all the high seriousness, begins to whistle: a shrill, unnerving rendering of "Ode to Joy."
It is a ghastly, chilling sound.
Imagine the scene fading to black as the three Alphas stare at each other, breathing in the bitter inevitability of war with the Omegas while out in the night the stars screen the awful mystery of space.

Three
Words are like vampires.
They need to feed, not on blood but rather on the mind, heart, and soul. Words can be indifferent, yet cooly insistent. They are, in their own way, immortal. Some words are concrete, while others are abstractions, concepts, passions. Some words seduce one into the unreachable: words such as courage and honor, for example. Such words often doom men to fail.
Or to pursue the unthinkable.
Bright and shining words have lured members of the two vampire fraternities to a gloomy, cavernous, preter-naturally empty cotton warehouse out beyond the Sweet River train depot where the Western Alabama line becomes a single track vanishing into the night.
Imagine that you're there watching a most disturbing scene unfold. Among those present is Palmer Gast holding his bowler meekly in front of him, his head lowered. He is praying—as much as vampires are capable of praying, that is. He is praying that he is not making a mistake. He is confused. No, he is bewildered and frightened. His head hurts. He feels that words are eating his brains, sucking out his reason and judgment. Panic is pulsing behind his eyes.
When he finds that he cannot truly pray, he thinks of his sister, Millicent. Though shaken and unsettled, she is back in her room and appears to be fine. A full day has passed since the Omegas released her from the House of Night and Gast and Angelus and Nickel found her, dazed and trembling, on the lawn of the quad. She pressed into Gast's loving, brotherly arms, and knowing that the Alphas would want immediate revenge, she begged them not to seek it, claiming that she was essentially unharmed and that she had been foolish to believe the Omega ruse designed to trick her.
"Don't let there be blood," she pleaded. "Don't let a conflict start"
No doubt she knew that she was wasting her words. Certainly Gast and his cohorts are unsatisfied—only vengeance is a proper response to the dishonoring of a woman. The Alpha code demands it. Vengeance stirs within Gast. It is a vile insect that has burrowed beneath his skin; it is living in his blood and breeding there, its essence multiplying like an endless trail of ants. He had awakened that morning with vengeance leaching through his cells. But he had tried nonetheless to concentrate on the first day of classes. He had, however, virtually sleepwalked through them except for Professor Cloninger's Epic Poetry course. What had Cloninger said in his opening lecture? Something about The Iliad.
"This semester you will live through the terrible, long-drawn-out siege of Troy and experience unmatched heroism and treachery," he said, holding aloft the classic tome. "Prepare yourself for an unavoidable battle. Prepare yourself for war."
Unmatched heroism and treachery. An unavoidable battle.
The words sang in Gast's heart. But later they echoed depressingly.
Now he surveys the scene: Alphas on one side of the warehouse; Omegas on the other, both groups silhouetted in the lantern light. One of the only outsiders is Dr. John Stone, the college surgeon, who is to serve as referee for the night's proceedings. Stone, bearded and distinguished, clad smartly, his attire featuring a natty bow tie, Chesterfield coat, and expensive felt hat, seems nervous and ill at ease, but Gast knows better. The man is simply excited, addicted as he is to violence and the sight of blood. His role is to treat the inevitable wounds; his interest, though, is not entirely professional. With him is an aging giant, a man known as Daddyman, who stands quietly at Stone's shoulder. Daddyman's hair evidences a salting of white and, contrasting with the sweaty, dull sheen of his ebony skin, is almost luminescent. Around town, he is known as a keeper of birds and animals and as a hunter and fisherman. He is often employed by the Omegas for purposes only vaguely glimpsed. His role tonight is to carry off bodies.
Dead Peter, his bald head reflecting glints of lantern light, makes all aware of his powerful presence; the prominent vein on his forehead is throbbing. Gast cannot keep from staring at it. While he would prefer to shun him, he knows that protocol dictates he greet his enemy; imminent violence does not, after all, preclude the exercise of manners. Approaching Dead Peter, Gast wishes to himself that he had a knife inside his coat, for if he did he thinks he might thrust it into the heart of his foe. That, however, is not the way of the Alphas.

There would be no honor in such an act. No courage. No bravery.
"Is it too late for peace?" he offers to Dead Peter.
"Peace?" Dead Peter is frowning, then quickly smiling at his vicious companions who now surround him. In a sepulchral monotone, he continues, "Peace. That's not a word in my vocabulary."
The two fraternity presidents lock eyes. Vampiric energy charges the air.
A fluttering of wings in the shadows breaks the eerie moment of challenge. Daddyman steps forward and hands a pigeon to Dead Peter. The bird is mostly gray with a friction-glazed greenish cast like the bodies of old house flies on its breast. Everyone is watching as Dead Peter takes the creature and lifts it gently to his lips; almost magically its agitated fluttering is calmed.
Then Dead Peter bites savagely into the bird's heart.
A tiny skullcup—shaped, it would appear, from the remains of a dog—is handed to Dead Peter. He carefully collects the pigeon's streaming blood, smiles, and to Gast's surprise, offers him the cup. Gast shakes his head. The pigeon is tossed to the floor and flops about as if it has been shot. Brushing past Gast's shoulder, Angelus moves to collect the bird and put it mercifully out of its misery.
Dead Peter sips from the cup, and again, in his bewitching voice, he speaks: "I drink to symbolize the futility of carnal existence. It's our way. The way of the Omegas." He lifts the cup as in a toast to all who are gathered. "This is our ritualistic prelude to scar feasting." Then, directly to Gast, he adds, Tor we must honor your request for satisfaction. You have thrown down your gauntlet. Let blood continue to flow and may the victor drink deeply."
Gast disappears into himself. Yes, on behalf of the Alphas he had thrown down the gauntlet, wrapping a blue and white fraternity scarf around the neck of one of the House of Night's gargoyles earlier in the day. Now he is struggling against a surge of regrets for doing so.
"Too late," he mutters beneath his breath.
Fleetingly, an image of Millicent fills his thoughts.
It is time to fight.
The combatants smoke their last cigarette. Others join them until the lantern light coalesces in smoky swirls and the air in the abandoned warehouse is difficult to breathe. Swaggering in the role, Dunkel represents the Omegas. Gast has learned that this troglodytic creature was responsible for Millicent's humiliation. Staring at the ugly young man, Gast begins to seethe. He puts a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the Alpha representative, but for a panicked second or two he cannot remember the pledge's name. Is it Lawrence? Is that his given name or his surname?
Gast's mental state is fuzzy because a single word question siphons off all clarity.
Why? he asks himself. Why must we do this? Who started this horrible practice?
The voice of Dr. Stone intrudes upon his internalization: "Are both parties ready?"
Scar feasting. Simple words, darker than you think. Some who have looked into the history of the violent ritual speculate that it is a monstrous hybrid of the traditional duel, the gentlemanly swordplay of the Old South. Why, though, has it survived at Mantis College? Was it something desired by John Mantis, former Confederate surgeon and founder of the college? Was it a remnant of the European mensur tradition? Was it brought to campus by a member of the notorious Tracker family, one of that ignoble ilk having matriculated at Mantis College at the turn of the century? No one seems to know for certain.
Scar feasting. Whatever its origins, the practice has encouraged young Vampiric men to believe it is something good and beautiful. That it embodies fairness, helps one overcome internal resistance, helps one develop self-discipline and body control. Scar feasting is passionate necessity. Experiencing it, a young man discovers a new dimension of his psyche—makes contact with his primal self. He sheds blood as a privilege. His blood personality comes alive and, as a result, he becomes more fully an Alpha or an Omega, more fully a vampire.
For the first time in his life a young man is fully awake.
Time is closing on our scene. The stand-ins or seconds are in place. For the Omegas it is Wings; for the Alphas it is Nickel dressed like Lon Chaney's gangster, "Black Mike" Silva. Nickel has left Rudy at the Alpha House to keep Bucky company, parrot and dog too much at risk in this violent setting.
Gast steps forward to assist the Alpha pledge with his protective gear. The cotton blue and white neck wrap binds the young man like a boa constrictor. He wears a leather skullcap, which is actually a helmet appropriated from the football team. But no eye goggles will be worn tonight. A stulp shields the arms. The genital area is girdled protectively. The young pledge grips three feet of polished steel, the blade of the sword curved and razor sharp, the weapon itself a relic from the founding of the Alphas years ago.
Stone clears his throat. "I say again: are both parties ready?"
Dead Peter nods for the Omegas.
All eyes then fix upon Gast. He is lost in a visualization of what is about to transpire. This will be blow fencing. Swords will be raised. Right arm pivoted into striking position by a lateral snapping movement of the elbow across the face and then a downward flip of the wrist to deliver the blow. Then the immediate return blow.
Five strikes apiece in the customary exchange. Combatants will stand.
No flinching.
No stepping back.
No one else may interfere in any way.
Gast stares into the face of the Alpha pledge. He sees fear there sparking like rocks struck together. Gast wants to whisper to the young man that what he is about to engage in is noble, but his true feelings are that it is ruthlessly sanguinary, brutal, dispassionate, and robotic.
The words, however, choke in his throat.
Do it for the honor of the Alphas. For your brothers.
For the honor of Millicent.
Gast remains speechless. What is the pledge thinking? he wonders. Could it be that he has volunteered to acquire bragging scars? To possess scars like one possesses precious jewelry? Or has the pledge heard talk of how certain Mantis coeds are sexually attracted to a man with scars? Passion marks arouse such women, or so it is claimed.
The reward of the victor? Tradition is firm in that regard. The victor is granted the right to drink the blood of the vanquished. In fact, to choose not to drink from the loser's wounds is to exact an extreme dishonor upon one's opponent.
Gast, feeling dizzy, shuffles back a step or two. The atmosphere is oppressive. His pulse is hammering to a near paralytic point. He glances over at Stone, who has his arm raised as if about to signal the start of a race. There is murmuring. Gast knows he must do something. Is there a choice? He closes his eyes, tries unsuccessfully to hum "Ode to Joy," then, after an anguished pause, nods.
Stone calls out, "First strike!" He chops down hard, and Gast believes he sees the man lick at his upper lip like a hungry dog.
And the roiling silence thunders before the dance of blood begins.
A few moments of confusion and inaction pass. There are tense and edgy shouts from the crowd of young men, guttural exclamations of fraternal mottos: "Power, submission, humiliation!" from the Omegas; "Be not afraid!" from the Alphas. Then one more call from each side. Dead Peter hisses, "Be cruel!" and someone from among the Alphas cries out, "For Millicent!"
Two young vampires from among the Omegas wrestle with a movie camera as if it were a large, uncooperative bird they plan to ride. They begin cranking, not apparently bothered by the somewhat meager light at their disposal.
Gast drinks in the tense, photographic still shot of the two swordsmen, their blades raised.
I've been here.
And he has. Two years ago. He has the scars as witness: one, a bird track on his nose; another, a slice on his cheek in the shape of a smile turned on one end; a third on his chin cut as the top half of a question mark. Gast remembers all the terror, all the horror of the scar feasting. His opponent was Shatterhand, then president of the Omegas—he remembers especially the sight of Shatterhand's six fingers, the polydactylism also possessed by Tom Brown. Gast remembers the sting of the first blow, the pungent seeping of blood, but mostly he recalls the relief of the duel ending prematurely when someone hollered out that the sheriff was coming.
The past fades and Gast cannot take his eyes from the young Alpha pledge whose arm is shaking as if it were being buffeted by a strong wind. And then someone—is it Angelus?—someone is softly, very softly humming "Ode to Joy." Beethoven blasts through the mind of Gast as if the music were a preternatural explosion. Surprisingly, he feels a momentary calm.
But the first strike takes his breath away.
The blade sings. A thin, yet vibrant cut opens beneath Dunkel's left eye. He is expressionless except for the barest hint of something like consternation, and immediately he returns the first strike, a blow that glances off the young Alpha's right cheek, barely drawing blood. Now there can be no turning back. Gast rocks back, hit by a wave of nausea.
Second strike.
Dunkel's left nostril splits. Blood runs freely. It catches glints of lantern light.
Second strike is returned with a vicious grunt. The Alpha named Lawrence is struck low on the right jaw, a long, deep gash. Blood rushes eagerly. Lawrence blinks rapidly, but he does not flinch, he does not step back, and he does not cry out in pain. Murmurs and strangled shouts echo in this cathedral of conflict Gast looks away before the third strike is issued. He glimpses the face of Dr. Stone, and what he sees there freezes his attention: it's something like rapture. Stone is in awe of what he is viewing. His mouth has fallen open just slightly, and in his eyes is the kind of soul-arrested attention that can only accompany a religious experience.
Stone could not be more fascinated if he were looking at God.
Third strike.
The smell of blood wafts upon the shadows like smoke.
And Gast fights back a sudden stirring of blood hunger. It has been too long since he has fed. He closes his eyes tightly and shakes himself free of the sensation. When he embraces the scene again he sees an ugly gash at the left corner of Dunkel's mouth. But suddenly Gast imagines that he is not seeing bleeding—instead he sees a blossoming of blood. The old warehouse is suddenly a greenhouse flowering with rich, florid blooms of blood. Gore grows in an after-midnight garden.
Third strike returned.
Now the young men are not the same. Unmistakably a metamorphosis is under way. New selves are emerging. It is as if both young men, their faces bloodied, are straining within a chrysalis stage, yearning for the stage of completion—the delicate butterfly of self, beautiful and whole. But Gash wonders whether anything beautiful could possibly evolve from this ritual.
Fourth strike. Fourth strike returned. Then quickly a fifth.
Then a quavering silence. The blood flow is startling.
Gast swallows hard. He stares at Stone. He glances at Dead Peter. But neither man apparently sees what; he is seeing.
"Enough!" Gast hisses. But no one hears.
Both young men are nearing exhaustion from all the bleeding.
Enough! Enough! Enough!
Something almost beyond words is happening to Dunkel's face.
My God, thinks Gast, it's melting!
And then, when the horrors seem to have run their course, played out before slinking into the shadows, there is more. Four more strikes. Four more strikes returned, lifeless strikes. Like zombie's striking. Like exhausted dancers in a dance marathon.
Then, unbelievably, two more strikes. Both miss.
Lawrence, the Alpha pledge, cannot close his lips. And from one corner of Dunkel's mouth a bloody bubble swells like any ordinary bubble, but for Gast it is the most terrifying sight of all because he begins to imagine what it really is. The bubble contains all the violence of the moment, all the hatred the Omegas have for the Alphas and Alphas for the Omegas. The bubble is filled with poison. The bubble is filled with something so explosive that if it were to burst, the warehouse and everyone in it would be obliterated.
Dunkel's face continues to melt, to slide off his head like candle wax.
Lawrence has no lips, yet his breathing is heavy, and air whistles through where his lips once were.
The two young men are past fear. They are past pain. They are in a zone of indifference.
They are no longer here.
Stone trembles with excitement and wonder.
Gast steels himself to keep from fainting. The only consolation that the moment brings is a single thought: Thank God, Millicent has not witnessed this.
"Enough," he whispers.
And Dead Peter nods in agreement.
"Finished!" Stone shouts, victory fingers pointed at the Alpha man.
The celebratory cheer is not loud.
Gast charges into Stone's face: "You waited too long," he cries. Too long!"
Stone is unmoved.
And for a score of heartbeats the Omega movie camera is the only sound. Then it gradually clicks off, clatters to a halt, and the losing side turns in anticipation of the winner's triumphant feeding.
Dunkel and Lawrence have collapsed into pools of each other's blood. Stone and Daddyman hover over their bodies.
Gast is holding his head. He thinks that he is going mad.
In a fog, he gazes down at the two combatants; they have been helped into a sitting position, only barely aware of things, and yet both appear to be anticipating closure on the ritual. The Alpha pledge, his face swollen, bloody, pulpy, seeks out Gast's eyes for approbation and, more so, for the moment of glory that will follow when he receives the signal to drink from the wounds of his opponent.
But when Gast fixes upon the face of the pledge he sees Millicent instead, the full blush of her innocence— she is light-years removed from all that is hideous here. The juxtaposition of the pledge's face and that of Millicent is so incongruous as to be staggering. And then, he is, by degrees, aware of how this world of vampires is waiting for him—everyone is waiting for him to set the victory stage in motion. Yet, he cannot speak. Nickel edges up to him. There is concern and puzzlement in his voice: "Palmer? Hey, fella, you OK?"
Gast takes a deep breath. He acknowledges that he's fine. But, of course, he's not
He glances around. He's ready.
To the Alpha pledge he says, matter-of-factly, "Do not drink."
The buzz of a stunned gathering grows. Nickel is there close again at Gast's side.
"What? What did you just say?"
Gast nods. His eyes brush at the faces of all who are zeroing in on him in disbelief.
"I said, 'Do not drink.' "
All that remains is this: Dead Peter's savage stare fills the shadowy scene.
The moonlight is much too bright.
The weight of knowing is heavy on the shoulders of Palmer Gast; it presses down on him, the energy-sapping realization that he has profoundly humiliated the Omegas. They will retaliate. They will be swift and sudden and cruel, and the responsibility for all the pain will rest upon him. The moonlight holds him in its glare. With Angelus and Nickel, he waits outside the warehouse as Stone tends to the Alpha pledge. The Omegas have taken flight; Daddyman has carried off Dunkel. Their tribe will retreat to the House of Night where their members, led by the rapacious Dead Peter, will hold a war council.
The young Alpha pledge refuses to go to the hospital, though his wounds are severe. He does agree to spend the night in the student infirmary on campus, and that is where Gast, Angelus, and Nickel escort him. The pledge, his face a riot of bloodied bandages, nevertheless bears himself proudly despite his pain, and, more so, despite his disappointment over not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Gast chooses not to explain his decision.
Dr. Stone, his perversion satiated, slinks off into the night
After sitting a spoil with the pledge at the infirmary, Gast wants to be alone. He sends Angelus and Nickel back to the Alpha House. He knows that the dean of students will hear that a scar feasting has taken place. There will be questions.
For several hours Gast walks the empty, darkened streets of Sweet River before returning to his room where Bucky greets him with unconditional love. Angelus and Nickel are asleep.
How can they sleep?
And yet, minutes later Gast surrenders to exhaustion only to be awakened at dawn by a whistle. It is "Ode to Joy." Gast startles up from his bed. He listens intensely. He hears the telepathic whisper of the Snark. One word: "Millicent."
Gast races out of the house and heads intuitively to the train yard. He searches the sides of the boxcar empties until he finds what he knows invariably is waiting for him: a message from the Omegas.
Chalked on the siding it reads she belongs to us!
There is no need to run immediately to the New Path Home for Damaged and Divorced Children to see whether Millicent is sleeping innocently in her bed. Gast knows she is not. Millicent has been kidnapped. The certainty of it crushes him to his knees as the eastern sky opens. Light begins to pour around him, light that is as smooth and velvety as milk.
He is weakened by it; he raises a hand to shield himself from it.
Words swing and swoop down like birds of prey.
She belongs to us!
And then the words are in his mind—words like vampire bats sucking at his sanity.
She belongs to us!

Four
Conrad Blutmann, Mantis College Dean of Students, has feared this moment for more than a decade. Chomping nervously on his cigar, he reaches the cotton warehouse, hoping he is not too late. He is nearly running during the final twenty yards of approach. First light is gauzy and dewy. When he clambers into the cool, shadowy confines of the warehouse, silence greets him. He almost feels relief. The old building is empty, but he smells blood. Disappointed, knowing he is too late, he stands, hands on his hips, breathing heavily, biting hard on the cigar, smoke curling into his eyes.
He suspects—more so he knows—that the rumor of a scar feasting is true. However, he had not received the tip from his spies in time to break up the ritual. His jaw stiffens. The sweet, sour aroma of blood fills his nostrils. He tries not to imagine what took place here. Wounds haunt him. He angrily tosses his cigar away and curses beneath his breath. His inner plea is sincere: God help us!
How horrible will this war become?
His spies have told him that Millicent Gast is the source of the Alpha-Omega conflict this time. Such a dear, sweet, innocent girl. Blutmann shakes his head. He believes that the universe has gone crazy, or, at least, his small corner of it. He thinks about the contrast between what he knows of the dark side of Mantis College life and the rosy picture painted by President Davis in his welcome speech to students the day before classes began.
"Truly the beginning of a new school year" said Davis, "is the most interesting and fascinating time of college life. Everything honorable is possible; all achievements are there for the achieving. These times are difficult—make no mistake. But let yourselves get caught up in the great spirit of discovery, loyalty, and willingness to work. Now is the time to prepare yourselves for the world's recovery and a new day of opportunity in the future."
The future—Blutmann shudders at the thought.
Then guilt washes over him. He knows that he is complicit. As the only upper administrator intimate with the opprobrious secret of the Alphas and the Omegas, he has to share responsibility for whatever horrors have already taken place—and for the many that coming nights will spawn. For a long time he has justified his decision not to tell everything he knows. After all, the two vampire fraternities are small, barely a handful of members. How dangerous can they be? And yet there is also this: he fears them.
And this: he has a volatile secret of his own.
Suddenly, uninvited, a line from Oscar Wilde occurs to him: "For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything."
DeProfundis. Wilde's magnificent diatribe from prison. Such passionate bleakness in his words. But Blutmann realizes he doesn't have the luxury of musing upon the words of men of genius. He has to find out what took place and how much danger is afoot.
Minutes later he stands outside a small brick addition to the student infirmary. It is the lodging of the college surgeon, and one light burns dimly within. Blutmann knocks, hears someone mutter, "Come in," and then steps into the stench of moonshine alcohol so thick that it virtually drifts in a cloud over the head of Dr. John Stone, whom he has known for many years. The man slumps in an overstuffed chair. He looks disheveled. His shirt is not tucked in, and one suspender is unhooked. There is a smear of blood on his cheek.
When Blutmann sees that smear, he hates Stone more than he has ever hated him.
"How many fought?" Blutmann demands. "How badly are they hurt?" His tone is insistent and yet frightened.
Stone speaks without making eye contact. He appears to be reliving the ritual. His inner eye apparently sees something that makes him smile. "Two brave ones," he mutters. "Magnificent boys."
"Why in God's name didn't you stop it?"
Stone looks up; his eyes are red, and he doesn't seem particularly surprised to see the dean of students. He chuckles softly.
"God's name?"
"You let it happen. You could have stopped it"
Stone rouses. "Can a man keep the morning from dawning? Blood's rising—that's all I can say. It's out of my hands."
"You bastard."
"Conrad, if I hadn't been there, they'd both be dead. Those two young men—even vampires have some physiological limitations."
Blutmann stares down at him. "You disgust me. I could have your job for this."
Stone, smiling: "Have a drink instead."
"I could have you run out of this town on the next train."
"Could you now? I beg to differ. Yes, I drink. Yes, I like the sight of blood. The skeletons are out of my closet, but, my dear Conrad, yours are not." He hesitates, pinning Blutmann's eyes to his. Then, with a leer he adds, "But they could be."
Leaving the student infirmary a half hour later, Blutmann imagines himself as Houdini, handcuffed, helpless, but the image falls short because in this case the shackled man will not escape. He knows Stone would blackmail him.
Blood's rising.
The young Alpha pledge, Gregory Lawrence, is not forthcoming. Barely able to speak, he admits to having been in a fight—not, however, to an engagement in sear feasting. He has been brainwashed; he has entered the cult of the vampires and will remain loyal to it.
"What are we to tell your parents?" Blutmann asks.
Through the bandages, Lawrence manages a smile and a chuckled stuttering of words. "Tell them I fell off my bike."
Blutmann leaves. The visit has been futile. And, yes, there would be no point to calling the young man's parents, for the real dilemma would be finding a way to inform them that their son is a vampire.
Defeated, Blutmann seeks out the one person capable of changing his day for the better.
*    *    *

She remains the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on. He smiles at the wisps of silver in her hair; he marvels at the smoothness of her face, a complexion of peaches, and he cannot keep from noticing the firmness and attractive lines of her figure. Can this woman truly be over fifty years old? As housemother to the Alphas, she has given so much of herself, and she has done so with grace and gentle elegance.
"Henny, whatever would I do without you?"
He wonders what she is hiding, for he can read her mood implicitly when she has something she would rather not share with him.
It is late morning. Blutmann and his sister, Henrietta, are sitting in the elegant receiving room of the Alpha House. A glorious autumn day parades its light beyond the window. Students are walking to and from classes. Mantis College is feeding them—knowledge, character— and nurturing their maturity. Nothing destructive in evidence.
"I can remember a time," she says, "oh, when we were very, very young, that you thought I was a nuisance, a tagalong little girl determined to spoil all your boyhood fun."
He shakes his head. "There's never been a day in my life in which I didn't love you madly."
"And I, you."
The grasp of his sister's hand brings warmth to him as if from another dimension. But they must be discreet. He relates what he has learned of this potentially most destructive outbreak of conflict between the Alphas and Omegas. When he recounts his conversation with Stone, he can see his sister's countenance stiffen with dislike for that man.
"But what is it, Henny? What's the darkness hanging over your heart?"
She smiles at his intuitive skill. Her eyes tear, and she dabs a lace handkerchief at her lips.
It's worse than you know."
Blutmann pretends not to have been informed as Henny relates that Millicent Gast had been kidnapped by the Omegas following their humiliation at the scar feasting.
"Conrad," she says, adding her personal concern to the end of her recounting, "is there a way to keep the conflict from escalating?"
He shakes his head doubtfully. "Nothing to be done, I'm afraid."
Blood's rising.
She reaches for him, touches his cheek, then lets her fingers brush up onto his forehead where a vein is pulsing. There's so much tension in your face—may I comfort you?"
He smiles. Yes, he will give himself over for a few moments to her wild talent: her ability to mesmerize, to break spoils as well as to cast them. He watches her retrieve a tiny hourglass from a display shelf. She coaches him to look into her eyes, positioning the hourglass where, in his peripheral vision, he will be able to see its grains fall gently.
In a matter of seconds, he is completely relaxed. His voice softens as they converse as if they were no longer earthly inhabitants.
"Henny, have you ever wanted to become a vampire?"
She gestures that such a desire has never possessed her. "There's enough magic in the world without the supernatural. Enough darkness, too. It's not a life I would seek, though I understand why it appeals to my young men."
Blutmann is drifting free, lifting high above a world filled with the promise of horror.
"I want to open," he says, "to another life that's wide and timeless—like the vampire life, but not with its attendant terrors."
"Isn't that foolish?" she responds. "Why not be in the life you have—just be in it more intensely?"
"Because of the past."
"What about the past?" But, of course, she knows even as she asks.
"All the guilt," he says. "Too much guilt"
"Let go of the guilt. I have."
When his sister releases him from the momentary spell, it is like waking from a refreshing sleep, and yet Blutmann knows there are harsh realities to face.
"What should I do?" he says.
"Go to the young men. Talk to them. Before things slip away beyond any control. Before the game of revenge plunges into total chaos. Go to Palmer Gast. And go to Peter. They'll listen to you. They respect you."
He nods. "Palmer, yes ... perhaps I can convince him not to take matters to the next level. But Peter... I find it nearly impossible to talk with him. It's as if he senses—"
She stops him.
"Try, Conrad—be a source of goodness. Our little campus may need that desperately in the days ahead."
"You skipping out on class? Not a good way to start a new term."
Blutmann, puffing on a fresh cigar, likes the feel of Nightingale's. Here is the kind of cozy, bookish temenos he can surrender to again and again. Throw in the aroma of good, strong coffee and hot-out-of-the-oven pie and you are approaching the city limits of the Valhalla. But things are necessarily different today. The afternoon possesses an emotional grayness despite the bright sun, and some of the grayness has seeped into the cafe, or perhaps it has followed him. He looks down at Palmer Gast and thinks the young man appears to have recently returned from hell.
In a scratchy, sleep-deprived voice, Gast says, "Maybe I just don't care." He is listlessly leafing through a book and shrugs as Blutmann joins him at a table situated near shelves of books. A small black and white dog seeks protective refuge at the young man's feet.
"I don't believe that. From a bright, sensitive young man—no, that doesn't wash. So, what's that you're reading? Something for Professor Cloninger's class?"
With no enthusiasm, Gast shows him that it is a copy of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Blutmann arches his eyebrows. "Serious fiction," he murmurs. "Rather pessimistic, though, isn't it? Is that your mood today?" He pokes his head beneath the table and adds, "Bucky, is your master down in the dumps?"
The dog whines appreciatively to hear his name and works his stub of a tail.
Blutmann knows he is baiting the young man and second-guesses his strategy, but Gast responds as if he needs to confide in someone. He digs into the pages and stops at one point to read a passage. "Here's what I feel," he says, "if you really want to know."
"I do."
Gast takes a deep breath and reads aloud. "'... for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.' " He pauses to meet Blutmann's eyes. 'That says it."
Blutmann shifts the cigar to the corner of his mouth and squints through crystalline blue smoke. "But what does it mean?"
"I know what it means to me—that I'm not free. That I'm a piano key, and I'm being played by forces I can't come to terms with."
"Are we talking about what's happened to Millicent? Are we talking about this latest outbreak of conflict between the Alphas and the Omegas?"
"You tell me."
"All right, I will. And my answer is 'yes,' because when you chose the vampire life you knew that you were entering something very powerful. What you may not have known is that your choice would one day endanger someone you love deeply."
Gast puts his book down. He is wearing a mask of misery.
"I'm a coward," he says. "Being a vampire isn't the issue if you're a coward."
"Why a coward? What do you think you should be doing—going after the Omegas with a sawed-off shotgun? Burning down the House of Night? You won't get Millicent back that way and you know it. You wouldn't solve anything trying to match violence with violence or cruelty with cruelty."
And on the young man's face is an expression of total helplessness.
"Cruelty is the only thing the Omegas understand."
"Then teach them something else. Like how to be peaceful."
"In the meantime, what happens to Millicent?"
"They won't hurt her," says Blutmann. "They're getting back at you for what occurred at the end of the scar feasting." He hesitates, searching for convincing words. "Listen, let me take a crack at this. Before you decide to make things hotter, give me a chance to speak with Peter."
"He won't listen."
"Maybe he will."
Gast is so troubled that he seems on the verge of tears. "I had this dream," he says, and his voice is, indeed, suddenly dreamy and disconnected. "I dreamed I was underground, and up on the surface was this giant white oak and its roots were growing down and down until I could feel them enter my head."
"Sounds mythological. Don't know whether that's Freudian or Jungian. How did the dream end?"
Gast looks across the table. His expression slams like a door.
"The tree began to die."
In the darkness of the theater, Blutmann senses, as he has done in the past, that Dead Peter is not free. The Empire is showing a run of silent movies—mostly goth-ics—hoping to draw a large student audience. Tonight it is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Nosferatu will be shown on the weekend. Though Blutmann would prefer to see Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, he has come this night because he has followed Dead Peter and his date, a Lambda named Bliss, intent upon observing the leader of the Omegas; intent, as well, upon stealing a few moments of conversation later in the evening.
Caligari, Blutmann reasons, is a vampire. No, not in the blood-sucking sense. Rather the weird doctor is a tyrannical, psychic vampire, controlling the actions of Cesare, turning the young man into a murderer. Blutmann sees Cesare not as murderer but as innocent victim. Could the same be said of Dead Peter? Blutmann believes it could, though there is so much that he does not understand about that young man, for he is inscrutable, the only inhabitant of his own very strange realm.
After the film, Blutmann follows the couple back to the Lambda House where they part with a passionless kiss, and Dead Peter wanders on into the night, charting a lonely course that takes him, eventually, to the train yard. Keeping himself in the shadows of the many boxcar empties, Blutmann secures a vantage point and waits for an opportunity to hold the young man's attention.
A decrepit tramp, toting a bindle on his shoulder, climbs down from one of the empties and glances around for any sign of a railroad bull. Blutmann holds his breath, for he knows that the tramp has much more to fear than a local railroad authority.
Dead Peter, slinking among the cars, smells the man. He lifts his head, the scent of blood arousing him. He desires to feed. Part of Blutmann wants to warn the tramp, but a stronger part acknowledges that he should not interfere. Still, he is shaken when the attack occurs. The shadow of Dead Peter falls upon the tramp, who is too surprised even to issue a cry of alarm.
Blutmann turns away and lowers his eyes. With both tenderness and brutality, Dead Peter holds the man's throat so that he may drink deeply. When he has finished, when he is sated, he will lay the tramp on the ground and let him sleep. Later, when the man awakens, he will be weak, yet alive, and he will not remember, mercifully so, any detail of the attack.
Up beyond where the attack takes place, Blutmann sees a hot box, a wheel unit or journal box of one of the cars that has overheated; excessive friction of an axle has created a small shower of sparks because of a lack of lubrication. Dead Peter has seen it, too, and gravitates to it. Blutmann slips into the shadow of the car, but his stealth is discovered.
"Dean Blutmann, did you enjoy the film?"
Stepping out from the muted darkness, Blutmann smiles shyly. "Yes, a marvelous film. Do you think there is a Caligari in everyone's life? Are we controlled by someone else? Is someone out there turning each of us into a somnambulist?"
Dead Peter returns the smile. He fishes for a cigarette. Blutmann is there with a match, and then lights a cigar for himself. Smoke puffs nimbus the two of them.
"What do you want?" says Dead Peter. His tone evidences slight annoyance. "You've been shadowing me all night."
"How did you know?"
"I could smell your fear."
They are face-to-face. Blutmann fixes upon the young man's bald head and then his facial scars.
"It's not fear—it's concern. As dean of students I'm concerned about everyone enrolled at Mantis."
"Even the vampires?"
"Especially the vampires."
"So you stalk students at night?"
Blutmann shakes his head. "I was merely hoping to have a word with you."
"You know I don't need your concern. I don't need anything from you."
The words cut, and to Blutmann it seems as if the young man knows just how deeply they cut.
"You may not need anything from me, but I need something from you. A favor."
"Omegas don't hand out favors. We're takers, not givers."
Blutmann pauses. He's looking for something in the moment that will allow him to press home what he wants. But he senses that a good opportunity is not in the offing, and so he says, "I'll come to my point I'm asking you to end it tonight. This fraternity conflict that's brewing. It began when you humiliated Millicent Gast at the House of Night. In turn, the Alphas humiliated the Omegas at the scar feasting. In retaliation, you've kidnapped Millicent—return her and call it even. Change the pattern. Change yourself."
Dead Peter is unmoved. His gaze is locked onto the hot box, the hissing shower of sparks from the shadowy underside of the empty car.
"Dean Blutmann, do you know what the term algolagnia refers to?"
"I believe I do. It's the tendency to derive pleasure from pain."
Dead Peter smiles his crooked smile and approaches the hot box. And Blutmann cringes as the young man plunges his hand into the shower of sparks. In seconds, the odor of burning flesh wafts through the air. Dead Peter closes his eyes and raises his head as if in ecstasy. Then he presses the burned hand against his cheek and turns toward Blutmann.
"What is your real interest in me?" says the young man. "Why? From the first day I met you, you've tried to reform me. What intrigues me is that I think you're afraid of who I am. Or what I am. You should know by now that I'm guided by the words of my hero, the Marquis de Sade: you must either kill me or take me as I am... I won't change."
"I don't think you want to harm Millicent Gast. I think that even vampires are naturally inclined to virtue, their innocence perverted by society."
Dead Peter smirks. "You sound like an Alpha. Could it be that your sister has warped your thinking? Besides, I disagree. Vampires—real vampires—are inclined to cruelty. It's what causes our blood to flow."
"Then you're saying you feel no remorse about frightening a young woman who has never harmed you?"
Dead Peter raises his voice; it echoes eerily in the empty train yard. "I want only to live in accord with the promptings of my true self. Those promptings don't include remorse or guilt. Don't you see that senseless cruelty makes me ..." And he hesitates as if searching for the right word. His face suddenly beams. "It makes me happy!"
"That goes against nature."
Dead Peter charges Blutmann, thrusting a finger of challenge close to his face. "Everything in nature is in motion. Everything is flowing. Like a river. Like the trains running on these tracks. And their destination is cruelty and suffering. It's where all things end."
"I can't see what's natural about the exercise of cruelty and the creation of suffering."
"Nature gave us the disposition for them, so how can they not be natural? As natural as goodness or kindness."
"The balance of positive and negative powers, is that it? I didn't know you were Manichaean."
"No, I'm a vampire."
"Not every vampire is destructive."
"Vampires rise from nature, too, and nature is a force that cannot reproduce without committing acts of destruction."
Blutmann sighs, a gesture largely of defeat
"If you hurt Millicent I can't be on your side."
"I don't need you on my side. The Omegas don't. The Omegas need no one but each other."
The moment draws down. More than anything else, Blutmann wants to reach out and embrace the young man, wants to bridge the sizable gap between them. 
"Peter, I care about you. One day you'll see that." 
"And one day perhaps you'll see the whole of reality and understand who I am."
With those words Dead Peter turns aside and begins to walk down the tracks away from the yard. Blutmann watches him, and it is as if the darkness beyond is calling the young man, singing its own treacherously indifferent siren song, pulling him ever closer until, quite suddenly, he merges with the night and is no more.

Five
After midnight, magic drifts through Night Horse Swamp like a mysterious, sourceless fog. Nature deceives, turns necromancer, conjures the moon and stars, the wind, and every creature that stirs. In the swamp, a visitor's sense of security disappears, dissolves. Things lurk, though remain hidden. The eye tells lies to the mind and every bush becomes a bear and every hiss of breezes upon the flags of Spanish moss becomes a deadly ser-pont The swamp becomes a place of horrific transformation. It returns to being the ancient, primeval realm that has always bewitched men. It settles into itself, otherworldly, spectral, readily capable of both illusion and sleight of hand. At certain spoils, Night Horse Swamp seems as vast and unexplored as the psyche of a madman. In literal terms, it stretches from Sweet River to Homewinds; in figurative terms, it is larger than anything you can know or know about It is terra incognita.
It is the last place on earth in which you would want to find yourself lost.
Dead Peter is being called to Night Horse Swamp. As he tightens his grip on the steering wheel, he can feel himself surrendering to the control of an invisible force—his own private Caligari. But he doesn't mind.
Every vampire has a master.
That is what he believes. That is what he wants.
The car is a new Pontiac, a two-door sport coupe blacker than the night. It has wire wheels and a sixty-horsepower engine and cost his foster parents $842, and he doesn't care that the vehicle will get muddy on these pulpwood trails that vein toward the heart of the swamp until they are stopped by water and the unknown. Dead Peter doesn't care because he has a delivery to make. In the backseat two Omega pledges are giggling like little boys as they prod and lasciviously touch the body of a young woman who has been wrapped entirely in a white sheet as if she were a mummy. Dead Peter sees the young men in the rearview mirror; he watches their hands roam in the darkness, smells lust in their voices, and hears the terrified and indignant squeals of the young woman, and he grins.
So much has occurred since Dead Peter's conversation with the dean of students.
The Alphas have necessitated this trip. Earlier an Omega was mugged by several Alphas in the alley near the entrance to the Blind Pig. He was jumped and worked over. He was stripped of all his clothes except his freshman beanie and hustled to the train yard where, below the now defunct water tower, his hands were bound and he was shoved into an abandoned well. Once down in the empty, black hole, he was tortured.
Live snakes and rats rained down upon the pledge's head.
His screams could be heard all the way to the House of Night. Fortunately, Daddyman wandered upon the scene on his way to the hobo jungle farther out from the yard where he would barter and trade with the tramps. He arrived at the well just as one Alpha was dribbling gasoline into the darkness and another was striking a match. When they espied Daddyman, the Alphas ran.
Dead Peter thinks about the episode. "Goddamn them!" he shouts. He pounds the steering wheel and his cohorts in the backseat cease giggling and probing momentarily. All they know for certain is that Millicent Gast is being moved from the bowels of the House of Night to an undisclosed location near the swamp.
Before leaving town, Dead Peter had his vampires chalk a few messages on boxcar empties for the Alphas: hell to pay! was one; Millicent used to be beautiful was another.
Where the pulpwood road ends at a watery prairie head, Dead Peter turns right. The headlights stab in the distance at a fog-shrouded, derelict mansion, and to Dead Peter it is a surrealistic sight: the darkened old manse appears to be a riverboat floating upon the waters of memory or of absolute mystery, a steamboat gothic, a ghostly palace of columns and whitewashed brick—an incomplete dream in an endless night
Dead Peter nods toward the phantom-seeming house. "You fellas help lug her down there, and then come back here and wait." He pauses to glance at their surroundings. "Probably lots of wild critters around if you need blood."
The pledges are dutifully silent, dutifully obeisant.
Dead Peter fixes his eyes upon the melancholy abode. It has its own siren song—or is it an aria of warning? Stay away! But Dead Peter dismisses either notion, for he is eagerly anticipating that the vampire he most admires will be pleased to see him and, more so, pleased that he has not allowed the Alphas to match the Omegas in cruelty. He gets out of the car, stands, and lets the fog drift over him, and once again he feels the pull of a mesmeric spell—he cannot resist it Then he hears, wafting through the ghostly air, a piano. Unearthly music reaches out like the clutch of desperate fingers.
Here you can join Dead Peter as he imagines the denizens of that decaying mansion. If your inner vision is strong and clear you see a young man and a young woman in the dank and dusty music room. The young woman, smoking a long, thin cigar and wearing a shabby top hat, positions a candelabra near the piano and smiles at the pianist. She is hypnotized by his hands and by his physical beauty. Her name is Fauna. She is not a vampire; the young man is Shatterhand. He is. The two of them share the strangest passion you will ever know.
Their symbiosis is dark and growing darker.
Shatterhand's fingers glide along the keys, and if you are not watching closely it may seem to you that he is not even making contact, and yet a sound of haunting enchantment rises like smoke until the young man lifts his hands and gazes into the eyes of his companion.
"I want to compose the perfect nocturne," he says. "I want to go beyond Scriabin, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Ravel, and ultimately approach the music of Chopin, the god of the nocturne."
"You will, my love," she responds. "You will when I have nursed you back to full health."
She reaches for one of his hands—a white, beautifully formed hand, six fingers for her to kiss gently before she raises them into her mouth and sucks, her body going rigid with ecstasy. Smiling, Shatterhand fights his weakening constitution; he is thankful that Fauna is his nurse and that she has provided the means for him to create his music. He has come with her to Bellenorth to explore moodscapes: haunting, dreamy transcendent melodies. He desires to hear in his compositions a fearful symmetry, a music designed to match the opprobrium of the Night Horse Swamp and the galvanizing gloom of the once magnificent mansion.
This young man and this young woman—an odd couple by any assessment. When Shatterhand came to know Fauna he described his attraction to her to Dead Peter thusly: "She makes me feel closer to all that is beautiful." Then, later. "She understands me ... she loves me."
Shatterhand possesses the dark-eyed good looks of Rudolph Valentino. He is not troubled by the fact that Fauna is six years older than he or that she is a divorcee, a failed poet, and that she likes to wear men's clothing. In many ways she is the antithesis of him: she is flamboyant, volatile, rough-hewn—a new woman, a flapper typo who eschews the dance floor or the social scene. He, in contrast, is quiet, self-effacing, gentle, reserved— or at least, on the surface. His capacity for cruelty is immense; his longing for beauty, however, counterbalances his dark side. He seems as vulnerable as she seems predatory.
No beauty, Fauna nevertheless lays claim to a certain sensuality. While her demeanor is mannish, her face is feminine, eyes soft though easily triggered to display coldness and suspicion. She possesses a million faces, not all of them friendly, not all of them hostile, not all of them caring, but each one brands her weirdly—she is alive in the same way the great swamp is alive, a multiplicity of lives. Shatterhand is drawn to those lives just as he is drawn to her swarthy coloring and the less than smooth touch of her skin. He finds her hair a source of endless fascination, for it grows at a supernatural rate requiring her to cut it every day. She keeps it short and curled fetchingly, locks hugging close to the nape of her neck. And yet her aura takes on a masculine hue whenever she directs it to.
Dead Peter, who has met her only once, almost doubts that she is a woman.
And he wonders how they are a pair. They do not seem like lovers; more often, they seem like brother and sister or some other configuration not quite definable. Could there be, he asks himself, a kind of erotic possession here? Has she cast a spell over the caster of spells? Or is it that Shatterhand is merely taking advantage of Fauna's willingness to provide him with shelter and a piano in the mansion that has been in her family for over a hundred years?
Is Shatterhand trapped in a fairy tale penned by Fauna?
Call them Misery and the Muse.
When Shatterhand cannot find the right notes, his misery knows no bounds, and he is helpless. In his frustration, he falls prey to his strange companion.
She understands how his soul needs to be fed.
Curling her limbs around his neck like a feathery serpent, she whispers, "Be cruel to me. Please."
His hands are suddenly stone. He cannot play. He cannot think. A sadistic fever rises in him.
"I want to bathe you," he says.
She, of course, complies, for that is how she maintains control of him. Naked, she will ease herself into an old-fashioned washtub, its contents to be determined by Shatterhand's perverse leanings at the moment. At times, the tub will be filled with moonshine alcohol. At other times, scalding water; still other times water and chunks of ice—he loves to see her shiver; he loves to hear her shriek in pain.
In bestial moments, he bathes her in animal blood.
At other times, fetishism and sadism merge, and he will smear her naked body in coal dust or have her dress all in white and proceed to stain the dress with ink. Or blood. When their private sideshow spirals down, he often drinks her urine, and, on rare nights, full moon nights, when his need for darkness overpowers him he likes to peel off pieces of her skin—from her thighs and buttocks—and kiss them to a tiny flame before consuming them.
"Eat of my flesh and love me," she coos.
But there is one sadistic fantasy they dance with each night, yet stop short of consummating. Shatterhand terms it deadrise. He tells her, "Goethe understood. He wrote that so long as you do not have this dying and becoming, you're only a gloomy guest in this darkening Earth."
Fauna agrees. "Return me to the dark earth," she says, "and listen for my heart beating beneath your feet."
The desire to bury her alive advances upon him like an incurable disease. She knows that one night, when the moment cannot be further denied, she will submit, for her passion is to be the muse of his cruelty.
To feed and to be fed.
"You knew I would come. You called, and I couldn't stay away."
Dead Peter stands at the door to the mansion. Shatterhand greets him there. He lets Dead Peter's words hang in the air like smoke.
"Enter, my Omega brother. Welcome to Bellenorth."
Fauna is at Shatterhand's shoulder, but when she sees who has arrived she turns away in apparent disgust. 
Dead Peter is pleased to see her reaction, for it frees him to concentrate on the handsome young man in the flowing white robe, a walking apparition, an overpowering, ravishing entity that he fears will at any moment dissolve into nothingness. He reaches out for Shatterhand's wrist and gently draws blood with a fingernail before lowering his lips, hesitating, then biting firmly and sucking. When Dead Peter raises his head from Shatterhand's wrist, he can feel a tiny trickle of blood escape from one corner of his mouth. Shatterhand seems pleased. In turn, he completes the Omega greeting— "drinking kisses"—sinking his fangs even deeper into Dead Peter's wrist.
"Ne pour souffrir," says Shatterhand.
Dead Peter nods in agreement before adding, "Nothing is certain except cruelty."
Shatterhand smiles. "Power, submission, humiliation."
And in a monotone echo, Dead Peter repeats the words. They exchange brotherly eye contact before Dead Peter says, "I have brought you a live offering."
"I thought you might. What has been happening?"
Almost certain that Shatterhand is largely aware somehow of events that have taken place, Dead Peter nevertheless recounts them, punching the details for emphasis and for defense of his strategy.
Shatterhand listens carefully. He seems neither impressed nor indifferent. "I sensed that something was stirring," he says. "I could smell fear. I smell it now."
"We need you," says Dead Peter.
From the shadows Fauna reemerges. "No. He is working. He is creating. Composing. He can't be bothered by the games of boys—childish, vampire games of blood."
Dead Peter searches Shatterhand's face for signs that he does not agree with the young woman. The Alphas— we cannot crush them without your help. Your powers," he pleads.
Fauna, about to say more, is stopped by Shatterhand. Then he concentrates on Dead Peter. His tone is almost fatherly. "Haven't I taught you how to be cruel? All the tricks? All the ways? Like de Sade?"
The Alphas—they're bolder than before. Isn't that obvious?"
"Meet their boldness at their throats—make them suffer. Their virtues will weaken them."
Determined, Fauna intrudes, grasping Shatterhand's elbow. "Forget about all of this. It wastes your energy." Then, to Dead Peter: "Go away. Leave us alone. Leave him alone. He's not well."
A ghostly light from nowhere flickers. The shadows in the room are suddenly heavier; Dead Peter feels the curious weight of them on his shoulders. He sucks in his breath, surprised and alarmed by Fauna's remark. He steps closer to Shatterhand. The admiration and concern for his fraternal brother are stamped on every inch of his face.
"What's wrong?" he whispers.
Shatterhand throws his head back in the start of a laugh, but the laugh quickly ebbs and a wave of fear washes into his voice. "Bad dreams. Nightmares of being burned alive. I cannot sleep. I eat little. I—"
A ragged silence completes his words.
Dead Peter feels emboldened.
"I know what will strengthen you: seeing our great enemy humiliated."
"What have you brought?"
"Proof of my leadership."
The pledges half carry, half drag in the shrouded body of Millicent Gast. When Dead Peter has dismissed them, he unwraps her. "She belongs to us," he says to Shatterhand, who appears lost in some corner of himself as he crouches down and removes the young woman's blindfold and the gag in her mouth.
Her eyes spill over with terror. She screams, and when the scream exhausts itself, her whimpering is that of a trapped animal. Shatterhand studies her as if she possesses not one ounce of humanity. He pushes to his feet. "Your move," he says, "is either brilliant or very foolish."
"Will you keep her here? The Alphas could never find her."
"Here at Bellenorth?" Shatterhand shakes his head. "My work—I couldn't concentrate with her around. No, take her away. Take her back to the House of Night. Miss Comfort will tend to her."
"If you aren't willing to help, why did you call? In my thoughts, I could feel you call. I don't understand."
Smiling to himself, Shatterhand glances at Fauna, who is standing over the body of Millicent Gast and puffing agitatedly on her thin cigar. Smoke haloes her head. She cuts her eyes at Shatterhand, and he whispers almost to himself: "Power. Submission. Humiliation. I will always be in control even when I am creating. I must be." Then he turns and crosses the boundary into Dead Peter's face. "You needed to be reminded of that."
"I acknowledge your control. Every Omega does. But I beg you to reconsider—keep the bitch here. Not knowing where she is will drive the Alphas crazy. Palmer Gast will suffer, and our revenge will be an intimate revenge."
Once again, Shatterhand's tone is fatherly. "Suffering? My brother, Peter, I'm not at all certain you truly understand suffering. It's a privilege to suffer. Suffering's not the price of living; it's inseparable from the gift of living." Then he gazes down at the young woman on the floor whose hands and feet remain bound. "No, I don't want her here."
"Wait." Cigar smoke biting her eyes, Fauna steps forward. She takes his hand and opens her face into a smile. She caresses. "Let her stay. Give her to me."
Playfully, she squats down and blows smoke in the young woman's face and provokes silent tears, coughing, and a muted sobbing.
"Shut up, bitch!" Fauna exclaims. And when the sobbing continues, she jabs the burning tip of her cigar into the young woman's cheek. The scream rips across the shadows, and then the smack of Fauna's hand across the young woman's face is the crackle of a rifle.
Dead Peter and Shatterhand draw away from the scene.
The former speaks sotto voce: 'There is a school party coming soon. A dance. Tom Brown is in town. Maybe not back in school, but he's in town, and we've heard he's going to be at the party. We're worried that he'll rejoin the Alphas."
At the mention of Tom Brown's name, Shatterhand stiffens.
"Christ, I thought he was gone."
"We'll shadow him."
"Do," says Shatterhand. "I'll want to know what he's up to."
They leave the house together and wander into the humid, misty air.
"One day," says Dead Peter, "the two of you must battle. It cannot be avoided. Vampire master against vampire master. Alpha versus Omega. The final battle, it would seem."
"Perhaps you are right. Perhaps my nightmares anticipate that battle."
"You will defeat him—every Omega believes that. Blood's rising, my brother. The final battle may be as close as the approach of dawn."
Shatterhand is perniciously thoughtful. It seems likely that some haunting, still unwritten nocturne is playing out in those thoughts. "If it comes about—this battle—it will be the end of someone's vampire world: Alpha or Omega. If that battle must take place, only one of us will remain standing to claim the darkness."

Six
It is a decade of daring. Of spectacle. Of risk taking. Exhibitionism. And marathons. It is a time well suited for those who want to reinvent themselves, alter their personas, transform their personalities, and shift their shapes, physically and psychologically. It is a perfect time for vampires to walk this obscure corner of the earth.
Tom Brown, Alpha vampire, embraces the spirit of the times. He lusts after attention. At Mantis College he is a legend, and even as you see him before your eyes the legend has gifted him with supernatural powers. He, however, claims that he is but a humble magician. Watch him now as, behind the iron bars of a circus wagon, he adjusts his flesh-tight leopard skin outfit, one shoulder bare, and holds his collegiate colleagues in the palm of his hand. The long dagger glints in the auditorium lights as he positions it over his mouth—yes, they've all seen a sword swallower before, but they haven't seen Tom Brown. He's ... well... different.
It is the first dance—"drag" is the current slang term for it—of the semester, and the circus theme has captured everyone's imagination. The auditorium is decked out under a canvas big top replete with three rings and a red-coated, tassel-hatted circus band, in actuality a traveling jazz group known as Sonny's Blues, gracious enough to go along with the motif of the night. Above the crowd are trapeze platforms, a swing bar, and a net. Sawdust covers the floor. Everyone is in costume, even Dean Blutmann, who is clad in the top hat and silky garb of a circus master of ceremonies. Male students have come as lions and tigers, horses, and—lumbering along with trunk and tusks—one threesome has creatively teamed up to arrive as an elephant. Females sparkle in skimpy, sequined outfits to mirror trapeze artists, bareback riders, and other circus lovelies, their faces painted heavily with rouge and lipstick, their eyes blackened with mascara and kohl as thick as Theda Bara's.
Tom Brown is swallowing the impressively long and sharp dagger.
Down, down to the rhythm of tittery, appreciative watchers, the dagger slides out of sight until the handle, held tentatively by two of Tom Brown's six fingers, is all that is visible. And then a pregnant pause. An orangutan—the beast is really Nickel in a magnificently authentic costume he sewed together himself—bounces forward and directs Sonny's Blues to give the moment a drumroll. Coeds hold their breath. Their male counterparts sneak a sip of moonshine from their hidden flasks. And a heartbeat later disbelief rains down upon everyone like a sudden thunderstorm.
Tom Brown has swallowed the dagger. Swallowed it whole. An exaggerated gulp can be heard as Brown turns to face his admirers—at least one of whom has fainted—and smiles sheepishly, yet triumphantly. The orangutan dances. The band belts out a victory salute. But the performance is far from over. The orangutan seizes a reluctant young lady covered in ostrich feathers, head to tail, and pulls her to the cage, gesturing something difficult for the crowd to translate. She is embarrassed and largely unwilling to participate. Brown, it seems, knows what the orangutan is trying to communicate. He feigns wonder as he reaches through the bars and cups the young lady's chin with his fingers. He assuages her fears. He whispers to her to open her mouth. To a chorus of laughter and giggles, he peers down into her throat, and then he inserts two fingers.
The crowd is jumpy, giddy. The band plays a comic riff.
The young lady is wide-eyed, confused, but otherwise a good sport
And Brown, inch by inch, retrieves from her body what appears to be the very same dagger that, only seconds earlier, he himself had swallowed. Seeing the dagger, the young lady pants as if in shock, though she tries to smile as the mob gathered behind her explodes in a chain reaction of applause. Brown, holding the retrieved dagger by its point, winks at the young lady, bows to the applause, and then acknowledges his orangutan helper.
The dance is launched toward an inexorable success.
Palmer Gast is among those applauding the jaw-dropping magic of Tom Brown. Gast's dog, Bucky, is with him; both are made up to be clowns—white face paint, a red ball nose, floppy feet, and a blue-and-white, Alpha-colored cone hat. He glances around and sees that the Alphas are well represented; he also sees the Omegas, including Dead Peter and Wings, both attired as black panthers. He notices Dean Blutmann toting a megaphone under his arm. But mostly Gast is interested in stealing Tom Brown away from the spotlight so that he can plead with him to join the fight against the Omegas.
Millicent continues to be missing.
For Gast, the thought of his sister in the hands of the Omegas siphons off some of the blush of just having fed. Her name was Agatha, a real patootie from the
Gamma	sorority, a gathering of smart, classy
frails who, while not vampires, are sympathetic to the Alphas. Clad in a moral gown, her hair in a bob, Agatha was irresistible, and as it is with all Alpha vampires when they feed, the young lady's loveliest thoughts, impressions, images entered Gast as he drank from her porcelain neck. The opening of Swan Lake glided through his mind, the euphoria of ballet beauty. It held until Gast dressed for the party and caught sight of the Omegas.
Now thoughts of torture buffet him. His eyes reach up to the trapeze platform where someone has attached a high wire, and he imagines himself falling, falling, falling, and the net vanishes and he crashes into the sawdust where he is trampled by elephants and feasted upon by lions and tigers. It is all he can do to keep from crying out in anguish.
Be not afraid, he tells himself.
But guilt is a cannonball striking his chest, breaking his ribs, knocking the breath from him, and burning his heart. Millie. Dear, sweet, innocent Millie. He chides himself for not being out looking for her. Why haven't I contacted the police? But, no, he realizes that those moves are exactly what the Omegas want. They want the Alphas to dishonor themselves by showing their weaknesses.
Gast is suffering. That, too, is what the Omegas desire. He is growing weaker. And he is angry with his Alpha brothers for throwing the Omega pledge in the abandoned well. Pointless revenge. The action resulted, he has learned, in Millie being moved from the House of Night. But to where? The chalkings on the empty boxcars haunt him: hell to pay! and Millicent used to BE beautiful! He desperately needs Tom Brown's help. And with his hopes clinging to the facade of the clown costume, he approaches Brown's cage, where he sees that the young man he admires so much has brought a half dozen boys and girls from the New Path home—where Millicent works. The kids miss her, he's certain of that But tonight they are enjoying themselves: gorging on popcorn, cotton candy, apple cider, and excitement.
Gast smiles at the sight.
And then he suddenly hears it: the true magic, the true wild talent of Tom Brown.
His laughter.
It spirals out of everywhere, sweeping over the crowd like an invisible gas. It takes control. It delightfully destroys thought. It removes unhappiness. It forces you to laugh right along. Even the Omegas can barely resist a chuckle.
When the laughter fades somewhat, Gast edges closer to Brown's cage. Nickel the orangutan is handing his parrot, Rudy, in through the bars. Brown announces that he is hungry. Another how-in-the-world-does-he-do-that? illusion is about to unfold. Brown is pleased with the attention. Rudy squawks as if he wonders what the hell is going on—he doesn't have to wonder long.
Tom Brown swallows him. Or seems to.
The crowd is chicken-on-a-hot-stove jumpy. They jig and hop around as they marvel. Brown whisks them along with the illusion, acting as if he's surprised to find that the parrot has disappeared. He points at the orangutan. "Did you swallow that bird?" he asks. But the orangutan shakes his head. Brown is suspicious. He grabs the beast by the hair and begins to examine the top of its head. And then. And then to the easily fooled eyes of everyone watching, he plucks the missing bird from the mop of hair crowning the beast Nickel hams it up.
The cheers are deafening.
But the best is yet to come.
"Devouring Strange!" the orangutan calls out. "Gals and guys, you ain't seen nothin'. The one and only Tom Brown will now... devour himself. Yes, that's right. Flesh by flesh, bone by bone, he will make of himself a midnight snack until someone among you cries 'hold!' "
The interest glistens. Tiny forks of lightning from nowhere crackle in the air.
Brown begins.
You can't take your eyes off him. You can't, no matter how hard you try.
Fingers first He works methodically, disregarding aahs and squeamish oohs from his watchers. At times his dining habits are fastidious; at other times he feeds upon his flesh as if ravenous.
He eats up beyond his right wrist before the moment breaks.
"Stop it!" a coed screams.
Then others join her. Young men, too.
They cannot bear to continue watching.
They hold their breath, curious now as to what will happen next.
With practiced panache, Brown hesitates before regurgitating himself. There is an audible sigh of relief from those close to the cage. And then he belches loudly.
And laughs.
And the circus laughs with him, a great surge of convulsive laughter.
*    *    *

"I hate him."
They are away from the limelight, and Gast has recounted to Brown all that has occurred in the past few days, emphasizing that total war between the Alphas and the Omegas appears inevitable. Further, Gast has speculated that Dead Peter may have gotten Shatterhand involved with the evolving conflict.
"I hate Shatterhand, too," says Gast. He is pleased to see that Brown's anger has been pricked by the very mention of the former Omega leader.
"Have they hurt her?" says Brown. "Our Millicent— those bastards wouldn't dare hurt her, would they? Her kids—the New Path children—they ask about her. They want to know where she is and when she's coming back. They think she's swell and so do I."
"We've got to bide our time."
"Why? Why not take them here?" Brown's fury seizes his body. The entertaining magician has disappeared; a vengeful vampire has replaced the persona of Devouring Strange. He glances toward the far side of the auditorium where the black-clad Omegas are knotted up around Dead Peter.
"No," says Gast. "We've got to play their game as long as they're holding Millie. If we jump them here, they could make things rough on her—very rough. We can't risk that."
Brown nods soberly. "Bastards," he hisses.
Gast searches his fraternity brother's expression, hoping to penetrate his anger. "We're Alphas. Remember that We've got to take the high road. We've already made some mistakes. We can't afford more. But what I have to know is this: will you come back to the Alpha House and join forces with us?"
He sees reluctance in Brown's face, and it disappoints him.
"Palmer, I need to be away from school. I'm still an Alpha—I'll always be an Alpha, but I need time for myself. I've got a money-raising project planned for the New Path home. It's something I have to do."
"But we need you."
Brown looks away. "I have to take the kids home—it's getting late. I'm sorry."
Gast watches him gather the boys and girls. The party is heating up. Some students have plunged into a foxtrot, cheek to cheek as the music swings. Others, off to one side and just out of Dean Blutmann's sight, are drinking, and those already tipsy are belting out a wretched rendition of "I Found a Million Dollar Baby."
It's a raucous scene, but suddenly Gast senses danger.
He wishes Tom Brown hadn't left, and he's not certain why. As he pans the loud, colorful scene, everything seems innocent enough. Nickel, at home in his orangutan costume, has a young lady's attention as he pretends to swallow Brown's dagger, or perhaps he's trying to balance it on his nose. Rudy is winging around, issuing cries of delight Angelus, attired as a lion tamer, has also cornered a young lady and is playfully threatening to crack his whip and make her do tricks. His quarry is wearing a lamb collegiate coat with a Russian fox stole draped around her neck, the tail of the stole clasp in the fox's mouth. Gast believes he has seen her before, but he is not certain where. Could she be the one Angelus had gushed over a few days ago at Nightingale's? And now Angelus has slipped the fox stole around his neck, and the young lady has his whip and acts as if she knows how to use it, and there is much laughter.
Not far from them, Dean Blutmann has raised his megaphone to his mouth, and though Gast can't hear it distinctly, it's likely that Blutmann, caught up in the gaiety, may well be imitating Rudy Vallee.
It's a good-time moment. Gast lifts Bucky up against his throat
"Buck, my man, it's all swell. Don't know why I felt anxious. Let's get some cider."
The epiphany that envelopes him is as complete as it is fatal. He finds that in nearing Dead Peter and Wings and several other Omegas; they, too, appear to be enjoying themselves.
Why can't we just talk things out?
The internalized question is so compelling that Gast can't free himself from it. He thinks of Millicent. Why are we making her suffer? In the crush of the instant, he has no answer. The idea of a cause escapes him. He feels vulnerable, and yet he feels that the moment is right to give reason center stage. He shivers, anticipating that rational heads can avoid a senseless conflict.
The Omegas hush themselves as he approaches. Gast assumes they have weapons, but he is undeterred. He sees that the vein on Dead Peter's forehead is pulsing.
"Why do we have to fight?" says Gast, needing to raise his voice slightly over the din. Dead Peter looks completely surprised and gestures that he did not hear what Gast said.
"Why?" Gast continues. "I don't see why we have to make my sister suffer. Why can't we just talk things out? Be reasonable. Why ruin things? College should be something we enjoy—why do we have to do this?"
Dead Peter is incredulous. Wings and several other Omegas shoulder close to him protectively. They, too, seem stunned by Gast's words. As others see that the two fraternity leaders are squaring off, the volume of noise lessens. Dead Peter glares at his coequal.
"You're a fool," he says.
Gast shakes his head, but a sickening feeling is beginning to spread through him. He's made a mistake, and it's one from which he may not be able to extricate himself.
"Let her go," he says. "Let Millicent go. It's not her fight"
Dead Peter brightens. "You've made her part of the fight. Don't you see that?"
"Then take me instead. Take me in her place. Just let her go. Take me. Do what you have to do to satisfy your revenge."
There is much pleading in his voice; it's a tone that warms Dead Peter.
"Our appetite for revenge is bottomless," he says. "Cruelty is the only certainty—you know what empowers your enemy. Either you're a fool or you're drunk."
The gravity of Gast's misjudgment staggers him. He doesn't know what to do. He sets Bucky down, but before he can say something more he hears a shout and turns to see Angelus tugging at the young lady in the fur coat; an Omega is tugging at her as well.
And in the next instance he sees Nickel slashing with the dagger.
There is blood and there is chaos.
He hears Bucky yelp as if having been kicked. He hears Blutmann shouting through his megaphone. And then he feels the sting of a sword tip as it grazes his cheek. He feels blood trickling and then within seconds the smell of fear and anger dizzies him.
And everything around him explodes.
Deep into the night Gast strolls on the lawn of the quad. His cheek is bandaged; he feels desolate. Bucky follows at his heels, whimpering occasionally, his ribs sore where an Omega kicked him.
The local police had to be called to break up the fight No one won. Several innocent students were injured. Every Alpha and Omega in attendance shed blood. So angered was Dean Blutmann (who himself received a superficial wound) that he threatened to encourage the Inter-Fraternity Council to petition President Davis to revoke the charters of both the Alphas and the Omegas.
Why did I try to talk to the Omegas?
Knife points of regret stab at Gast as he continues walking. He wishes the lush, grassy lawn would open up and swallow him. He has never felt so stupid. Worst of all, he knows that his actions may have further jeopardized Millicent.
"Bucky, I've got mush for brains—you know that?"
The dog sits, patiently waiting for Gast to pick him up. His patience is rewarded.
"I don't know what to do," he whispers to the dog. Then, quite suddenly, his confusion and self-loathing are interrupted by the sound of a voice calling after someone: "Wait! Don't go! I need you!"
Gast hurries in the direction of the House of Night. He's almost certain the voice is that of Angelus. He sees a pair of shadows slip past the house and crisscross the quad in the direction of the train yard. Yes, one shadow is Angelus; he assumes that the other is that of the young lady Angelus was tugging at when the fight broke out
What to do?
Should he go after Angelus? Is his fraternity brother getting in over his head? Who is this young lady? What's going on?
But he can't move. The weight of everything coa-lesees, preventing him from any kind of action. His life moves beyond him like fleeing shadows, and whatever personal destiny is being thrust upon him is not one he wants. In his thoughts are images of a bloody obligation he will not be able to refuse.
For what? The cause of fraternal brotherhood? Is it worth it?
Is it a dubious cause?
And there, with the night seeping into his soul, Gast stares up at the brick facing of the gloomy House of Night He imagines that, somewhere inside, the wicked Miss Comfort is tending to the Omega wounds, and new acts of cruelty are being planned.
The stone gargoyles direct their menacing glare down upon him. He blinks. He shudders. And he imagines that, one by one, the creatures take flight. He imagines that they are circling to attack.
Terror in his throat, heart pounding, he begins to run. Bucky barks weakly as Gast presses the dog to his chest. As he runs even faster, he hears them: the rasp and grate of stony wings. Their hatred of him is a scream that chases him, horrified and out of breath, to the safety of the Alpha House.
But he knows that his escape is only an illusion.

Seven
Angelus has been seeking someone like her since the day the opposite sex first stirred his blood. Someone whose radiant visage would receive his soulful longings. Someone who would understand his need for a special intimacy.
"Bliss, wait!"
His hand bleeding now more heavily as he jogs after her, Angelus is winded, his energy plucked by the fight at the party. He knows he should have stayed with his fellow Alphas, but his desire for Bliss possesses him, drives him on against his better judgment.
Her laughter gently tethers him, enslaves him. She chases down into the train yard among the shadows cast by the silent, empty boxcars. A trio of stray dog, the pencil-thin, mangy variety always scrounging for food there, bark and scatter. Then one lingers, hopeful.
"Wait!"
She is cracking his lion tamer's whip and laughing hysterically as he catches up with her at the corner of a boxcar. Partial moonlight slices across one half of her face, leaving the other half indistinct as he swings her into his arms and, breathless, he whispers, "My God, you are beautiful."
"And you are such a boy," she returns.
Then she clutches him around the neck and kisses him full on the mouth, kisses him hard, and he feels the sharp points of her canines sink into his lower lip. He gasps. He cannot free himself. And then he does not want to. She is giggling as she sucks. He struggles as an afterthought
And then he relents completely. Surrenders.
It is the most exquisite kiss he has ever experienced, painful and delicious and satisfying. His mind is flooded with colors he has never seen. His giving over to helplessness is soon complete. He is falling. Falling through the night Falling through time and space. Falling into the abyss of her dark soul.
When she finally releases him, his mind fills with swarms of white dots like insects from another dimension. He cannot think. He can barely breathe. His legs threaten to buckle.
"My God," he whispers, his eyes remaining closed.
His lip throbs with pain, a pleasant transporting pain. When he opens his eyes, he does not see her face, he sees a living icon, he sees a mirror that reflects everything that he associates with spiritual beauty and tran-seendence. He stammers a few mindless words he does not understand: "I can never go back. I cannot go back."
"You are right, my sweet vampire boy," she says.
He stares down at her.
Her face, illumined now by the moon and some unearthly inner light, is divinely empty, almost as empty as her soul.
Angelus wants to fill that soul with love and passion.
"What have I done?" he murmurs.
Her smile is falsely radiant.
'You have saved yourself."
Then she glances at his bleeding hand. "Oh, you've been wounded."
"Yes," he says, keeping his eyes on her stunning face. "I have."
The Omegas did this, didn't they?"
"My enemies."
"Must they be?"
Angelus sighs. He feels that he is floating free of his body.
"Must you be so beautiful?"
Her smile is the point of a sword. "I can heal you," she says. And with those words she lifts his bleeding hand to her mouth and licks at it before she begins to suck at the blood. Something inside him shatters. All possible resistance burns away. A stranger, a sexual being he is unfamiliar with wells up within him in a thoroughly encompassing metamorphosis. An erection strains at his trousers. She raises her head and looks around.
"Up there," she says, gesturing at the shadowy open-ing into the empty boxcar. Galvanized by his desire, he feels strong as he boosts her up, then follows. The floor of the boxcar is strewn with straw in one corner. Tramps have created a cozy area there before exiting along the line. She leads him deeper into the shadows and begins to undress. The coat, the stole, a slinky dress, and beads. The white of her silky step-ins dazzles him. She is obviously pleased that she holds sway over his passion. She is in control.
"Are you real?" he says as she unbuttons his shirt. She works her seduction methodically. He is clay in her hands, and he knows it and does not care.
"I want your hand again," she says when they are both naked.
His desire roars as she sucks gently at the wound, a slice opened by the blade of an Omega sword. Then she eases down onto her back and pulls him on top of her. He can see that she is studying his shadow-strewn face. It appears that she detects something. She smiles.
"I love virgins," she whispers.
"How did you know?"
"I know everything I need to know about my vampire boy."
She guides his eager, clumsy passion into her warmth and wetness. He soon loses himself. Almost immediately his breathing is heavy with pleasure. Soon he feels so deeply buried within her body, so connected with it that it would be impossible to separate the two of them. They are indivisible. Then the rhythm of ecstasy takes over—building, building, building—until he explodes within her, and he cannot hear what she is whispering. An incantation? And again he is falling, falling, falling into an unimaginable darkness.
Time fades.
How much of it has passed before she rolls free of him? Laughing softly, she locates the whip, and for several playful minutes she is the lion tamer and he is the beast. They laugh like naughty children. Naked, on all fours, Angelus growls and claws at her; her breasts are lovely in the partial darkness. Her eyes catch fire.
"I could turn you into a savage creature."
He shakes his head. "No. I'm a lover, not a savage."
"Here, wear this. See what I can do."
She slips the fox stole around his neck, and he laughs heartily as he reaches back on his haunches. She snaps her fingers and suddenly, shockingly, the fox is alive. It growls and yips. Angelus is so startled that he tosses it from him and wildly scrambles away, scattering straw as well as the shadows.
Her laughter is both sexy and maniacal.
She goes to him and caresses him with a motherly touch. They dress. Just beyond the opening to the boxcar the lone stray dog has returned, drawn, it would seem, by the sound of the fox. It listens, tragically curious.
Angelus no longer recognizes himself. It is as if he now lives in a different skin. She reaches to touch his cheek. "What do you want most in your life?"
'You."
"No, I mean—what would you like to do? To achieve?"
The ghost of a former self returns cautiously. He chuckles nervously.
"Sing as well as Bing Crosby. He's one of the Rhythm Boys, but he's going to be singing on his own soon. I think he's swell—more than swell. He's incredible. I heard him sing with Gus Arnheim's Coconut Grove Orchestra."
"Would you sing something just for me? Sing like Bing Crosby."
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes. Very much. Sing your favorite song of his."
Angelus, flushed with anticipation, says, "All right I'll sing 'I Surrender, Dear.' It was a Top Ten hit a few months ago."
He begins, and he is only four lines into the lyrics when she stops him. Her fingers trail down from his cheek to his throat Though he cannot believe it, as her fingers press at his vocal cords he imagines that they somehow enter his flesh. His initial response is to jerk away, but her fingers hold him, stroking, massaging his vocal cords.
"Now," she says, "try it again."
And he is stunned by how much better his singing voice has become. The transformation both delights and frightens him.
Completing the lyrics, he stammers, "My God—I'm yours." He laughs in wonder, oblivious of his words.
"I know you are," she says.
"I have surrendered," he whispers.
She stands back from him and glances around. She sees the stray dog. She presses herself close to Angelus and says, "You must do something for me."
"Just name it. Anything—anything in this wide, wide world."
Though it casts apprehensive looks into the darker areas of the boxcar, the dog quivers, wagging its tail happily as it receives attention. Angelus has developed an instant affection for the animal.
"I love dogs," he says, scratching this one behind the ears. "Palmer Gast has this swell dog—Bucky—very smart. Can do a jillion tricks. Hey, you know, I bet I could teach this dog to do tricks. Look at it—all it needs is some love and someone to trust."
Bliss coils close to Angelus and the dog.
"Together we can teach it darkness," she says.
"Darkness?" Angelus frowns. "What do you mean by that?"
Bliss pushes away. A few feet from her the fox stole appears to be sleeping. She snaps her fingers, and once again it is alive. Seeing it, the dog frees itself from Angelus and begins to bark. The fox takes flight, scurrying around the confines of the boxcar. The dog gives chase, barking ever more loudly and eagerly.
Angelus cheers. "Hey, it's a hunter! Would you look at that!"
Bliss grins and her face darkens. She snaps her fingers again.
Suddenly the fox turns. Growls. Bares its teeth. Surprised, the dog skitters to a halt and lays back its ears. But the fox is on it blink fast. Angelus watches in disbelief as the fox rips into the dog, tearing open its flesh above one eye and several places on its throat and underbelly. The dog struggles against the aggressiveness of the fox and is no match for it.
"No, stop it!" Angelus yells. The dog is bleeding heavily and is terrified. Angelus clutches at Bliss and screams into her face. "Stop it! Make it stop!"
Her jaw set, her eyes flaming, she draws Angelus into her words. "I stop only when I want to."
But just as suddenly as the attack began, it ceases. The fox relents. It curls up next to Bliss, and, seconds later, returns to its former state. Shaken, Angelus goes to the bleeding dog and gathers it into his arms. Bliss lifts up the stole and drapes it around her neck. Her expression is victorious.
Angelus stares at her. He is trying desperately to piece together who she is, to make sense of the juxtaposition of beauty and sadism.
"Why?" he says.
"Because I can."
Puzzlement soaking more thoroughly into his voice, Angelus says, "It's just a stray dog. A dumb animal."
Bliss turns on her smile. "Come to me. Put down the animal. You have a debt to pay. Have you forgotten who you've become?"
Shaking his head, he obeys her. The dog whimpers off in extreme pain. Angelus puts up his hands as if toward her off. "I haven't become anyone. I'm Angelus."
She is smiling more expansively, and her eyes are refuting him as she cradles his face in her hands and tugs him into a kiss. When her tongue presses between his lips a sweet, sickly flavor floods his mouth. He swallows. Something hits his system like a narcotic. The sensation of complete metamorphosis once again dominates, and in a timeless release he does not know wh6 he is. As he slips out of the kiss, he staggers, dizzied and bewildered.
His lips move. A single word whispers forth: "Lost."
"But I've found you. Show me how much you appreciate what I've done."
"How?"
She snuggles close to his ear. Her voice is moonlight.
The only certainty is cruelty," she says.
The words sink in as if they were an injection. She waits for them to take effect, and when she is confident that she has possessed him, she adds, "The dog—make it suffer."
Angelus drops to his knees. With whatever energy he can muster, he struggles before the pointlessness hits him and he begins searching the shadows for the cowering animal.
"God, God," he moans.
He feels it ghosting away—all that is good and humane within. He has given it up, given up the ghost of his former self. His expression is blasted. He calls the dog over to him. It continues to bleed, but it appears to anticipate a show of kindness. It wags its tail feebly.
Hands that no longer belong to Angelus reach out and blackness smothers the moment. The bones of the dog snap. It screams in pain, but can't escape. Angelus lowers his head and bites savagely at the throat of the animal, and behind him Bliss applauds as if he has scored a touchdown. Bleeding, broken, crushed, the helpless dog cries until it loses voice, strangling on its misery and suffering.
Angelus feels nothing. His senses have come unplugged. He has been emptied of thought. He is mindless. He does not hear the animal. He hears only the throaty, affectionate whisper of Bliss: "I am pleased. Come away with me. You are mine, and I am yours."
In the gazebo where all paths lead to the lawn of the quad, Angelus sits with Bliss. He starts to shake free of something like sleep, awakening from what he can only assume was a nightmare. Bliss talks to the person he has become.
"Dead Peter is responsible," she explains.
"Isn't he my enemy?"
"No. No longer is he. But you have to choose."
"I choose you," he says, her beauty lifting him out of a strange, opaque realm of grayness.
"No," she replies. "Alphas or Omegas."
"I choose love."
"But how much can a vampire boy love?"
"I will love you beyond the night."
"Beyond reason?"
"Yes."
"Beyond hope? Beyond sanity?"
"Yes. And yes."
Bliss pauses, eager to cross one more boundary.
"Beyond loyalty?"
His hesitation arrests the scene. He stares at her as if she were the only living creature on the planet. Very softly he says, "Yes."
"Can I believe you? Can I trust you?"
His blood stirs. For an instant, hardly more than a heartbeat, darkness passes before his eyes and he is blind. When he can see again he says, "I swear that you can."
Her face is like a hand fitting into the glove of his face. He can feel the predatory warmth of her breath.
"Do you swear that you hate the Alphas? That you hate Palmer Gast and Nickel and Tom Brown?" She breathes deeply. Her eyelids flutter. Her mouth tightens with insistence. "That you hate Millicent?"
The question freezes him within. His face totters, then collapses. His body shudders. Tears flow quietly like water trickling from snow melt. His emotions are beyond him. But finally, with a wrenching gasp, he nods.
She is not satisfied.
"Say it," she insists.
His eyes widen. He's suddenly not sure anything is real. He glances down at his hand and sees that the wound is completely healed. He sobs. Teeth clenched, she presses an inch from his face.
"Say it!" she shouts.
The intensity of her voice startles him.
"Yes," he murmurs. "Yes... I hate them. I hate her."
Bliss cheers.
"Now," she says, "come with me—I want to show my world what I have done."
The Blind Pig is a sea of smoke. It reeks of monkey rum and white mules. The lighting is poor, and yet it serves to hide the faces of those who do not want to be seen. And while the establishment seems joyless, nevertheless the wretched clientele occasionally generate something like gaiety. Such is the case at the moment. A clutch of Omega vampires commands a table as far from the door as possible and as deep in the darkness as they can find. High on monkey rum, they sing a drunken rendition of 'Tiptoe Thru the Tulips With Me," their laughter empty and strained, possessing magnitude but no substance. On the floor near their table one Omega is drinking from the throat of a tramp unfortunate enough to have stumbled into the loose locale that is this bar.
When Bliss completes the secret knock, the whisper sister or proprietor of the speakeasy meets them. She is Loretta Block, a tough, cheerless woman, tall with eyes that never blink and long, brown unkempt hair. She could be beautiful, but she chooses instead to be distant and intimidating—she carries many secrets, and she looks at Bliss and Angelus as if they were drifting shapes of dust, insignificant and virtually lifeless.
Her eyes thoroughly unsettle Angelus as Bliss tugs him into the smoke and alcohol fumes and smothering darkness. When they are recognized, the singing dies off. They swim toward an angry greeting.
"Get that filth out of here," from one source. "No Alphas allowed. That one's shit," from another.
"No," says Bliss, even before the faces behind the voices become more distinct. "He's one of us now."
Angelus feels a welling of panic.
"I don't know," he mutters. "I don't know."
Hearing his words, Bliss turns on him. "Yes, you are. Ours forever."
And he is suddenly aware of what it must be like to drown. He is a drowning man, drowning in an undercurrent of his own despair.
Bliss, her trophy on her arm, approaches the Omega table.
"Where are Peter and Wings?"
A shadowed Omega responds. "Back at the House of Night holding a war council—planning how to deal with low-life Alphas. Like the one on your arm."
"I told you he's come over. He's ours," she maintains.
There is a thick silence followed by sobering words: "Show us. Does he drink kisses? Show us that he's one of us. Break the privacy code."
Instinctively Angelus jerks away, but Bliss claims him with her eyes.
She clamps onto his arm, but when he glances down, nothing about his body is familiar. He groans submissively as her fingernail slices across a small vein in his wrist. As she begins to drink, something buried deep within him surges. Alpha mottos—he tries to shout them. He tries to whisper them, but he cannot shape the words. There is something vile about them. He no longer believes their sentiment. They have become unsayable.
He cannot speak.
Her side of the bizarre ritual complete, she lifts her wrist to him. Faintly he hears the Omega vampires cheering him on, encouraging him. He hesitantly sinks his fangs into her, and when he does her blood fills him with a pulsing blackness. It is the sensation of being in a lightless cave. Finished drinking, he hears her whisper, "Thank you, my Omega boy."
"Help me," he mutters, the words directed to some longed-for sacred presence.
Bliss responds as if he is speaking to her: "I have helped you. And now it's time for us to go."
Out in the shadows of the alley he trembles with fear.
"Don't leave me," he says.
Thick, palpable gloom envelops him. For several heartbeats he cannot see or hear anything. He senses that Bliss is near, but that she is undergoing some kind of change, a metamorphosis or transformation he cannot understand.
"Bliss? Are you mine? I love you."
Whispered words drift through the air like cold droplets of fog.
Power. Submission. Humiliation.
"Bliss!"
He fights his way out of the thick cocoon of shadows.
She is gone.
And all he hears is the sound of wings, a purling of some creature just having taken flight, rising above the only world he knows.

Eight
Sooner or later every coward is given an opportunity to be a hero, ready or not. The entity known as the Snark isn't In fact, he is very, very scared. So scared that a wild talent he possesses may spring to life beyond his control—and he doesn't know whether it will save his life or bring it to an end. Dawn is nearing, and as the gods of night take their leave the Snark has seen and heard much—too much. And he fears that in his pursuit of the truth, in his lust for heroism, he has crossed a line that should not be crossed.
The feral cats of the House of Night smell his blood.
Miss Comfort has tipped them off, she with her preternatural vision, she with the night vision of an owl. She can see into the earth. She can see into the Snark's tunnel. He can feel her eyes, eyes more predatory than any beast in the county. The Snark has gone too far, and he hates the possibility that he may be too much of a coward to act.
Earlier he had become aware of what happened at the dance. There was blood in the air and that certain indescribable stench of enmity growing, rotting between the Alphas and the Omegas. He had seen the House of Night gargoyles wing their hideous way to brand the psyche of Palmer Gast with nightmares. More chillingly, he had been witness to Angelus being stripped of his loyalty. In the war between the Alpha vampires and the Omega vampires, what effect would a turncoat have? A devastating one, or so the Snark believed. Yet, he understands the temptation of the siren call of Bliss. What Angelus could not see to see was that it is insane to fall in love with a woman like her, so much vicious seductiveness in her eyes. Around her, a man must sense that she will devour him if he gives her half a chance. Angelus was oblivious.
With dawn approaching, the Snark has been on a mission: to burrow and press as close as possible to the bowels of the House of Night. To snoop. To listen for bits and pieces of planned cruelty among the Omegas. He knows they will dictate the next stage of the war, but he isn't aware of their precise plan. And much to his anguish, he does not know where Millicent is. Yes, he has had a few potentially relevant dreams; he has even received a vision or two. All he can say for certain is that when he concentrates on where she has been taken, he can hear a piano.
Now he asks himself: what would a heroic figure dot He thinks of movie western heroes like Tom Mix and Ken Maynard or a jungle adventurer like Frank Buck in his Bring 'Em Back Alive stories. Or classical heroes: Hercules comes to mind. But in the cramped space of the tunnel, he feels too small to ever be a hero. Worst of all, he can hear the Omega cats scratching and clawing within a few yards of him. Miss Comfort, her wickedness loosed upon him, has schooled those evil creatures in the ways of blood. She has set them upon him, and he knows that he may well be doomed.
His fingertips are warm, growing hotter by the second. Touching them to his deformed face, he is alarmed at the heat they are generating. Fear does it; fear sets off his body, vitalizing his every molecule until he transforms into a living fire starter. And so as he listens to the ever-nearing threat of the Omega cats, he gathers around him a nest of dried grass and straw and bits of newspaper.
If he has to, he will accept a flaming, self-immolation rather than face the cats.
Their eagerly meaningless growls are clawing toward him—how close? He estimates they are within feet His only weapon is a small, sharp pick he uses to extend existing runnels. But there are so many cats that while he might be able to batter a few with his digging tool, he would soon be devoured by the horde. He is wearing a safari helmet—just like the one Frank Buck wears—and yet it, too, would be of little use as a weapon.
Their growls are louder now. They are a matter of inches from breaking through.
His fingers are sparking fire, giving him a modicum of light He is terrified. His mind is racing for an answer, for a resolution other than suicide.
The cats scream, tempted further by the smell of his blood.
Blood.
Yes, it suddenly hits him: a possible ploy. Quickly he takes off his helmet and nestles it in the dried grass and straw. Then he breathes deeply, raises the pick, and jams it into his thigh. He cries out in pain, but the warmth of his bleeding gives him hope. He positions himself so that the blood flows rapidly into the helmet.
Then he scrambles back. Tiny flames at the ends of his fingers illuminate an eerie scene.
The protective wall of earth shudders. Then claws break through. The meowing is high-pitched; it streaks through him like electricity. When they empty into his tunnel, the cats are hungry, bloodthirsty, as close to being vampires as cats can be. The Snark imagines that if they had wings, they could be vampire bats.
He holds his breath. Will the helmet of blood slow them down so that he has a chance to use his wild talent? Seconds feel like an eternity. But then he sees what he desperately wants to see: the first two cats nose at the helmet of blood. Others join them, fighting for a space from which they can lap at the rich, warm liquid.
I've got to do it now.
He strikes the ends of his fingers together. Fire leaps. He aims the small torches at the bed of dried grass and straw where he has placed the helmet. He shoots several flames at his target, and instantly the bed explodes into a raging fire. He whoops victoriously, then scoots a few more yards away from the flames.
It is too late for the Omega cats to retreat.
Their bodies burning, they leap about, crazed, turning upon one another in pain. Soon the Snark is almost overcome by the stench of fur aflame. And as he begins to flee the area, he can feel the eyes of Miss Comfort boring into him, attempting to siphon off his energy and his will. He clambers away as fast as he possibly can.
He is fifty yards from the fiery scene before he slows.
A coldness seeps into him: he knows how much he is hated.
It is afternoon now. Above him, the Snark can hear laughter and pieces of conversation as students and faculty relax over coffee and pie at Nightingale's on an overcast day. He hopes to talk with Palmer Gast, for he believes in the aftermath of escaping the Omega cats he has a plan to rescue Millicent and end the fraternity war. But as he waits for Gast to respond to the agreed upon signal, he replays the worst moment of his life.
The day he had a chance to save someone he loved and failed to.
A kaleidoscope of images mesmerizes him. Sights, smells, sounds—his mother's screams dominate. No, stop! He holds his head. He cannot bear to remain in the darkness of that memory.
To himself he poses an endless litany of questions: Who can escape the grim shadow of self-knowledge? Who knows what another human being is made of? Who knows what secret weaknesses latch on to us inside, like cancers?
Then he hears a voice couched in a tone of misery.
"I'm here."
It is Gast.
The Snark glances down at his forearm, still raw and sore where he has burned the name of Millicent with his fingertips. But the sight of her name cheers him, stirring within him the possibilities of becoming a hero. The self-inflicted puncture wound in his thigh is sealing over.
"I think I bring more than an 'Ode to Joy,' " he says. He is aware that his voice is inhuman. He knows it makes people cringe, and thus his verbal exchanges with others are rare.
"Help us," says Gast. "Dean Blutmann has warned both fraternities to end the conflict or else we'll lose our charters. But there can be no end until we have Millicent back. Do you know something we need to know? Do you know where they've taken her?"
"Away from town, I believe. In a vision I heard a piano playing a nocturne. That's all."
"Shatterhand?"
"Perhaps, but I can't be sure."
"What are you sure of?"
The moment falls around the Snark. Visions of Millicent's lovely, innocent face flood his thoughts. He trembles. And then he steps out the front door of his heart.
"That I love the angel Millicent with all my broken soul. That more than anything else I want to be her hero. But the evil we're up against is very strong."
He hears Gast grind his teeth. "The Omegas have made Sweet River a land of evil."
"But sometimes the soul must emigrate to a land of evil to become annealed."
"The Alphas have a fraternity of like souls," Gast responds. "We can overcome their evil. Our bond is our secret weapon."
Hearing Gast's words, the Snark issues a snort. "Too many secrets. What you don't understand is that Sweet River has its own fraternity—keepers of secrets. The bond of the Alphas may not be as strong as it needs to be. It may, in fact, not be as strong as you think."
"Of course it is. What do you mean?"
Reluctantly the Snark shares what he knows of the rendezvous of Angelus and the young woman known as Bliss. Gast energetically rejects what he hears, but when the Snark insists that he knows the truth of the matter, the tone of the conversation acquires more gravity.
Gast is tied in knots—beklemmt. "It's hopeless, then," he says.
"No. You must not give up."
"What can we do?"
"I've formulated something of a plan. Be on the train Saturday to the football game in Montgomery."
"Football—I care nothing about football."
"Even so, be on that train. Mantis is to play Galeston College. Have the Alphas on board in full strength. I'll see that the Omegas are there, too—with Millicent."
It pleases the Snark to hear astonishment in Gast's voice.
"How will you do it?"
"I know something Dead Peter wants."
"What? For God's sake, tell me."
"No. It's a secret." He pauses to rachet up the seriousness of his tone. "Do I have your trust?"
"Beyond question."
"If this goes wrong, the war between the Alphas and the Omegas will escalate. My plan is very risky."
"But if there's a chance we can get Millicent back safely—yes, let's try it. I'll make sure the Alphas are on that train. Don't fail on your end."
The words peal in the mind of the Snark like a doleful bell.
"I love your sister too much to fail. My only desire is to be her hero."
"Does she know how you feel about her?"
"No, no. That, too, is a secret."
In the most hidden corner of the Empire, the Snark is nearly invisible. Whenever he leaves his system of tunnels—and he does so rarely and only late at night—he wears a cloth sack over his head, replete with eye holes. This night he is viewing the silent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore. It is a riveting performance by the great Barrymore who at one point wears a spider costume. The effect is nightmarish. Watching, his breathing shallow, the Snark believes he has never witnessed such a malignant, surrealistic image. The otherworldly creature that is Hyde has spun a web trapping the Snark where he sits, his vantage point carefully selected so that he can keep one eye on Dead Peter, who is sitting alone several rows down.
When the movie flutters to an end, the Snark is relieved.
Back in his tunnel he tracks Dead Peter on his inner radar screen, charting his movement until the Omega leader is sitting alone in the gazebo on the quad. There he takes out a book. Is it possible he can read in such thick shadows?
The Snark knows what he must do. Up from his runnel he burrows, breaking through a few feet from the gazebo. Dead Peter is not surprised to see the Snark's hooded head poke out of the earth.
"You've been spying on me, my wretched friend," he says. "I could smell you at the theater. Did you come to talk about the flicker? Isn't Barrymore a lovely actor? But poor Dr. Jekyll. If he were a vampire, he wouldn't be so afraid of metamorphosis. Are you afraid, my friend?"
Yes.
But the Snark reminds himself that he must not be.
"I haven't come to talk about movies."
Dead Peter lights a Lucky Strike, draws deeply, then exhales so that the smoke further conceals his identity and heightens the spectral effect of his person.
'Then could it be that you've come to apologize for killing a number of the Omega cats? What a horribly cruel death you handed to them. There are lots more, of course. Did you come to trade secrets on the art of cruelty?" Dead Peter smiles. Then he lifts the book from his lap as if something just occurred to him. "Or could it be you want to discuss the wisdom of my hero— the Marquis de Sade?"
"Hero?"
"Yes. Everyone needs a hero. Everyone wants to be one. Don't you?"
The Snark is dizzied by Dead Peter's remarks. He is tempted to slip back into his tunnel and forget about his plan.
"Yes."
"What, my friend, would allow you to become one?"
The surge of confidence the Snark has been waiting for rises high in his chest.
"If I could rescue Millicent Gast. If I could bring her back to the Alphas."
"My, my. Your heart has been exposed. Love is in the air. And desire, no doubt. But could dear, sweet, pretty, pretty Millicent stand to look at the face of her hero without fainting away?"
Heat is a river coursing through the Snark's body. He admits to himself that his beloved would be horrified at the sight of him. But he presses on.
"I've come to make a deal with you."
"A deal? It would be a deal with the forces of darkness, my hideous friend. Surely you understand that. But what could you possibly have that I would want?"
The Snark is suddenly emboldened. "The truth about who you are," he says.
He is cheered by the flat, blank stare of surprise on Dead Peter's face.
"You ugly pile of shit—what are you talking about?"
"I think you know."
Dead Peter is intrigued. More than intrigued. The vein in his forehead pulses. For a few seconds, he appears to wander in a maze of thoughts.
"I'll entertain your offer, your deal. But I warn you: you pull anything dirty on me and I'll make you suffer more than you can imagine anyone could suffer. Do you understand?"
The Snark nods.
And in the ensuing minutes they explore and negotiate the details of a blossoming agreement.
"It's all set. Tomorrow Millicent will be returned."
First light has broken, and neither the Snark nor Gast has slept. They converse at their usual venue. The Snark hears tremendous relief in Gast's tone.
"My God, that's good news. I've felt guilty this week that I didn't tell my parents Millie was missing. The truth would devastate my saint of a mother—she would have worried herself to death. My father—I don't know what reaction that brute of a man would have had."
The Snark waits for Gast to compose himself. Then he turns to the nuts and bolts of the agreement. "Between Shorter and Montgomery, the Omegas will release her in one of the sleeper coaches. She'll be wearing a black veil. They'll send a representative to your coach to let you know when you can come for her."
"What else?"
"No weapons."
"No weapons—can't do it."
"Yes. You must Or there's no deal."
The early morning manifest freight is pulling through Sweet River. It blasts its arrival signal, and when it has rattled in and out of the train yard and passed to points east, Gast says, "Just one question."
"What is it?"
"Can we trust them?"
The Snark knows that a quick "yes" would be misleading, perhaps even untrue. The seconds roll out with the spread of daylight.
"I live in darkness," he says. "I know its lessons—they are difficult. Likewise, one knows that trusting one's enemies is difficult. One must accept that everything in life insists upon this: we must trust what is difficult."

Nine
Midmorning all hell is going to break loose on the West Alabama Railway.
It isn't supposed to happen, of course.
The day promises so much more: bright and glorious sunshine showers the Sweet River train depot where the eagerly meaningless noise of young people boarding the passenger cars nearly drowns the idling chugs and hisses of the engine. Mantis College students are heading out with victory in their eyes. The football team is being hyped as quite possibly the best in the history of the college, and coach Herman "Boots" McClendon has emerged from preseason workouts cautiously optimistic that he has a winner on his hands. And why not? Returning quarterback Tommy Don "Crazy Legs" Wiggins is unquestionably the best in the South at his position, a triple threat who at yesterday's pep rally virtually guaranteed a Mantis bashing of rival Galeston. Adding to Wiggins's bravado is the fact that four behemoth linemen are back, starters from last year's squad.
The marching band, belting out the Mantis fight song, is sharp on the heels of the cheerleaders who are shouting full-throated refrains amplified by megaphones— the spirit is salubrious and infectious. Everyone seems caught up in the saturnalia of the moment Thus, it is the job of President Davis to address the throng and attempt to put the much-anticipated day in perspective. On the steps of the VIP car, he signals for silence, and when he has gained a modicum of it, here is what he says: "Go and enjoy yourselves. Surrender to the passion of the great college ritual that football has become. But above all, remember this: Gentlemanliness, before enthusiasm, thorough, deep, and abiding loyalty to Mantis, and a self-contained dignity will challenge the admiration of the whole state of Alabama and give our school the finest kind of a name, a name which she has justly won by the kind of conduct I am trying to describe. Now, on to Montgomery... on to victory!"
The cheering is deafening.
In one of the passenger cars, Palmer Gast is brooding. He hates the bright sunshine, for it enervates him. He hates being on the football train, for he prefers, instead, to be at the library writing a paper on The Iliad that is due on Monday. The advice of the Snark is slithering through his thoughts: Trust what is difficult. Under his coat, Bucky is snuffling and squirming, seemingly aware that he has been secreted aboard. Petting his beloved dog, Gast cringes at every hiss and growl issued by the waiting engine. The sounds send him into the most grotesque projections: he imagines himself being scalded by the fury of the escaping steam; he imagines his body pinked by the heat of it until he is boiled like a lobster. He imagines the steel wheels cutting across him, slicing him in half as he screams to be rescued. He closes his eyes and grits his teeth, willing the horrible images to disappear.
But when they do, he opens his eyes and sees the Omegas. Led by Dead Peter, their contingent, grinning and sneering as only evil vampires can, presses down the aisle. They stink like rotting flesh. Gast makes eye contact with Dead Peter; something passes between them—distrust? Yes, and yet perhaps a whisper of hope, too, a barely audible murmur of expectation that the ongoing conflict will cease. Gast scans their numbers for any sign of Millicent. He swallows back his disappointment that he does not see her. Maybe they put her on board earlier.
He has to trust the Snark. He has to trust what is difficult.
"Are we really getting Millie back?"
A face whitewashed in bandages leans toward him from the seat in front. It is the pledge named Lawrence, his expression hopeful through the remnants of the recent scar feasting.
"Yes," says Gast. "And if that happens, then the war with the Omegas ends today."
"I think our entire fraternity is on board," Lawrence continues.
Gast glances up and down the car. "I haven't seen Nickel."
Another pledge seated with Lawrence chimes in at that point: "I saw him. He's in the men's room putting on a disguise. And he's brought that bird of his."
'That's not all," Lawrence adds, "he's brought along a knife."
"Damn it, no!" Gast exclaims. 'That'll break our deal with the Omegas. I've got to find him."
But as he gets up to search for Nickel, he sees Angelus. Clad neither in the blue-and-white colors of the Alphas nor the black-and-red of the Omegas, the young vampire stands, his eyes darting about as if branded upon his chest one might read the caption: LOST SOMEHOW.
Seconds later Gast pulls Angelus into the seat next to him and levels an insistent tone at him: “Talk to me. What's going on?" 
"I can't."
"What's happened to you? What did they do to you?"
His bottom lip quivering, Angelus shakes his head. A tear squeezes out of one eye. "I can't come back."
Gast is shocked by what he is hearing. "Oh, damn, the Snark was right. My God, no. Was it the girl? It was, wasn't it? The one called Bliss? What did she do to you?"
"I can't come back."
"Damn it, stop saying that You're an Alpha. You'll always be an Alpha. Remember our mottos. Be not afraid. Being here is magic. Those words—the brotherhood we have. You can't give that up, Angelus. You can't"
But the young man suddenly screws his mouth up into a hopeless smile.
"I drank kisses with her," he says, and though Gast tries to keep him from leaving, he tears away, and in a matter of moments Gast loses sight of him as band members and cheerleaders laugh and chatter their way down the aisle.
"Pull the curtain back. We can't allow the Sweetheart of the Alphas to get too comfortable. We have to remind her that the Omegas are in charge."
Dead Peter smiles his dead smile at Bliss, who is dressed all in black. He holds a rod of some kind sleeved in a protective, metal housing. The sleeping car with its narrow aisle and curtained compartments, is flooded with shadows—-just the way the Omegas prefer it. 
“How could she forget?" says Bliss. "But didn't Shatterhand want to keep her at the swamp?"
Dead Peter shakes his head. "I think she was becoming a nuisance to him. His girl, Fauna, almost talked him into disfiguring her pretty little face. I told her if this cunt doesn't cooperate, we'd do it for her—we'd turn her face into a nightmare."
Bliss's smile flickers with delight as she draws the curtain aside to discover Millicent Gast in the lower berth, her hands and feet shackled, her mouth covered tightly with a strip of cloth. Like Bliss she is dressed all in black, including a black veil.
"She looks real damn scared," Bliss exclaims, then cackles before adopting a more sarcastic tone. "You think this sorry bitch puts out for her Alpha guys?"
Dead Peter roars with laughter.
"Bliss, how unkind you are. You are looking upon one of the only virgins at Mantis College—pure as the driven snow. Aren't you, my dear Millicent?"
He leans closer to her and she squirms against the wall of the berth. Bliss grabs her by the hair and jerks her head around so that she has to face Dead Peter.
"Don't you turn away from our master, you pathetic creature," she shrieks.
Carefully, almost with the tenderness that one might remove a single rose from a bouquet of them, Dead Peter slides a thin, metal poker rod from the sleeve. The tip of it, evidencing a brand in the upside-down stirrup shape of the Greek letter O, is red hot, and when Millicent sees it she gasps against the gag in her mouth and bucks to stay as far away from the burning iron as possible.
"Now, my dear" Dead Peter continues, "unless you wish to have your lovely cheeks signed forever by our fiery tool, I'd suggest you follow our directions precisely in the next half hour or so. Do you understand?"
And with those words he shoves the brand to within no more than an inch of one of her lily cheeks. Tears stream from her eyes as she nods before seeming to pass out. Bliss laughs cruelly. Dead Peter is obviously pleased to see how frightened his captive is.
Bliss swings her face into his and kisses him deeply and longingly. Then when she pulls back from him she purrs, "Shall we go plot sadistic chapters and verses from our Bible of cruelty?"
Having drawn the curtain shut, they rise, and Dead Peter invites her arm into the crook of his.
"You're not on the same page with me," he says.
Surprised, Bliss says, "You don't really mean that you're going to give that bitch back to the Omegas, do you?"
At the rear of the sleeper a group of Omega males and a few Lambda females have gathered in a twisted node. They are smoking heavily and laughing bloody laughs. Wings, who has dyed his whitish blond hair black and red, steps forward to greet Dead Peter and Bliss just as Dead Peter says, 'The Omegas are vampires of honor as long as we retain the power to force submission and to inflict humiliation. Yes, my brothers and sisters, I fully intend to comply with the agreement to release Millicent Gast"
"You can't be serious." It is Wings, and his face is a study in confusion. "We've got those bastard Alphas just where we want them. They're helpless as long as we hold that bitch."
Dead Peter lights a cigarette. He finds himself thinking of Shatterhand. He wonders if the vampire he most admires understands why this deal is so important. He hopes so, but there is no way to be certain.

"Wings, calm down, my man. I know what I'm doing. I trust the Snark."
"But how can you?" Wings counters. 'That ugly, barely human creature—you know he favors the Alphas over us."
Dunkel, so proud of his wounds from the scar feasting that he has removed the bandages, leaving in evidence globs of suppurating pus, then bursts forth with this: "What if it's a trap? What if the Alphas plan to have us herd ourselves into this sleeper and then set the fucking thing on fire?"
Dead Peter nods his cigarette at the doubting faces to allay their concerns.
'They're not burning anything as long as Millicent is in our hands. There's no trap. I'm telling you, we can trust the Snark."
Dunkel, glancing around uneasily, decides to press into the heart of the matter.
"I don't get it," he says. "What's in it for us? They get their stinking bitch back, and we get—what? And why do you trust the Snark?"
He is trembling as he stares at Dead Peter, not certain what the Omega leader might do as a result of such a bold challenge.
"The Snark knows things," says Dead Peter, a note of wistfulness in his tone.
With the exception of Dunkel, the other Omegas draw back from the confrontation.
"What does he know that would be of any use to us?" Dunkel insists.
"He knows something that would be of use to me— to me." Dead Peter drums a long, sharp fingernail against his own chest to emphasize his words.
The smoky, shadowy area grows heavy with silence.
Seemingly astonished, Dunkel, aware that he may have crossed some point of no return, says timidly, "What is it? What does he know that could be so important to you?" Dunkel glances from Dead Peter over his shoulder to the others, all of whom choose not to meet his eyes, and then back to Dead Peter.
On Dead Peter's forehead, a vein dances with a gush of blood, and the charismatic young man is reduced to a whisper.
"He knows who my real parents are."
The train is nearing Montgomery.
Gast, impatient, wishes Tom Brown were on board. Things have a bad feel. And the defection of Angelus is deeply troubling. Under Gast's coat, Bucky is softly whining. Does he sense something? Danger, perhaps?
Over his left shoulder Gast notices that Dr. John Stone, the college surgeon, is staring pensively out at the passing landscape.
"May I join you for a moment?"
Surprised, Gast jerks away from observing Stone to find Dean Conrad Blutmann looking down at him.
"If you like—of course. Just don't rat on Bucky. He's a stowaway."
Blutmann smiles. "Your secret is safe with me. But, uh ... what's going on? I mean, I see virtually all the members of the Alphas on board."
"We're supporting our highly touted football team. Go, Knights! Rah, rah!"
Blutmann's smile is doubtful. "And the Omegas, too. I don't wish to be unduly suspicious, but—"
"Hey, can't vampires be football fans?"
"Most certainly they can. And it promises to be a great game." He rises, and a hardness comes into his eyes. "I'll be watching you. And the Omegas. I don't want trouble, Palmer. Do you follow?"
Gast doffs his bowler. "Indeed I do, sir. My brothers and I are on our best behavior."
But as Blutmann shuffles off to another car, Gast squirms. Where's the signal from the Omegas? Then, his impatience spinning beyond control, he reaches toward the seat in front of him and taps Lawrence on the shoulder. "I can't stand this waiting. I say we go get my sister."
The young pledge is about to agree when he notices someone coming down the aisle. 'Jesus. Hey, look at that poor sap."
Gast turns to see a blind cripple, legless, thumping along on crutches and leather buckets from the knees down. A beggar no doubt He's sporting a golf cap, and as he trundles past the Alphas, Gast notes how much the guy resembles Blizzard in Lon Chaney's The Penalty. The beggar is headed for the sleeper car.
Under his breath, Gast whispers, "Wait a minute. My God, that's—"
When the parrot wings by and lands on the beggar's shoulder, Gast is certain. "Nickel! Nickel, damn it, no!" he shouts. 'You'll ruin everything!"
Seconds later hell is about to pop.
The standoff of Alphas and Omegas in the claustrophobic, shadowy, smoky sleeper car is intense. The Vampiric energy flowing between the two fraternities is palpable. The hatred they generate in their exchange of stares literally stops the train.
"Where's Millicent? We've come for her," says Gast.
"She might be here," says Dead Peter. "It all depends on if you have some information the Snark is supposed to pass along."
'You'll get what you want from the Snark when my sister is safely back with us."
"I want it now," says Dead Peter, lifting the branding rod and gritting his fangs.
"I don't have it. You've got to get it from the Snark. That's the deal." Over Dead Peter's shoulder Gast sees Angelus. "Where's Millicent?" he asks him.
But Angelus defers to Dead Peter, whose expression transforms into a smile. "You see our newest Omega? We're very proud of him—go ahead, Angelus, tell your former brother where the bitch is."
"In one of the sleeper berths. She hasn't been hurt."
Angelus and Gast lock eyes. The darkness thickens.
"Get her," says Gast. "Get her and come back to the Alphas. We'll forgive you. You're still our brother."
Wings shoves his way forward. "Go to hell, Gast!"
Things happen with the methodical certainty of dominoes falling.
Nickel rips a knife from one of his leather buckets and jams Wings in the thigh.
Gast lunges for one of the curtained berths.
Dead Peter jabs the branding rod into Nickel's forehead.
Knives leap out on both sides. There is cursing and fisticuffs and groans of pain as blood is let. Chaos rules.
Gast grabs his sister and begins to pull her from the berth. But Angelus leaps to stop him, and in doing so stabs him high in the back. As Bucky snaps at Angelus, sinking his teeth into his calf, Gast winces in agony, and yet continues to push the black-veiled young woman from the car. Angelus kicks at the dog. Then Dead Peter lowers the branding rod; the room explodes with the yelps of an animal in extreme pain.
And all the while Nickel's parrot is circling and circling. At the door to the car, Gast, blood soaking his
coat, turns and just before he guides his sister from the area he sees the parrot swoop down, he hears it scream as it crashes with its talons and beak into Dead Peter's eyes.
By the time railroad security arrives, the fight is over. The Omegas escape by jumping from the unmoving train. Only the intervention of Blutmann prevents the Alphas from being arrested once the train has limped on into Montgomery. John Stone tends to the wounded Alphas. Gast's back-stab injury is superficial thanks to the thickness of his coat, which kept the point of the knife Angelus plunged into him from penetrating too deeply.
Gast doesn't care. He has what he wants. He has what the Alphas came for.
But when he lifts the veil from his sister's face, Bliss is there instead, smiling. Evil in her eyes, she chortles, "Power. Submission. Humiliation. You'll never defeat the Omegas."
Blutmann arranges for the Alphas and Bliss to be on the next eastbound train from Montgomery to Sweet River. He is shaken by what has happened.
Gast nurses the severe burn on Bucky's shoulder. The ugly Omega letter has been branded there, and it's there as well beneath a bandage on Nickel's forehead. Treading the waters of his disappointment and shock, Gast says to Nickel, "Those bastards tricked us, but I've got an idea."
"I wanna pay 'em back—for this!" Nickel exclaims, pointing at his forehead.
"Do you have any chloroform in your makeup case?"
"I can rustle some up," says Nickel. "Whatcha planning?"
Gast trembles with a combination of rage and determination. 'To invite Bliss to stay with the Alphas—the chloroform's in case she turns down our invitation."
Nickel's frozen rictus of a smile would frighten even the Phantom of the Opera.

Ten
The Omegas canonize the rituals of cruelty.
In the murky, lower sanctuary of the House of Night they practice the religion of sadism. Every Omega is required to worship at the altar of pain; every Omega is commanded to devise new modes of cruelty, and thus the fraternal belief system is perpetuated.
It is night. Imagine that you hear a young woman screaming. She is being tortured.
Gathered above the torture pit are Miss Comfort, Dead Peter, and a scattering of Omega brethren having returned from the riotous incivility that occurred on the football train earlier that day. Dead Peter, nursing scratches under both eyes, remembers with fiery hatred the attack of the parrot. But his mind flits to more abstract matters: the delight he finds in the torture of the young woman and the puzzling issue of moral principles.
"Do the Alphas," he asks Miss Comfort, "have a solid foundation of truth in their various moral imperatives, I wonder?"
Miss Comfort is enraptured by the scene below her. The young woman hanging by her wrists is Millicent Gast; she is barefoot, and her feet have been coated in fresh blood, and she is screaming because the feral Omega cats are flooding into the pit, and, fired by the smell of the blood, are climbing upon themselves to reach the tender flesh of the young woman—to claw and bite and inflict pain. To Dead Peter Miss Comfort distractedly says, "All universal moral principles are idle fantasies. I quote, of course, from de Sade. And that is the sub rosa message of Suetonious in his description of the orgies of Tiberius."
"Yes, of course," says Dead Peter. 'The Alphas do not live in accord with the promptings of their true selves. But we Omegas do. Especially myself." Then he gestures for the young woman to be hauled out of the pit. "I'm happy only when I'm being cruel. One day I shall pen a great work on the subject and entitle it The Anatomy of Cruelty."
"You are imminently qualified to do so," says Miss Comfort.
"And my testament is the same as de Sade's: Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change."
Miss Comfort's smile is motherly before it disappears into the grim line of her lips.
"You shouldn't have trusted the Snark."
"But I did not. I assumed he wouldn't be forthcoming. The train scenario was merely another opportunity to frustrate and deny the Alphas."
Dipping her fingers in a small bowl of blood, Miss Comfort calls for the young woman to be brought to her. Millicent Gast can barely stand. Her cheeks are pale and tear-streaked. Onto her forehead Miss Comfort dabs in blood the Omega letter.
"There we have it," she declares. "Take her away. She belongs to us .. .forever."
Dead Peter beams with pleasure.
"Never mind the Snark," he says. "Down the road he will pay dearly. The Omegas continue to hold the upper hand. We shall not relinquish it."
Studying her bloodstained fingers, Miss Comfort says, "And yet something about the episode on the train eludes me."
"And what is that?"
"If you had received the information you were requesting—if you knew who your real parents are... what would you do?"
Dead Peter does not hesitate. Shadows claim his expression.
"I would kill them."
Imagine that the conversation between Miss Comfort and Dead Peter has continued and that they are waxing eloquently about high-water marks in the history of torture when Angelus, sweating and badly shaken, bursts in upon them.
"They have Bliss!" he exclaims. Receiving doubtful glances in response, he follows up on his declaration. "Down by the tracks. The Alphas—they have her, and I'm afraid they'll steal her beauty. For revenge—I think they might deface her."   .
Dead Peter's smile is both treacherous and brotherly.
"They won't," he says. "Because the Alphas don't really believe in cruelty. They are ... what's the simplest way to put it? They are ... weak."
"But we have to get her back. They've had her since the fight this morning. They may hurt her just to show their disgust for my defection."
Dead Peter is musing, his expression awash in memory.
"We got sloppy. Careless. Omega vampires must never be careless. We should have protected Bliss."
Growing more impatient by the second, Angelus cries, "It doesn't matter what went wrong. All that matters is that we get her back—now!"
Seemingly buoyed by the display of passion, Dead Peter turns to Miss Comfort. "Do you see how obsessed our new convert is? Our Bliss is truly a remarkable young woman to have so mesmerized him. The blood of this young vampire streams hot for her."
"Please," says Angelus, his tone softening, but not his passion. "I can't bear for her to be held against her will another minute."
Almost fatherly in his mariner, Dead Peter places his hands on the young man's shoulders and looks deep into his eyes. "We shall do it," he says. "We shall arrange for our Bliss—your Bliss—to return to your loving bosom. Tonight. Tonight, your fetching, unholy moon dame will rejoin her family of shadows. I promise."
But it is Miss Comfort who has the final word. She stares down at Millicent Gast, who has collapsed to the floor from pain and exhaustion. "The time is right," says the Omega housemother, "for some vampire magic. Seeing is not believing."
Her laugh is the screech of an owl. Dead Peter echoes her laughter. Angelus, conflicted, tears threatening, kneels close to Millicent's body and is almost tempted to reach out and lovingly touch her.

Eleven
A chapter of Mantis College history is devoted to how the bonfire area came to be known as the "Camp of Miracles," for once upon a time it was merely a hobo jungle on the edge of town where tramps could bunk on their ears and warm their tired, cold bodies and sip cups of weak soup and dream of fresh, warm pecan pie and home-baked bread. A losing streak changed all that. From 1922 to 1925 the Mantis football team lost thirty-two straight games and the powers-that-be fired two different coaches in an attempt to end the plague of losses.
As all streaks must end, thus did this one. The student body, hugely relieved, decided to celebrate with an animistic ritual of fire—a big fire. Their locus for celebration needed to be off campus, and so the hobo jungle seemed a convenient spot; from the first fiery night on, the area was dubbed the Camp of Miracles, for, indeed, it appeared nothing less than a miracle that the football team had found a way to be victorious. From that moment on, every football victory was savored at the Camp of Miracles with a truly magnificent bonfire. This evening is no different. Earlier in the day Mantis defeated Galeston 21-0 as Tommy Don Wiggins scored three touchdowns, two on five- and seven-yard scampers and one on a breathtaking masterpiece of broken field running in which he returned a punt sixty-four yards.
Imagine now that you see Palmer Gast and his fellow Alpha Nickel watching the raucous festivity grow more frantic and unrestrained. They have just sated themselves on the blood of two celebrants unwise enough to have strayed from the inner circle of the gaiety. But the two who were fed upon are basically unharmed—they will no doubt replace the pint of blood they lost with a pint of monkey rum or white mule moonshine.
"Let's go back to the train yard," says Gast when the conviviality becomes too silly to bear. He is carrying Bucky in his arms. "Monday we and the Omegas have to go to the office of President Davis. The Inter-Fraternity Council will probably recommend that our charters be revoked."
"Doesn't matter to me," says Nickel, who has his parrot, Rudy, on his shoulder. "Long as we get Millie back—and long as we get revenge for this and for that." He points to the bandage on his forehead beneath which is the blistered flesh from the Omega brand, and to Bucky, whose fur has been badly singed by the same brand. "At least my feather buddy, Rudy, here got a scratch or two in on Dead Peter. Too bad he didn't rip his eyes clean out of his head."
Gast is not listening. He's thinking about the flames of the bonfire tearing at the night and reaching forty or fifty feet high. What, he wonders, would it feel like to be tossed onto that fire? How much pain would one feel before he passed out? Gast shudders and whispers to himself: "It's no mystery why the Omegas fear fire."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, nothing. I just want all of this to be over. I want Millie safe and back in school and free again to work with her New Path kids and be ... and be the beautiful soul she is. And I want Angelus to return. I forgive him for stabbing me in the back—he's under an evil spell."
At one of the empty boxcars in the train yard, they slow. Nickel strikes a match and the shadows part to reveal Bliss tied up in one corner.
"She claims she can fly away any time she pleases— you believe it?"
Though the young woman is blindfolded, she can hear the two of them talking. "Alphas have shit for brains!" she yells. "You're all fucking cowards!"
When her yells have faded, Gast says to Nickel, "All I know is that she's powerful enough to sway Angelus. It kills me that she has control of him."
"How could he go for such a vulgar, nasty young woman? I just can't figure it."
Gast shakes his head. Then he turns to look down the dark, vanishing point of the tracks. "Listen—I think I hear someone coming."
The night parts like a curtain as Angelus, obviously nervous and distraught and yet intent upon something, approaches them. They move out away from the boxcars to intercept him, far enough away that Bliss will not be able to know what is going on.
"I've got a message for you," says Angelus, his hands raised, palms out, to show that he is not carrying a weapon. "The Omegas want to exchange Millicent for Bliss."
Nickel, coiling in anger, shouts, "Stinking traitor!" Then he trundles up to him defiantly and spits in his face. Rudy squawks and flutters to keep his balance.
Angelus looks down and then away as the spittle dribbles down one cheek. Shame coats his expression. "Maybe I deserved that, but you don't understand. You can't know what I feel,"
It is all Gast can do to keep himself from going to the young man to comfort him. Everything about the scene is wrong, but it appears beyond fixing. "She has bewitched you," says Gast. "It's easier for her kind to cast a spell on a vampire than on a so-called normal human. You've surrendered all judgment."
A horrible moment of silence binds them as forcefully as once a bond of vampire brotherhood had bound them. Angelus is the first to break free of the silence.
"One hour from now meet us just beyond the train checker's shack. We'll bring Millicent. She'll be dressed in a white gown. You bring Bliss."
Gast: "Agreed."
Angelus hesitates. He looks toward the empty boxcars. "Is she... is she OK? Unharmed, I mean. Bliss. You didn't do anything—"
His small hands balled into fists, Nickel screams, "Get out of our sight! You disgust us!"
Angelus, hurt, trembling, begins to edge away. "Forgive me. But you don't understand. I can't come back. Lost. Don't you see?"
Then he wheels and runs and, moments later, darkness claims him.
Gast stands, a young man buffeted by some inner wind. For nearly a minute neither he nor Nickel can speak. At last, Gast murmurs, "Let's go to Nightingale's to wait. I don't like being here. I don't like being close to the woman tied up in that boxcar."
At Nightingale's they seek a corner away from the madding crowd and drink coffee, but having supped on blood so recently they decide against a piece of pie. While they wait, Gast has a terrible vision of Millicent, helpless, as some beyond weird creature brands the Omega letter on her forehead.
"I have to see the Snark," Gast suddenly announces. "Hold Bucky for me."
Minutes pass before he returns and Nickel asks, "What did he have to say? Does he know something about this deal coming up?"
Gast shakes his head. "Not really. But he apologized for what happened on the train, and now he fears what the Omegas may do. Says we should be wary for a trick. I'm going to borrow a lantern from Horace Nightingale before we head back."
The old man in the train checker's shack resembles a gargoyle. Rumor has it that he is a vampire, a loner as much dependent upon solitude as he is upon blood. Imagine him there in the tiny, one-room building, shouldered close to a lantern. His job is to watch trains leave the station and to check for hot boxes and other mechanical malfunctions.
When Gast and Nickel, escorting the blindfolded Bliss roughly, shamble past the shack, the train checker looks out at them, and in the muted light it appears that, if he so desired, his stare might steal one's soul.
Gast jerks his eyes away from the man.
Beyond the train checker's station, the tracks are silent and eerie. The borrowed lantern is ineffectual. Bliss is swearing through her gag. Bucky growls at her.
"Do you see anything?" says Nickel.
Gast is about to say no when something catches his eye—a smear of white up ahead on the tracks nearly a hundred yards off.
"I think that may be her," he says, his voice taking on a lilt.
Nickel bounces with elation. He begins to hum "Ode to Joy."
The two Alpha vampires quicken their pace and continue to do so until, virtually at the same time, they feel it: a slight reverberation in the rails.
"Oh, my God," Gast whispers.
A pinpoint of light, no more than the twinkle of a distant star, winks at them from the east The warning whistle seems to crawl toward them.
Nickel gasps. He is suddenly breathing so hard that he can barely speak. "It's a damn manifest—it's a late night freight that won't be slowing down. Central of Georgia, I think."
Gast has lost feeling in his body. He stares intently at the blur of white. "It's Millicent I know it is. They've tied her to the tracks."
The tentative call of the train is the sound of terror.
And they begin to run as they have never run in their lives. They leave Bliss behind, though at one point as they are dashing at mad speed, Gast looks back over his shoulder and sees that Angelus has materialized and is carrying off Bliss in his arms like the hero every young man wants to be. Bucky and Rudy hold back, sensing extreme danger.
The rails begin to shudder. The train's whistle sharpens in alarm.
To Gast the scene is almost beyond comprehension. His sister has been tied to the rails like a heroine in a melodrama. It is like something from a silent film starring Millicent's idol, Mary Pickford.
Closing to within fifty or sixty yards, Gast is already winded. Knives of exhaustion stab at his chest. The train cannot be more than two hundred yards away. Its warning blasts are surreal. It is trying to slow, trying to stop in time, but it cannot.
Gast wishes with his all his body and soul that he could somehow magically trade places with his sister.
"Millicent!"
His cry could have been heard on the dark side of the moon.
Things rush forward nightmarishly and the cosmos roars.
There is no choice. Gast and Nickel have to leap to one side or be crushed by the train. Gast is thankful that he does not see the language of terror that he imagines is written across his sister's face.
The train thrums by.
And to Gast it seems to take forever to pass.
And when the blow-by has sucked off all the air before the train has swept into oblivion, he and Nickel push to their feet and see that nothing has been left behind except darkness and silence, and in the heat of the night they realize that something inexplicable has occurred.
They stare down at the spot where Millicent had been tied.
On the back of Gast's neck he feels the icy breath of mystery.

Twelve
Has she been obliterated?
Could there be no trace of Millicent Gast in the wake of the roaring manifest?
Sickened, stumbling on legs of rubber, Gast and Nickel crouch down and search the tracks, expecting— and yet hoping not—to see gleaming rivulets of blood and shreds of flesh and bones and torn rags from the white gown.
But they find nothing.
Bewildered, angered, Gast stands up, raises his fists, and shouts, "Goddamn the Omegas!"
Nickel peers up and down the vanishing points of the tracks. Something of recognition begins to glow in his face.
"I think I know what this is," he says. "I think I know what they've done."
Gast, however, does not.
"For God's sake, tell me. Is this some kind of magic?"
"Yes," says Nickel. "That's precisely it. Miss Comfort's magic—the bitch. Don't you see?" He pauses, but it is obvious that Gast is not as deep into understanding as Nickel is. "They've imagined her. Projected her. What we saw was her doppolganger. It wasn't her." Then his voice rises in a combination of wonder and delight. "It wasn't her!"
Gast shakes his head. He does not share much of Nickel's apparent glee. "What you're saying means that they still have her. We should never have trusted them. Once again we trusted the Omegas. How could we be so stupid?"
Nickel, suddenly deflated, lowers his head.
"It's because of who we are ... and what we believe."
The two young men sit down on the rails. An after-midnight mist is gathering, roiling up out of the surrounding woods. The coolness of it touches them and they shiver involuntarily. Bucky and Rudy are drawn into the mist and toward the edge of the woods. The night opens its box of curiosities to their animal senses.
"I don't know what you mean," says Gast. "Because of who we are—how does that relate to what has just happened?"
"Evil can always take advantage of good," Nickel murmurs. It appears that he is speaking as much to himself as to Gast. "The Omegas know that we Alphas believe in trusting. We believe in honor and truth— we're not like other vampires."
"We don't believe in cruelty," Gast echoes, "and yet the Omegas tempt us into being cruel. They bring us down to their level. We fail to rise above their darkness and assert our humanity. Have they beaten us?"
"I think they have—unless ..."
"Unless what?"
Nickel turns to face his fraternity brother. "Unless it's true what we Alphas have always said about evil... that evil eventually destroys itself."
"But in the meantime, they still have her. We'll never get her back, Nickel. We'll never get Millicent back."
In the lantern light, shadows slither across Nickel's face. He looks grave.
"Maybe ... maybe she's all the way gone. Maybe they did away with her."
"Don't say that, damn it. Don't even think it. Don't let the thought of death enter your mind. We can't let it."
And yet it has. And it is a stubborn thought. The energy of it expands to obsess them. They sit in silence and abject sadness for several minutes before they hear barking and squawking filtering out from within the mist.
Suddenly Rudy is winging his way to Nickel, fluttering to a landing on his shoulder.
"Be not afraid. Being here is magic," utters the bird.
Gast and Nickel stare into each other's eyes.
A voice floats toward them from the mist: "Is it you? Palmer and Nickel—is it you?"
They quickly stand. Gast cannot believe his eyes. A young woman clad in white wafts in their direction, but he continues to doubt what he is seeing.
Is it a ghost? he wonders.
Nickel makes a move to dash at the figure, but Gast yells, "No, wait!"
The image of Millicent is walking slowly, shuffling like an uncertain bride. As she nears, Gast can see the flicker of her brave smile.
"Yes," he says. "Yes, she's real. She is real."
He runs and his heart outdistances his body. Millicent's smile brightens; the mist seems to melt away. Bucky is barking and Nickel is shouting in joy, and when Gast opens his arms it is the happiest moment of his life. In each other's arms, brother and sister embrace, and that embrace fills the night with relief and warmth and love.
In the days following, a false peace umbrellas Mantis College. Gast is elated by the emotional rush of it, for peace is what he has sought most. The Alpha vampires and the Omega vampires are no longer at war, and though no formal treaty has been signed, not even a handshake has been offered, Gast believes, or wants to believe, that the conflict is over.
The Alphas celebrate Millicent's return with a lavish
dinner party orchestrated by Miss Henny, the house
mother, and attended by Conrad Blutmann and by
members of the Gamma	sorority. It is a mar
velous affair blotted only by the fact that Tom Brown
did not attend, thus clearly disappointing Millicent
Gast notices her disappointment.
Could she be in love with Tom? he wonders.
Gast accompanies his sister to visit their parents on the north edge of Sweet River where his father mans one of the last remaining blacksmith shops in Alabama. To his dismay, Gast finds that the long-standing rift between him and his father persists, but he takes solace in knowing that because his parents were not aware of Millicent's kidnapping, they did not anguish over it. His dear mother is overjoyed to see her offspring, but her maternal eye sees how pale and tired Millicent looks. She notices, as well, a small mark on her daughter's face where an Omega cigarette has burned her.
Gast recalls that Miss Henny also voiced concern about Millicent: "I'm worried about her," she confided. "Something's not right She's not completely herself."
"But she's been  through  hell," Gast countered. "She's been with them. How could she not seem a little like a zombie?"
In returning to what she has always known, Millicent plays her part courageously. She is especially eager to see the New Path children again, and when they see her at last they overwhelm her with love.
But Gast knows that it is time to get back to mundane realities, and he is thankful to be able to do so. Classes and the usual routine of college life are welcome. Millie has enrolled in only one class, but Gast has a full load. Both are behind in their work. For Gast, being freed from the moment-to-moment terror of conflict with the Omegas and having Millicent safely back allows him to concentrate on his blossoming affection for Agatha, a sorority girl he has become more and more attracted to.
Imagine then a cool autumn night behind the New Path home where the train tracks angle a sharp cut through Sweet River. Imagine that Gast and Agatha, holding hands, are approaching a small campfire. Three young negroes are huddled there warming themselves; their faces beam when they see Agatha approaching with a fresh loaf of bread. They thank her profusely for the food, and she introduces them to Gast and assures them that he will not report them to the sheriff. They call themselves "the Inky Boys," a name they are obviously proud of, just as they are proud to have done some odd jobs for the New Path home where Agatha sometimes volunteers alongside Millicent.
After delivering the bread, Agatha wants Gast to walk with her down to the tracks before returning to her sorority. Imagine that you are close enough to the young couple to overhear their conversation and to feel the pulse Of their attraction for each other.
"I'm enjoying Professor Cloninger's Epic Poetry class. Aren't you?" says Agatha.
"I am. I just hope he'll be lenient in his evaluation of the paper I'm about to turn in."
She smiles. Then, her voice acquiring even more seriousness, she adds, "Professor Cloninger says there will be no winners in the Trojan War—is that true for the Alpha-Omega war?"
Surprised by her allusion to the two vampire fraternities, Gast bristles.
"Our war is over. Maybe you shouldn't even call it a 'war.' We've fought some, yes, but the fighting is over now."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I must."
"Young men seem to need to fight. Look at the Trojan War."
"But Homer's writing a story. Real life is different"
"You mean you don't think The Iliad reflects what is going on with the vampire fraternities?"
Gast chuckles. "Hey, I'm not in class this moment. When did you become a professor?" He pauses. "Sure, yes, The Iliad is about every war that's ever been fought, and that's because it lays before us antithetical values: eleos or compassion versus kleos or glory."
"Which value belongs to the Alphas?"
"Compassion, of course."
"What about courage and justice?"
"We have those on our side, too."
"Are you certain?" Agatha's smile is coy, yet intelligent.
"I know that the Alphas are motivated by love—our love of Millicent spurred us on. Weren't the Greeks motivated by love as well?"
"I suppose. Helen must have been very beautiful, but she seems rather shallow. And to begin with, those three goddesses were eaten up with jealousy of one another. Do you think Paris made the right choice?"
Gast squeezes her hand and pulls her closer to him.
1 know what goddess I would choose today."
Though the night hides it, Agatha blushes, then changes the subject.
"I want to talk about vampires," she says.
Gast releases himself into her voice, into her manner. He can feel that he is becoming more and more enamored of her. However, the subject of vampires is not one he particularly desires to explore.
"There's nothing much to say—we're different. That's all."
Agatha strolls on in silence. Gast tries but fails to read her thoughts. Her tone is cautious, yet probing.
"You've fed upon me, haven't you?"
The night draws down. The air is heavy. Gast is having difficulty breathing as he nods. He glances at her face, catches the gleam in her eyes, then quickly looks away. She seems eager to pursue the issue.
"Why didn't I become a vampire, too?" she asks.
"Do you want to be one?"
"I don't know. But wait—you have to answer my question first."
On a side track is an empty boxcar with its sliding door open. Gast helps Agatha up into it, and they sit and dangle their legs and there is talk of secret things, especially the idiosyncratic rules of night creatures.
"We're not like most vampires you read about in books," says Gast, "and not like the one in that silly movie Dracula."
"You drink blood, don't you?"
"Yes, but Alpha vampires would only turn someone else into a vampire if that person has carefully chosen to be one. And when we feed upon nonvampires, we don't hurt them. In fact, it's a pleasant experience."
She smiles. "I do recall something like a dream," she says. "And I knew that you had been near. I found marks on my throat."
"I was with you, and I did feed. I heard the music from Swan Lake—I took into me all your most positive thoughts and images. The Omegas, on the other hand, make feeding painful. They deliberately extract nightmares from their victims. Or so I'm told."
"What about all the other aspects of vampire lore?"
"You mean like mirrors and garlic?" She nods. "Oh, much of that doesn't apply. Yes, I don't care for mirrors. Some of them make my body generate too much heat. But garlic is not a problem. I don't sleep in a coffin, and I can go out in the noonday sun, though I'd rather not I can't turn into a bat or a wolf, but," and here he chuckles, "I might be able to cast a spell over you."
"Is the same true for the Omegas?"
"Pretty much. You have to understand, though, that their energy derives from cruelty while ours is from courage and compassion."
Quiescence coils around them. They edge closer. Gast can hear her heart beating.
"Palmer," she says, "do you like being a vampire?"
"Not all of the time, no. But being one makes me feel tremendously alive. I don't fear death. I do believe I am immortal. It helps to be able to share the vampire life with my fraternity brothers. Brotherhood keeps us strong."
"Don't the Omegas have brotherhood, too?"
He reaches back and grins broadly. "Hey, you're a smart one, aren't you?"
"I just want to understand who you are—your life."
"OK, yes, the Omegas have brotherhood... a brotherhood of darkness and cruelty and savagery and suffering. It's a powerful brotherhood."
"Are you ever tempted to become like them?"
Gast hesitates. He thinks of Angelus and being wounded by him and feels a tidal wave of sadness wash over him. He thinks of how much he would like to exact revenge for what the Omegas have done to Millicent. Then, in a tone of regret, he whispers, "Every moment of every day."
He doubts that she understands, but there is something about her curiosity that intrigues him.
"Why," she asks, "is everything about the Alphas and the Omegas so secretive? Most students on campus know almost nothing about you."
Gast shrugs. "What else do you want to know?"
Agatha is smiling. Her manner projects mischief. She appears to be buoyed by the possibilities of forbidden things.
"Secrets," she says. "Tell me one secret about the Omegas and one about the Alphas."
"Secrets?" He takes a deep breath. He pauses to light a cigarette, a Chesterfield, but when he notices out of the corner of his eye that she disapproves, he snuffs it out. "Well, both fraternities have secret handshakes and gestures of greeting and coded whistles and that kind of thing—but every other fraternity on campus has those." He lapses into a thoughtful pose. He stares up at the stars as if looking for a signal that she can be trusted. "OK, here. I'll share a couple of deep secrets with you."
Agatha claps her hands in little girl fashion. "Oh, good, good."
"But you have to swear never to repeat what I'm about to reveal."
Instantly she holds up her right hand, palm out. "I swear."
"OK, this is about what we fear," he says.
"Are you going to talk about scar feasting? I already know about that. I've seen fellas in bandages. I've heard the rumors."
Gast shakes his head. "No, this is about mortal fear." He waits for the gravity of his words to billow around them like dust or a thick fog. "You see, what the Omegas fear most is fire. There's just something about their physical and psychological makeup that generates that particular fear—it's something they accept."
"And the Alphas?"
He hesitates, searching her face for a guarantee that she will keep the secret. Uncertain that he has seen that guarantee, he continues anyway. "For us, it's water. Lakes, rivers, storms, floods. Don't ask why. Don't ask me to explain. One day what you know now may be very important, for you see ... the Alphas know what the Omegas fear, but they don't know what we fear."
"I've always hated her."
Miss Comfort and Dead Peter are in the kitchen of the House of Night. Comfort is bustling about, trying not to step on the swirling, meowing chaos at her feet as she sets saucers of fresh blood down for the Omega cats. Dead Peter is contemplating the smoke rings he is lofting into the air, but the housemother's resonant declaration interests him.
"Why? Henny Blutmann seems an innocuous soul. Is she a better spell caster?"
Miss Comfort shakes her head as if to deflect his teasing; her flabby jowls quiver. "That's not it. I have my reasons. We'll just leave it at that. But I warn you—that woman can be trouble for the Omegas."
Dead Peter dismisses the remark with a snort "I hardly think so. I'm much more concerned about someone else."
"And who would that be?"
Squinting through a drag on his Lucky Strike, Dead Peter says, "That strange bearcat Shatterhand has paired off with. I don't like the kind of influence she has over him."
Miss Comfort smiles maliciously. "Not jealous of her, are you, Master Peter?"
"Not a jot. The fact of the matter is this: our war with the Alphas has miles to go before it's over. Down the road we'll need Shatterhand to gain the victory we want and need. Fauna could interfere. We can't let that hap-pon."
"So what do you propose to do?"
However, before he can respond, Angelus and Bliss, hand in hand, break in upon them. Bliss is bubbling with excitement. "Come see what our evil genius, Fritz, is creating. In the billiard room. Now you'll get to see why he's had that area closed off."
In the magnificent, oak-paneled room, Dead Peter drinks in an unusual sight: the billiard tables have been removed; the room is chilly and rather dark, the lantern light positioned to partially illuminate a machine of some sort, but there is virtually nothing familiar about it. The steel of it is blue black, and though at first blush one might imagine that it is some type of farm implement, Dead Peter senses that it is not. He is deeply moved by the impression the object creates: it is a nearly unfathomable juggernaut—it is the most sinister contraption he can possibly envision.
The author of this hideous device is Fritz Kappas, a pledge. He is a short, dumpy fellow, as bald as Dead Peter; his eyes bulge, causing him to resemble the actor Peter Lorre. And when he speaks, his voice is low and raspy. After each sentence, he puffs as if all the air in his lungs has been momentarily forced out.
"Here it is," he proclaims proudly to Dead Peter and the others, "a machine that will be like no other." His puffing seems exaggerated.
Dunkel and Wings join Fritz in staring at Dead Peter for his reaction. They see that the vein on his forehead is pulsing, a clear sign of excitement, but several moments pass before he finally speaks.
"What is it? What is it for?"
Fritz giggles. "It's a machine to ... to harvest Alphas, shall we say?" He puffs, then giggles some more.
Wings follows. "Peter, it's something that might have been designed by Mr. Hitler, Germany's savior. He must be a powerful vampire. And with this machine, the Omegas will be even more powerful vampires than we are. We'll make history."
Dead Peter strolls around the object, which is nearly as large as an automobile, and he appears to be interested, amused, and puzzled all at once. He stops before Fritz and looks down at him. "Explain what you have built here. Where did you get the idea for this?"
"Have you never read Franz Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony'?" Puff, puff. "I'm modeling it on Kafka's creation—it's nearly complete." Two more puffs.
Dead Peter gestures at it and smiles. "How the fuck does it work?" He laughs nervously, and all the other Omegas join him. And. suddenly Fritz Kappas holds center stage, a mechanical magician and proud parent of a ghastly offspring.
"It consists, as you see, of three parts," he begins. And he puffs. "Down there is the bed, and up there the sketcher." The puffing becomes panting. "Here in the center—the freely hanging part—that is the harrow." Then, when his panting abates sufficiently, he points to the brass rods, some six feet in length, that connect the sketcher to the bed. "Notice the needles on the harrow."
Dead Peter steps forward. His eyes flame with an epiphany. "I see, yes, precisely. And one electric battery operates the bed while the other operates the sketcher, which in turn, I assume, operates the harrow."
Fritz nods enthusiastically. "The victim lies stomach-down on the bed, and the harrow responds to calculated movements."
Dead Peter suddenly hisses—a sign that he is very pleased. "And the harrow... writes upon our victim— am I correct?"
Fritz bounces and applauds. "Yes, yes, yes."
Glancing around at the other Omegas, Dead Peter pauses for effect. "And just what, Mr. Kappas, does the harrow write?"
Through sweaty puffing and panting, Fritz murmurs theatrically, " 'Born to Suffer.' Are you not impressed?"
Everyone awaits Dead Peter's final assessment. He appears to be inwardly musing upon some unfolding scene. Then, finally, he smiles wickedly and says, "It is the perfect instrument of cruelty and torture—perfect!"
He reaches for the wrist of the young pledge, rakes open a vein, and begins to drink.
As he does so, Angelus and Bliss slip from the room.
"Isn't it wonderful?" says Bliss. She is maliciously delighted.
Angelus attempts to kiss her, but she presses her hand into his chest to prevent him. "Isn't what wonderful?" he says.
'The machine, of course. With it, we can teach the Alphas the meaning of pain."
"Do we have to talk about suffering and pain? What about us? What about love?"
They are sitting on an ornate sofa in a gothic room of brocaded walls and soft lighting. Bliss laughs, "You can't be serious."
"But I am."
She runs a long fingernail seductively across his lower lip. "Tell me something, my vampire boy, do you miss your friends? Do you miss being an Alpha?"
He draws back. He seems outside of himself. "It doesn't seem real... like that was another life. It's like it was a dream. Sometimes I—"
"That other life will fade completely in time. Turn your thoughts to yourself instead. To your singing."
"I suppose I should."
"Would you do something for me?" His smile is eagerly expressive, laced with a not-so-subtle hope for intimacy. She follows quickly, "No, this isn't about sex." He frowns comically, and she adds, "I want you to enter the next amateur night competition at the Empire—and I want you to win it for me. Sing like your Bing Crosby. Sing roses out of thorns."
"For you, anything."
She glows from his admiration, but not for long. She unearths a more serious thought and presents it to him. "You know, don't you, that our war with the Alphas isn't over? You know that they will want to destroy me."
"I won't let them."
Her smile in return is mischievous. "If they succeed ... if I die, I'll come back to haunt you." She rises from the sofa and fakes a menacing lurch at him. He laughs.
"Like Ligeia?" he says. "From Edgar Allan Poe?"
"Oh, vampire boy," she purrs, "you read too many books."
"It's a short story."
"It's words, dear boy. Just words. There's no blood in words. No life."
Then she kisses him deeply, passionately, and for Angelus the world is suddenly a blossoming rose dripping with blood.
It is a warm yet windy afternoon, and the Snark has tunneled to a vantage point he has hoped for: the rear of the New Path home for children is fully in view, a rambling derelict of a building behind which is a swath of patchy lawn, a small vegetable garden, and an equally small chicken pen.
The Snark has periscoped himself slightly above-ground, though definitely not in plain sight He is watching the young woman he adores: Millicent Gast. She is standing like a central pole as children laugh and circle her and a chestnut-colored mule named Mr. Hoover she is holding by a rope rein.
Even as he gazes in love and admiration, the Snark is thinking about war and heroes and goddesses. Palmer Gast has loaned him a copy of The Iliad, and the experience of reading it has transported him. Its pages have made him realize that he knows what must happen: the vampire war between the Alphas and the Omegas will continue. Homer would have understood. That great blind poet would have seen that Dead Peter carried cruelty in his heart.
He'll come after me one day, the Snark muses as horrid images of the Omega president come to mind.
Homer's narrative suggests that war is inevitable. The Snark believes it.
And yet, he also continues to believe in heroes. In the pages of The Iliad he senses that some exist—not Paris, a weakling and a coward. No, the one who intrigues the Snark is Achilles sitting in his tent, brooding over his wrongs. Achilles—who will fight, in the words of Homer, "under the shadow of death."
Under the shadow of death.
The words thrill the Snark.
Something like cool, electric smoke snakes through him. Shadows war-dance jubilantly in his thoughts— drums of memory are distant, distant, then suddenly closer. Too close.
Help me! Save me!
His mother's voice is always there. Never far away. Never too deep in the well of things repressed. The final moments of the recurring scene play out: at the fish camp bordering Night Horse Swamp, the boat, a boy with his parents enjoying a Sunday afternoon, and then flash frames of movement that make no sense. The world rotating too fast. Turning. Just a boy turning and trying to understand what happened. Eyes burned with disbelief. A splashing. His mother. His mother in the water. Cries for help. Fingering a life float, ready to toss it to her. Confusion. Confusion. Words that send him into a fiery panic. Final screams.
And he doesn't save her.
It's over. The lake at the fish camp claims the terror of the drowning woman.
Sworn to secrecy.
Life is all a matter of how you live with secrets.
The voice echoes in his emptiness, and then is replaced by another voice.
Hers.
Millicent's voice is the voice of an angel. Heavenly music. It lifts him from his dark reverie.
"Who wants to ride Mr. Hoover?" asks the angel.
Quartets of hands wave. Down away from the scene, two boys struggle to get a kite aloft. Millicent hoists a little boy and two girls onto the back of the mule. "Hold on tight," she advises. The Snark watches, his body slack, for he has given himself up completely to love. The children laugh and chortle and scream with glee. The mule plods dutifully in a circle. Millicent leads. The Snark sees how much she treasures her charges. They call her "Mama Millie"—the words bring a smile to the Snark's crooked lips. He imagines that this young woman would risk her life in an instant for these children. She would walk through hell for them.
But something is wrong.
Even from a distance the Snark can see it in his beloved. She is beautiful, yes, most definitely. And virtuous. And courageous. And yet... and yet, yes, something in her manner is different. Grace has been stolen from her movements. She isn't fully herself. The Snark can see it, feel it It is as if she hasn't been rescued.
The Omegas continue somehow to control her.
The Snark senses it with the same certainty that he senses his heart beating.
The young woman he adores appears to be sharing her life with these children, but she is not quite in the moment. It is, the Snark realizes, as if she is behind glass, and his sudden urge is to smash through and save her—return her to the windy, sun-filled present.
It's Miss Comfort—her evil powers.
Out of nowhere, the Snark thinks of Tom Brown, vampire magician. He could save her.
But I want to.
The laughter trails Millicent as she joins the two boys who have given up efforts to fly their kite. Millicent takes over for them. She runs with the kite, and a half dozen children follow her like pearls on a broken strand of a necklace. The sounds of joy rise with the kite, and when it is aloft the Snark watches as Millicent holds the string and stares up at the colorful, wind-riding object. And quite suddenly the Snark sees that the young woman is the kite.
She is the delicate thing being controlled.
He almost runs to her. But brutal realities hold him back. Regret tears at his chest as his thoughts anchor him to the ground.
I'm so ugly I would frighten the children.
I would frighten my love.
One day. One day, yes, he vowed that one day he would find the courage to say to her, "I'm going to be your hero. I'm known as 'the Snark,' but my real name is Sinclair ... Sinclair Lewis Nightingale ... and I love you."
But not this day. No, not this one.

Thirteen
Blutmann shifts uncomfortably in his chair, for the meeting is going badly and he feels helpless to change the course of events. The dark wood wall panels, ornate desk, and expensive chairs in President Davis's office fail to give the discussion the air of gravity and authority it needs; the simple fact of the matter is that President Davis is in over his head regarding the complexities of the Alpha-Omega conflict. Not even having put off the meeting for several days has made sifting through harsh realities any easier—Davis, at once, knows too much and too little. He cannot possibly understand vampires, and therein, for Blutmann at least, lies the rub.
As Davis continues to drone on ineptly, Blutmann takes in the participants: Davis, of course, impeccably dressed, a carnation in his lapel; and then there is a young weasel of a man named Porter representing the Inter-Fraternity Council; and on either side of Porter the principals of this awkward, ill-managed hearing: Palmer Gast, representing the Alphas, and Peter Stoker, representing the Omegas. The other person present is Dr. John Stone, whose attendance strikes Blutmann as both odd and inappropriate.
Imagine now that your ear catches the rhetorical conclusion of President Davis's diatribe.
"Without civility on our tiny island of intellectual pursuit, what do we have? I would maintain that we risk chaos, and for that reason I must side with Mr. Porter and the recommendation of his council: to wit, that the local chapters of the Alpha and Omega fraternities be placed on immediate probation and be charged with fulfilling the addendum of campus services submitted here today by the council."
Davis pauses. His is the manner and mode of a man who, though he has made a decision, has virtually no idea whether it is the right one. He is stumbling through alien territory, and, to his credit, he possesses a vague awareness of how at sea he is. "Now, I would be remiss," he continues, "if I failed to give both of you an opportunity to offer a few closing words. Mr. Gast, we'll begin with you."
Blutmann sees in the face of Palmer Gast a troubled intelligence, a yearning, and a questing after lost causes.
"President Davis," Gast begins, "I have only a. sentence or two. View what I have to say as a pledge that I make on behalf of every courageous member of the Alphas: we desire peace, and we will expend every bit of energy possible to maintain harmony in the spirit of brotherhood and fraternalism. We will bear no ill will toward the Omegas."
President Davis flashes a tight smile and turns to Peter, whose bald head, pulsing forehead vein, and gold-rimmed spectacles combine to create a sinister presence. Blutmann holds his breath; as he surveys the young man and finds himself pulled irresistibly into his black, deep-socketed eyes, he wonders to himself: how did Peter become so twisted? Then he listens as the young man smiles wickedly and begins to exercise the glib and oily art of rhetoric.
"Mr. President, I find that my brother in kind names my selfsame promise."
An unnerving silence follows his declaration.
"Have you nothing more to say?" asks Davis.
Something indescribably evil passes across Peter's expression.
"Nothing, sir," he says.
'Then we shall adjourn. I thank you for attending, and I ask that before you leave this office you should display your good intentions to one another with a handshake."
Blutmann's breath catches in his throat as the two young men rise. He watches as Peter extends his right hand to meet the right hand of Palmer Gast, but what is not evident to others in the room is the blinkof-an-eye slicing of Peter's fingernail across Gast's palm. The blossoming of blood is immediate; Gast, however, shows no sign either of surprise or pain. And, in an orderly fashion, the three young men leave the office amicably as if many halcyon days will follow.
There will be no end to this war.
That is Blutmann's thought. He would bet on the accuracy of his intuition.
With the three younger men out of the room, Davis sits, pensive, genuine consternation riding upon his face. "It's difficult to gauge in these circumstances, but I believe the fraternities in question pose an imminent threat to other Mantis students and to the citizens of Sweet River." He looks to Stone for approbation.
Blutmann notices, and he wonders what's going on. He trusts no situation that includes Stone, and he is eager to punctuate his earlier assessment of the conflict: "Obviously the enmity between the Alphas and the Omegas will have to be monitored. Be assured that as dean of students, I will do everything in my power to keep hostilities from erupting again."
Davis, fiddling with an elegant fountain pen, glances from Blutmann to Stone. Blutmann senses that some agreement between them has been forged beforehand. At the silent urging of Stone, Davis moves to the next stage of the discussion.
"As you know," he begins, "in his capacity as college surgeon, Dr. Stone has become familiar with our... problem. He suggests, and I concur, that we bring to campus someone to work undercover, so to speak, to help us obtain a clearer picture of what we're dealing with." Confused, Blutmann frowns. Davis leans across his desk and hands him a small business card and says, 'This... individual... can be on campus in approximately ten days. He is currently on an assignment in New Orleans. Dr. Stone recommends him highly."
Blutmann involuntarily shivers from the sudden chilling of his blood. He stares at the card. He swallows. Nausea threatens. His head begins to ache dully. It is an intriguing card, black lettering upon a white background. In large, bold, gothic-style letters is the word Nidus; in smaller letters below it are the words Private Investigator; in the two upper corners of the card are delicate depictions of spiderwebs.
"No!" Blutmann chokes out. "Not toman!"
"Why on earth not?" says Davis.
"Because ... he's a vampire hunter!" Blutmann exclaims, unable to control the alarm in his voice. 
Stone smiles. "Precisely," he murmurs.
Davis, a smile of his own, though it is weak and nervous, says to Blutmann, "Do you, sir, actually believe in vampires?"
"I do, sir, yes." Then he gathers himself, exuding a studied calm as he speaks further, pausing between each word. 'This man is poisonous."
Stone counters: "With all due respect to Dean Blutmann's reservations about Mr. Nidus, we at Mantis face a potentially dangerous escalation of conflict, and we lack the means to ferret out the information we need. Mr. Nidus is very proficient at unlocking ... secrets. "And the final word seems to be tossed at Blutmann, who, in turn, presses for Davis to reconsider.
"Will you at least listen to my objections?"
And as Blutmann awaits a response, his thoughts are held captive by the image of a tall, thin, spidery figure clad all in black, wearing a top hat and cape. His is an axe blade of a face, one eye noticeably lower than the other, a cruel mouth filled with crooked teeth, and, most unsettling of all, fingertips sporting thick, fleshy pads and no fingerprints.
Davis shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I've made up my mind. I must do what I think is best for Mantis College. I feel we need an answer from the outside."

          Fourteen
You can see it in his eyes.
There's never been another vampire like Tom Brown in the history of vampires. You can see it in his eyes: wildness. Every young man needs wildness, true, just as every young woman needs wilderness—but there is a crucial difference between wildness and wilderness: the former is a state of being, the latter is a projection of self; the former resides intensely in the moment, the latter exists only somewhere up ahead. Wild Tom Brown is a mesmerist, a magician. As a vampire, he is a mixture of natural and supernatural. He is constantly becoming something else, but no one knows what, just as no one knows how he pulls off his jaw-dropping magic. Does Tom himself know?
See him now in his circus wagon cage parked next to the train depot downtown. Twilight nears; a thunder-shower approaches from Montgomery racing freights and passenger trains, but carrying no load beyond rain, no passengers beyond the spirits of a dying day. Like the storm, Tom Brown is inexorable: he is who he is and he won't be persuaded to change. The spitting image of a young Gary Cooper, he is wearing khaki pants, shirt, and a safari hat, and as he clasps the bars and surveys the gathering crowd, he is the embodiment of want. And what is it that he wants?
Attention.
He wants to be the center of the universe. He wants to be the sun. He wants every eye to fix upon him; he is sustained, he is fed, he is nourished by the eyes of strangers. He needs their attention more than he needs warm blood every other day. Attention is his religion, his philosophy. He could live virtually without anything else, for his is a fasting heart—food for his soul is delivered through wonder. Without attention, he would flee into the wild of himself and starve. So he must do what he must do.
The local police object to his cage being where it is, but the good people of Sweet River have solicited for Tom not to be evicted from his spot. They want to see what this young marvel is up to. Of course, children are the first to surrender to curiosity. They wander up, awestruck, innocent, and giggly. Adults follow, becoming more childlike with every step closer to the cage. And as if called by some preternatural voice, folks driving along side streets find themselves turning their autos around and heading them to the depot.
Nickel is the barker. And a good one. You will see that he is tricked out as the hideous Phantom of the Opera and bears a striking resemblance to the famous screen image created by Lon Chaney. When he lurches forward to render his spiel, little kids scream-laugh and laugh-scream; adults pause, stare, swallow their repulsion, then laugh more loudly than they would need to. Very small children, those being carried by their fathers or mothers, look once before hiding their faces in the warm hollow of a parent's neck. Nickel relishes the reactions one and all. He makes no secret to his friends that one day he will journey to Hollywood to fill the void left by the death of Chaney. But Nickel will not pursue his dream before the Alphas have permanently dispatched the Omegas—before the Alphas have kicked the Omegas' bony, bloodless asses.
"Come see for yourself," Nickel the Phantom intones. He points at the cage, and points, as well, to a banner stretching across the top of the cage. It reads devouring strange: the most remarkable man the world has ever known. "Come closer," Nickel exhorts. "Come closer. It's all for a good cause: to raise money for the New Path Home for Damaged and Divorced Children. Our own Devouring Strange has set a goal of performing in the days to follow until he has collected ten thousand dollars—that's right, you heard correctly. Ten thousand dollars."
The crowd gasps appreciatively at the figure, a small fortune in the year 1931.
The mention of the cause knots them more tightly.
Tom Brown's ploy is masterful—not to say that he doesn't love the children, because he does. He is himself a product of the New Path home, having been deposited there as a boy when his father abandoned his alcoholic mother and she, in turn, abandoned her sons. In new surroundings, Tom and his brother found new lives. Now then it can be no surprise that Tom has two loyalties: the New Path home and the Alpha fraternity of vampires.
"Watch closely," Nickel continues, "as Devouring Strange demonstrates that the only bars that can cage us are those in our minds." The wrist is flicked; eyes focus on Tom Brown as his body seems to hiccup, his hat falls off, joints pop, muscles groan, and the apparently impossible is suddenly quite possible: the caged man squeezes between two bars and voila, he is free.
Applause erupts before trailing off into titterings and whispered amazements.
"Now," says Nickel, "isn't it about supper time? Is any
one out there hungry?"
A "yes" is blurted from somewhere, followed by several more. Nickel then walks off to one side and retrieves a good-sized pumpkin—imagine it is slightly larger than a basketball. To a boy in a tattered golfing hat standing in the front, Nickel offers the pumpkin. The boy can barely heft it, but is determined not to drop it.
"Now, son," says Nickel, "did you know that this is a special pumpkin?" The boy wags his head in a "no," and Nickel presses on. "Well, it is—it's a talking pumpkin." There are oohs and soft chatter. The boy's smile is expansive. Nickel waits for the commotion to die down, then says, "Go ahead and ask the pumpkin a question, and we'll see if it really can talk—do you think it can?"
The boy shakes his head. His grin threatens to split his face wide open. A man behind the boy leans down and whispers something in the boy's ear. Immediately the boy says, "Who's the president of the United States?"
And it is as if the entire town holds its breath. Everyone is listening for the pumpkin's response. When it comes, no one appears at first to comprehend that Tom Brown is also an excellent ventriloquist The thrown voice is deep and clear like a voice over on a newsreel. It says, "Every silly goose knows it's Herbert Hoover. But it won't be for long. Franklin Roosevelt will win the next election."
The response—surprise and cheers, a few boos and laughter—may be as much for Roosevelt as for the talking pumpkin and Tom Brown. Nickel keeps everything humming. He doesn't miss a beat. "Here we go," he says. "If you and I can 'swallow' all that our politicians dish out for us, I bet Devouring Strange can eat, devour, swallow whatever you ask him to. How about it?"
A tough-looking, dirty-faced boy pushes forward. "Betcha turtles to frogs he can't eat that whole pumpkin.”
At this point Nickel glances at Tom Brown. Brown winks. And the crowd carries the momentum of interest and fascination forward until they risk falling on their faces. And Tom Brown takes a first bite. And does not stop until it's all gone—including the hard, bristlelike topknot stem. When he's finished, there is a collective hesitation to respond that borders on total disbelief. Searching eyes zero in on the young man as if hoping for a rational explanation. Did what just happen really happen? Is it possible? Tom Brown's smile punctuates the moment: yes, I did it!
Then the cheering is electric.
Nickel quiets it long enough to ask, "What next?"
Another boy on the front row fishes into his back pocket. "How 'bout this bag of marbles?" And a man behind him: "I'd sure like to see him eat my hat."
Another smile from Tom Brown as Nickel hands him the objects.
The marbles roll out of the bag and clink down Tom's throat like balls of hard candy. The leather bag follows— Tom chews on it comically. The crowd is stunned. The man's felt hat with fancy brim goes down next, and someone is heard to say, "Harold, you'll have to get a raise to buy another hat like that one."
The crowd buzzes. It snickers. It applauds. It happily venerates.
Tom Brown. Devouring Strange.
Is there more?
The crowd is nearly exhausted with surprise, amazement, and wonder, but Nickel has enslaved them; Tom Brown has them in mesmeric chains. They are being led into his wildness, and they are blissfully lost.
"See this parrot?" Nickel asks. But, for a moment, there isn't one. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Rudy wings his way to land on Nickel's forearm. All the while Tom Brown is taking off his shirt; in doing so, he wins some charming giggles, not to mention a few wolf whistles, from females in the crowd. His chest is muscular and hairless. His stomach shows no sign of what he, barely minutes earlier, ingested.
To the bird, Nickel commands, "Go to your master!"
Folks duck as the parrot flaps out over them, circles once, and then beams in on Tom Brown's naked chest before appearing to slam into it... and disappear. One shriek is heard. Many exclamations. A gasp or two of fear. A smattering of "How'd he do that?" It seems impossible that it was an illusion.
Nickel has the crowd by the throat. He directs Tom Brown to turn around so that his muscular back is to them.
"There's one more miracle," he declares, "for you see if you will return in the coming days—and if you will open your hearts as well as your money bags—you will see our wonder man here do more than become a walking nest of all manner of fowl. Are you ready for this? Within a month, your eyes will feast upon the miraculous sight of a man who has grown his own pair of... wings!"
The crowd barks at the suggestion of such a marvel.
But then someone cries out for them to look at Tom Brown's back, and yes, there, if you telescope in on his shoulder blades, you can see them—the starts of bony projections ... and could they be the birth of wings?
Tom Brown whirls around. Nickel shouts, "We'll leave you today with a little laugh before I pass around the collection plate."
Chuckles and muffled laughter are ground clutter even as Tom Brown gathers himself. No one knows what may follow, and thus everyone is surprised when the parrot cannonades out of Tom Brown's mouth, squawking, feathers scattered to every wind that blows.
And the laugh begins.
It chugs from deep within Tom Brown like a train pulling away from the station. The ha-ha pistons from someplace where no one ever is, and the crowd is overtaken by the sound, the pulse, the thrum, the darkness, and the delight of it. And then, they, too, begin to laugh because they cannot possibly keep from it. Infectious, contagious laughter. Laughter, laughter, laughter. In a matter of seconds they are losing themselves in laughter.
They hardly notice as Tom Brown levitates with his laughter.
The laughter of the crowd brings tears and sore ribs.
They do not notice.
But minutes later a few become aware that Tom Brown has disappeared.
Right before their eyes.
Nickel is there to reassure them: "Not to worry, good folks ... he'll be back."
The timing is perfect. With Rudy the parrot on his shoulder, Nickel the Phantom weaves his way in and out of the crowd, a milk bucket in hand. Coins and bills rain into it even as the predicted evening shower begins to fall.
Two members of the crowd seek shelter across the street at Nightingale's.
"Wasn't he wonderful?" says Agatha as Gast sets Bucky down and helps Agatha out of her jacket.
"He always is," says Gast.
They order coffee and pie, the latter laced this evening with monkey rum. Bucky also enjoys a saucer of coffee and wags his stubby tail in appreciation when his master dribbles something into it from a concealed flask.
"I'm glad there's peace again," says Agatha.
And that's what triggers it for Gast: a hazy, dreamy projection.
It grips him like a vise.
It unfolds in his thoughts as a scene in which Tom Brown is squaring off against Shatterhand—blood and fire and secrets. Secrets erupt from beneath their feet. And when the projection, or whatever it is, passes, Gast is depressed. His dream of peace suddenly seems impossibly out of reach—it seems merely a dream.
"Do you know the fable of the swallow?" he says.
Agatha's pretty face brightens with curiosity.
"Hmm, I don't think so."
"It's about impossible ... quests. In the fable there's a swallow who once every thousand years transfers a grain of wheat to make a pile that will eventually become a mountain so high that it will reach the moon."
"Mercy. A bird of patience."
"Yes, patience. Patience is everything. Maybe we have to be patient in order for peace to stay with us."
Agatha smiles, obviously enamored of the thoughtful young man.
Bucky breaks up the moment with a yap or two to signal he needs more moonshine in his saucer. Gast and Agatha laugh, and then she says, "A dog's life. Do you think he worries about the vampire conflict?"
"He's not removed from it," says Gast. "Even today the Omega cats were stalking him. Everyone close to the Alphas is fair game." And with that last comment he locks his eyes onto her. A warning flickers there. But she deflects it. She feels playful. She feels like teasing.
"Tell me, Palmer Gast, tell me truly... do you love Bucky more than you love me?"
"He's been my soul's companion for a long time."
A notch more seriously, Agatha probes. "Am I ever in your dreams?"
Though she doesn't realize it, she has activated something. An indefinable shadow slides across Gast's face. More than a shadow.
"I had a terrible dream last night—a real horror of a dream."
"Oh, sorry. Would it help to recount it?"
"Yes, perhaps."
And so he does. The image of an insect being pinned to a display board dominates. Then the machine with teeth. Then the impression that he is a piece of parchment being written upon. But when he notices that Agatha is cringing, he rushes to conclude his recounting. "I kept thinking: Tom Brown would know how to escape from this."
"This Tom Brown," says Agatha, "he sounds more and more like the Alphas' savior."
Gast nods somberly.
"The only problem is that he doesn't realize it. Not yet"
After midnight the rain abates, leaving in its wake a shimmering slickness around the depot. Tom Brown shivers in the straw in one. corner of his cage. He senses that someone is approaching, but because his inner radar does not detect an enemy, he does not bother to shake himself out of his comfortable, fetal ball.
He does wonder, though: who can it be?
A breeze puffs. Shadows jangle eerily.
"Who's there?" he says.
A timid voice ghosts forth: "I brought you a blanket... and I came to thank you for—"
With lightninglike reflexes, Tom Brown reaches through the bars, grasps an arm, and tugs his visitor into a shaft of muted light.
"Millicent Gast?"
"I was worried that you would get cold. You're doing so much for New Path that I wanted—well, the children, too, wanted—to do something in return."
He thanks her for the blanket. His eyes never leave her as he squeezes through the bars like a cat.
"But it's not the only reason you came."
Even her fingers flush.
"I know something's not right," she says.
He's studying her, taking her psychic pulse, X-raying her.
"It's a strong spell," he murmurs. "Miss Comfort has her fingerprints all over it"
Millicent chokes back a rising of emotion.
"Can you remove it?"
"I don't know."
"Would you try?"
Suddenly, still holding her arm, he closes his eyes and begins to wander among her thoughts as if they were museum pieces or art objects. Then he passes through a door leading into her heart. He is drawn to what he senses there. He opens his eyes slowly and finds her face.
"If you could be a bird," he says, "what would it be?"
Without hesitating, she whispers, "A bird of peace."
He registers an expression of pleasant surprise.
"Ah, yes, a snow-white dove. Close your eyes and don't resist."
He waits until her nervous trembling ceases. Whether it is his magic or hers or a merging of their wild talents, who can say? But imagine that you see Millicent Gast transformed into a dove. Imagine further that she circles out away from Tom Brown before swinging back to him. And into his chest. He shuts his eyes and appears to lapse into a trance.
He holds her there next to his heart as if he is holding his last precious breath. You have to assume by the smile on his face that the initial images flooding through him are positive. They are, however, soon replaced by threatening, inchoate, and bloody images. He cannot bear them for long.
She bursts from him, thrumming, hovering momentarily, before she is human again. And she can see it: the tracks of fear across his face. What she cannot know, however, is that what he saw before he released her is the only thing that has ever deeply frightened him. His stare has a basilisk aura—the mesmerist has, himself, been mesmerized.
Reluctantly, Millicent begins to back away from him. She is fighting tears, and as she trails farther into the shadows of herself, she whispers, not quite loudly enough for him to hear: "I love you, Tom Brown."
From a vantage point at ground level, not far from the scene, the Snark watches and hears and knows.
"He's a fool."
Smoke from Dead Peter's Lucky Strike nimbuses his head. He smiles crookedly. The large vein in his forehead jerks. He is pleased that he has Shatterhand's attention. They and other Omegas have gathered in the plush receiving room of the House of Night. Moonshine whiskey is flowing freely, and they are talking about President Davis's desire to end the conflict between the Omegas and the Alphas.
"I hear that he may enlist a vampire hunter," says Shatterhand. "Any truth to that?"
Dead Peter chuckles, then sneers. "Vampire hunter? Bring him on. He may find that in our cruel corner of the world the hunter becomes the hunted."
"A good leader should never be overly confident Shouldn't you regard the possibility of a vampire hunter with more respect?"
The speaker is Fauna. She is holding rather firmly to Shatterhand's bloodless arm. Dead Peter squints at her though a veil of smoke. He hates her. His thoughts entertain scenarios in which she is tortured exquisitely before dying.
"If a leader is weak—yes. Respect, however, is spawned by fear, and I do not fear vampire hunters. It seems to me that a good leader is one who generates fear, not one who experiences it. You see, I have been privileged to learn what strength truly is from a vampire who truly knows."
With that final line, he nods his head toward Shatterhand. Fauna's smile is expansive, and bitterly sardonic.
Shatterhand deflects Dead Peter's compliment and turns the conversation to other matters. "Peter, my friend," he says, "you invited me back to the House of Night to show off something. You want to impress, and I have no doubt that you will, but before you unveil your 'secret weapon,' as you call it, I have need of your help."
'You know I'm totally at your disposal, as are the other Omegas, including our beloved Miss Comfort." He gestures with his cigarette toward an overstuffed chair where Comfort is sitting festooned with cats and entertaining several Omega vampires with strange and horrific narratives of her own devising. "Would my help," Dead Peter adds, "have anything to do with Tom Brown's current silly display of magic downtown?"
Shatterhand snorts. "Hardly. I need no help when it comes to Tom Brown. Remember this: I'm the only one who can stop his insidious laughter. My hatred for him is more than he can overcome. At heart, he's a coward."
Dead Peter smiles and nods, pleased to hear such a bold remark.
"It's about his hands," Fauna interjects, and as she does so, she gently lifts her companion's left hand. "In order to play his masterful compositions, he needs for his hands to be beautifully flexible. The fingers need as much power and grace as possible."
Shatterhand raises his hands and holds them out where he and everyone else can admire them as if they were precious jewels. "I worship these marvelous appendages," he says.
"And rightly you should," follows Dead Peter. "But I don't understand what you—"
"I need the blood of a virgin," says Shatterhand. "I want you to secure one for me. Not just any virgin will do." The two of them exchange a knowing laughter. Then Shatterhand gazes into the face of Dead Peter. Something passes between them, something unsayable. Dead Peter does not nod, does not speak. He is moved. He takes the hands of his friend, the hands of the one vampire he admires more than any other, and he lowers his head and reverently kisses the back of each one.
From the seating area, there is a truncated cheer. But it has nothing to do with has just occurred with Dead Peter, Shatterhand, and Fauna.
"I must become Caligari!" Miss Comfort declares.
There is more cheering. Two Omegas help her out of the chair. Cats scatter. She bows to Shatterhand and Fauna and leaves the room ceremoniously.
"Where is she going?" asks Shatterhand.
"Up to her tower," says Dead Peter. "She is waging a war of magical spells with Miss Henny of the Alphas. They are vying for the soul of Millicent Gast—a candidate to be the virgin you need."
"Yes, I regret not taking advantage of her when she was at Bellenorth. I won't miss that opportunity again."
"There will be plenty of time to talk of virgins," says Dead Peter. "Come to the billiard room and see what we have. I think what I'm about to show you will whet your appetite for cruelty."
Imagine that Fauna is holding on to Shatterhand's arm again and that it is apparent she doesn't want him to reestablish a close relationship with Dead Peter, but she knows that this is not the time or place for a scene.
Fritz Kappas welcomes the threesome to what was once the billiard room. His bizarre contraption sits patiently. Dead Peter is quietly elated that Shatterhand's reaction is an arrested stare.
'You have piqued my curiosity," says Shatterhand. Then he turns to Fauna and adds, "It's not a grand piano, is it, my dear?"
She appears to be stunned by the machine—perhaps even repulsed by it.
"It's ugly," she murmurs.
"Quite to the contrary," says Dead Peter. "If you lust for horrors, it's lovely beyond words. It is an Omega contrivance of cruelty; it is the perfect tool for torture. It is a bloodless engine for bloodletting."
Shatterhand strolls around it, never taking his eyes from it. The machine appears to hold an almost pornographic fascination for him. "I want to hear its story," he says. "And then I want to see how it works."
Dead Peter gestures for Fritz Kappas to deliver his spiel.
Puffing, breathless, and whispery as usual, Fritz alludes to Kafka and then offers a formal description of a mechanism straight from some technical manual only he could possibly read. Finished, he steps back proudly.
Shatterhand rubs his palms together eagerly as if hungry.
"Demonstration," he exclaims.
Brow furrowed, sweating slightly, Fritz says, "But, you see, it can't operate unless there's... well, there must be a body ... that is, some living thing or it can't..." His voice trails off into nervous panting. He glances at Dead Peter for help. In turn, Dead Peter pauses. He is obviously confused. It is as if he assumes Shatterhand is joking. He looks around the room at Dunkel and Wings, and then he asks, "Is Angelus here?"
Someone responds: "Off with Bliss—in bliss."
Tittery laughter follows. But Shatterhand is not amused. Dead Peter does not know what the hell the vampire he idolizes is up to, and so, in a joking tone, he says, "We don't have an Alpha available."
Shatterhand turns and faces him. "I want to see blood."
"In time ... yes, blood ... you'll have blood deep enough to wade through."
Shatterhand burns him with a glare. "You're all cowards—how will you ever beat the Alphas if you're this cowardly?"
There is grumbling, and then a new wave of puzzlement as Shatterhand begins taking off his cape and shirt. Suddenly Fauna shrieks, "No!" but he pushes her back. While the others look on as if paralyzed, Shatterhand steps up to Fritz and says, "Don't let anything happen to these." And he holds out his hands; the six fingers on each of them seem alive. In the shadowy room, his hands dangle there like a pair of giant, pale spiders.
Dead Peter tries to stop what ensues, but Shatterhand is adamant. He lies down, stomach first, on the bed, his bare back a fleshy offering to the needle points of the harrow. Two of the Omegas have to restrain Fauna.
And then, before Shatterhand gestures for Fritz to pull the start lever, the bold vampire shouts, "Nothing is certain except cruelty!"
The initial hum and thrum of the machine sounds innocent enough. The needles lower and work indifferently. At first, the screams of Shatterhand are muted. But then they grow louder until finally they are unbearable to hear.
Afterward pads of cotton dab at the blood.
On Shatterhand's naked back a rough script ghosts through: Born to Suffer.
Fauna is sobbing.
The Omega vampires appear shocked at what they have created.
Still wracked with pain, Shatterhand haltingly delivers his concluding assessment: "My brothers," he intones, "I am much pleased."
Imagine now that the brief, halcyon days of September have passed. October has arrived in Sweet River, warmer than most Octobers. The Mantis College football team continues its winning ways; Tommy Don Wiggins continues to be the stalwart, running, playing as recklessly as little boys in their dreams. His abilities, his feats on the gridiron are becoming the stuff of legend. Victories, of course, generate a need for celebratory bonfires at the Camp of Miracles, and thus allow your mind's eye to people a scene with rowdy, jubilant students on a Saturday night worshiping a vaulting fire. Notice that on the far rim of the ritual, just beyond the illumination of the firelight, stand Conrad Blutmann and the trio of tramps known as the Inky Boys. This foursome, however, is not celebrating.
"He won't come into town during the day—he needs the cloak of night," Blutmann explains.
Three black faces study his—three black, frightened faces, for he has described in terrifying terms the nature of Nidus, the vampire hunter, who is on his way to Sweet River to perform his special service.
"Boxcar chalkin's—dey tell us. We's watch. We's know," says one of the tramps. "Dis here man, he no sneaks in uh town 'out we's knowin.' "
Blutmann nods. He believes he can trust the Inky Boys to alert him to the arrival of the vampire hunter.
"You boys—I've got to warn you—this man, Nidus, will do anything ... anything to get his quarry. You've got to be very careful. Y'hear?"
Eyes flash. Nervous gestures of understanding
The night is too warm. Blutmann hates the feel of it. He almost envies the young folks whooping it up near the bonfire. Their saturnalia calls to who he once was. But he leaves the scene, leaves his watchmen behind, and treks back to campus. Worry pursues him. Will things come apart? he wonders. On campus, he stops as he passes the House of Night, his eye drawn to the lone brick turret where a pale, sickly light burns. Miss Comfort is up there—he knows she is: madwoman in the tower, plotting not mischief, but horrors. The stone gargoyles seem to be watching him. Are they, too, casting spells?
Too many questions, too few answers. He quickens his steps to the Alpha House where his sister, Henny, greets him, and they retire to the rear of the old manse, to a screened back porch from which she disappears momentarily, returning with a tall glass of mint tea to counter the unusual warmth of the autumn night.
She gestures mysteriously with her hands.
"I feel hurricanes being spawned—this month," she says.
"One has struck British Honduras already," says Blutmann.
Her gaze distant, like a seer, she continues. "I feel one will come our way through the Gulf of Mexico, the old sea path. I sense a storm determined to ravage the land."
"Darkness approaches from everywhere," Blutmann murmurs.
And hearing his words, she smiles, shaking herself from her prophetic reverie. She touches his face lovingly. "You worry too much."
He stares into his tea. "I have the Inky Boys watching for him. Peace between the Alphas and the Omegas won't be possible if he hits town."
"The implacable Nidus—I could direct my magic at him."
"No, you need all that you have to protect Millicent."
She agrees.
"I invited her here. She should be along any minute."
Blutmann looks up. Then glances over his shoulder. "Comfort is at work. There was a light in the turret"
"Yes, I can feel her power. She's strong."
"So wicked."
"And determined—driven by an inner storm."
Blutmann searches his sister's face. "Has she no love in her heart? Can a woman exist who's so committed to evil?"
Soft laughter gently sculpts Henny's mouth. "My sweet, naive fellow—women are not immune to evil. Nature doesn't work that way, and you know it."
Silence momentarily colors their exchange. Darker hues are foregrounded. Blutmann clears his throat; his voice quavers. "Have we sinned, my love? Did we sin? Did we set all of this darkness in motion? Did we, long ago, surrendering to our desire for one another, plant the damnable seeds that have grown into these forbidding realities?"
"Conrad, we responded to the calling of our essential selves—no sin in that. There cannot be."
Blutmann is about to utter a protest or perhaps agree, he is not certain which, when Millicent Gast arrives. Blutmann immediately shifts his attention to her, noticing how pale she is, how fixed and glassy her eyes are. An uneasy feeling falls over him like a net as Henny greets the young woman and invites her to sit down. Millicent's not free, Blutmann thinks as he fades into a corner. He would leave, in fact, but Henny asks that he stay.
Settled in next to Henny on a wicker sofa, Millicent suddenly smiles as if, from miles away, a thought has landed. 'Tom Brown has collected over five hundred dollars," she announces, her affection for Brown obvious.
Blutmann listens and watches as Henny and the young woman engage in small talk, and he wonders how concerned Henny is about Millicent's spellbound state.
"I think," says Millicent, "that God sees into Tom Brown's heart. God wants the hearts of the New Path children. God wants my heart."
Henny reaches for a small hourglass. "God may want your heart," she says, "but vampires want your blood." She raises the hourglass so that Millicent can gaze at the falling sand and surrender to its hypnotic effect. Henny leans close to the young woman's face, studies her eyes searching for something Blutmann knows he can't possibly see.
Even closer now, Henny whispers to Millicent: "I need to look into your future, my dear. I need to know if darkness awaits."
Millicent's eyes are shut; she seems in a state of un-conseious bliss, and remains there even when Henny fills a wineglass with water and then carefully pricks the young woman's thumb with a needle before coaxing a drop of blood onto the surface. It splashes, then slowly sinks into a many-angled round. Blutmann is holding his breath. He knows he does not have the right eyes to read what his sister is reading. He fights his impatience.
It is as if fate has literally emerged from the young woman's bloodstream as a living reality, though secret unless one understands the code. Blutmann believes he notices his sister being seized by a barely perceptible shiver.
At last, she wakes Millicent, clasps her hands, and looks at her tenderly yet forcefully. She says many things, but Blutmann hears only her final remark distinctly.
"Stay out of the Night Horse Swamp, my dear."

Fifteen
It is her first lie.
Ever.
"I'll only be gone an hour at most," she says, but the lie makes her light-headed. It has provoked a dilemma of consciousness she could not have anticipated. "As I said, I'll be at the library. I need to go."
Millicent Gast looks into Agatha's eyes and is amazed that it's possible to issue an untruth and not be struck down immediately. Agatha offers to go along—it's a gloomy night, misty and cool as the curiously warm October weather has changed quite suddenly.
"No, I'll be fine."
Millicent hopes that the doubts she feels do not color her voice and give her away. Minutes earlier, the need for the lie presented itself. She was next door to the New Path home at the Culpeppers', an elderly couple possessing a barn in which they allow Mr. Hoover, the New Path mule, to be stabled. In the barn, Millicent, having fed the creature, rubbed the blaze running down his forehead. The barn hummed with silence and rich aromas of straw and ground corn and manure.
"How are you this evening, Mr. Hoover?" she had said, in that commonplace way that people will talk to animals, knowing full well that the beast hasn't the faintest idea what's being said or asked. Truth be told, Millicent was not even concentrating on the mule, but rather on her brief meeting with Miss Henny at the Alpha House ... and that warning: stay out of Night Horse Swamp.... Well, easy enough. Who in their right mind would venture into that place of horrors? And yet, there was more. Millicent could feel the pull. She was, indeed, being pulled two ways.
What she couldn't be completely aware of was her being the target of two powerful forces, one a magical spell sent her way from Miss Comfort ensconced in her gothic tower, the other a counterspell from Miss Henny. The impact of both dulled her senses; her head felt like cotton. And as she was stroking Mr. Hoover, a most peculiar thing occurred: the mule spoke.
"Save the child!"
Very clearly and distinctly, in an authoritatively male voice, that's what the mule said.
Millicent's hands stopped stroking. She staggered where she stood. She believed she might faint. And she in all likelihood would have had not someone entered the barn. A large man stepping toward her stealthily.
She suppressed a scream, and the shock of the mule's words combined with the surprise of the man's entrance annealed her into a strange moment of searing calm: "Who's there?" she said.
"Daddyman, Miss Gast... hit be Daddyman come askin' you tah hep out. Dere's a baby. Boy baby. He done been leff at da Blind Pig. I done been sent tah fine you."
He was extremely nervous and agitated.
Not fully herself, Millicent listened to Daddyman's plea. She didn't hesitate to respond. In fact, she could not have resisted a request to help a child. And that's what precipitated the lie, and the lie trails her now as she wends her way downtown, her thoughts swirling around the image of an abandoned baby.
See her now as she hurries along, propelled by her love for the innocent.
There is so much she does not, cannot know: at bottom she does not, cannot know that her lie is inextricably bound to the war between the Alphas and the Omegas, a conflict rekindling because Shatterhand needs the blood of a virgin and that virgin is being battled over by Miss Comfort and Miss Henny, two women of magic, two women of power.
So much depends upon who wins control of Millicent Gast.
When she reaches the shadowy alley through which she must pass to get to the Blind Pig, the mist has thickened, the air is chilly, and she cannot keep herself from shivering. She does not know that as she approaches the vile locale she is walking into a trap.
Nor does she know that beneath her feet the Snark is on the edge of madness with a desire to warn her ... warn her that he senses something is amiss .. . that the night holds secrets an innocent young woman isn't privy to.
Millicent slugs forward to her destination: the door to the Blind Pig is, for her, the entrance into perdition. She has never been here. As a stranger in a strange land, she looks up and down the alley hoping that her faith in the basic goodness of humanity will offer a sign not only that she is doing the right thing but that unseen powers will aid her. Unfortunately, all she notes is a large, chattering rat foraging among the rotting garbage a few feet away.
She closes her eyes tightly and knocks on the scarred door.
The sound of her knock thunders in her ears.
She trembles as she waits, and she senses it is very possible that the ugly setting might siphon off the last drop of her courage, but at just the right instant she hears an echo of Mr. Hoover's words: save the child! And she holds her place.
About eye level, a rectangular slot in the door suddenly winks open. Dead eyes stare out at Millicent; they expect her to say something. For a heartbeat or two, Millicent is speechless. She pants. The slot is about to close when she whispers, The baby."
The slot closes—Millicent's heart stops—then the door is swung open only wide enough for her to squeeze through. The room that reaches toward her is darker than she can know. Calling it dark is, in fact, absurd—rather like calling the sun light Within the darkness, the smoke is as thick as bales of cotton. The place reeks not only of smoke but also of cheap alcohol, strong perfumes, and something else—the cloying stench of old blood.
Reality slams into her chest: she should not be here. No decent girl, no young lady with morals, would ever enter such a place. Her instincts tell her to run, to run away and never come back. Then she is spotted by shadowy faces that look up from their drinking and their conversation. There are whistles and lewd catcalls from a far corner. She can't see who it is, but she senses—she smells—Omega vampires, the unmistakable stink of decaying and dead flesh.
Millicent wheels around to speak to the woman behind the counter. It's Loretta Block, the whisper sister, and she is staring at Millicent with eyes that do not blink.
"Is the baby here?" says Millicent, her voice quavering. She tries but cannot stop trembling; she fears that she may start crying. Smoke burns her throat, eyes, and nostrils. Or is it the darkness? The darkness that follows Omega vampires everywhere they go.
Block continues staring. Millicent is terrified that the stare will turn her to stone. Then, abruptly and still without blinking, Block says, "Do you long for death?"
Millicent cocks her head—did she hear the question correctly? Her lungs are fighting for breath.
"No," she manages to say at last. She thrusts her chin out. "No, ma'am."
Again, she hears the impossible voice of Mr. Hoover: save the child! And she feels the gusty chill of what must be Miss Comfort's pull and the equal force of Miss Henny's warmth.
"Vampires know only death," says Block.
Is that a warning? Millicent struggles not to pass out
The baby. I've come—"
The unblinking woman nods toward a corner where two shadows are huddled.
The place sinks into silence as Millicent makes her way from the bar. She feels as if she were swimming through a watery darkness. All eyes, of course, are upon her. When she is much closer, she can see that there is a young man and a young woman. The young woman speaks, "Ahoy!" Then cackles. Then continues. "I spy a virgin, vampire boy."
Millicent realizes that she knows the young man.
"Angelus? It's you, isn't it?"
His eyes hold a quiet fire, and yet he is obviously uncomfortable in being addressed.
"I don't know who that is," he replies. He looks so sad that Millicent feels something clutch at her heart. She then sees that the young woman is Bliss and that she is holding something. A blanketed something.
"I've come for the baby," says Millicent, who flashes her determination to get what she's there for and to leave as quickly as possible.
Bliss is cradling the child, rocking it. It is wrapped like a cocoon, though Millicent can see its pale head and a thin nest of black hair.
"I have a thing I need to do," says Bliss, "before I hand him over."
Millicent nods, not knowing how else to react
What happens next is a horrid surprise.
And she can do nothing to stop it. Bliss unwraps the baby. Then, with fangs that shiver forward when she opens her mouth, fangs milky and opalescent, she lowers her head to the child's throat.
Millicent's scream shatters the darkness.
Bliss drinks.
The Omega vampires cheer.
Millicent drops to her knees and buries her face in her hands. Yet she finds resolve. To herself she whis-pors, "Baby dear. Baby dear."
When she clambers to her feet, she is crying. She stabs a glare at Angelus, who appears to be in shock, repulsed by what he has just witnessed. At first, Millicent cannot look Bliss in the eyes, but she hears what the young woman has to say.
'This child is cold. Not enough blood. Better take it where it can be warm."
Reaching for the baby, Millicent allows herself one glance at Bliss and is sickened to see blood inching over the young woman's bottom lip onto her chin.
Save the child!
With the baby pressed against her breasts, Millicent turns and heads for the door. Loretta Block is behind the bar, and she is saying something, though Millicent cannot hear—it is as if horror has deafened her—but she can read the woman's lips.
Do you long for death ?
And the alley meets her steps and she is running, running. Omega vampires knot like a ball of snakes and spill out into the mist and watch and laugh as she escapes.
"Baby dear, baby dear," she whispers as she continues to run until her sides stitch with exhaustion and an ice-cold reality pours over her.
She has lost her way.
The mist has become a light rain. It is cold.
A building looms ahead, and in it she seeks shelter.
It is the old cotton warehouse, empty and ticking with silence.
But it is out of the claws of the night.
"Someone will find us," Millicent murmurs to the child. "Someone will find us, baby dear."
Dead Peter hates the sight of the machine, for it represents something about himself that he would rather die than admit: he has a streak of cowardice in him. He is embarrassed as he puts back on his shirt, and his embarrassment is redoubled because his trusted inner circle of Omega vampires is there—Wings, Dunkel, and Fritz. They see only too clearly that their leader cannot bring himself to submit to the self-torture ritualized recently by Shatterhand.
His face contorted, the prominent vein in his forehead pulsing, Dead Peter wheels away from the Kafkaesque machine to challenge his blood brothers. He raises a forefinger and the long, sharp nail seems to glisten. "If anyone should let slip what just happened here ... if anyone should inform Shatterhand of this, that brother will suffer beyond anything he can imagine. I promise you that."
Those gathered are sobered by the moment. No one speaks.
Some composure regained, Dead Peter asks, "Where's Comfort?"
"In the tower," someone responds.
"I must see her," he says. Then, with one final brush of a hard look at them, he departs, brooding thickly as he climbs his way to the House of Night's single turret. He finds Miss Comfort there, awash in shadows cast by a single candle; slithering around her in a continuous line like a giant snake are dozens of cats, meowing their eager, feral meow as the old and powerful housemother sits, eyes closed, with her hands folded in her lap.
For a fleeting instant, she appears grandmotherly. It seems, in fact, that she might be napping. Dead Peter approaches quietly, but she opens her large, owl-like eyes and grins her wicked grin.
"We have her," she says. 'The battle lines are drawn. She's in the warehouse. Everything is going as planned."
"Good," says Dead Peter. The anxiety caused by his incapacity to submit to the machine begins to fade. "We let her get away before—not this time. We'll deliver Shatterhand the virgin he needs. We'll please him."
Comfort sheds some of the cats and locks onto Dead Peter's eyes: "I'm ready for the battle."
"You won't fail us, will you?"
'Their Miss Henny is strong. It will take every ounce of magic I have."
"But you have more than magic," Dead Peter reminds her. "You also possess a bottomless hatred for your opponent I've often wondered why that is."
"Have I never shared that secret?"
Dead Peter shakes his head. The cats cease their crying. The candle flickers. And as if mesmerized by the flame, Comfort narrates an incident from the past. Dead Peter listens, surprised to hear in the woman's voice touches of humanity and, more so, vulnerability. For her narrative is of unrequited love—or stolen love. A years-ago passionate affair with John Stone, the same curious gentleman now serving as the college surgeon.
"On the eve of our engagement, she seduced him away. No, of course, she will maintain that she did nothing to encourage him, but Henny Blutmann had the shining beauty in those days that no man could resist She knew it. John Stone was weak. My sway over him could not hold. He deserted me for her and she, in turn, rejected him. It was all so ugly—the useless passion. And that is why I became a vampire—and that is why I hate Miss Henny with all my being."
As she completes her story, Dead Peter almost feels compassion for her, but he knows that is an emotion no Omega vampire can allow himself to feel.
"She deserves your hatred," he murmurs. "Your secret is safe with me if you wish it to be."
Comfort lifts her eyes from the flame and stares blankly.
"And that's not the end of the secrets at Mantis College."
Dead Peter's smile flickers. The conversation no longer interests him.
"Let us go claim our virgin," he says.
Palmer Gast cannot recall his hands ever being so cold. Is it from the chill of the night? Or the rim of ice around his heart? See him now as he sits in his customary area of Nightingale's nursing hot coffee, his fingers encircling the cup and pressing it for warmth. The steam drifts up past him in opaque and sinewy whorls, and as he waits for Nickel to return from his quest for help, Gast tunes in on every vampire's nightmare: a staking of the heart.
The "torturous" vision invites so many questions: who would be doing the staking and why? Would they use ash, the wood of vampire lore? And what would leap away as the point of the stake divided his heart? Would it mean death? And would such a death truly bring release? Gast lowers himself more deeply into the vision— he ignores Bucky's whimpers—and he imagines that his own personal staking would occur in a field freshly covered with snow. Cold comfort. And there, his arms and legs spread as if he were making a snow angel, he would die to the freedom of death. The stake would pin him to the earth. And he would wait without hope, without love, without thought, until... yes, perhaps ...
Perhaps a deadrise to a new self. One beyond suffering.
He awakens to the moment and to the reality of earthly suffering: his dear sister is missing, and, according to the Snark, her weakness for helping children has made her the easy prey of Miss Comfort and the Omegas. For Gast it is a nightmare revisited, and he doubts that there can be a peaceful resolution to any attempt to free Millicent once again.
He anticipates the shedding of blood. His own, if that's how it must be.
But his musings are interrupted by Nickel, who, breathless, charges up to him. Gast allows his fellow Alpha a moment to compose himself, then asks, "Is he coming? Will Tom Brown help?"
Nickel is shaking his head. "He won't. He says he can't."
Gast finds it impossible to believe what he's hearing. The words anger him. "What's this mean? Is he a coward? Tom Brown a coward?"
Again, Nickel shakes his head. "He says it's just that he can't leave the cage. He's there for the New Path kids. He won't leave until he's collected the ten thousand dollars."
"But you told him Millie's in trouble, didn't you?"
Nickel nods. "I think he's seen something—yes, I think maybe he's afraid. I don't know. I don't know what it is."
Gast suddenly feels as if he's been buried in a snowbank. Something icy is seeding into his veins, and in the approaching numbness he knows what he must do.
"I'm going to challenge Dead Peter to a scar feasting. A winner-takes-all duel. Alpha versus Omega. It's time to end the fighting. This can't go on."
"No! Don't do it, Palmer. I'm going after Miss Henny. Promise me you won't duel Dead Peter. This may be some kind of trap. They're baiting you into a fight."
Gast smiles weakly. "I've got no choice. The Snark thinks Millie's at the old cotton warehouse—that's where I'll be. I'll leave our challenge scarf at the House of Night. We all have to be brave—that's the Alpha way."
Minutes later Nickel is narrating the situation to Miss Henny, though it appears she is already well versed on the gravity of matters. She is clad in a black cape and a black veil, attire keyed to her most potent magic. Nickel studies her clothing, moved by the aura of it. He asks her if she can make it to the warehouse on her own, for he has something he needs to do first.
"I can," she says. "But there's one more thing: I don't want my brother to know what's going on."
Millicent is frightened by the child's lack of warmth. She rubs him and presses him to her, but she fears that he is weakening and may die.
"Baby dear, baby dear," she whispers. She knows that she must go for help, abandoning the safety and shelter of the dark, empty building.
Do you long for death?
The unblinking eyes of Loretta Block haunt her as the woman's ghostly voice falls around her. And other images swirl in her thoughts: the bloody lips of Bliss, the sorrowful expression of Angelus, the anxiety of Daddyman, and the imagined voice of Mr. Hoover, the mule.
Save the child!
She thinks of Tom Brown, wishes he were there. Then she takes a deep breath and starts to leave the warehouse. She sees lanterns and stops. Shadowy figures are converging onto the scene.
"Baby dear, baby dear," she whispers.
The mystery of the earth touches the mystery of the stars.
Far off and yet very close at hand, she hears a whistling of "Ode to Joy."
And she feels jolts of power and this time knows their sources: one from Miss Comfort, one from Miss Henny.
And she is suddenly too paralyzed to move.
Trembling, she closes her eyes and loses touch with how long she keeps them closed; what she knows is that when she opens them, the old warehouse is peopled with shapes that are sworn enemies.
Omegas: Dead Peter, wearing the blue and white challenge scarf of the Alphas around his neck; his inner circle of Wings, Dunkel, and Fritz; Bliss and Angelus; and Miss Comfort, her eyes large and round with predatory determination.
Alphas: Palmer, who has Bucky with him; the pledge named Lawrence; and then, dressed all in black, Miss Henny.
And Daddyman leading the Omega mascot—a black goat named "Nosferatu," draped in the Omega colors of red and black. Millicent catches the old man's eyes and reads volumes of guilt there. His face appears to be coated in regret. Is he silently begging her to forgive him? She turns at the approach of her brother.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
"Yes, but the baby—"
She is interrupted as Dead Peter threatens her brother with a sword. Everyone draws back as the two young vampires position themselves for a scar feasting. They are breaking the rule regarding women being present during the ritual standoff. Both know that the stakes are unusual, and nothing Millicent can do will prevent her brother from facing his nemesis. When she cries out for them to stop, Miss Henny is there to whisper that blood is in the air. It is the way of the Alpha and the Omega vampires.
Neither Dead Peter nor Gast is wearing protective gear; thus it promises to be an even bloodier contest than most sear feastings. With swords raised they eye each other. A hush covers the scene like a blanket.
"For the virgin!" Dead Peter exclaims.
"For Millicent!" returns Gast.
But on the instant another lantern arrives from the darkness—it is Dr. John Stone, his face awash with an eagerness to see blood flow. However, the presence of Stone changes everything. Millicent watches as Miss Comfort rushes forward, stepping between the swords, her eyes glancing from Stone to Miss Henny and back to Stone.
'This battle is mine!" she calls out.
For Millicent, it is an astonishing moment, for it becomes clear that the two older women, powerful in the ways of magic, will square off—Comfort to regain control of her; Henny to rescue her. They seem, of course, unlikely combatants. Both women could be grandmothers; both could be in their homes knitting in an easy chair rather than casting and counteracting spells.
But the world of the Alpha and Omega vampires calls for strangeness.
Do you long for death?
Millicent shelters the child, and yet she cannot look away from the confrontation, for the air in the empty warehouse is charged with menace as Miss Comfort raises her arms as if they were wings and, before Miss Henny can do more than lift her hands protectively in front of her face, Comfort fires off a spell in the form of an invisible stream of icy, cold air.
Miss Henny deflects it.
There are shouts of alarm, and then a strangled shriek from Daddyman as the deflected spell slams into his throat He staggers with the force of it, reaching out for the goat to break his fall. Blood gushes from his mouth and nostrils and ears. The goat bleats in terror and pain and races from the building. In a matter of seconds Daddyman is dead.
Miss Henny appears dazed. This time she cannot protect herself—nor can anyone else—as Comfort directs another spell her way, hitting Miss Henny in the chest. Millicent screams and turns away, but not before seeing Miss Henny crumble to her knees and hearing Miss Comfort screech with delight.
From out of the night Conrad Blutmann appears, dashing forward to come to the aid of his sister. Gast is there, too, as is the pledge named Lawrence, and they carry the Alpha housemother out of the warehouse as if she were a wounded soldier.
Millicent feels her heart sink. Her only instinct is to try to run, but Dead Peter and the other Omegas are there to stop her. They hold her as Miss Comfort, victorious, approaches, smiling her wicked smile, and reaches forward to touch the child.
Millicent cries out; but it is too late.
Save the child!
"Baby dear baby dear," she whispers, and the child squirms.
And someone yells, "Look there!"
Millicent pulls back. Startled voices give way to the entrance of Miss Henny, returning from the darkness, her black cape spread like the wings of a giant bat, her black veil covering her face.
The surprise is more than Miss Comfort can counter.
With fear in her voice, she sweeps from the warehouse, calling the Omega vampires to join her. Miss Henny's recovery has signaled a power not to be dealt with.
But the intensity of the scene takes its toll on Millicent She slumps to the floor struggling to retain consciousness. Images of falling into a whirlpool steal her awareness. Reality blinks off.
She wakes to her brother's concerned, yet smiling face. He is caressing her cheek and telling her that everything is going to be fine. From somewhere she hears "Ode to Joy" being whistled. She sees Conrad Blutmann and Lawrence, and she feels Bucky's tongue licking her hand. And she sees Miss Henny.
Only it is not Miss Henny at all.
Millicent gasps as Nickel lifts a black veil, removes a white wig, and grins broadly beneath the scar of the Omega brand on his forehead. And they tell her that Miss Henny is going to be fine. Nickel's disguise has won the moment. Millicent is helped to her feet. The warmth of those surrounding her brings her fully to consciousness.
But not all of the darkness has been dispelled.
"Baby dear, baby dear," she whispers as she pulls back the blanket to view the child.
What she finds, however, is that Miss Comfort's touch has made its mark.
"Baby dear, baby dear," she sobs.
For the child she is cradling is dead.

Sixteen
And only the power of blood magic can restore the infant to life.
Conrad Blutmann knows this. There's no time to lose and much to be done. Sizing up the situation, he directs Gast and the other Alpha vampires to take Millicent and the child to Tom Brown's cage parked near the train depot
Tom, he believes, will sense what must be done. Tom the magician.
In the meantime, Blutmann will escort his sister, Miss Henny, back to the Alpha House where she must rest and recover: Miss Comfort's magic has delivered a shock to the woman's system. Blutmann is deeply concerned about her.
Other matters press forward as well. Later in the night Blutmann knows that he must gather the Inky Boys at the warehouse to dispose of Daddyman's body. They will bury him in the woods, for the man has no known relatives, and more to the point, if he is not buried the Omega vampires may use whatever darkness remains in Daddyman's spirit for their cruel purposes. There must not be delay.
Nosferatu is loose. That, too, poses a problem, for the goat harbors wickedness and can spread it like contagion. The Omegas made no attempt to recapture the beast, and thus Blutmann assumes that its free roaming is by design. But as the good dean of students wrestles with the alien, essentially inscrutable plans of the Omegas and as he begins to guide his sister to the safe confines of the Alpha House, he sees the Inky Boys running toward him, their faces burnished by the pine torches they are carrying.
They point to the railroad tracks.
And no words are necessary.
For Blutmann, the night falls away into an anticipation of horror—a ghostly, silent train slides past, slowing as it pulls into the Sweet River station. He knows who is on that train; he knows what must come to pass. And the specter of what lies ahead jolts him with a terror he has never before experienced.

         Seventeen
The vampire hunter is in luck.
Call him Nidus.
If a man could ever be said to resemble a spider, this man does. Everything about him is arachnoid. It even seems that he possesses an extra pair or two of appendages—and yet if that were true he would not be human. Is he not a man? Barely. He might, in fact, be more accurately labeled a creature, an entity, a monster, a horror, a bogeyman, a thing obsessed. His obsession?
Vampires.
He lives to destroy them. To crush their hearts to make wine of the undead.
Why?
He has his reasons—and he keeps them to himself as he travels throughout the Depression South, a hired killer with a network of spies—"God has spies, and so must I"—recruited from the ranks of tramps, homeless men and boys, things leprous to the faithful. When he enters a new town to which he has been called, his network has already provided him with all the information he requires. He feeds upon this information—this web. Information and secrets and luck.
Tonight, he is awash in luck.
He assumes, indeed, that his luck will never run out.
See him now, in the heavy hours of night, a soft, cold rain falling outside the second-floor corner room of the Sweet River Hotel looking down upon the train depot. His room and all expenses are paid for by Mantis College. This night he will not rest. Not this night nor any other that he spends in Sweet River. He is drinking hot coffee—he will drink gallons of it—and he will not sleep, or, at least, you will not see him sleep. He has removed his top hat and cape; both are dusty and dingy and within the curves and folds spiders have laid eggs and webs have been spun. Nidus loves only the company of these creepy, crawly things. They are one of his weapons.
On the bed is a large black suitcase, dusty and creased, and worn, scratched, and torn. It contains his "equipment"—vampire hunting tools: a fierce bundle of ash stakes; garlic; wolfbane; a cache of Christian symbols; and tin containers of "Red Squill," the latter a special concoction of his own, a vampire poison. And on the simple desk where he is about to sit is a folio-sized journal or account book, also black, also old and dusty, its calf binding showing signs of much use. Diligent, loving use. The tome rather resembles a witch's Book of Shadows or perhaps the account ledger of a Grand Inquisitor. At the rear of the book is his master list of vampires dispatched from this earth. He plans to add significantly to that list before departing Sweet River.
Follow now as he loads his pen from a bottle of blood and opens the account book to a page titled, in bold, gothic letters, The Vampire Archives. His entry begins thusly: 10 October 1931. He writes as follows:
Lady luck is my companion tonight.
I arrived with extraordinarily good timing. Yes, the negro tramps detected my arrival and alerted Herr Blutmann; however, I am not concerned. The negroes are nested in an empty boxcar and will require little effort to eliminate. It was in Birmingham, I believe, that they once attempted to thwart my efforts, and thus they must face the certainty of my revenge. I shall enmesh them in a "web" of their undoing so to speak. Blutmann will, of course, pose more of a challenge.
But to the moment.
What I have just witnessed is quite fascinating.
The dead child Millicent Gast brought to the cage of Tom Brown is a most curious urchin: six-fingered, he is. My experience implies that such children are the product of unclean spirits. Such a child might be called a dragon. Could it be that this waif is the offspring of a flaming minister? How will all of this play out ? I wonder. It stirs my blood.
The incident I witnessed from a corner of the depot entailed the Alpha vampires and this same Millicent pleading with Tom Brown, a rare vampire magician, to bring it back to life. What occurred reminds one that he should never underestimate the powers of the undead. With some reluctance, this Tom Brown took the swaddled child through the bars of his exhibition cage and pressed it close to his chest—nay, though my eyes might be playing tricks, I believe the young vampire somehow opened his flesh as if returning the babe to the womb. I thought I saw a flutter of feathers. I might be mistaken. But of what happened next, I am not in error.
I heard the child cry. Yes, a lusty, full-lunged cry.
The child was alive!
But I wonder whether any present at the deadrise understand what dark powers the babe now possesses. They, in their desire to give him life, have inadvertently crowned him the prince of vampires. Those looking on naturally cheered the event. I stole away before they could notice my presence, and now I am here contemplating what it all means. My eyes have looked upon this harmless-seeming hamlet of Sweet River, noting for the most part that it can be no different from a thousand others in the South. And yet. And yet I sense a genius loci. Poetry comes to mind. Something from Coleridge, I believe. Here are the lines:
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover.
I must be careful. Just a moment earlier, before I put blood to paper, I saw a lone black goat skittering down the street. It appeared to stop directly in my line of sight and proceeded to spin about, frolicking perhaps, or, in more sinister terms, casting a spell. At the sight of the animal drawing those mindless circles, my old terror returned, a whirlpool of fear. The world spun, and I imagined being on my back staring, horrified, as fiery stars fell upon Alabama and burned into my soul.
I repeat: I must be careful.
Luck is on my side. Yes, I feel it.
And this I know: the gods do not stand up for vampires.

Here you will notice that he stops writing momentarily. He possesses one other book: his mother's Bible. As he takes a break from his journal entries, he leafs through the scriptures, returning to several flagged passages where he rereads injunctions against drinking blood and against having a fellowship with darkness.
His mother violated those injunctions, but Nidus will not allow himself to entertain the memory: that way madness lies.
Again, he is dizzied.
Pain slices into him like the blade of the sharpest razor.
Spinning Jenny.
The words swirl with fire.
Reflexively, he murmurs, "Lord of All Hosts—protect me from such a fate."
He is shaken.
Is it possible for my secret fear to be made public ?
No, not possible, he concludes. Only one other man knows.
Work calls. It is his redeemer. It will take his mind off what terrifies him, or so he believes. His work opens into a vision he has—a cause. He desires a vindication of vampire evil. He wants to understand it. He has theories. If he can commit his observations precisely to paper, then, he believes, he will be on the road to solidifying that vindication. He turns to a new and blank page. He refills his pen. And here is what he writes;
Notes Toward a Theodicy of Vampirism
Vampirism is immanent in human nature. Indwelling.
Each one of us is potentially a vampire just as each one of us is potentially a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, etc., and just as each one of us is potentially a murderer or a madman.
All that we might be, might become is colored in every human cell.
We choose our fate. The common notion is wrong: fate does not come into our lives from beyond but rather emerges from us. Fate is indwelling. We most certainly do become what we secretly desire to be.
Some wish to be vampires.
All good vampires are alike: each evil vampire is evil in its own way.
I'm reminded of Sir Thomas Gresham, English merchant and financier of the sixteenth century. Gresham's Law of Economics states that bad money drives good money out of circulation. Might a variation of this apply to the undead? Call it Gresham's Law of Vampirism: evil vampires drive out good vampires.
Nidus stops writing. At this point you will witness a rare occurrence: the vampire hunter rereads that final, sardonic line and he laughs. Yes, for the first time in years—he laughs out loud. Gresham's Law of Vampir-ism—what a silly notion, he reasons. But see how quickly our vampire hunter returns to sobriety?
The Special Case of the Mantis College Vampires
Much here that is not traditional. As a result, Christian objects such as the cross, the Bible, etc., have little or no effect upon them. Instead, they are vulnerable to nature. For example, the Alpha vampires fear water; the Omegas, fire. Through the aid of my spies, I have gathered that and more.
The Alphas are obsessed with the concept of courageBe not afraid is their clarion call. Being here is magic, they insist. To the utmost, to the bitter end, they shout. Be humane and tolerant. In the minds of the misguided Alphas, vampirism transforms one's life—the right kind of vampirism, that is. A kinder, gentler vampirism, one that has as its center an outdated tenet: a woman's virtue and a child's security are to be protected at all costs. Do Alphas understand the neurosis they suffer from? Are they blind to the sexual and infantile repression?
The Omega code is equally absurd. Power, submission, humiliation, they cry. Nothing is certain except cruelty, they declare. To live is to suffer. To truly live is to cause pain. Omegas are merely thugs caught up in their own web of immature desire for violence. De Sade is their hero, their god. Do they not see the chasm of psychopathia sexualis gaping beneath their feet?
There you are. Warring fraternities.
I shall very much enjoy destroying both sides.
They shall hardly tax me, and yet in keeping with professional standards I have maintained over the years, it would behoove me to catalogue my prey. Again, I must be careful and not fall victim to an overly confident belief in my skills. I shall record what is relevant to note about specific individuals, beginning herewith. The Alphas first.
The Vampires of Alpha	
Their president is Palmer Gast, a peace-loving fellow, haunted by a lingering sense that he is not competent to be a leader. Nightmares frequent him. He is obsessed with images of being tortured, and I believe he secretly fears that his obsession may ironically convert those images to reality. He adores his mother, cannot abide his monstrous father. His love for his little dog, Bucky, is childish albeit intense, but his dedication to his sister, Millicent, borders on the irrational. Lately, he has become enamoured of a young woman—Agatha—and in her he appears to find the presence of a kind of beauty that Dostoevsky claims will save the world. Yes, the allusion hits home because Gast wants to be a writer. Oh, and there is this: he worships Tom Brown. Wishes he could be more like Brown. A foolish wish.
The Alpha known as Nickel is cunning a master of disguise, having learned the art from close study of the films of Lon Chaney. Nickel's recent tricking of the Omegas has been duly noted. I silently applaud his performance. It seems he is an assistant to the performance art of Tom Brown, and he possesses a parrot. How quaint. Nickel dreams of a future in Hollywood. He is every bit as foolish as Palmer Gast.
The Alphas have a handful of new pledges, though the only one of any significance, I'm told, is Lawrence, he with the hideous scars from a bout of "scar feasting. " I have singled him out to be one of my first victims. Quite obviously the heart and soul of the Alphas is the mysterious Tom Brown, a loner, a vampire with remarkable abilities. Millicent Gast appears to have fallen in love with him. What young woman could be immune to his charms? But might it be that Brown will shun the role of Alpha hero ? I hear that he's growing wings. Could it be he will merely fly off into the sunset when he is called upon to be brave? The projected lines of geometrical terror generated by the Alphas and the Omegas must cross eventually at a point at which Tom Brown meets the Omega vampire known as Shatterhand. They hate one another. Will that battle come to pass ? And why is it I smell a deep, dark secret that exists between the two of them? I'm rarely wrong about such things.
Now I must turn to the Alpha sympathizers. No vampires here. These, rather, are mortals who share the ethos of the Alpha brotherhood. I sense that Horace Nightingale, the coffee shop fellow, should be included here. Gast's Agatha, too, and her sorority sisters. The Inky Boys join this list, but they are doomed. I wonder whether they suffer from arachnophobia. We shall see. Henny Blutmann, Alpha housemother, must definitely be included here. A powerful, once stunningly beautiful woman, she is recovering from the damage inflicted upon her by Miss Comfort's spell casting. Being Conrad Blutmann's sister, Miss Henny will most definitely play a role in the closing scenes of the vampire war. Will she ever admit that she has sinned? Isn't it time for the world to know her secret?
I come now to her brother, Conrad—we have met before. Years ago when I was a revenue agent for the feds prowling about the South, sniffing out moonshiners. Thankfully, he doesn't know all that he might. Still, he is a potential threat. One more: the personage known as "the Snark." He is indeed a mystery. I know that he wants to be a hero. He also wants Millicent Gast. But there is more. A secret something. Does everyone in Sweet River, Alabama, have secrets?
Concluding remarks on the Alphas: while it's noble that they attempt to embrace humanity, nevertheless they are vampires, undead creatures, and must be eradicated. I will enjoy destroying them every bit as much as I will enjoy destroying the vampires of their rival fraternity.

The Vampires of Omega	
Dead Peter is in command. He is a vile, cruel, thoroughly despicable thing. Hatred blazes within him, a hatred fired by having been abandoned by his parents, or so I gather. Perhaps one need not look for the source of his anger. Could it be that his darkness is powered by motiveless malignity? A few other points are worth noting: first and foremost, that he hates the Alphas, a pure, crystalline, implacable hatred; second, that his admiration for Shatterhand, the former Omega leader, is boundless. Dead Peter will wreak much havoc before his wretched heart is stilled.
Other Omegas: Wings, Dunkel, Fritz. A reprehensible trio. Wings, the political science student, is smart, but falls in line too quickly with the fuzzy thinking of Dead Peter. Dunkel has some grit, and yet he will fight at the drop of a hat and lacks judgment. Fritz is the truly brainy one. That machine he has created—it's the product of a sick mind. Wouldn't Hitler love to turn such a horrible contraption against his enemies?
I have mentioned Miss Comfort. Her abilities are real and impressive. She commands the Omega cats, or believes she does. But her affection for the redoubtable Dr. Stone is her weakness. Women lack the wilderness to be purely evil—a softness of heart keeps them from ruling the world. And then we have a pair of foolish vampire lovers: Bliss and Angelus. The latter was once an Alpha. He fancies himself a crooner; he is lost, lost, lost. Bliss is completely without conscience. I see only darkness for this duo, and thus why should they be allowed to exist?
Shatterhand. This one makes my blood run cold. He is an artist, a musical genius, perhaps. But his soul (does he have one?) is blacker than one can imagine. He lives for himself, for his neurotic desire to create. Again, in my mind's eye I see an inevitable clash between him and Tom Brown of the Alphas. On that day, if it comes to pass, the earth will stand still.
Omega sympathizers: oh, those Lambdas, "moon dames," "loose kittens," but among them probably only Bliss merits destruction. The woman known as Fauna, Shatterhand's woman, is not aware what a thorny path she follows. Am I forgetting anyone? Daddyman is no more, and yet I wonder whether his sometimes treacherous spirit rests. Is it perhaps roaming free in its own dimension much as the Omega goat? And this: should Dr. Stone be given mention ? No, I think he sympathizes only with his own twisted needs. I can use him. Yes, I can use him for my purposes.
My summation: the Omegas deserve a modicum of respect because they are at home with their evil. Their self-appraisal is honest. They are cruel, sadistic, and make no apologies for being so. If they were not vampires, they might be trained to be excellent vampire hunters. But because they are vampires, they must be expunged.
See the satisfied smile on vampire hunter's face? The rain is ending; a new day is dawning. The man named Nidus is about to go to work.
It is a question of trust.
Conrad Blutmann is caught between two fires: one is a need to end the vampire hunter's reign of terror before it even begins; the other is a desire to protect a secret, a personal secret that he has vowed must accompany him to the grave.
"Dis be da place?"
Blutmann, his vision blurred by the predawn darkness and the feathering of rain, looks toward the voice that appears to emanate from a pine torch. He and the Inky Boys have transported the body of Daddyman to a copse of pines on the edge of town. The Omega goat has followed them, and though Blutmann and his band of compatriots tried to capture it, the beast has successfully eluded them.
It seems to know that something strange is afoot.
'Yes," says Blutmann. "Here, in front of this pine. Get out your shovels and bury him quickly. We have other work to do as well."
"We gone chop some firewood? Dat why we carry dem axes?"
Blutmann stares into the face of the gentle negro man. He has grown to care deeply for the Inky Boys, with their generosity toward the New Path home and their willingness to help in the battle against Nidus, knowing full well that he may wreak vengeance upon them. Blutmann glances around. He is calculating, making his mind a compass to draw a circle.
"No, it's not firewood I'm after. We need to clear this area." And with that remark, he takes one of the torches and walks out from the spot where Daddyman is to be buried. He stops and then begins to trace the outer rim of a large circle before returning to the burial site. "I want all of the small pines in that circle I just made cut down—probably eight or nine there. They're saplings, so it won't be heavy work. This larger pine here in the center must also be cut. Here's where we'll attach the two-by-six planks."
The Inky Boys are puzzled. They, too, must trust.
This gone be where hit ends?" one of them murmurs.
Blutmann's face goes slack. He suddenly has trouble swallowing.
"It must be," he says. "Things have to come together, and, yes ... it must end here. This is the final circle."
And then he thinks of the man he needs to trust, and the waves of doubt that crash upon him nearly beat him to the wet ground. He signals for the digging to begin, and when the hulking body of Daddyman is wrestled into the gaping hole, the felling of the pines gets under way.
Blutmann loses himself in thoughts of the Alpha and Omega vampires.
But most of all, he thinks of his sister, Henny, and the fear that has taken root in his soul sends out tendrils and starts to grow. First light shimmers like diamonds, catching the wetness of the woods, transforming it, touching it with ironic beauty.
When Blutmann blinks back to reality, he is relieved to see that the Omega goat is nowhere in sight, relieved that is until the Inky Boys have downed enough pines to make sky, and there, inscribing its own circle not far-above them, a large vampire bat wings its way knowingly.
It has been easier than he imagined it would be. Despite an understandable degree of reservation, the Alphas and the Omegas find his plan compelling. Death has brought the two fraternities together. Imagine now a cool, clear evening, though a ground-hugging fog fills up around Blutmann's knees. He and representatives from the Alpha and Omega vampires are waiting at Daddyman's grave site, and it is an eerie, haunting spot The earth beneath their feet feels restless—if earth can be said to manifest such a state. The star-filled sky seems more distant and indifferent than usual.
Last night the killings occurred. Nidus had been in his element He came to Sweet River to kill and he has succeeded and, if he is not stopped, he will continue to kill. For a moment, Blutmann fights off the memory of having visited both of the death scenes. He shifts his attention to the planks that have been bolted to the stump of a pine and extend some fifteen feet to either side of said stump. To a casual observer, the contraption might resemble a playground apparatus, a teeter-totter or seesaw, or possibly a crude merry-go-round because the planks are set up to spin in a circle.
The creation itself looks innocent. Blutmann knows it isn't
Then the memory of blood and horror hits him. Mentally he is jarred. And details from the death scenes crash into his thoughts. They roar. They crush. They shake his senses until he is trembling. He feels broken.
Gast notices and says, "Dean Blutmann, are you all right?"
Blutmann nods and turns away. No, he is not all right He may never be all right again.
On the stage of his introcosm, he can rather easily recreate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two young vampires: Lawrence from the Alphas, Dunkel from the Omegas. The hand of Nidus has left traces of a likely narrative. Blutmann imagines it thusly: that Nidus had let each of the two vampires know that the other one had challenged him to a second scar feasting to be held in the vacated, cotton warehouse. Each young man was to come alone—no seconds, no supporting cast Doubtless they found Nidus waiting for them there as night fell. He would not have been alone: Dr. John Stone would have come along for the spectacle.
How could they have fallen into the clutches of Nidus? Readily enough. The ruthless vampire hunter probably invited them to imbibe in a prebattle drink— from a flask of moonshine laced with "Red Squill," a special concoction of rat poison and secret ingredients known only to Nidus. Matching each other's show of bravado, they drank. The poison began to work—and the results of its work were hideous, for the toxic mixture causes vampires to become violently ill. In short, the two young men literally puked themselves to death, strangling on their own vomit.
Nidus and Dr. Stone had looked on, the former pleased, the latter excited.
Then the staking.
And that's what Blutmann discovered around midnight after Stone awakened him with news that a rumor was afloat regarding foul play at the old cotton warehouse. Blood seemed to coat every inch of the dirt floor of the warehouse. The next day Mantis College officials covered up the grisly details of the death; Dr. Stone issued a statement identifying a virulent strain of flu as the cause of death. Appearances had been saved.
That same night, as dawn approached, Blutmann, his intuition calling him deeper into darkness, went to check on the Inky Boys. Something cold and razor sharp swimming in his guts told him, as he neared the empty boxcar where the three negroes slept each night, that he was too late. A chalking on one of the closed and locked sliding doors framed his apprehensions almost with certainty.
WEB OF SILENCE was how the chalking read. Breathless with fear Blutmann pulled open the lock bar and shoved at the door with all his might. He raised his lantern, and when he saw the floor of the boxcar move, he jumped back, shrieking as he did. In horror, he stepped aside as thousands of spiders leaped down onto the ground and scuttled away.
In a far, shadow-strewn corner of the boxcar he found the Inky Boys.
Perhaps it was the lantern light, but at first glance it seemed to Blutmann that the three negroes were covered in a dusting of snow. Snow in the South in October? At first glance, as well, one might have concluded that the trio was sleeping, curled as they were into fetal-shaped commas. Peaceful. Oh, so peaceful.
Then Blutmann climbed up into the boxcar. Lifted his lantern.
And shuddered.
The mass of spiderwebs blanketed the men thickly in a deadly gauze.
For a moment, Blutmann strained to imagine how the unimaginable could have occurred: the onslaught of spiders, the bites, the attempts to wrench open the locked doors of the boxcar, the struggle to beat away the creatures ... until the struggle became futile and then.,..
Blutmann turned away.
He knew that the only public reference to the Inky Boys would be a brief notice in the paper that three negro tramps had suffocated in an empty boxcar. Nothing more. Nothing more.
"Maybe he's not coming."
It is the voice of Dead Peter, and it rescues Blutmann from his revisiting of the death scenes.
"We have to trust Dean Blutmann," Gast follows.
Trust, yes, that's the key word, the most difficult word of all for Blutmann.
"Patience," he murmurs, but he is speaking more to himself than to either of the young vampires. He then explains again what they are to do when Nidus arrives with Stone.
Lantern held aloft, Dead Peter strolls along the length of the planks. He stops at one end.
"What's the gunnysack of coal for?"
"Counterweight," says Blutmann. He catches himself. He wants to say something more to Dead Peter— wants to warn him. Or prepare him. But how? Maybe the secret is safe.
Gast is also curious.
"What exactly is this?" He is pointing at the assemblage of planks.
As if lecturing in a college classroom, Blutmann holds forth. "It's called a 'Spinning Jenny.' Moonshiners came up with this device years ago at the beginning of Prohibition. When they would catch a fed, you know, a rev-enuer, snooping around, they would strap him to one end and put him through hell. You see, for Nidus ... this is his worst nightmare. He's ridden on ole Jenny here once before. Nearly drove him insane."
Dead Peter seems mildly impressed. "A crude but interesting touch of cruelty."
And they wait.
Blutmann walks around inside himself, pacing through his thoughts, his doubts. He passes a secret door and cringes. The door is locked and must remain locked, and yet in order to stop Nidus ...
Can I trust Stone?
He shakes his head and suddenly he notices that the eyes of every vampire are upon him. The discomfort he feels courses through him. He clears his throat. "Listen for Dr. Stone's signal. Be ready. We must not let Nidus escape."
The vampire bat circles above them. Is it drawn to the lanterns?
Or to the promise of a feast?
"Coming to you!"
Half an hour has passed before they hear Stone's call and see his lantern approaching. Stone is not alone. Blutmann and the young vampires duck out of sight; all that is visible is a lantern resting atop the center stump.
The seconds slow, and the steps of Stone and Nidus seem not to be making progress. But then, quite suddenly, the moment unfolding with chaotic, breathtaking swiftness, Nidus enters the scene a few feet ahead of Stone. From Blutmann's vantage point in a thicket he can see the face of Nidus, can see the rictus of surprise and shock that seizes his expression.
"Goddamn you!" Nidus shouts.
Words directed at Stone? Or at the vampires?
It doesn't matter, for Nidus cannot free himself from the paralyzing terror of seeing the Spinning Jenny set up—waiting for him. From behind, he is grabbed by several vampires; his arms are pinned against his spine, his dusty, spiderweb-laden top hat tumbles to the floor of the woods. He shrieks obscenities, but he cannot wrestle out of his containment.
Blutmann, feeling triumphant and yet cautious, edges up to the vampire hunter and says, "Welcome, Mr. Nidus. We are your hosts for this evening. However, if you glance around, you'll discover that one Omega and one Alpha is missing. Missing, as well, are three negroes of whom I was very fond. Excuse us, then, if we are less than gentle hosts."
Nidus is seething. But as he meets the eyes of Blutmann, he begins to calm. He relents his struggle. He even offers a hint of a smile.
"Dean Blutmann," he murmurs. "I know what you have in mind. Your cunning is laudable, and yet, sir, surely you must know that you will pay for wreaking vengeance upon me. Is your irrational sympathy for vampires worth it?"
Blutmann gives no indication that he follows what has been said or that he cares. He cannot allow himself to. Instead, he directs his attention to Dead Peter and to Gast and then back to Nidus.
"Before you're sentenced to your punishment," he says, "the Alphas and the Omegas wish to speak to you."
Gast is first Trembling slightly, he stands before Nidus. He has removed his bowler hat, and he has to take a deep breath before he can speak. "You—and your kind—don't understand that not all vampires are evil. You killed one of our own who only wanted to be brave and assert his humanity. You are a monster, and you deserve what you are about to receive."
Nidus is silent and remains so as he stares forward into the shadows of the woods.
Dead Peter steps up to him. The young vampire's eyes burn; his lips quiver as if he is about to storm words of abuse. But he does not. He presses to within barely an inch of Nidus's nose, and he whispers, "You are filth!" And with a long and jagged fingernail, he rakes upon a stretch of skin on the vampire hunter's cheek. Blood trickles eagerly.
Nidus bears the act stoically.
But then, before Dead Peter can move away from him, Nidus says, "I should mention that Dr. Stone has shared a secret regarding you."
Listening, Blutmann tenses.
Dead Peter appears only casually interested as he responds. "Stone is a wretched lover of blood. He's mad—he knows no secrets about Peter Stoker. Don't try to make me believe he does."
"He knows who your parents are," Nidus quickly exclaims.
And with those words Blutmann feels as if he has been split open. For a score of seconds, he cannot speak. He cannot move.
Stone insinuates himself between Dead Peter and Nidus, and to Dead Peter he says, "Listen to what he has to tell you."
Breaking through the chains of his apprehension, Blutmann rushes at Stone and grabs him by the lapels of his coat. "Why? Why must you do this?"
"Because," says Stone. "Because I detest secrets, and I have loyalty to no one except myself. You brought the vampire hunter here to be punished. Did you really think that you would go unpunished for your indiscretions?"
"What is this all about?" says Gast, for he and the other vampires of both fraternities are puzzled.
Dead Peter, the vein on his forehead pulsing, beams in on Nidus.
"I'll hear what he claims to know."
Steadying himself, Nidus begins: "Simply put, you, young sir, are the product of a most unnatural coupling—you are the flesh-and-blood result of... incest. The unfortunate offspring of a brother and sister, who in their lust for one another gave no thought to what their wanton desires would create."
"Who are you talking about? Where are these people?" Dead Peter demands. His tone continues, however, to convey skepticism.
Nidus raises a long finger and points at Blutmann, and as he does, Blutmann silently wishes that the world would stop, that time would spiral back upon itself so that the revelation would be lost forever.
'That man—Conrad Blutmann—is your father. And his sister, Henrietta, is your mother."
There are loud murmurings of shock and surprise.
The eyes of Dead Peter and Blutmann meet, but the young vampire says nothing. It appears that he is looking at Blutmann for the very first time.
"Please," says Blutmann, "there is so much else to this narrative. If you will give me a chance, I'll attempt to make you understand the backdrop to this news. But not now. Now we must drive the vampire hunter from our circle."
Dead Peter turns away.
Above the gathering, cutting lazy loops in the star-filled sky, the vampire bat rides upon the night.
Blutmann directs the fraternity men to help him tie Nidus to one end of the Spinning Jenny. The man bucks and cries out, fighting with all his might to resist the punishment that has been devised for him. But he cannot. Secured on his back, he screams up at the blackness beyond the nimbus of the lantern light. And Blutmann commands the young men—the vampires of the Alphas and the Omegas—to beginning spinning. Stone does not participate, and neither does Dead Peter.
No one there has ever heard a man cry out in such horror as Nidus does.
Spinning and spinning and spinning.
The man vents his terror until his voice is gone, and it appears that he is exhausted, or perhaps he is only on the edge of consciousness. The Spinning Jenny eventually slows, circling placidly as everyone looks on.
And when it becomes apparent that the man who came to hunt and kill has endured his punishment, the night parts and from above, as if spilled from a distant star, the vampire bat plunges into the throat of the unsuspecting victim.

Eighteen
Who could guess that the end is so near?
In the days following the dispatching of Nidus the vampire hunter, who had barely survived the horror of the Spinning Jenny and the attack of the vampire bat, holding on to his sanity by the thinnest of threads as he boarded a train for points west, the town of Sweet River, and, even more so, the campus of Mantis College appear as serene as one can imagine.
On the national scene, Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York is on vacation in nearby Warm Springs, Georgia, no doubt sharpening the political swords he will need to wield in the next presidential election. The Marx Brothers are a comedic delight on-screen, and on the baseball diamond, the St. Louis Cardinals are celebrating a World Series victory in seven games; a thirty-seven-year-old spitballer by the name of Burleigh Grimes is the hero. One noteworthy obit: seientific wizard Thomas Alva Edison dies at eighty-four. And in news from the realm of crime, gangster sans peer Al Capone gets eleven years for evading income tax laws. International developments of significance: Adolf Hitler continues to gain power in Germany, though few world watchers seem terribly alarmed.
The South anticipates a visit from two forces: the first is the fiery, charismatic evangelist Harry Savage Conners; the second is Mother Nature, generating attention thanks to a rapidly developing hurricane— dubbed "Isabel"—now stalking the Yucatan Peninsula and hungrily eyeing the Gulf Coast. Horror of another sort is on the way as gothic movie fans await the debut of James Whale's Frankenstein. Word has it that Bela Lugosi, dark star of Dracula back in February, did not get the role of the monster—that going to a relative unknown by the name of Boris Karloff. The anticipation of the movie has reached the Mantis College campus where a new and quite ironic joke is being passed around:
Frankenstein: "Who was that lady I saw you with?" Dracula: 'That was no lady—that was my lunch." Indeed, campus life would appear to be in high gear as well as high spirits, the days replete with classes and the weekends alive with parties, especially "smokers," and, appropriately, bonfires at the Camp of Miracles continue unabated as the football team, led as always by Tommy Don Wiggins, who becomes more godlike with each game, stands undefeated.
Coeds grow bolder by the hour, many seeking to look like actress Jean Harlow, spending time and money getting permanent waves and finger waves, smoking cigarettes, sipping moonshine, and doing whatever is necessary to present themselves as both "truly modern" and "kissable." Men on campus are not objecting, and many of these same fellows enjoy singing the latest popular drinking song:
"Hard liquor is a naughty drink, I like it;
It robs one of all power to think, I like it;
It kills ambition, fine and true,
It tints the nose a rosy hue,
But just the same I'm telling you, I like it."
Meanwhile, President Davis, convinced that he has created peace between the Alphas and Omegas through the aid of Nidus, has moved the student body past the tragic situation of two classmates dying and has focused on the Depression. In his midterm lecture to undergraduates, he intoned, "In the affairs of men, history has never seen a moment during which the drawing together of right-thinking, unselfish, earnest, rational, hopeful individuals was so necessary."
Needless to say, Davis has no idea what happened to his vampire hunter.
Closer to our story, you should know that Palmer Gast is struggling to catch up in Professor Cloninger's Epic Poetry class, reading Milton's Paradise Lost until his eyes water and finding himself sympathizing to an uncomfortable degree with Lucifer. He is also suffering from nightmares—lurid, gut-wrenching, pulse-pounding nightmares in which he is pursued by stone gargoyles until they catch him, sexually assault him, and then turn him into one of their own. And in one particular horrifying dream, he wakes to discover that he has become a scorpion, stinger and all.
When he is not studying and frequenting Nightingale's, he seeks the company of Agatha. He admits to himself that he is falling helplessly in love with her. But never far from his thoughts are lingering concerns about Millicent and, relatedly, the possibilities that the Alpha-Omega vampire conflict will flare up again. He thinks a great deal about the revelation on the night the vampire hunter was punished—could it be true that Dean Blutmann and his sister are the begetters of Dead Peter? No, he cannot let himself believe it, though his curiosity will not stop nagging him until, knowing it is none of his business, he confronts Blutmann and requests an explanation. In this swirl of pleasant and not so pleasant thoughts, Gast often wanders down to the train yard to be alone—alone, that is, except for the loyal companionship of Bucky. Has a young man ever been so devoted to an animal? Likely not.
Gast's Alpha brother, Nickel, has been losing himself at the movies—Lon Chaney films mainly, but so in love is this young vampire with the silver screen that he'll watch virtually anything, harboring as he does dreams of being up on that screen one day himself. He also maintains his attachment to Miss Henny, and, like his friend Gast, wonders aloud whether in the perverse scheme of things an act of incest could have occurred between the wise and charming housemother and her brother, the dean of students. He finds it very difficult to accept, and yet he has learned that the world is inhabited by secrets—every human heart has one ... or more.
Conrad Blutmann certainly understands that secrets are endemic to humankind. And though he is greatly relieved that Nidus has been driven from Sweet River, he often feels otherwise despondent, and in his shadowy moods he naturally seeks out his sister. He has told her everything; surprising to him is the fact that she appears all in all pleased that Peter has heard the truth about his parentage regardless of his immediate rejection of it. She advises her brother to be patient—"An opportunity will present itself to speak to Peter," she maintains. "Tell him the entire story. Give him the complete narrative. If he continues to reject his origins, it is his choice. If he accepts your explanation as the truth, then we must be ready, on our side, to accept his response—even if it should mean violence against us."
Blutmann knows her advice is sound, but he reads more in the distant cast of her eyes. Something else is worrying her, and when he prods, she surrenders: "That child—the one Millicent has in her care, the one that Tom Brown brought back to life—I sense that it will play a crucial role in how things reach an end game between the Alphas and the Omegas. It may well be that the Omegas will try to take the poor babe. Do you know anything of the child's background? The parents? Anything that might shed light on why this child has been eerily haunting my dreams?"
Blutmann has only a smattering of information to offer. "According to Millicent, a young woman—barely more than a girl—left the child at the Blind Pig and disclosed only that the father of it was a prominent man who likely would try to find the child at some point in the future."
Miss Henny nods. Neither she nor her brother can puzzle out the matter.
"There is one other development to be mindful of, my dear," she continues. 'That storm I've had a vision of—it's coming. It will make landfall. I can feel it, and I believe that it will touch our lives—the lives of everyone in Sweet River."
On the Omega front, despite winning amateur night at the Empire Theater with his medley of Bing Crosby tunes, Angelus is deeply troubled. First, because his singing talent is not his own, having been significantly enhanced as it was through the supernatural abilities of Bliss. Second, and more to the point, Angelus has grown to regret leaving the Alphas to join the Omegas. He does not fit with them; in fact, he fears them—even Bliss. Perhaps especially Bliss. For her brand of cruelty is unalloyed and remorseless. She remains sexually attractive to him, but her thorough lack of humanity siphons off any respect he might initially have had for her.
He feels trapped in the web of the Omegas.
He has even contemplated suicide.
More than anything else, he wants—as a swan song gesture if that's what it must be—to aid the Alphas should the Omegas decide again to stir up hostilities with his old fraternity. He is riding the horse of that dilemma now as you see him in the shadowy reception room of the House of Night where, in his honor, glasses of blood-laced monkey rum are being held high. Yet, once his amateur night victory has been toasted, Miss Comfort holds sway.
"Shatterhand calls us, my Omega darklings. He wants us at Bellenorth this evening so that we may witness a profoundly personal ritual he is to perform—he doesn't say what it is. But before we go visiting, I wish to admit that I'm concerned about your leader."
Angelus looks on as she punctuates her remark by putting a motherly, loving hand on Dead Peter's cheek. He seems slightly embarrassed. Comfort studies his expression. "Don't you see that he's troubled?" she says, and then more directly to him: "You are among friends. Comrades. Brothers and sisters. Tell us why your brow is furrowed and dread stalks your heart"
There is a heavy silence. Dead Peter sighs. To Angelus, he appears suddenly to be a little boy afraid of the dark. But then he lifts free of that countenance. Savagery flickers. "We'll be late," he exclaims. "Shatterhand is not pleased when someone is tardy in responding to his invitations."
Comfort shakes her head. "Tell us," she insists.
It appears then that the exquisitely lonely vampire swallows his reluctance, and with an audible click at the back of his throat, he says, "Dreams. I've been having a dream about Shatterhand... of his being consumed by a monstrous fire. I hear his sereams—and then I watch him fly free of the flames as a huge shadow of smoke and darkness—in the shape of a bat."
Comfort smiles. "Don't you see, dear Peter, that it is ultimately a good dream? It shows you how invincible Shatterhand is."
Dead Peter lowers his chin.
Comfort easily reads him. "There's more, isn't there? it's about what you learned the night that horrid vampire hunter was driven away. You wonder whether it's the truth, don't you?"
"I refuse to believe it," he says, hissing the words.
"Go to John Stone," she says. "He, no doubt, knows more about this."
"I can't accept it!" Dead Peter shouts in frustration.
To Angelus, the room has been sucked of air by the vampire's anger and sadness.
Comfort's voice hardens. "Perhaps you must," she says. "Perhaps you must accept it and do, accordingly, what you must do."
Bliss steps away from Angelus and presses her beautiful face near Dead Peter's. "We'll help you punish them—we'll help you get an intimate revenge upon the Blutmanns for abandoning you."
Angelus listens and sharp edges of reality knife into his thoughts: We become what we do. If we do evil we become evil. When we become obsessed by evil, we are absorbed into evil. And in that moment, Angelus realizes that he has waded so far into the stream of evil that he has passed a point of no return.
Comfort breaks his unsettling reverie. For a terrifying instant, he believes that she has read his mind, but when she speaks, his terror relents. "There is another matter we need to speak of before we leave for Bellenorth to see what spectacle Shatterhand has in store for us."
All eyes fall upon her. Pleased with her command, she continues. "It's the dragon child—the six-fingered child who underwent a deadrise through the intervention and magic of Tom Brown. This child—I feel powerful vibrations from it. I think that we should suggest to Shatterhand that he needs the blood of this child more than the blood of a virgin."
"It is a very strange child," Bliss agrees. "I drank from it before it died and was brought back to life, and I felt surges of its power."
Angelus senses that there is at least a tacit agreement with Comfort's proposal.
Dead Peter is impatient He is not accustomed to feeling confused or to having any hint of personal weakness on display. "Let's be gone," he thunders impatiently. "Shatterhand awaits."
They crowd into Dead Peter's new car: Angelus, Bliss, Miss Comfort, Wings, Fritz, and of course Dead Peter, who does the driving. It is an unusually warm October night—almost like early summer—and as they trek along the road bordering the mysterious Night Horse Swamp, Spanish moss waving eerily from branches of its water oaks, Angelus can occasionally hear the roar of bull gators and he can imagine all matter of slithery things, poison-fanged things—creatures that would fear neither man nor vampire.
Angelus is thankful he is not out in that monstrous wetland of horrors.
Where a more ancient blood rules, and he would be prey rather than predator.
At Bellenorth, Angelus feels as if the decay of the old manse threatens to seize his soul. But Shatterhand greets them warmly—hail-fellow-well-met—and despite the derelict condition of the mansion, their host succeeds in making them feel welcome. Angelus notices that coming from a large console radio is a snappy tune by The Nighthawks, a legendary dance band on the national scene.
Shatterhand serves fresh blood in elegant wineglasses. Despite his upbeat manner, he seems, to Angelus at least, to be anxious, edgy. His handsome face appears drawn and older than it should. He is thin; his hair has no luster. His smile is too quick and often seems forced. His laugh is dry and empty.
Fauna, the companion of his dark soul, looks, on the other hand, quite stunning. Though not a beauty, she glows this evening with the muted fire of one who is prepared for something out of the ordinary to happen. Angelus is momentarily taken by the floor-length dressing gown she is wearing. Silk, he believes, and so bright blessedly white that it causes him to blink rapidly. She reaches out to welcome him in a whisper of an embrace. Shatterhand follows.
"Welcome to the Omegas," he says. "You have chosen the path of cruelty, and it will lead you to a more powerful self."
"I've come to understand," Angelus responds, "what being an Omega means."
And it is almost more than he can bear when Shatterhand suddenly decides to "drink kisses" with him. Angelus is dizzied by the pain he experiences, and Shatterhand's blood burns his throat, nearly causing him to choke.
The other Omegas look on, pleased. Bliss flicks her tongue playfully into his ear.
Angelus fades back, embarrassed ... and very, very frightened.
Comfort and Dead Peter catch Shatterhand up on the latest news, including, of course, the vampire hunter and the revelation about Dead Peter's parentage. Upon hearing that news, Shatterhand cups the back of his friend's neck and stares fiercely into his eyes.
"Kill them, Peter! Both of them—but make them suffer first!"
There are supportive cheers and even a muted round of laughter. Miss Comfort then decides the time is right to advise Shatterhand about what he needs to heighten his creative powers. The brilliant vampire listens as if enraptured as she describes the dragon child and its deadrise. At the mention of Tom Brown's name, Shatterhand sneers, and yet Angelus can see that Comfort's rhetoric has struck its intended mark.
Before the evening's main event unfolds, Shatterhand is coaxed by Fauna into playing for his guests a recent and original composition, a nocturne entitled "A Darkness Passing." It is ravishing music—even Angelus must admit that. The composer dedicates the piece to the memory of Dunkel, Omega brother.
Angelus is moved by how impressive the music is. But why, he wonders, must genius thrive in such a creature of cruelty?
There is more fresh blood, an endless supply it would seem. The minutes pass, and perhaps because he, more than any other of the Omegas, is eager to see what mysterious act Shatterhand has in store for them, Dead Peter exclaims, "By heaven, you could break the patience of the devil himself—why have you asked us here?"
Shatterhand smiles benignly. He pulls Fauna close to him.
"Very well," he says. "Yes, you have been patient, and I have been ... cruel." He laughs. He looks longingly into Fauna's eyes. "I am creating tonight," he continues, shifting his glance then to his audience, "a ghostly soul mate who will return from the grave as a powerful wraith to aid me in acquiring what I need. She'll aid all of us—the Omegas—as well, in our battle with the Alphas."
Wings, unsure of himself, seeks clarification. "Return from the grave? Do you mean—are we to witness a burial?"
"Yes, indeed you are." Shatterhand again fixes his eyes upon Fauna. "But not just any burial. We have dreamed of this moment, and now we will make that dream come true. Are you ready, my darling?"
Fauna nods.
And Shatterhand directs his guests to the rear of the mansion, and there, lantern in hand, he leads them to what appears to be a small, family cemetery. There is a freshly dug grave, shallow, with an opened pine coffin resting next to it.
Angelus feels his body tense. The scene possesses a surrealistic quality. The lantern light casts a ghostliness about every movement. In the distance, somewhere in the swamp, an owl hoots and other night birds cry and the wind soughs high in the trees.
With gentlemanly histrionics, Shatterhand helps Fauna into the pine casket. When she has settled into it, she smiles nervously yet expectantly at Shatterhand, and he, in turn, gestures for everyone else to attend to the visage of his beloved.
"Will she not make a lovely death? I think she will."
There are murmurs of agreement Angelus feels his throat constricting, and he is unprepared for what occurs next: with lightning speed, Shatterhand plunges his face into the coffin and attacks Fauna's throat like some feral animal—her scream is choked off, and Angelus cannot bear to watch and listen.
The blood sucking seems to go on forever.
Bliss edges close to Angelus and whispers, "What a beautifully romantic act of their sadistic love for one another."
Then, quite suddenly, Angelus is taken by surprise as Shatterhand, having risen from his feeding, grabs his arm and pulls him forward. "See there the face of death becoming new life," he shrieks. Forced to look down into the coffin, Angelus sees that while she wears a death mask, Fauna is smiling even as the lid is closed and sealed.
Tearing free of Shatterhand, Angelus screams, "No, you can't do this—she's alive!"
There is laughter at his naivety as he is shoved aside and the coffin is lowered into the hole and covered with dirt soaked in blood.
Dead Peter raises his arms in triumph after the entombment is complete.
"We are Omegas!" he calls out. "We are the monsters of Mantis College!"
And nearly in unison, the chants begin:
"Power. Submission. Humiliation."
And more: "Born to Suffer."
And still more: "Nothing is certain except cruelty."
But it is Shatterhand who has the final word. As he faces his violent comrades, his lips stained with Fauna's blood, he exclaims, "Now, I want that dragon child. We must prepare ourselves for a new movement in the symphony of cruelty and horror."
Angelus stands aside as if gaining distance from the evil will keep him from being absorbed into it. Although it is a warm night, he shivers uncontrollably. A heaviness weighs down upon his chest. He gasps for air. A pulsing darkness overcomes him, and he imagines that he, too, has been buried alive.
Gast hates the thought of rain.
And yet as you see him now at his table at Nightingale's, with Bucky curled obliviously in his lap, his thoughts have turned to the forecast of rain and even the possibility in coming days that Hurricane Isabel in the Gulf of Mexico will spin up to the Alabama coastline and then inland. It is late afternoon, humid and cloudy, with the outer rain bands from the approaching storm edging ever closer to Sweet River. An hour earlier Gast had participated in a brief memorial service at the Alpha House for Lawrence. In a position of honor in the foyer, a gold-plated hourglass, inscribed in the fallen brother's name, had been placed. Words of praise for Lawrence had been spoken, and there was anger expressed that Nidus had, in effect, gotten away with murder.
Nothing to be done.
Gast now is in a somber mood. Nothing can cheer him: not Bucky, not even the thought of Agatha. Awash in grayness, he suddenly hears the Snark's signal—the whistling of "Ode to Joy" breaks through and he seeks out the impending message.
"I'm here," Gast says over the mouth of the tunnel.
"I've heard from Angelus," says the Snark. "There's no time to waste."
"From Angelus? Then forget it—we can't trust him."
"Yes, you can. He's much changed. He described for me what he's seen and what the Omegas plan. Millicent is in danger again. And, more so, the child."
Gast hears every word as if they were being burned into him, and when the Snark has finished recounting what Angelus has shared, he adds, "Go to my father. He has a fishing cabin real close to Night Horse Swamp. Millicent and the child can hide out there. Go on— there's no time to lose."
Reluctantly, harboring doubts about Angelus, Gast goes to Horace Nightingale and tells him everything his son has told him. Wiping his hands on the front of his apron, Nightingale stands behind the counter and studies Gast
"Do you think I'm a bad father? You know, Sinclair chooses to stay down in that tunnel. He doesn't want anyone to see his face. I never made him go down there. It's just more guilt. That's all I feel these days."
Deflected by the leaden sorrow in Nightingale's voice, Gast says, "No, I don't think you're a bad father. The Snark—I mean, Sinclair—has helped us. He's a swell guy. Nobody blames you for things."
"They should," says Nightingale. "For what happened to my wife. It's gotten to be too much to bear. I need to leave Sweet River—start all over somewhere else. Sinclair needs a new life, too. Can you understand that?"
"Yes. Yes, sure, but right now it's my sister and one of the New Path children that I'm worried about Sinclair claims you have a cabin up by the swamp. Would you let Millicent stay there—just to keep her out of harm's way until we can deal with the Omegas?"
Nightingale appears lost in some haunting labyrinth of memory, but eventually he nods, telling Gast to meet him there at the cafe in an hour. "I'll help," he says. "I'll pack some food and water and a lantern for them."
Buoyed, Gast hurries to the New Path home with Bucky in tow. He knows that Mrs. Biddle, the director, will go along with his plan even though she would prefer to get the sheriff involved. "Trust me," Gast pleads. And she cautiously agrees. Then he pulls his sister aside to explain what is going on, but at first she maintains that she cannot leave. "Palmer, Miss Henny warned me to stay away from the Night Horse Swamp. Her magic— she's sees danger there."
"There's more danger if you don't go. More danger for the child. I know that we're trusting the word of Angelus on this, but it sounds as if he's changed. I think maybe he wants to do something to make up for being a turncoat."
Agatha is there, too, and is quick to contribute her view. "Go, Millie. Take the baby. I'll see that the other little ones are all right."
Seconds pass as Millicent considers what to do. At the back of her mind, a clock is ticking. Save the child! The voice of the mule echoes insistently. But another voice drowns it out: do you long for death?
"I'm afraid," she says to Gast and Agatha. "I'm so very afraid. I'll go, but there's someone I must see first."
She questions the true nature of her motivation as she nears the train station. Twilight rushes forward; Sweet River seems abandoned, and before she reaches her destination Millicent becomes aware that she is being followed.
It is the Omega goat, Nosferatu, the penetrating amber of its eyes locked onto her. Most unnerving of all, even though the beast is some thirty yards away from her, she can hear it breathing. It is an oddly terrifying sound like that of someone sawing wood rapidly with a handsaw.
Do you long for death?
She begins to walk more rapidly, glancing over her shoulder as she does. Tom Brown's cage is up ahead— she is determined not to scream for help, but the goat has her dead in its sights. Now she is running, an onslaught of tears threatening to gush from her eyes. The wind kicks up, shoving a huge hand against her body, spinning dust around her. She stops and fights back a whimper. She is trapped, and the only thing she can do is brace herself to face the beast. Taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth, she stands defiantly.
And sees that the goat has disappeared.
But high above her a large bat cuts arcs in the ever darkening sky.
'Tom, it's Millicent"
She calms herself upon seeing that the bat has flown off. Tom Brown rouses himself from the corner of his cage. His upper body is wrapped in a blanket. He smiles. "I'm glad to see you," he says. "I have something I want to show you."
"I can't—I mean, I don't have time. I've come because ... I need for you to promise something."
Slipping through the bars, Tom stands near her, and she loses herself momentarily in his good looks.
'You know I'll do whatever you ask."
"It's the Omegas. They intend to do more evil. I'm afraid that the Alphas—my brother and Nickel and the others—are no match for Dead Peter and Shatterhand and Miss Comfort.... Oh, you have to promise that you'll protect them. You have to help them—please, help them."
"Of course. The Alphas know that I'm one of them. I'm a brother, and I'll always be a brother. But look at what I have to show you." He turns his back and slips off the blanket; Millicent softly gasps.
"Wings," she murmurs.
"Yes, and they're getting stronger every day. Here, you'll be the first to see this."
They are as white as the wings of a dove, and they fill his back, and when he gently flaps them Millicent feels as if the wind from them has originated in some sacred place.
"I can't believe it," she says.
"Watch!" he cries, and in a matter of steps he is lifting from the ground. He circles once, somewhat awkwardly, then lands and nearly stumbles onto his face. He laughs softly, and Millicent can't resist laughing with him, and the laughter feels marvelous. She sees how proud he is of the wings and the magic of his flight. And suddenly he is holding her in his arms and playfully wrapping his wings around her. His embrace is warm, and she has never experienced such powerful emotions—she has never felt so secure. She looks up at him. Stars seem to shine down through his eyes.
"I love you, Tom Brown," she whispers. And the frankness of the admission staggers her with embarrassment. But not for long. "There—I've said it, and I mean it"
She pulls away.
"Don't go," says Tom.
"I have to. The child—the baby dear ... don't you see that when you brought it back to life something happened? It now possesses a power the Omegas want. Especially Shatterhand. I have to take the child where it will be safe."
And then she is gone.
Stunned, Tom can only watch. But he knows that some kind of change is coming over him. There is fear. And yet there is something more: could he be falling in love? Could he be surrendering to the only magic he has never known?
Before he and Bliss left the House of Night to abduct the dragon child, Angelus had sharpened the hatchet until its blade sang with a razorlike cutting ability. While he cannot completely atone for abandoning his friends, he is convinced that he is doing the right thing. He has to stop the Omegas—and that means he has to Stop Bliss.
"I can feel the child's darkness," Bliss whispers as they approach the New Path home. "I feel its presence."
"But it's an innocent child," says Angelus. "Does it really deserve to be sacrificed to Shatterhand's obsession?"
In the gathering gloom of night Bliss smiles at him. "There's not enough evil in you, vampire boy. Too much of that weak-willed Alpha blood still in your veins. I doubt that you're even cruel enough to use that hatchet."
Tightening his grip on the weapon, Angelus mur-murs, as much to himself as to her, "I'm cruel enough. Cruel enough to do what I have to."
"Quiet. I'm going to concentrate so that I can tell exactly which room the child is in. Miss Comfort showed me how I can mentally track him. The child radiates a power, a darkness, that reveals where it is at all times."
Angelus observes the beautiful young woman as she closes her eyes and reaches out through the fall of night to connect with the child. He wonders why things must end the way they must. A part of him is still in love with Bliss; yet, another part loathes her and who she is. For a terrifying instant, he fears that he will not be able to go through with his plan. Too much of a coward. Too much of that "weak-willed Alpha blood" Bliss just accused him of having.
"No," he mutters to himself. "I'm not a coward."
Bliss shushes him. They move closer to the house, now as close as second base to home plate on a baseball field. Bliss is excited. She is in touch with the child, and she is leading Angelus up near to where a car is idling behind the house.
The only warning before the night breaks apart is the sound of Bliss whispering, "Damn it, something's wrong." Then figures emerging from the house and Bliss saying, "They've got the child. We have to do it now."
But Angelus holds fast to where he is.
Bliss is suddenly in his face spitting out her words: "Do it now! We have to get the child! Goddamn you, do it now!"
Minutes later, he will not recall raising the hatchet. He will not recall the sound of the blade thudding into her forehead or the warmth of her blood as it spurted onto his chest. He will only recall that she groaned softly, a seductive sound, as if she were making love, and that as she crumpled at his feet he said, "I'm sorry I had to hurt you. I'm sorry it had to be this way."
The car carrying Millicent and the dragon child drives off.
Angelus, deeply shaken and yet conscious that there is something more to do, finds his way to the railroad tracks where horrible realities rush through him like a ravenous wind. He stands on a railroad tie between the main line of tracks, and he can feel a muted vibration.
He waits.
He tries to think of Bing Crosby lyrics, but his mind is a blank. The tracks begin to vibrate more pronouncedly and in the distance a tiny, unblinking eye of light approaches. The train is ineluctable. Its whistle loud and insistent.
An eternity seems to pass as Angelus waits to face what he seeks.
He can hear the train trying to slow, but he's certain it cannot stop in time. Dead certain. And he is pleased. And as night roars, he speaks to himself.
"Be not afraid," he says. "Being here ... was magic."
And after the roaring there is a whoosh of air that ushers in a thunderous silence.

        Nineteen
The child is in the swamp."
The graveyard voice of Miss Comfort draws the Omega vampires closer to her. She has ascended from her tower to bring news to the edgy gathering as outside the walls of the House of Night the spiral winds rushing ahead of Hurricane Isabel are howling menacingly.
Anger crackles in the air like static electricity.
"We shouldn't have trusted Angelus," says Dead Peter. He is puffing distractedly on his Lucky Strike, smoke rising like hatred around him. He glances at Shatterhand, who seems less tense and more resigned to the realities of the moment.
"Bliss should have controlled him," he says. Then he gestures dismissively. "But none of this matters. Bliss, the turncoat Alpha—none of it We have to brave the storm and seize the child. I must have that child."
In the muted light, the long saber he suddenly slashes through the air glints eerily.
Miss Comfort continues to meditate; a throng of Omega cats presses in at her feet and climbs into her lap. "There's more," she murmurs. "I'm seeing something more ... it's not clear. Not clear yet."
But the Omegas—Dead Peter, Wings, Fritz—are more eager to hear Shatterhand's plan. They are ready to help him go after the child.
"We'll fill the storm with blood," says Dead Peter, admiring the saber.
"Yes," answers Shatterhand, "if the Alphas try to stop us, they'll meet this." He whips the blade through the air twice more. "I brought it with me from Bellenorth. Did you know that it belonged to my father?"
Dead Peter shakes his head. The other Omegas are enraptured, for they know how unusual it is for Shatterhand to speak of personal matters.
"It's a fine weapon," says Dead Peter. "A worthy one for a father to hand down to a son."
Shatterhand laughs. "I stole it, you fool. My father— the sorry bastard—brought it home from the war, the Great War, the war to end all wars, and I took it because he was going to give it to my brother, a brother I hated—and still do—with a fire that consumes me."
Anger seeping into his tone, Shatterhand places the sharp blade of the saber against the throat of Dead Peter. "My father—did you know that my father is Harry Savage Conners? Yes, the great evangelist himself. A man of God. Oh, but a son of a bitch of a father. You see, he was called away—called away by Jesus, he claimed. Left two little boys and a drunken wife and hit the road to preach to people that they must become the lambs of Jesus. They must be washed in the blood."
"You were abandoned, too?" says Dead Peter.
"Yes, my Omega brother. I know what it's like for a father to turn his back on his child. And I have promised myself that if I ever see him again, he will bleed. I will drown him in his own blood—I will make him suffer."
"There's no time for this," Miss Comfort exclaims. She has lapsed out of her reverie and appears to be listening to the shriek of the wind. "Go for the child. Go now while it's virtually unprotected."
Shatterhand nods.
"Yes, it's the business at hand. We'll ride the ancient Night Horse and claim that mysterious child as our own. Are you ready?"
The response from his Omega brothers is immediate and positive.
Minutes later, after the young vampires have left on their mission, Miss Comfort pushes up from her seat, and the horde of cats follows, expecting fresh blood. She leads them to the back of the House of Night and opens the door. At first, they hesitate to pour out into the wind and the flecks of rain, but she is reassuring: "The storm is about to feed you—go and be children of the night."
They stream past her.
She looks beyond them and hears the rumble of nearing thunder.
In her mind's eye—a wicked eye—she sees something not far away in a primitive realm where violent forces hold sway, and to herself she mutters, "Good news—the beloved has risen."
Viper tongues of lightning flick at the walls of the cabin. Thunder growls not far behind the ominous flashes of light.
"Oh, baby dear, baby dear, have we done the right thing?"
And here you see, nimbused by the yellow-white glow of illumination from a lantern, Millicent Gast sitting on the floor hugging the child and wishing that her brother would have stayed and not gone back to Sweet River. She wishes Tom Brown were there.
"I'm sorry, baby dear. I'm sorry I'm not as brave as I need to be."
She fingers the blanket away from the child's face and smiles down at it The babe's expression is blank, the cast of its eyes dull, though at times the pupils appear to dilate, and at such times Millicent isn't certain whether she's looking at a precious angel or a tiny creature already claimed by evil.
"Tom Brown is brave," she follows, and her gaze rises from the child and in her thoughts an image of wings catches her fancy: Tom Brown flying on magical wings he has willed. "Oh, Tom," she whispers, "I do love you. Forgive my forwardness—I've overstepped the boundaries of a lady, but I had to tell you. I had to."
The babe suddenly chortles.
The wind punches at the walls of the cabin, causing them to creak and groan. Millicent listens, and when the babe is silent again she thinks she hears a faint bleating, and beyond that sound another; the cry of a woman?
Or, no, just the wind?
"It's only the wind, baby dear—the wind from out of the everywhere." She forces a smile down at the fragile creature. She remembers, with a dramatic suddenness that nearly takes her breath away, the scene of Bliss sucking blood from the child. "Oh, baby dear, I'm so, so sorry for what that woman did to you. But Tom—our Tom Brown—he saved you. He brought you back to life and made you ... strong ... and that's why they want you, baby dear. The Omegas."
Squirming, the child frees a tiny hand. Millicent lifts it to her lips.
"Six fingers—like Tom. Will you grow up to be a magician like Tom? A magnificent magician? A good vampire? Not a cruel Omega vampire? You could be an Alpha. Like Tom. Like my dear brother, Palmer. Like Nickel."
The child begins to whine low, a sound that almost seems an echo of the wind.
"You must be hungry, baby dear. Soon ... soon we won't have to be in hiding. Mrs. Biddle will have milk for you, and we'll be back at the New Path home, safe and warm. We have to be patient. Patience is everything. The Alphas will protect us—they will. I know they will."
The eyes of the child plunge into deep pools of mystery.
Millicent is unsettled.
"Too many unknowns," she whispers to herself, and then to the child: "Too many secrets, baby dear. Do you have one? Does my dearest one have a secret?"
The bleating is closer now, more insistent.
Millicent rises and, clutching the baby with one arm, takes the lantern to the rear door of the cabin and carefully pushes it open. The wind slaps rain into her face and she ducks back inside, but not before something out there on the edge of the swamp reaches for her.
Eyes. Penetrating, amber eyes.
She puts the child on the floor and tucks its blanket around it securely.
"I have to see, baby dear. I have to see what that is."
Do you long for death?
As she presses back out into the night and the storm and lifts her lantern, she murmurs to herself, "Oh, Tom, I need you. And Palmer and Nickel. And Miss Henny. I'm not brave enough." More than anything else, she wants to be plucky and courageous like Mary Pickford in her wonderful, silent films. But she feels empty and weak.
The wind and the rain are building. The swamp is otherwise hushed and crouched and, seemingly, waiting for her to enter. She hears the bleating again and looks to her left where a large water oak, its lower branches angling close to shoots of swamp grass, stands resolutely. And there, on a branch staring back at her is Nosferatu the Omega goat. Its eyes burn hot, changing color from amber to a hellish red.
Millicent gasps.
And those eyes have her.
Mesmerized, she cannot move; she cannot pull away.
"Tom," she whispers. "Baby dear."
And what happens next causes her, momentarily, to blank out, her knees buckling as she crumples to the grassy, moist floor at the edge of the swamp: the goat bleats once more, a cry of pain or anger or warning— and then the beast leaps, and in midair it transforms into a large, vampire bat sweeping down upon Millicent, then avoiding her and lifting high into the rain and the darkness.
A voice rouses her.
She shakes herself free of the fainting spell and wonders immediately how long she has been unconscious. "Baby dear!" she cries, scrambling to her feet, still dizzy, still disoriented. Was the goat real? Had it actually transformed into a bat? Steadying herself, she turns in the direction of the cabin, panic surging through her, fearing that something has happened to the child.
And that's when a woman's voice comes wafting hauntingly from within the swamp.
No distinct words, but Millicent reads the tone as one calling for help. Out into the blackness of the swamp she gazes intently, searching out the source of that compelling, bewitching voice.
"Who's there?" Millicent calls. "Where are you?"
I'm here.
The voice mushrooms inside Millicent, in her thoughts, in her blood—the voice of the sadly ominous woman is somehow part of her. Unable to resist, Millicent wipes the rain from her eyes and moves to the bank of a swampy pool; she sees a dark log floating and a prairie head beyond. She calls out to the woman again and starts to step onto the log.
But it moves.
The surface of the water erupts, churning violently.
The alligator's jaws snap at her. Millicent screams and reaches back, nearly dropping the lantern, and out perhaps thirty feet into the swamp water the figure of a woman dressed all in white rises.
I'm here.
"No!" Millicent turns to run. Falls. She hears the grunt of the gator. Crying, stumbling to her feet, wet and cold, she stands up, but for several seconds she cannot find the cabin.
"Oh, Tom," she whispers. "Someone ... oh, someone please help me."
I'm here.
Millicent turns in the direction of the voice, and it appears that the ghostly woman is walking on the water, striding imperviously toward her. There is death in the woman's eyes. Do you long for death? Unblinking eyes.
Millicent closes her eyes and screams at the top of her lungs. She falls to her knees again. She is surrendering. When the screams have poured from her throat, she trembles, her lips moving, words tumbling from them: "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry I was not brave." She opens her eyes, tears blurring all that she sees. Her chest heaving, she hardens and sharpens her gaze, and what she sees amazes her.
The woman has disappeared.
Behind Millicent, in the direction of the cabin, a baby is crying.
Something of hope wells up around her heart.
"Baby dear, it's you. I'm coming. Mama Millie is coming."
She follows the voice of the baby's desolate crying back to the cabin. Sobbing with relief and joy, she crushes it against her. "Baby dear, I'm here. I'm here."
I'm here.
But then, as she rocks the child and calms herself, she becomes aware that someone is approaching the cabin.
Indistinct sounds.
Giggling?
Millicent holds her breath and squeezes the child more tightly against her. She wishes she could disappear. She wishes that she could fade into the shadows of her dread and enter a place where no one else ever goes.
Rain beats against Dead Peter's car as the Omega vampires emerge from it. They have weapons—their scar feasting swords—and Shatterhand has his father's saber and Fritz has a glove fitted at the fingers with straight razors, a wicked invention of his own.
Through the wind and rain, Dead Peter sees a mad fire in the eyes of Shatterhand, and he fears him, and he is thankful that he is not Shatterhand's quarry, thankful that he is not an Alpha.
"Where to from here?"
It is Shatterhand wheeling around to face Dead Peter, who speaks instantly as if doing so will ease his own anxiety. "It's not far—the child is not far. Miss Comfort can feel its terrible heart beating. Beating like the heart of the swamp."
Shatterhand's smile is not a pleasant one. It erodes into a sneer.
"The Night Horse Swamp," he says, "is a huge vampire, my brother. And it can siphon off your soul as readily as you take a breath—so beware."
They tramp into knee-deep water. Night birds sheltered from the rain and wind eye them and call out warnings that a new evil has entered the swamp. Carrying their only lantern, Dead Peter is at Shatterhand's shoulder.
"Fauna has risen," he mutters. "Miss Comfort senses it, too. She's whispering in my mind."
"Fauna, my beloved," says Shatterhand. He is nodding as he squints into the storm. He is as giddy as a boy. 'Yes, I know she has come back. I told you, didn't I? I told you my beloved would help us. The child is ours. No one can stop us."
"There's a cabin up ahead," says Dead Peter. "It's the one. We'll sneak up to it, and then we'll act upon the promptings of our hearts."
*    *    *

Through one of the cabin windows Millicent can see a light spearing through the storm. Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes so close that she can smell ozone. She clutches the child and has decided that she will die before she will surrender her babe to the Omegas.
A woman's voice is now stirring within the giggling that approaches. And there is something in that voice— though Millicent cannot make out specific words— something familiar. For a moment she feels a pulse of hope, a throb of something buoyant.
But then a fist of thunder hammers the cabin.
The voice is gone, beaten into the ground. Then returns.
And there is knocking on the door.
Fear clutches at Millicent's throat as she scrambles there to block the entrance of those who would take the child.
"Stay away!" she screams.
And there is momentary silence beyond the door.
What Millicent experiences next is something she could not have described.
"Millicent! It's me—it's Agatha! And some of the children. Please let us in."
The relief, the sudden jolt of joy is so powerful that Millicent can barely find the strength to unlock the door and throw it open for her companions in harm's way to enter. And once they are inside, the scene glows like one of the victory bonfires at the Camp of Miracles.
"I'll arrange for his remains to be transported home. It appears that he murdered Bliss—I believe he was trying to protect New Path. I believe he wanted to help the Alphas. The sheriff will need to ask some questions. My assumption is that he'll rule murder and suicide. At this point I don't see value in the authorities knowing anything more."
Palmer Gast can feel the gravity of Conrad Blutmann's tone. It gives him cold chills as he stands in the warm confines of the New Path home with Nickel and listens to a probable narrative of violence. The increasingly heavy rainfall frightens him, but he knows he must push past his fears to concentrate on protecting those who need protecting. His world, however, plunges deeper into darkness when Mrs. Biddle enters onto the scene and informs them that Agatha and a few of the smaller children left with Horace Nightingale to join Millicent and the baby at Nightingale's cabin.
"Oh, God, no," Gast murmurs in response. "You shouldn't have let her."
"It wasn't safe here," says Biddle. She is knitting her fingers together anxiously. She looks to Blutmann for support. In turn, Blutmann puts his hands on Gast's shoulders and gazes sternly into his eyes.
"You and Nickel had better get out there. Miss Henny senses that the Omegas will be able to track the baby— with Miss Comfort's help—and so Agatha and Millicent will need you. Go on, before the storm worsens."
"But how will we go? We don't even have a car?"
"We have Mr. Hoover," says Nickel. "We'll ride the mule. We can do it."
Caught between wanting to be brave for the two young women he cares most for and his fears of water, Gast hesitates.
"You don't have time to think about it," Blutmann exclaims. "Go. And hope that whatever forces of goodness are afoot tonight will be strong enough to see you through."
Minutes later, Gast and Nickel are riding upon the solid back of Mr. Hoover, racing toward Nightingale's cabin as fast as the animal can move. Nickel has the reins; his parrot, Rudy, is perched on his shoulder, and at the heels of Mr. Hoover, Bucky tries to keep pace, barking as the wind and rain beat down upon him.
Gast, unnerved by the moisture, leans against Nickel doubting that he can face the one element of nature Alpha vampires fear. Images dance menacingly in his mind: he sees himself drowning in the rain, suffocating as it soaks into his skin, as the incessant raindrops steal his face, steal his body, steal his soul. With every ounce of energy he has, he wills the images to retreat to whatever shadowy corner within that they inhabit. He knows that Nickel is also unsettled, and yet is comporting himself bravely. The courageous demeanor of his friend suddenly emboldens him. Unfortunately, he is not aware that, after a quarter of a mile, Bucky falls back.
Hungry eyes are alert to the little dog's vulnerability.
In his tunnel beneath the cafe, the Snark anguishes over what he imagines is a dangerous situation for Millicent, the young woman he loves and adores. He knows that his father has taken Agatha and some of the New Path children out to the cabin. He wishes that he could have gone. But he reasons that he can be of more help if he stays where he is and concentrates the full weight of his powers. And as he concentrates he becomes aware that another force—a wise, magical woman—is also sending out beneficent vibrations to Millicent and the baby she is harboring. He can feel his fingertips heating up as he surrenders to mysterious pulses of energy deep within him. Those fingertips want to send fire, and his love for Millicent galvanizes his attention.
He must succeed. He must keep the young woman and the baby from the blood-seeking madness of the Omegas. He must be a hero.
"I will fight," he whispers, "under the shadow of death—like Achilles. I must."
Under the shadow of death.
But another shadow lurks there with him: Father.
The Snark understands that years of guilt have eroded his father's sanity, his will to continue living. He momentarily reflects upon the man who has attempted to help the Alphas—futile gestures of atonement—and yet an assertion of humanity.
"He won't return," the Snark mutters to himself
I am alone.
Then he shoves all self-pitying thoughts aside and pours body and soul into the task of saving the woman he loves and the child she is hiding from the enemy.
Four small children, three boys and a girl, have accompanied Agatha, and as you look in on them you will see them gathered close to Millicent. Out in the night the hurricane, weakened somewhat since making landfall, is battering the swamp and causing the one-room cabin to moan in response to the gusts of wind.
"Mama Millie," says one boy, about six, "are we gonna get blowed away?"
Agatha and Millicent smile at one another, and then Millicent hands the baby to Agatha and reaches for the boy.
"Jackie, no, we'll be fine. You know that Miss Agatha and I wouldn't let anything harm you."
"We might have to build a big ole boat like Noah did," says the tiny girl.
"No, we can't—cuz we don't got no animals," follows another of the boys. "Noah, he had two of every animal."
When the kids begin to argue about Noah and the biblical flood, Millicent shushes them and tells them to sit quietly and to think good thoughts. As they huddle together, Millicent rocks the baby and listens to Agatha's account of the tragic events back at town: the deaths of Bliss and Angelus.
"How horrible!" says Millicent. "Poor Angelus was seduced by evil. I know that's what it was."
But Agatha has more: "Millie, I'm worried about Mr. Nightingale. When he let us out, he seemed very depressed. He said something about wanting to get away from Sweet River for good."
"How could folks not be upset, especially those who know anything about what's been going on between the Alphas and the Omegas? We've got to continue believing that the evil of the Omegas can't win out in the end."
'They're so strong," says Agatha. "Palmer has explained their system of belief, and he shared a secret about them—what they fear, what their only weakness is."
"I can't imagine that fear is something they can experience."
"Fire. Palmer said that they are afraid of fire. But we won't have to worry, will we? We're safe here, aren't we?"
Millicent smiles and nods, swallowing back any doubts she has.
As time ticks away, the two young women and the children press close together for both physical and emotional warmth. In the light of two lanterns, they are the picture of innocence as the storm, which has raged for the better part of an hour, begins to wane.
"It's the eye," says Millicent "I think the eye of the storm is passing over the swamp."
But she imagines another eye—this one filled with hatred, this one bloodred and intent upon cruelty— staring through the walls of the cabin, staring at them from within the darkness of the swamp.
"Maybe to make us feel better," says Agatha, "we could all sing a song. How about that?"
"Oh, that's a good idea. What shall we sing?"
"We could sing 'Dixie,' " says one of the boys, but the words are no sooner out of his mouth than the door to the cabin is kicked in. There is screaming and shouting.
It is the clutch of Omega vampires.
"Sorry to barge in like this," Shatterhand exclaims. His is an ugly smile behind the saber he is wielding. "But you have something we must have." His fangs are bared. "Give us the babe, and we'll only hurt you just a little."
"No!" Millicent shouts.
Shatterhand glances around at the other Omegas. Then his penetrating stare needles into Millicent's defiant eyes.
"It has been a long evening—the storm is rough on the nerves, and my brothers and I are cold and hungry. Warm blood is what we crave." He shifts his attention to the children. 'The blood of young ones, in fact."
Agatha and Millicent move to shelter the children, who are deeply frightened. But they are no match for Dead Peter and the others as one of the boys is jerked away from them. The young women struggle with the vampires before being shoved to the floor. Shatterhand has the boy's arm in his grasp, and he smiles at the terror in the lad's eyes as he lowers his mouth to the innocent throat The other vampires cheer him on. Fritz steps forward, flashing the razored glove. The children cry out as they retreat. Agatha scrambles to, her feet determined not to allow Shatterhand to feast upon the boy.
"You're all cowards!" she hisses.
As she reaches for the lantern, the razored glove bites into her forearm, but she won't be deterred.
The next sound is a shattering of glass.
And far away in his tunnel the Snark jolts as if he has been struck by lightning. His fingertips flame, and in that lonely cabin on the edge of the swamp, the oil lamp that Agatha has tossed at the feet of the Omega vampires is a snake of fire, and the fire, as if by magic, suddenly mushrooms into a wall of flames. Agatha pulls the boy free from Shatterhand. Millicent screams for her and the children to escape through the rear of the cabin.
Their worst fear ignited, the Omegas momentarily shrink back; they clamber for the front door, and soon the building is engulfed by the fire. But it gives Agatha, Millicent, and the children just enough time to scatter into the swamp. At the insistence of Millicent, Agatha takes the lone lantern and the three boys and little girl while Millicent strikes out into the darkness pressing the baby to her as if it were life itself.
They had shivered against the flanks of the mule, finding what shelter they could beneath a large water oak. Gast has never felt more like a coward, but Nickel encourages him to be brave, for that is what an Alpha vampire must be. Perched on Nickel's shoulder, Rudy repeats his master's words. Gast looks around, aware at last that Bucky is not with them. Yet he knows he must turn his attention and energy to joining Agatha and Millicent and the children. He can find Bucky later, he reasons.
When the storm relents, they shake free of most of their fears. They push on a few yards farther before a distant light draws their eyes.
"Look over there," Nickel exclaims. "Something's on fire."
Gaining a better vantage point, Gast feels a fresh wave of terror.
"It's Nightingale's cabin. Millicent and the baby are there—Agatha may be there, too. My God, we've got to get them out of there. Take the lantern."
Leaving Mr. Hoover behind, they race toward the flames.
But there is nothing to save.
On his knees, sobbing as the thin walls of the cabin crash inward, Gast assumes the worst. Nickel kneels beside him.
'The Omegas have been here," he says. "I can smell them. I think maybe they have Agatha and Millicent or maybe the girls have escaped."
Reining in his emotions, Gast stares at the fire. He cannot keep from imagining that his sister and the young woman he is growing to love and some of the New Path children have perished in those ravenous flames. Although Nickel's words offer slim hope, Gast is willing to reach for it.
"But if they've escaped, it means they're out in the swamp. They'll never make it."
"They will," says Nickel. "They have to—don't you see? We need help, Palmer. We have to go find them, but we need help."
"Where can we get help? We're so far away from town, and we don't even have any weapons."
Nickel's eyes go large in the lantern light.
"Tom Brown," he murmurs. "I'll send Rudy to get Tom."
And Cast begins to nod. Maybe. Just maybe it will work.
"Do it, yes. Tom—he's our one chance. Send Rudy right now."
In one part of the swamp the chase is quickly over.
Agatha and the four New Path children are surrounded by Dead Peter, Wings, and Fritz. Weapons poised at her throat, Agatha knows that it is not the time for rash or foolish action. She surrenders, praying that Millicent and the baby have somehow escaped.
Dead Peter, his voice seething, is nose to nose with his young woman captive.
"No one can save you now, dear lady. When Shatterhand has possession of the dragon child, we shall celebrate, and we shall invite you to watch as we feast upon those poor urchins clinging to you. Have you ever been privileged to observe vampires as they feed? It will be an unforgettable sight."
Fighting back tears, Agatha draws the children even closer in against her, courage fading within her like something tenuous and ephemeral.
Splashing through the knee-deep swamp water and plunging ever deeper into the darkness of the primeval terra incognita, Millicent, nearing exhaustion, holds the baby tightly, slowing only to glance furtively at two points of light behind her. She is certain one of them belongs to the Omega vampires. Is the other Agatha and the children? Or has someone come to rescue them?
She slogs on, fearing what's ahead and unseen— gators and poisonous cottonmouths and vicious snapping turtles—and what's behind: vampires intent upon cruelty and obsessed with a need for the living creature she has in her arms.
"Baby dear, baby dear, where is our guardian angel?"
I'm here.
When the woman's voice erupts in her mind, Millicent stops. Desperately she looks around, but can see no one.
"Oh, please, help Us," she cries.
And then she cannot move. Exhaustion and anxiety hold sway.
She stands and trembles.
Do you long for death?
"No," she whispers. "Baby dear, we long for life."
Strangely, words spoken to her once by Miss Henny ghost to mind as if to offset words that threaten to pull her down: umbram fugat veritas.
Nearly terrified out of her wits, Millicent chants the Latin saying like a mantra, then shifts to a translation of the words: 'Truth puts the darkness to flight." She edges behind a cypress tree, its knees protruding from the water. She has slipped out of the swing of the night, and she feels safe, feels somehow certain that her elected mode of being will protect her. Only when she sees the fiery eyes of the night staring back at her does she realize how mistaken she is. She hears a bleating— and knows instantly that it is the goat, Nosferatu, that has discovered her. And as the creature changes shape and takes flight as a chittering bat and hovers above her, she sinks into a clawing depression, for the Omegas will pick up the signal, and they will find her and the babe.
"Truth puts the darkness to flight," she mutters fu-tilely.
And she is repeating those words when Shatterhand, a grin burning on his lips, discovers her and the baby. To Millicent, the evil vampire's voice sounds almost soothing and reassuring.
"The hunt is up, Miss Millie. It's time to stop running. It's time to rest and to relinquish the child. This is the way it must be."
Lantern in one hand, saber in the other, the vampire wades up to his prey.
Millicent's soft weeping lifts above the swamp through the swirl of low clouds and into the stars. Voices clamber from beyond. Millicent looks up and her heart sinks further. Dead Peter, a sword point at the back of Agatha's head, is directing her and the children into the shallow pool, and from a narrow run to the left, Wings and Fritz are leading Gast and Nickel as captives. Millicent reads their fear of water—she assumes that they tried valiantly but could not fully overcome these surroundings and thus were no match for the Omegas.
Shatterhand sheaths the saber and reaches for the babe.
The swamp is almost preternaturally silent, though the eye of the storm is beginning to pass. Soon the wind will kick up and showers will return.
"Baby dear, baby dear ... I am sorry. I did not want this to happen. I love you, baby dear."
Gast calls out, "Forgive us, Millie. Please, forgive us."
"I do," she whispers, her words barely audible. Then she looks beyond Shatterhand at the sad expression on the face of Agatha. The eyes of the two women meet and something passes between them, a commiseration known only to them.
'The babe," says Shatterhand. "I'll have that dragon child now, and then the rest of you must suffer—it's the way of the Omegas. Power. Submission. Humiliation."
"Please, no. Isn't it enough that you'll have the babe?" says Millicent.
Shatterhand shakes his head as if he cannot believe her words.
"Do you really think that any kindness or generosity lives in our veins?"
"You cannot have this child," Millicent exclaims. Despite her bold tone, she is quaking, and her nemesis is delighted by what he sees. He turns to smile at his fellow Omegas and to gain their approbation.
"Fritz," he says, "cut one of the boys.. .just a little. Compose for us the music of cruelty. We'll take note of whether Miss Millicent likes the sound of it."
Fritz's razored glove slices down across Jackie's ear; his cry echoes far into the swamp. Agatha fights to keep the others from being harmed, but her hand is slashed open. Gast rages forward, splashing toward Fritz; he is met by Dead Peter, who thrusts his sword into Gast's thigh.
In a matter of seconds the Omegas are firmly in control.
Shatterhand rivets upon Millicent. "See the pain you have caused? And for what? Your defiance is pointless. I must have that dragon child—now!"
His voice storms.
And in the wake of his voice the night draws down mysteriously. The tempestuous darkness above the swamp parts, riven by a spear of fire and light that causes everyone to gasp.
Tom Brown, like an avenging angel, pitches down from the angry sky, his wings thrumming the wet air as he lands opposite Shatterhand. There are muted cries, some of joy, some of surprise and consternation.
The face of the Omega vampire leader gives a sudden turn of amazement, then settles into anger. Eye to eye, the two powerful vampires lock into a score of moments that silence everything.
It is Shatterhand, saber in hand, who breaks that silence.
"My bastard brother!" he snarls.
Tom Brown, his wings still quivering from the flight, stares past the saber to his enemy. "It is never pleasant to see you," he says. "I've been called here to stop your cruelty."
"The only certainty is cruelty."
"No, you are wrong. The only certainty is that you must fail."
Confident, Shatterhand swishes the saber. "Peter," he calls out, "shed more blood before I bid my brother a violent adieu and take the child."
As the innocents scream and try to resist Dead Peter and his vicious companions, Tom reaches back his head and spews a blast of fire that sends the Omegas reeling and staggering in retreat. Then Tom gestures for the three boys and the little girl to run to him. He hunkers down and spreads his arms. As the children clamber his way, the air around the scene is magically, momentarily siphoned off, and suddenly they are sparrows in flight. They fly into Tom's chest and then just as quickly emerge from his back and are children again—safely behind him. But when Tom concentrates upon the babe in Millicent's arms, he discovers that no such protective transformation is possible.
"Magician," says Shatterhand, jubilation in his voice, "the dragon child is beyond your power. Yes, you, the good, brave, heroic vampire have ... tricks. But I have some magic of my own."
The swamp water in front of him bubbles, roiling as if a dangerous denizen is stirring. Then Tom steps back in fear and wonder as the ghost of Fauna rises between him and his brother.
"I'm here," she whispers.
And Millicent wails, "Oh, Tom, watch out!"
But there is nothing he can do except brace himself as the ghostly woman, her long hair flowing down her back, wafts into him like a predatory mist; he shrieks in pain before doubling over, weak and virtually helpless. The ghost of Fauna dissolves, and yet the damage has been done. Tom wants to unleash his most powerful weapon—his laughter—but he cannot.
Pleased, Shatterhand turns to Millicent: "Say your parting words to your beloved magician. His time on earth is over."
From several yards away, Gast, his thigh bleeding heavily, watches in horror as Shatterhand raises his saber, and it seems improbable to him to hear Nickel whistling. He is whistling "Ode to Joy" and he is setting Rudy to flight.
The saber slashes at Tom's back, cutting a gaping wound and nearly severing one wing. As Tom cries out and as Shatterhand lifts the saber for another savage offense, the parrot flies into his face and hovers there raking at flesh with its talons. Thrown off balance for an instant, Shatterhand nearly falls. His curses fill the air, but when he is able to steady himself, he swings twice, and with the second swing he strikes the bird a deadly blow.
Nickel howls in torment at what he witnesses, and yet the Omegas hold him at bay. He cannot save the bird, though he struggles with all his might to free himself and charge at Shatterhand.
Rudy's attack, however, is not in vain, for it gives Tom just enough time to push past his pain and grab the saber. The other Omegas immediately come to Shatterhand's aid, but he gestures for them to keep their distance. Weaponless, he studies Tom's face as if certain he will see weakness there.
"You're as much a coward as our father, the son of a bitch. He always wanted you to have that saber even though I deserved it more. You have it now, but you don't have the guts to use it. There's no cruelty in you, no brutality. Give me the weapon—your night of magic is over."
And with those words Shatterhand reaches out
Tom has the saber poised to strike. He reads the eyes of his brother and then, a note of regret seeping into his tone, he says, "If brutality must serve goodness, I am for it."
The saber flashes through the air, crackling like the tongue of a hungry whip.
The right hand of the Omega leader is severed completely with a single blow.
Crashing to his knees, Shatterhand grabs at the stump of his wrist as blood gushes in an unstoppable stream.
"Get the child!" he shouts.
And the unexpected, the inexplicable unfolds— more than magic.
Dead Peter's hands are clutching at the child, and so are Tom's.
Millicent is holding it: "Baby dear, baby dear," she murmurs.
The night implodes as a sudden gust of wind shakes the swamp.
And just that suddenly Millicent has nothing in her arms.
The child has disappeared.

Twenty
Fortunately for Sweet River and the campus of Mantis College the landfall hurricane, already weakened by the time it passed through Montgomery, did not inflict as much damage as she might have. Still, Isabel was no lady. Pines were uprooted, ancient white oaks lost many a limb, and area creeks foamed brown and lusty with over three inches of rain. Some of the more avid football fans—older men gathered for their Monday morning quarterbacking duties at the barbershop downtown— argued that the storm left another casualty in its wake: for you see, on the Saturday following the appearance of Isabel, the Mantis College Knights lost their game to Stonesboro 28-0, never recovering from a first-quarter disaster on a sloppy field in which star player Tommy Don Wiggins broke his ankle, the freakish result of tripping on a cheerleader's megaphone on an out-of-bounds play.
A Saturday night rarity occurred—the Camp of Miracles did not blaze.
Storm damage of a different sort could be viewed at the houses of both the Alphas and the Omegas, as you will see anon. Imagine now that as Halloween rapidly approaches you are witnessing the Omega vampires at the House of Night—bedlam is come again.
"I don't want to live!"
Shatterhand's scream of anguish explodes, sending reverberating rings of sound out from the House of Night and into the campus quad, reaching, in a matter of seconds, the elaborate foyer of the Alpha House where the massive hourglass rests, the abiding symbol of that fraternity.
"I don't want to live!"
Another scream, even louder than the first, issues from the throat of Shatterhand. This one is ear-piercing—this one, when it reaches the Alpha House, does not merely cause the hourglass to tremble; instead, the pitch of that insane declaration etches tiny fractures over most of the surface of the impressive object. The fractures tinkle. The hourglass shudders. It twitches. It sings in pain. And then, with a shivering gasp, it crashes, both bulbs breaking, spreading sand and glass everywhere like a volcanic eruption spewing lava. Alpha vampires come running from all directions.
Back at the House of Night, Dead Peter watches carefully, thoughtfully, perhaps even fearfully. Shatterhand is being examined by Miss Comfort. The young vampire's right hand and wrist are gone; the stump is heavily wrapped in bandages, which Comfort is unraveling. Shatterhand is obviously devastated.
"I will never play music again!" he cries, and Dead Peter cringes at the timbre of the cry, bordering as it does on tears. "Never, never, never! Never touch the ivory keys and bring forth soul-saving music. Never. Do any of you understand?"
All except Miss Comfort cower as the cannonade of his voice, the brutally self-pitying quality of his emotional state, shoves at them.
"Quiet," says Comfort as she leans down to inspect the raw stub of flesh and bone. "Quiet—if you are a true vampire ... if you are an Omega vampire."
With that, Shatterhand appears to shrink into himself like a little boy. Dead Peter finds the sudden metamorphosis alarming, disgusting. Seeking approbation of a brotherly kind, Shatterhand glances up at him,
"But you understand, don't you? You know what my music meant to me. You see now why I don't care to live—not unless I can exact a most intimate and exquisite revenge upon Tom Brown?"
Dead Peter nods. "Yes, but... first your wound must be taken care of."
His rage rebuilding softly, Shatterhand whispers like a madman: "It's gone. It's all the way gone." And momentarily he wrests the stump away from Miss Comfort and shakes it in Peter's face. "All my art, all my magic— gone! Taken by my bastard of a brother. He calls himself 'Tom Brown.' Oh, but his real name is Edward Conners, son of the same bastard of a father as I. Tom Brown—like that foreign legion character played by Gary Cooper—well, I'll show Tom Brown who's the cruelest of them all."
Miss Comfort is murmuring doubtfully.
"Forget about Tom Brown," she says.
"Forget? Forget this!"  Shatterhand exclaims, wagging the stump at her.
You will notice that Dead Peter is watching closely. The opaque light in his fellow vampire's eyes suggests that sanity is rapidly dimming, that it may wink out, leaving a creature incapable of reasoned volition, a possibility that frightens Peter.
Miss Comfort does not retreat
"Think of the babe, the dragon child, instead of Tom Brown. Where is the babe? I can feel that it is not far from here, and yet I cannot pinpoint where. You—you are the one who must find it. The babe alone can transform your pain into sublime relief. Don't be a fool— don't surrender to revenge unless it will gain you possession of the child." She raises a motherly finger and adds, "Don't be a stupid fool."
Shatterhand's rage, like an out-of-control conflagration, is too great to stand close to.
"By hell's fury, I am not a fool!"
His shout literally brings him to his knees. His head is lowered. His body quakes.
Miss Comfort looks down at him as if he were a spoiled child. "When you come to your senses—when the heart of the Omega vampire that you are beats within you again—know this: your father is on his way to Sweet River. The destiny of you and your brother and that dragon child is inextricably bound up with him. My intuition tells me so. And remember this, as well: here among your brothers are those who would face the fires of doom with you, whether you deserve their loyalty or not."
She exits the company of vampires somberly. They watch her go.
There are many kinds of silence in human relationships.
The one that you sense at this moment, as Fritz approaches Shatterhand, is tumultuous.
"I have made something ... designed something for you," says Fritz, puffing with excitement. "It will not allow you to play music, but it will make you a vampire to be feared. With it, you will create suffering and pain; you will cause many wounds and much blood to flow."
Shatterhand raises his head. He reaches with his eyes for Fritz's face the way a sinner reaches out with his confession to a priest. "Make me whole again," he says. "Whatever it is that you have for me, I need it now."
Fritz hurries from the room. You will feel a new silence—oppressive, ineluctable.
Wings and Dead Peter and Shatterhand exchange glances uncomfortably. Like strangers. But when Fritz returns with a shiny, metallic object in his hands, the Omegas, magically, seem a fraternity again.
"It fits like this," says Fritz, huffing and puffing as he gently attaches the prosthesis onto the ragged stump.
Shatterhand gazes at the device in wonder: it has knives for fingers, a razor-sharp gaff for a thumb—it is much more a weapon than a limb. By the look on Shatterhand's face, he is annealed. He is almost speech-less as the fingers seem to move in concert with his thoughts.
"This ... this allows me to be vicious once again."
"I hoped that you would like it," says Fritz, breathing raggedly as he beams.
Shatterhand hugs him fraternally, and Wings and Dead Peter applaud. Shatterhand, all smiles, shushes them so that he might offer a declaration.
"I know that Tom Brown has my saber, the family saber, and with that saber he will stand at some point to protect the babe, the dragon child. If my father also stands in my way—our way—then with this," and here he stabs at the air with the prosthesis, "I'll destroy him as well as my brother. This... this will be my vanquisher, my doomsayer against Tom Brown's hocus-pocus." He glances around. "Who is with me?"
He raises the weaponed arm, gesturing for the others to touch the artificial hand with theirs.
"Aided by my doomsayer, I will possess the dragon child. I will be whole again. And after the final battle, the Omegas will gather victoriously in the House of Night, and the Alphas will be but a memory." He pauses. His fangs inch down below his bottom lip. "Say the words," he intones. "Power. Submission. Humiliation."
And they repeat them. They shout them until the House of Night echoes.
Dead Peter drifts aside from his brethren; he is lost in thought. Is he doubtful? What is swimming in the dangerous waters of his mind?
At the Alpha House, Gast is among those staring at the broken hourglass. It seems impossible that such a venerable piece could be destroyed. Seconds pass before anything more than shocked murmurs are rendered. Then Miss Henny says, quite knowingly, "Shattered by Shatterhand—smashed by his pain and anguish."
But Gast suddenly stops listening. His bandaged thigh is sore. The events that transpired at the Night Horse Swamp flood his mind before sweeping away. The babe disappeared. And then, for Gast, the worst part: going back to Sweet River and, along the way, discovering the mutilated body of Bucky.
There was no doubt as to what had happened: the cats of the House of Night had savaged his dear companion. When Gast lifted the lifeless body of the dog up against him, he felt something tear loose around his heart Hatred and rage rose in him like water in a geyser. He lost all control and had to be restrained by Nickel, who had also suffered the loss of a pet, and kept Gast from dashing through the doors of the House of Night to kill every cat in sight—and every Omega who got in his way.
"Palmer?"
The voice is Miss Henny's; it brings him back to the moment She is looking at him with motherly concern, and something more. "Palmer, I know what you are thinking about, but you can't permit yourself to be selfish—revenge is a selfish, empty emotion. You cannot bring Bucky back. We have to concentrate on the realities at hand. The Omegas will be limited in their powers as long as they don't have the child."
"But where is it?" says Agatha, moving close to Gast and hooking her elbow affectionately through his. Her hand is bandaged.
"And where is Tom Brown?" Millicent followed. "His wounds—I wanted to tend to them. They need to be tended to. He disappeared as we made our way out of the swamp."
"I don't know," says Miss Henny. "I don't know where the child is, and I don't know where Tom Brown is."
"We all understand what's ahead," says Nickel. The Omegas will want a winner-take-all battle. They won't rest now—especially with Shatterhand's desire for revenge. I say we beat them to the punch. If we can find Tom, we can challenge them and win the day."
"But the way of the Alphas is to seek peace," Miss Henny responds. Agatha and Millicent agree, but Gast can feel his anger ticking, ticking until he explodes.
"Don't you get it? Peace is a worthless, pointless dream. As long as there are Omegas, there can be no peace. All they believe in are pain and cruelty—and shedding blood. And as long as there are vampires, blood must flow."
Agatha's words reach up to him: "You have to be brave, Palmer. Meet their threats bravely."
"Brave! Bucky was brave—look what happened to him! And what about Tom Brown? The bravest of us— and yet he was wounded so severely that he may not have survived for all we know."
"Don't say that, Palmer," Millicent cries.
"And the child," Gast continues. "We don't know where it is, but I can tell you this: we don't have enough magic to protect it from the Omegas. Magic, bravery, humanity—what good are these things in the face of so much treachery? We have to be equally treacherous, and we have to let go of our hope for peace."
"No, Palmer, you're wrong," says Millicent. "The Omegas need to be transformed. We do have the magic for that, and we can't put hope aside, and we must believe that forces of goodness have the babe under their wing—even at this moment."
Gast suddenly hunkers down to the remains of the giant hourglass.
"Our symbol is broken. Time's up. I'm not waiting for some miracle."
He storms out the front door, leaving the others disconcerted.
Nickel looks to Miss Henny.
"But what can we do?" he says.
"We can prepare," she responds, "to rescue our Palmer."
Conrad Blutmann wants answers. On a windy, haunted evening, he seeks out burial grounds: first, that of Daddyman, the site of the expunging of Nidus, the vampire hunter, and the Spinning Jenny constructed just for him. The Jenny is gone, and so, of course, is Nidus, but the memory lingers. For Blutmann, it was a satisfying experience to see the notorious vampire hunter sent packing, and yet, at this site Peter heard the truth.
Too many secrets.
Blutmann cannot keep from wondering what Peter will do when he finally accepts the truth of his origins. But there is more to wonder about. Questions to be asked. Could it be, Blutmann ponders, that spirits sen-tried at their graves are willing to share what they know, what they have seen?
Looking past the glow of his lantern, Blutmann, feeling oddly self-conscious, whispers into the shadows, "Daddyman, can you hear me?"
Night birds answer, but the ghost of the giant negro does not.
"When you were alive," Blutmann continues, "you knew things that no one else did. You had the right eyes and ears for secrets. That's why I've come here tonight... because there's so much I need to know, and I can't penetrate the darkness on my own."
A chilly wind soughs high in the surrounding pines. Blutmann feels foolish—an educated man seeking answers from beyond the grave. Questions. Of course, he wants to ask about Peter: Will my son ever be able to accept that I am his father and that my sister is his mother? Will the hatred in his heart ever die? Will he forgive us?
But there are other questions as well—questions concerning the ongoing battle between the Alphas and the Omegas. Questions about disappearances. Blutmann clears his throat.
"Daddyman, if you're here—if you know, then help us. I'm aware that you tried to help Millicent before your life ended. You wanted to keep the babe, the abandoned child, from harm. Now the babe has disappeared. Where is it? And where is Tom Brown?"
The silence of the night creeps in around him, an indifferent silence. He waits. He listens. And he knows that he is being watched. But not by the ghost or restless spirit of Daddyman. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turns around, lifting the lantern so that he may face whoever is there.
The bleat is almost derisive.
The eyes of Nosferatu gleam in amber intensity.
And then the goat rises on its back legs, and Blutmann steels himself to be attacked.
But there is no attack.
Instead, the night seems to shudder and compress, and quite suddenly Blutmann feels the cold air generated by the wings of a large vampire bat as it takes flight, seeking refuge in the stars.
Relieved and yet disappointed, and more than a little unsettled, Blutmann makes his way back to town, wandering almost unconsciously to the Sweet River Cemetery, to a far, isolated area known as the Pauper's Corner, where those who have no loved ones, or whose loved ones could not afford to give them a more proper burial, are interred.
And there Blutmann hunkers down and stares at the ground.
The Inky Boys sleep the sleep beyond time.
"I'm sorry," Blutmann mutters. "You fellas died trying to assert your humanity. I had no right to ask you to do that. I feel guilty. And I wish that I knew for certain that you forgive me." The horrible memory of the death scene in the boxcar gusts through his thoughts like a winter wind. He shivers. "Secrets and guilt," he continues. "Horace Nightingale had a secret and a secret guilt, and he could not abide them, and so he had to leave. Secrets breed guilt... and guilt breeds ... I fear it may breed madness."
Receiving no assuagement from the silent earth, Blutmann stands, and then, hands in his topcoat, he begins to roam aimlessly until he comes upon a freshly dug grave site, and remembers that it belongs to the young vampire Bliss.
At the foot of it, he ponders whether she remains there.
He senses that the air surrounding the site is abnormally cold.
"Why did one so attractive as you give yourself to darkness?" he murmurs, perhaps more to himself than to whatever may lie beneath his feet.
Blutmann shakes his head, thinking of the beauty of the young woman.
"She won't answer you."
Surprised, alarmed, Blutmann wheels around to meet the source of the voice—a female voice, and he sees Loretta Block. She is staring at him or perhaps past him, not blinking, appearing, in fact, to be mesmerized by something.
"I didn't know anyone else was here," Blutmann stammers. "You're Mrs. Block, aren't you? You run the Blind Pig. Isn't that correct?"
Her nod is almost imperceptible.
"I keep coming here," says the woman, "but I can't explain why. Your question—I may have an answer if you wish to hear."
Blutmann takes a deep breath. The woman is curiously unnerving, yet certainly compelling.
"Yes. Yes, an answer. It seems I'm always in search of an answer."
In a monotone so distant it might have come from the moon, the woman says, "Souls are drawn to darkness—to evil—because the way is attractive. It is like a path into the woods that you cannot stop yourself from taking. An enticing, beautiful path. Evil is an irresistibly beautiful path."
And as if for the first time, Blutmann notices how lovely Loretta Block must have been when she was younger.
"But isn't goodness beautiful, too?"
"Not in such a way that it clutches your heart. Not in a way that makes you want to worship a force you believe can transform you. You would never surrender to goodness, but to evil—if you are to become one with it—you must surrender."
"Look at what surrendering to evil got this young woman." Blutmann gestures at the grave, and then feels more than mildly uncomfortable as the woman steps closer to him.
"Do you long for death?" she asks.
Her question throws him off balance. He smiles nervously and takes a step backward.
"I... no, I long for peace and forgiveness." He turns away from her. "This town, the college—we've seen enough death, and I fear that we'll see more." He pauses. A question occurs to him. "This young woman— Bliss—did you have—" But when he has turned around to face the woman again, he stutters the rest of his question: "—a personal relationship with her?"
But Loretta Block is gone.
Disappeared as thoroughly as a ghost might have.
Blutmann catches his breath.
A low wind gusts, scattering leaves and dust. Blutmann shields his face momentarily and then he realizes that, once again, he is not alone.
"Who's there?"
He searches the encroaching darkness.
"I know there's someone here—show me who you are."
The figure moves into view so quickly that fear claws at Blutmann's throat.
"I'm someone you ought not want to see."
"Peter," says Blutmann, steadying himself as the Omega vampire, cigarette smoke curling up from his lips, nears. "No, why would you say that? I do—I do want to see you. I was hoping, in fact, to talk with you. We haven't gotten to since that night we had to deal with the vampire hunter."
The vein in the forehead of Dead Peter throbs gently as the vampire frowns.
"No point in talking," he says. "I'm not here for that. I came to pay my respects to Bliss and ... to think about how things must end."
"But I think you need to know more about the circumstances of—"
"I know what I need to know!" Peter suddenly exclaims. His face is as hard and white as marble. "I visited Dr. Stone. He explained things. I know what I need to know. All that remains is to decide through what means I will make you suffer. You and ... your sister."
"Please, won't you listen to what I have to say? Henny and I... your mother and I... you need to hear the full story."
"No! Damn you! No!" The night itself seems to quake with the anger in Peter's voice. And then as if a storm has passed across his face, he flickers a smile. 'The only story that needs to be told is mine."
Blutmann stares at the vampire. He nods several times. "Yes. Yes, of course, you're right. I've never really heard your story. But you must know that I have wanted to—I have suffered every day that you have drawn a breath because I wanted for your life to be everything that it could be."
Peter's stare cuts through Blutmann as if there were nothing of flesh and bone about him.
"You have suffered?" The vampire's laugh is soft and as ugly as laughter can possibly be. "You know nothing about what it means to suffer. I... I am the one who suffered. As a child, oh, I knew when still a small boy that I was at odds with nature. There was something inexpressibly deformed about me. Not physically. Call it a spiritual defect. And I suffered the tortures of the soul as a result The vampire life has been my salvation. The Omegas have been my family. Cruelty has been my religion. I do have a father. Yes, indeed. Not you. No, I have a spiritual father: de Sade. He has taught me about life the way a father should teach a son—the way my blood father never did—because the sorry bastard abandoned me."
"My God, I'm sorry, Peter. I'd do anything if I could change the past."
With those words, Blutmann reaches out, reaches for the shoulder of his son; fire flames in Peter's eyes, he swings viciously and the back of Blutmann's hand is opened by a sharp dagger of a fingernail, and when he grabs at the bleeding wound, there is another violent swipe, this one catching the man on the cheek raising an ugly, bloody welt.
Blutmann winces in pain. "You don't know the story," he murmurs.
"I don't care to hear it"
"Are you afraid of the truth?"
The vampire's fist is as fast as the flicker of a serpent's tongue. It crashes against the side of Blutmann's head. He stumbles and falls to the ground. "Go ahead," he says. "Go ahead and vent your wrath. I understand. We abandoned you, but we thought it was for the best. We were wrong. There was no right way to go. We heard the promptings of our deeper selves—if you are as strong as I think you are, what harm can there be in hearing the truth?"
Peter is suddenly trapped by his anger, trapped like some powerful predator.
He is a caged vampire.
"I could kill you," he says. "It would be so easy because I'm strong. I'm an Omega. Born to suffer, born to inflict pain."
"Kill me if you must. But hear the truth about yourself first."
The moment holds. It is as if no time passes and yet, seemingly, minutes tick by. At last, Peter extends his hand and pulls Blutmann to his feet.
"I'll listen," says Peter. "But you are beneath my contempt, and no narrative can save you."
"I'm not the one," Blutmann follows, "who needs to be saved."
"Talk," says Peter. "Your words will add fuel to the fire of my revenge."
"I'll take that chance."
So it begins.
They stand apart. Peter looks away and smokes another cigarette. He appears ready only to listen grudgingly. Blutmann gathers himself, and he secretly prays that Henny is somehow aware of the moment and will give him strength.
'Your mother—she was not my blood sister," he begins. "She was from a large family, and her folks could not afford to keep all of their children. My father agreed to take in Henrietta. She joined us when I was just a boy, and... I think I loved her from the moment I set eyes on her. Not a day has passed in which I have not loved her passionately."
Blutmann continues, though he senses that at any moment Peter, through disgust or disinterest or both, will bolt from the scene. He does not know what needs to be said, and so his sentences, though heartfelt, sound tentative.
"By the time we were teenagers, I wanted her more than I could bear. We knew that the situation legislated against an intimate relationship. We both knew that only too well. But we ... the feeling, the wanting... was more than we could resist."
The night closes in around Blutmann as he continues. Tracing the inevitable result of his passion for Henrietta and hers for him, he does not attempt to defend their actions nor does he condemn them.
"We knew that we couldn't keep you—and rural North Carolina wasn't a friendly setting for an abortion. It seemed we had no choice but to do what we did. And then, we went on with our lives. And then, as if the gods intervened and chose to complete a circle of fate, you came to Mantis College."
He gestures helplessly, his hands heavy, useless. He wants Peter to say something. Anything. He stops talking because he does not know where the account should end.
This is what happened. Now you know.
Peter is silent for an uncountable run of seconds. He smokes.
At last he clears his throat, and Blutmann feels a surge of hope.
This changes nothing," says Peter.
Blutmann is blasted with disappointment.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he says. "I mean, I understand, but I—"
"I'll direct my revenge," Peter exclaims, cutting off his father, "at my dear, passionate mother. When the opportunity arises, I will make her suffer for bringing me into this world."
"Direct your vengeance at me instead."
Peter shakes his head. His eyes brim over with hatred. "You? You waste my time. It would be a waste of energy to inflict more pain upon you. Besides, this nauseating bit of personal history you shared is a distraction from what I want most—and that is to see the Omegas crush the Alphas once and for all."
"Why? Why must the Omegas continue this war?"
Peter appears to collect every ounce of his invidious-ness and stabs the air violently with a sharp-nailed finger.
"Because we must!"
Millicent is humming as she sweeps the hand curry over Mr. Hoover's back. They are in the Culpeppers' barn, and it is another windy night in October country, leaves skittering beyond the door like tiny animals.
"How will it end, Mr. Hoover? The awful fighting ... and the child, my baby dear—where is it? Do you know, Mr. Hoover? And where is Tom Brown? My Tom?"
She brushes her cheek against the mule's muzzle. It is as soft as cream. The animal says nothing, makes no noise, yet its large, black, liquid eyes seem to signal commiseration. Millicent strokes the mule's ears, and then hears something.
Yes, almost certainly a sound not attributable to the wind.
She tenses. She tosses a glance toward some stalls in a shadowy corner.
"Who's there?"
The voice that emerges from the darkness is familiar.
"No one you should fear. It's Tom—Tom Brown."
"Oh, Tom! I can't believe my eyes!"
They come to each other and embrace, and Tom says, "I should have let you know I was here, but I wanted to make certain you were alone."
"I've been so worried about you. Where did you go? How are your wounds?"
He pushes back and smiles down at her.
"I'm afraid I'll have to give up flying."
By lantern light, they sit in the loose straw, and when Tom asks about what has been going on, Millicent tells everything that she knows, emphasizing Palmer's desire for revenge and the almost certainty that the Omegas wish for a final battle with the Alphas.
"And something more, Tom—we've heard that your father is in town."
"I know."
"What are you planning to do?"
"I should meet with my father, and so should my brother, but I don't want to fight. I still have the family saber. My brother can have it if it's so important to him. I'm through fighting. I have collected some money for the New Path children. Not ten thousand dollars like I hoped, but some."
"Tom, where's the baby? The child? It just disap-poared. Was that your magic?"
"No. But maybe it's for the best that the child is missing. Its presence generates violence."
'The child deserves a chance."
Tom gazes into Millicent's eyes. The alchemy of the moment transmutes his emotions into a new awareness.
"So do we," he says.
Millicent can feel her face warm with a mixture of embarrassment and joy, and when she doesn't respond, Tom takes her hand.
"Come with me. Let's go away from here. We can ride the rails. We can go to California To someplace magical where violence isn't inevitable. Millicent, we can light out for the territory—like Huck Finn, if Huck had him a gal."
He laughs softly, and that laughter triggers her own momentarily.
But what sinks into her being sobers her. Finally she shakes her head.
"We're not characters in some book, Tom. We have real lives, and we can't run away from them no matter how wonderful and romantic that could be."
Tom's face darkens. "If I stay, there will be more blood. Shatterhand—it's all my brother knows."
"Don't fight him," Millicent exclaims. Transform him."
Tom looks away, his expression a feverish dance of shadows. "Only in the fires of destiny will he ever change." He turns back to her, looking as sad as she has ever seen him. Then you won't come with me?"
"No, Tom."
"I thought you loved me."
"I do. With my heart and soul, I do."
"What now?"
"You have to decide what you want and who you are."
"I'm a vampire. But if I stay in Sweet River, I feel that the powers I have as a vampire, my magic—will begin to fade. I won't be able to live in the blood."
"You'll have love instead."
"Is that the choice I face? The vampire life of power and magic or a life that promises love? To you it must sound like an easy choice." 
"To me, it would be." 
“To me, it is difficult beyond words." 
"Then, Tom, you must trust what is difficult." 
"I have to go away and think. I have to walk around inside myself and embrace my solitude. Forgive me for seeming so selfish. Forgive me for not surrendering at this instant to the love you offer. But in the heart of every vampire is a yearning for every experience that is possible. Being here is magic—and magic takes me beyond death."
She reaches for his neck and hugs him and whispers in his ear: "Go, then, and do what you must do. I'll be waiting."
Loretta Block looks on, not blinking, into the smoke and darkness of the Blind Pig. Sitting at a corner table with Dr. John Stone is the Reverend Harry Savage Conners, fresh into town and obviously uncomfortable in his surroundings. His suit is beginning to rumple, and his eyes are rimmed red from the smoke and from his emotional state. Stone is having a drink, but Conners is not.
Let us listen in.
"I have sinned," moans Conners. He clutches the Bible against his heart as if it were a shield. He appears to need Stone to be his confessor, but the latter secretly delights in being only mildly receptive.
"Is the child truly yours?" Stone asks.
Conners blinks at what is for him a change of subject
"Yes. Yes, God knows it is. The mother—she's barely more than a girl herself. She wrote saying she had abandoned it here. She's just a girl, but my lusting flesh couldn't resist her. I have fallen, and now I am suffering and must suffer more."
"What do you want?" Stone asks. His tone is cold. He has no respect for Conners.
The man of God lowers his head, his mouth dropping open in bewilderment. "I... the word is atonement. I've come with my Bible and my sinful soul to ... to change things. You see, don't you, that acknowledging my sin ... that I've been transformed as a result. I'm a hypocrite, yes, but as I live and breathe I've been transformed. My conscience has me in its grasp like a demon and demands that I return here to Sweet River."
"For the child? I see that," says Stone. "But what about your sons?"
Conners writhes in apparent anguish.
"Oh, them, too. Them, too. I've come to take responsibility for the child I brought into this dreadful world and ... and to beg forgiveness from my sons— they're men now—to beg forgiveness for not being a father to them."
"Your sons are not alike."
"But that makes no difference. I love them. I realize that now and pray that it's not too late."
Stone finishes his drink and slithers his tongue across his bottom lip.
"I promised I would help you, and I will. I'll bring about a reunion with your sons and perhaps with your child, too."
"God bless you. You're a good man despite the fact that Satan has lured you to alcohol." Conners hesitates. He searches Stone's unreadable expression and asks, "But what is it that you want in doing this? Is there atonement in this for you as well?"
Stone laughs a low, chilling laugh. Darkness claims his face. His eyes glimmer with secret, unknowable bliss.
"I want to watch," he says.

Twenty-one
This is how it ends.
Halloween, 1931, Sweet River, Alabama.
The Snark is awakened from a late afternoon snooze by the crying of the baby. The dragon child. It nests in a pile of straw and shredded newspaper in the dimly lit runnel, and though it looks much like any other child—any other child with six fingers—its cry is that of a distraught animal calling out as if with no hope of being responded to.
"Baby dear," the Snark whispers, for he has heard his beloved Millicent say those same words to the child. Millicent is the driving center of all that he has planned. He imagines her pretty face, those tiny, heart-shapod lips—like violets—and he wonders what it would be like to kiss those inviting blooms and to feel her loving touch.
But such things are not for him to experience. Not ever.
He jolts more fully awake as his brain begins to tick off the list of necessary things to do. Images of vaulting fire fill his thoughts, replacing that of Millicent's sweet, sweet face. Fire is the answer. It always is. The Snark can feel it in his fingertips.
"I'm so tired, baby dear," he whispers.
Teleporting the child from the swamp to his tunnel enervated him far beyond what he anticipated, and yet the supernatural ploy was worth it: the babe did not end up in the hands of the Omegas.
"Have I any magic left?" the Snark murmurs.
He glances down at the dragon child and then quickly away.
The child frightens him. Chills his blood.
How can Millicent love it?
The child has been marked—it is one of those rare creatures of the universe loved by the good and sought after by the evil. The Snark does not understand this creature. He only knows that, shortly, after the sun has set, he will deliver it to his beloved Millicent so that it may be taken out of the swing of an evil flood of desire. And he knows that if his courage holds—and if his voice cooperates—he will tell Millicent that he loves her.
And then he will bring fire.
And he will fight.
Under the shadow of death.
Because being a hero is the best that one so ugly as himself can strive for.
The baby grows silent, unnervingly so. It closes its eyes; the Snark responds by pinching its cheek, but though the child throws open its eyes, it does not cry out—it is caught in some dark web of future events that the Snark cannot or does not want to imagine.
I am alone, thinks the Snark, for the preternatural child is no company.
The Snark misses his father, and yet he understands that guilt drove the man away from Sweet River.
"I forgive you," whispers the Snark wearily.
He raises his hands in front of him and knows that the wild talent of his fingertips has been triggered—it's nearly time to set the night on fire.
"But first I must take this little creature to the loving arms of an angel."
Twilight finds the Snark and the babe within shouting distance of the New Path home. Imagine that the Snark has his cloth hood on, eye slits black smudges. He is quivering with anticipation as he tunnels up to the surface. The babe, not pleased with all the movement, or perhaps frightful of the setting sun, is crying, and the crying pitches higher to a wail.
The Snark hopes that the angel hears.
Minutes later, he sees that she has. His heart is triphammering as he watches her walking hurriedly into the backyard out to the edge of the property. Her eyes flash concern; she kneads her fingers together, and then, with breathless suddenness, she spies the Snark and the babe in his arms.
"Baby dear!" she calls out, running, slowing only when she more fully catches the features of the Snark, frowning at the sight of the hood. He wants to reassure her, but words become wet tissue in his mouth and all he can emit is a gurgling sound.
And then she is very near.
"Who are you? You have my baby dear. Where did you get him? Who are you? Can't you speak?"
An eternity fills the seconds—no, he cannot speak. But he is able to hand the child to the wingless angel. He feels suddenly like a patch of fertile ground in which a few words begin to sprout.
"Keep it safe," he mutters.
Millicent hugs the child for what seems a month of relieved moments. It is obvious to the Snark that she is filled with joy, but she is also curious.
"Who are you?" she says, looking closely. "Are you in costume for Halloween?" She smiles a puzzled smile. "Who are you? A friend of the Alphas, I think."
The Snark nods. He is blasted by the explosion of affection he feels. He mutters something inaudible.
Millicent frowns. "I didn't hear what you said."
The Snark steps up onto the ladder of his courage.
"I am ... Sinclair Lewis Nightingale." He pauses. He is dizzy. The hood is warm. He sees a face before him that is almost too beautiful for someone as ugly as he to gaze at. "The Alphas call me 'the Snark'—from the Lewis Carroll poem."
She brightens.
"Oh, I know that one." Her soft laughter is a breeze of beauty. "Will you vanish, too, as that character did at the end of the poem?"
"I wish I could," he stutters.
She cocks her head delightfully.
Take off your hood, please. You are kind. I think you must have saved this precious child. Won't you take off your hood so I may see you?"
The Snark shakes his head violently.
"You must hurry," he says. "The Central Georgia to Atlanta is leaving soon. Have Mrs. Biddle carry the child there, where it can be safe from the Omegas."
Something of understanding flickers in Millicent's eyes, but she insists that the Snark remove his hood. He sucks in his breath because there are words he wants to say, needs to say before he goes to complete his personal battle plan. Under the shadow of death. However, the words he utters surprise him.
"You love Tom Brown. I know that. I hope you will be together forever and ever."
She smiles like the sun rising.
"I hope that, too," she says.
And then he freezes. No! he wants to shout. But he cannot speak. He cannot move. Holding the babe in one arm, she reaches down with her other hand to lift free the hood. The Snark cringes, closing his eyes tightly, anticipating her scream or some exclamation of revulsion.
Silence ticks.
When will it come?
He opens his eyes and feels what the hand of heaven must feel like. She is not reeling back in horror. She is caressing his cheek.
"Thank you for what you've done," she says. "Now, though, I have to go." Then she adds, "I see what I must do."
She turns. Fire claws at the throat of the Snark. Wait! His tongue is scorched. Words are burning in his mouth. He wants desperately, desperately to speak the line that he has practiced a thousand, thousand times.
Then she is gone. With a wave and a smile. She and the babe. Gone.
Devastated, the Snark clambers back down into his tunnel and madly, frustratedly scrambles fifty yards before stopping, his fingers flickering fire, and crying out from the bottom of his soul, the bottom of his broken heart: "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!"
Palmer Gast knows that he has gone crazy. He knows it the way you know you have a rash on your arm: you see it. It is red and inflamed. It itches. You scratch it hard. You know it's there. He knows he has entered a new territory: the land of gone crazy.
He's there.
He is awash with blood.
While the rest of the Mantis College campus has surrendered to the saturnalia of Halloween parties—fake horrors and such—Gast has waded deeply into them. Real horrors. In one hand he carries his "scar feasting" sword. In the other, he has the dead bodies of two Omega cats. He is slinging them along by the tails, blood dripping from them, blood that he has streaked onto his face, his forehead and cheeks in a revenge blooding.
For Bucky.
By the stone gargoyles at the entrance to the House of Night, he stops, puts down his sword, and smears some of the cat blood onto the gargoyles, and then he tries to go on, but, momentarily, he can't.
He can't believe what he is doing.
He can't believe that he is not with Agatha, enjoying her company.
He can't believe it
If he is not all the way crazy, then he believes that, like sand slipping down in an hourglass, his sanity is slipping away.
One has only so much sanity.
Another self is taking over, and he's not going to fight that self.
"For Bucky," he suddenly whispers.
Then he chuckles: I'm in a costume, too.
Palmer Gast—revenger.
"It's the only way."
His words taste like blood. But he is ready to go through with it
And so it begins.

He is pounding on the door of the House of Night— or is that the pounding of his heart? He is slamming the dead cats against the door. He imagines that he is already dead. He is dead, but he continues walking and talking as if in a deep, deep sleep.
Miss Comfort opens the door, surprising him.
He likes the look of shock on her face.
Quite calmly he says, "You killed my little dog."
She blinks. She stares at the blood on his face. She says nothing. Beyond her shoulder Gast can see cats swarming, and that's all he needs to see.
"I demand satisfaction!" he shouts, raging past her.
But he is met by the Omegas, feral young men who look as if they've been suckled by wolves. They are vampires who smell blood.
Palmer Gast's blood.
He swings wildly with his sword.
They set upon him. He struggles.
When he has been roped in by strong arms, he hears Dead Peter's voice, an unsettling blankness about it.
"Take him to the torture machine."
In years to come the quad at Mantis College will be the source of endless tales, frat party horror stories told by those who heard from someone who heard from someone else what really happened that night. The bloody scene. The fire. Alcohol-baked brains will attempt to capture the legacy of this night, but no one will succeed. It isn't possible to. The patch of lawn where the unimaginable events occurred will most certainly become haunted—not just by the participants; rather the area itself, the very ground upon which the end game was played out, will cause anyone who walks across it to experience what the French term a frisson. An involuntary shiver.
On Halloween night in 1931, Dr. John Stone directs the Reverend Harry Savage Conners to the quad as promised. Conners, pressing his Bible to his breast, drinks in the pastoral scene: the healthy grass, the gazebo not far away, and the stately fraternity houses facing each other across the expanse of vegetation. Conners is effusive; he is pleased; he is thankful. He seems all in all at peace with himself.
"I can feel sin leaving me like rats on a sinking ship," he says.
Stone grins at the hackneyed simile. "This is a placid spot, isn't it?"
"Here," Conners follows, "here now I'm ready to be a new man—a new man in the eyes of Jesus my Lord who shed His precious blood for me, for every soul who has breathed."
"Perhaps then the shedding of blood is the motif for the night," Stone suggests. He reins in his desire to taunt and tease and to be ironic. There is deadly business afoot, and he wishes to be galvanized by the sight of it. "Your son," he continues, "the one also known as Shatterhand, is coming. We can expect him any moment. And, unless I miss my guess, his presence will draw your other son as well. He is now known as Tom Brown."
Conner's laughter is self-deprecating. "My boys— they've grown to hate their father's name, I see. Well, I understand that. But they're good boys, aren't they?"
It is Stone's turn to chuckle. "One of them is."
As he begins to stride about impatiently, restlessly, Conners intones, "God's Word," and patting at the Bible covering his heart, "allows us to see the good in every man. It's there, hiding behind the mask of Satan."
"Your sons know blood," says Stone.
Conners's face registers puzzlement for an instant. "Blood of the Lamb?"
"Blood is the Life," Stone echoes.
"Amen," mutters Conners.
"It might not be a blessing," says Stone.
Night falls over them like a capo.
Stone struggles to contain his disrespect for a man like his companion.
"Reverend Conners, I suspect there is much in heaven and on earth that you have not dreamed of."
Conners nods, walking with his back to Stone. True enough. Yet, I know this: I've come for my sons—all of them, including the babe—my babe—my blood in his veins. I have a new dream: a life close to my sons." He turns so that he may more forthrightly seek an assurance from Stone. "He'll be here, too? The babe?"
"If I know anything about the misguided humanity of the Alphas and, in particular, Millicent Gast—yes, I think your babe will make an appearance. Yes, most certainly."
Conners studies Stone as if he is some living thing he has never come into contact with before. "You are an enigma. But, again, I thank you. You have helped open the door to a new life—God must have sent you in my hour of need. Tonight, I will walk through that door."
The two men stand in silence, locked in the alchemy of waiting that promises change and transmutation. If you are listening closely you will hear Stone murmur, "Be wary, sir."
But it is doubtful that the Reverend Harry Savage Conners hears the nearly inaudible warning.
*    *    *

Palmer Gast is in the grasp of the torture machine. He is screaming even before the needles are lowered to the flesh of his naked back. Dunkel, Wings, and Dead Peter oversee the torture.
Shatterhand, however, is impatient, not with the torture process; he is eager to exact his revenge upon his father and, if circumstances allow and his brother shows up, a double revenge. With a bonus: the dragon child. As he looks on, he is waiting for Miss Comfort to return. She it is who has assured him that his father will be led to the quad by Dr. Stone.
And much darkness will follow.
Shatterhand sinks deeper into his thoughts. The needles are in position to stitch bloody words into the back of Palmer Gast when Miss Comfort arrives, carrying a cloak of some type.
"I have exactly what you need," she says.
Gast screams a senses-numbing scream as Shatterhand takes the cloak from Miss Comfort and they move into the next room, though not out of earshot of the tortured young Alpha.
"Isn't his screaming music to your ears?" says Shatterhand.
"It is, indeed."
Shatterhand's fingertips caress the garment. He has never felt anything like it The touch of it alone empowers him.
"What is this made of?" he asks.
Miss Comfort smiles her wicked, wicked smile.
"It's made of the essence of Omega courage and vengeance and cruelty. Wearing it will make you feel invincible."
"A most unusual material—is it horse hide?"
"No, no. Something much closer to your heart."
Shatterhand frowns. Shakes his head.
"Are you saying this is—"
"The finest hair or fur of a thousand vampire bats. Put it on and go forth. But I must warn you: I sense danger."
Shatterhand luxuriates in the cloak.
"The cloak is magnificent," he says.
"And so are you. But you must be careful."
"I have my vampire bat cloak and my doomsayer," he says, raising the prosthetic hand. "And I am an Omega— and Omegas are indestructible."
The screaming in the next room grows louder.
Millicent is clutching the babe tightly as if attempting to keep it away from the two women who are conversing with her and who have obvious concern in their eyes and in the tone of their voices.
"I don't need someone to be my protector," says Millicent She is both pleading and asserting confidence. "This child is the key to changing everything— to ending this mindless conflict between the Alphas and the Omegas. Can't you understand that?"
"But, Millie," says Agatha, "what can you possibly do to transform someone like Shatterhand or any other of the Omegas? The plan that Sinclair Nightingale has is a good one: let Mrs. Biddle take the child to Atlanta until we can make certain it will be safe here."
"Yes, dear, Agatha's right," says Mrs. Biddle. Her brow is almost comically wrinkled with worry and anxiety.
Millicent shakes her head. She is frustrated and weary. "But that won't really end anything. It will only delay the inevitable. The Omegas have to change. They have to see that the fighting, the bloodshed is meaningless."
Agatha is frightened. She stares at her friend, and she trembles as she speaks. "What can you possibly do? You can't march up to the House of Night and insist that they suddenly turn into good guys. Don't be so naive, Millie."
"I'm sorry. This is what I must do." She hesitates. A smile flickers at her lips. "Oh, Aggie, in many ways you're right, and I don't really know what precisely I will do. But I have to do something."
"You need Tom Brown, and you need Palmer and Nickel."
"I can't wait around for them. I have to go now— while I still have the courage to."
Agatha glances at Mrs. Biddle. Nothing can be done to stop Millicent. A die has been cast. And so she steps closer to Millicent and hugs her. Then, pulling away, Agatha says, "I fear that your humanity, your essential goodness has blinded you."
Millicent nods.
"Perhaps you're right about that, too. I believe that my eyes see what must be seen. I have looked into the darkness and it has looked back at me, and there's no chance that it will go away on its own. I have to confront it"
With that, and another exchange in which she insists upon going out alone, she is gone. Hurriedly she makes her way to the quad. She slows her approach when she sees John Stone and a stranger standing there obviously waiting for someone. And coming from the House of Night, she sees the dark figure of Shatterhand, his prosthetic glove gleaming eerily.
From somewhere in the House of Night there is screaming. She stops to listen ... and knows that they are the screams of her brother.
Reluctance saps his strength as he grabs the step rail and pulls himself up into one of the passenger cars of the Central of Georgia. It is the late evening departure to Atlanta, and it appears that Tom Brown will have it nearly all to himself. As he boards, he turns once to take a last look at the depot and at downtown Sweet River.
He thinks of Millicent.
I can't be what she wants me to be.
He has the family saber wrapped in a burlap sack. Once in Atlanta, he intends to destroy it Once in Atlanta, he intends to reinvigorate his magical powers, for he has felt them waning in recent days. And when he has armed himself to the full with new magic, he intends to go West. A thought nags at him that he is not only abandoning Millicent but also abandoning his Alpha brothers.
"They can get by fine. They don't need my help," he mutters low.
But don't I need them?
For that question he has no answer, and perhaps long ago he decided that answers are rated too highly— one must simply live the questions and be one's self... and wait for what wants to come.
He has always been a loner. The vampire life thrives on loneliness.
Is it a life he could give up?
Inside the passenger car, he gropes along in the dim light. He checks his ticket for his seat number, and when he notes its location he discovers that something is barring the way. He sucks in his breath; part of him wonders whether he might be imagining things.
There, in the aisle, is the frightening specter of Nosferatu, the Omega goat.
Its eyes pulse a sickly yellow.
Goat and vampire stare at one another. A standoff.
And then Tom Brown begins to unwrap the saber.
"One final act before I leave this place," he murmurs. "A closing gesture ... the spilling of Omega blood."
He weighs in toward the goat, but he is totally surprised when he sees that it neither charges at him in defiance nor makes an attempt to flee or avoid the blade of the saber. Pausing only briefly, he raises his weapon, and in the eyes of the goat he sees the babe, the dragon child. Grunting with rage, he swings with all his might, killing the goat with one blow, showering the passenger car with warm blood.
Satisfied, he hunkers down by the body of the creature.
And that's when the weird, high-pitched squeaking begins.
Stumbling back away in terror, he watches as the goat carcass dissolves into a solid black lump of flesh and then begins to flame and from those flames emerges a ball of black smoke. He gasps as the smoke transforms into the shape of a bat, and in a heart-stopping matter of moments it wings its way through the ceiling of the car, leaving Tom Brown shaken and very alone.
Except for the voice of Millicent.
We have real lives and we can't run away from them no matter how wonderful and romantic that could be.
All around him now new sounds catch his ears: the idling hiss of the train, the voices of other people starting to board.
"I can't stay," he says. But he doesn't know what he means.
Millicent in his mind again.
You have to decide what you want and who you are.
"I'm a vampire."
He is jostled by other people as he moves unconsciously back to the entrance to the car. Nothing in his life has ever felt so difficult as this moment. He reaches inside for some vestige of magic to cope with it, but nothing is there. Nothing inside except the voice of Millicent.
... Tom, you must trust what is difficult.
And in that moment, Tom Brown feels the fire of transformation.
And he knows that the woman who loves him is in danger.
"I'm coming, Millicent," he whispers, pushing his way out of the car and into the night.
The vein in Dead Peter's forehead is throbbing as he watches Fritz's torture machine write a bloody script upon the back of Palmer Gast: Born To Suffer, it reads, though it is hard for bystanders to concentrate upon the words because the screams of Gast are loud and penetrating. Unsettling.
Smiling approvingly at Wings and Fritz, Dead Peter slides off into his introcosm, some opprobrious inner realm in which he is the only inhabitant, and as the screams of Gast begin to fade into pathetic sobs of pain, the scenes within become opaque. For a fleeting instant, Dead Peter wishes that Shatterhand were there again to see how successfully the Omegas are exacting cruelty upon the leader of the Alphas. The needles of  the machine slow, seeming to breathe heavily, then grind, with a shudder, to a halt.
Dead Peter's hands are suddenly trembling. He shakes out a cigarette, lights it, surrenders to the first roots of smoke finding the good soil of his lungs. But the satisfaction does not hold. In the vacuum of mental space, he thinks again of his meeting with Blutmann and he hisses to himself: "Goddamn it, I want something more."
He looks again at the prostrate, bloodied body of Palmer Gast; like magic, the body becomes that of Conrad Blutmann. Animated by a sudden jolt of eagerness, Dead Peter shouts, "Start up the needles again— we have another soul to torture."
Wings and Fritz are there and in his face, telling him that Gast has been tortured enough: there's no point in killing him. They do not see what Dead Peter sees. They do not hear the words winging their way darkly through Dead Peter's thoughts.
Are you afraid of the truth?
"No, goddamn you, I'm not!" Dead Peter shouts at the ghost pinned down on the torture machine. Wings and Fritz pull away as if they smell madness.
Direct your vengeance at me instead.
But the half-dead figure being released from the machine is not Blutmann, and when Dead Peter sees the whole of reality, he cries out in anguish and dashes from the room. The only desire-pulsing life within him is to see his mother and father dying horrible deaths.
Miss Henny senses that the night is filling up with pain. Deep within her, she hears Palmer Gast and she hears her son. Despite the danger, she knows that she must go to the House of Night immediately. She's needed.
Upstairs in his room at the Alpha House, Nickel is putting the finishing touches on his costume, but he does not have in mind attending a Halloween party. His goal is rescue. His goal is to help his blood brother, the best friend he has ever had.
"Be brave," he whispers to himself. "Being here is magic."
From his window he can see the vaulting, menacing front of the House of Night. In his mind's eye, it is suddenly a gothic cathedral, a fortress of evil—the last bastion of the Omega vampires.
Conrad Blutmann plunges his hands into the pockets of his topcoat, and one hand rakes into something cold and hard; he is chilled even though the night is relatively mild. He is standing once again at the grave of Bliss, and he is despondent. He wishes only that he could hug his son—a son who loathes him. He looks down at the grave. Cool, silvery tendrils of fog finger up from it. He is mesmerized. The fog could call him away. It would be easy, and it might be best for everyone concerned. He has a revolver in one pocket Easy enough. And then his son would no longer need to seek vengeance.
Easy enough.
He shuts his eyes tightly and lifts the revolver free.
Time stops.
And what flashes behind his eyes causes him to drop the revolver.
Flames. Flames erupting, spreading, slithering, leaping.
And those he loves, trapped.
Trapped in the House of Night.
Blutmann jerks his eyes open ... and begins to run.
His fingers are claws of fire.
The Omega cats smell him—up there, just above him, in the depths of the House of Night, they sense that he's on the way.
Under the shadow of death.
To himself, the Snark whispers as he frantically tunnels into place: "For Millicent, I'll be a hero. And I'll die but once if that's how it must be."
Up he clambers until he breaks through a floor.
Even his eyes are aflame.
He imagines Millicent safe back at the New Path home. He imagines the babe on its way to Atlanta—out of the reach of the Omegas—the Omegas who are about to burn in a hell that have built for themselves.
Life at Mantis College will be so peaceful without the House of Night
The Snark manages a smile: his final smile.
He thinks once more of Millicent
"Be happy, my love," he whispers.
And he sighs deeply before his expression darkens and he brings a raging fire from his soul.
John Stone can hardly believe his eyes. Events coa-lescing perfectly on the Mantis College quad under a crowd of stars in the stadium of night. He sees Millicent heading for the House of Night carrying the dragon child in her arms. He calls to her, beckons her to join him and the Reverend Harry Conners. From the opposite direction, Shatterhand is arriving, his eyes fixed upon Conners first before taking in the hesitant steps of Millicent, child clutched to her.
Stone acknowledges Shatterhand, smiles at Millicent, turns then to face Conners.
“Just as promised," he says. "Two sons—and who knows what else the night may bring?"
Conners is beside himself with joy. He closes his eyes, tilts his head up, and shouts, Thank you, Lord, for answering my prayers. Thank you for sending Dr. Stone to help with this burden on my soul." Then, still holding his Bible, he spreads his arms as if he wishes to embrace the vampire known as Shatterhand. "My son," he says, "truly flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, I have returned to ask for your forgiveness and to forge a new bond, a bond of holiness, a bond of family with you and ..." He gestures at Millicent and the babe. "And with this new being, this child who is your brother, and with your brother, Edward, too, if the Lord blesses us and sends him to join us."
Shatterhand's look of incredulity brushes across Millicent and the babe, then rests momentarily upon Stone before shifting to the man who has spoken words that send flames through his blood.
"Sir," he mutters, anger soaking into the tenor of his voice, "your Lord has tricked you. And apparently so has Dr. Stone. I'm not here to form a bond with disgusting creatures like yourself. You are not my father and have never been. The babe you refer to as my brother is a cursed child possessing an evil that will make me whole again." He raises the shiny prosthetic. "Whole again," he repeats. "Vengeance and the evil of that babe will free me to be fully the genius I can be. Vampire genius. Powerful. Cruel. Creative. I live to one day compose music that will make the stars envious. But vengeance first."
Conners reaches for him. "No, you must not think that way. Vengeance belongs only to the Lord. I see that my abandonment of you has twisted your soul. Don't go down a road to darkness—don't sin as I have. Let us both pledge tonight to receive the cleansing power of the Lord. The Blood of the Lamb." And with those words, and seeing that Shatterhand does not wish to be touched, he again presses his Bible to his heart.
Shatterhand sees Millicent edging away with the babe. He catches her arm and pulls her back into the scene. "You may leave, but the dragon child stays—do you understand?" Millicent looks to Stone and to Conners, but she is unwilling to abandon the babe.
Fear creeping into his voice, Conners says to Shatterhand, "What do you plan to do with the child? I cannot let you harm it Tonight we must stand before the judgment of the Lord. Atonement. Judgment These we must see as holy gifts."
"Tonight" Shatterhand follows, his face a coiling mass of hatred, his upper fangs inching threateningly over his lower lip, "you will discover that your Lord has deserted you. You think that the powers of goodness and holiness are with you, but you are alone."
The voice that intrudes upon the scene from a distance causes every head to turn.
"You're wrong, my brother. Another son is here, and I bring the family saber to seal our fate. I also come as an Alpha. I come believing in goodness."
"Oh, Tom," Millicent cries out
"Stay where you are, Millie," says Tom. "Protect the babe. Keep it away from the violence that must come to pass here."
"Edward, my son," says Conners. "I've returned, with the help of the Lord and Dr. Stone, to put our broken family back together."
"Broken beyond repair," says Tom. 'This one," he continues, pointing the long-bladed saber at Shatterhand, "cannot see it any other way. Power. Submission. Humiliation. Those are the words that he and the other Omega vampires live by... and must die by."
"Your father here," Shatterhand says, sneering, "knows nothing of vampires except that we are creatures of darkness to be judged along with other sinners by his God of vengeance, God of peace."
"Edward, show your brother the truth of what he has become. I can't dissuade him."
Tom gripes the saber more tightly. He shakes his head.
"Cruelty and pain are the only truths he knows. Here, tonight, I'll meet him with the truth of death."
Shatterhand raises his doomsayer. Stone, having retreated a few steps, looks on eagerly. Conners lowers his head and appears to be whispering a prayer. The circle of time tightens around the moment Blood awaits.
"No, Tom!" It is Millicent. Tears are coursing down her cheeks. She is holding the babe, and there is a passion in her voice that makes the night air reverberate. "Don't fight, Tom. It's not the way—it won't bring peace. You have another choice."
Shatterhand is grinning malevolently. Tom Brown cannot deflect her words, but tries.
"No other choice."
"Yes, Tom. You can transform him."
"No. It's not possible. My brother once created beauty—now he can only create horror."
Shatterhand is silent. He is enjoying the traces, faint though they may be, of doubt in his brother's voice.
"Tom, it is possible. Here's the only chance you'll ever have. Now, Tom. Hand him the saber. Show him you see that the ugliness within him can be transformed—show him the beauty of goodness, Tom. The saber—hand it to him."
For Tom Brown the world is suddenly too big. Too mysterious. The saber catches glints from the gas lamps of the quad. He reaches into himself for magic, but the mystery beating at the doors of his heart is too strong. He knows he must surrender to it.
Stone leans forward. Conners continues to pray. In a voice struggling for conviction, he quotes from Job: "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee. Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place."
Amazed at his brother's gesture, Shatterhand extends his other hand, his left hand—the hand of darkness—to receive the saber. Tom hesitates an instant before releasing the weapon completely. Shatterhand brings the saber close to his eyes, smiles as he admires it.
The family saber," he murmurs. "What a gesture, my brother. It... almost... wins me over. But you see, our father here never meant that I should have it And so, the proper response is that... I should return it to him."
Conners looks up. His face is awash in wonder. His Bible rests against his heart, armor against all that may assail him. His lips quivering, his tongue frozen by the unsayable, he reaches out to receive the weapon.
Tom watches. Mystery clouds his view.
He does not see Shatterhand's eyes turn to daggers.
"Reverend Conners," Shatterhand murmurs, before his voice pitches higher. 'This is Judgment Day!"
And with the shout of those words, he plunges the saber at the man. The point cuts into the center of the Bible. Shatterhand presses with his might. The sabre penetrates the Bible. Penetrates the heart of the Reverend Harry Conners and emerges from his back coated in blood. Tom Brown is too paralyzed by shock to move. Conners opens his mouth. A bubble of blood forms at his lips.
And for a horrible score of seconds it seems that everyone is inside that bubble.
Until Shatterhand braces his boot against his father's stomach, pulls the saber free, and when he steps back triumphantly, he smiles as he licks the fresh, warm blood from the blade.
Miss Henny storms into the House of Night and shoves Miss Comfort backward.
"I've come for Palmer Gast! Release him!" she demands.
Comfort staggers momentarily, then rights herself with a grunt, raises her arm, and throws a spear of powerful magic at her nemesis. "Here's what we have for you, you crazy bitch!" she shouts.
Miss Henny grabs her chest She is dazed. She is slowed. But she is determined to do what she must do. Fighting through the spell, she reaches Comfort. "And this is for you, wicked woman!"
The open-handed slap to the side of the woman's head is like the crack of a rifle. Comfort goes down like an animal delivered a kill shot.
In the torture room, Dead Peter, Wings, and Fritz smell smoke. Gast has been released from the machine; he is writhing in pain. The Omega vampires will abandon him to save themselves from that which they fear most. They yelp like wolves.
In the bowels of the horrific manse the Snark is surrounded by flames and a horde of cats. The predatory creatures skitter and mew, sounding more like rats than felines. Recognizing that he is truly on a suicide mission, the Snark turns and attempts to scramble back into his tunnel, but the fire and the cats follow him.
He cannot escape.
The cats, enraged by the flames and his presence, bite and claw at his body. The blaze he has deliberately generated climbs his arms and legs. He is doomed.
Yet he is pleased. 
Hero. Under the shadow of death.
And then he stops his attempt to flee.
As he succumbs to the flood of cats and the spread of the deadly flames, he smiles and whispers one final word:
"Millicent."
On the front wall of the House of Night, you will see a most unusual sight: a hideous creature making its way up the looming heights. However, if you look more closely, you will see that it is Nickel, dressed as Lon Chaney's Hunchback of Notre Dame—the pathetically deformed entity that scaled a famous cathedral.
Now you see the costumed Nickel smashing through an upstairs window. Like Miss Henny, he is determined to rescue Palmer Gast. But time is of the essence. The flames are spreading. The House of Night is rapidly becoming a massive pyre for evil vampires and anyone else unfortunate enough to be within its walls.
This is a conflagration of judgment.
This is flaming inferno such as even Dante could not have imagined.
Still in the distance, Conrad Blutmann is running. Two words stab repeatedly into his thoughts: Too late! Too late! Too late!
"Can he be saved?"
Tom Brown is hunkered by Dr. Stone, who is examining the fatal wound in the chest of the Reverend Harry Conners. Stone, hands bloodied, shakes his head.
"No," he murmurs.
Standing abruptly, Tom calls out to Millicent: "Go. Take the child and get as far away from here as you can."
On the face of Millicent is an expression of confusion and loss. She is fighting back tears as she exclaims, "I can't, Tom ... the babe, it won't let me. I can't move."
Shatterhand, his eyes glittering with cruelty, wades through the night up close to his brother. "All is well, blood of my blood. The time is now. What say you to a scar feasting to end all scar feastings?"
Tom is grave.
"I have no weapon," he says.
"But now you do," says Shatterhand, tossing the family saber to him. "And I ask that Dr. Stone serve as our referee."
Stone rises from the dead body of Conners. He stares down at the blood on his hands. A breeze kicks up and scatters pages of the Bible that could not protect the man of God.
"Take your positions," says Stone. "And let no one cry hold."

*     *     *
Drowning in a swollen stream of flames, the Snark lowers his head as if in prayer. And becomes invisible.
Nickel hears the howling of wolves. Instinctively he moves in that direction, finding stairs down into a nightmare of smoke and flames. Snatches of "Ode to Joy" flash into his mind as he scrambles low, staying beneath much of the smoke as chaos reigns within the House of Night. And the gods smile upon his efforts: in the distance he can hear the moaning of his friend Palmer Gast.
"Don't move!" Nickel shouts. "I'm coming!"
The spreading flames draw Conrad Blutmann to his moment of decision. He reaches the front door as Nickel is lugging Gast over his shoulder out of the evolving conflagration.
"Miss Henny's in there!" Nickel cries. "I think she's passed out!"
A fiery surge of fear mixed with determination anneals Blutmann as he looks away from Gast's bloodied body, raises an arm protectively to his face, and plunges through the door.
"Henny!" he calls out at the top of his lungs. "Henny!"
Too late! Too late! Dear God, don't let me be too late!
The heat and smoke are oppressive, but he pushes on, racing from room to room, conscious of the terrified howls he is hearing. He sees Miss Comfort curled up on the floor, not moving. He does not slow for her. "Henny!" he calls out again.
He is coughing; his eyes are watering so that he can barely see.
But suddenly he can feel her.
Henny's touch. Her hands—ghostly hands—soothing his face as she always has been able to.
"Henny!"
He knows what the touch means. He knows what it is saying: too late.
But he will not listen.
"Are both parties ready?"
Standing between Shatterhand and Tom Brown, Stone raises his arm, ready to start the final battle— Alpha and Omega—the end of one vampire world, the survival of another. Off away from the combatants, Millicent is huddled on the grass with the babe—the dragon child that will not release her from the bloody scene. Stone glances once over his shoulder at her, then returns to the two young vampires, so much fire in their eyes.
"First strike!" Stone thunders, chopping the night with his hand and licking his lips in anticipation of his need for violence to be assuaged.
The last dance of horror begins.
A wild music of brutality wafts upon the air.
"Power. Submission. Humiliation," Shatterhand mutters.
"Be not afraid," Tom Brown returns.
And the doomsayer strikes home.
When he discovers her body, tears rush up from his chest. His throat fills with a wet, choking sadness. "God, no! Henny! Please, no! Henny!"
He sobs into his hands as smoke roils about him and the flame-weakened walls of the dark manse crash around him. On his knees, he is wracked with grief. So deep in the thralls of the moment is he that at first he believes he must be imagining the fingers brushing at his cheek. But when he opens his eyes, he is greeted by Henny's weak, yet magnificent smile.
The razored fingers of Shatterhand's doomsayer rake down the left side of Tom Brown's face and onto his throat. Ribbons of blood trail across his skin like streamers. Fighting off every urge to scream or wince in pain, Tom whips his saber with the snap of his wrist.
Shatterhand's left ear is split in two, and a deep gash opens below his sideburn.
Stone is trembling. The sight of their blood sends him into ecstacy.
"Second strike!"
A backhand motion propels the doomsayer from left to right, catching Tom's chin, clawing and gouging out a raw gobbet of it. Blood spurts down Tom's chest. He takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and slashes as hard as he can.
One corner of Shatterhand's mouth tears away.
Blood bubbles free, concealing his lower Up.
Shatterhand blinks away the pain and steadies himself for the next call.
"Our Peter," she exclaims, looking hard into Blutmann's face. "I think he's trapped. I think he's too frightened by the flames to save himself."
Having carried his sister out of the building, Blutmann hovers over her. Close by, Nickel tends to Palmer Gast. And the flames billow and leap within the House of Night.
"I'll go for him," says Blutmann. "I'll get our son."
"No, Conrad," Henny cries. "No, it's too late. Too late."
Blutmann stares at her and musters as much of a smile as he can.
"I have to, dear, sweet Henny. Don't you see that? I have to try."
Third strike.
Fourth.
Blood is the only air there is to breathe.
Shatterhand's right eye is gone. A vicious slash above the eyebrow has opened an eagerly bleeding wound. He is staggering. With his one good eye he looks down at his body, at the blood-soaked cloak of vampire hair, and curses it for not protecting him.
Tom Brown's pale jaw has been sliced back as if it were a fish being filleted. His lips are bleeding heavily, and blood from a deep scalp wound has poured down into his eyes, stinging them.
John Stone watches, his emotions commingling horror and grim satisfaction.
His darkest need is being fed by the terrible ritual.
And yet something within also tugs at him to end it.
His lips move. He tries to coax words.
But Shatterhand stops him. "No!" he shouts. "Born to suffer. We'll not cease." And then to Tom Brown: "Play on!"
Fifth strike.
Tom misses his opponent completely.
Shatterhand follows with a swipe of the doomsayer that whistles eerily in the night air, swinging within an inch of Tom's chin as it arcs down across his chest and stomach, causing him to crumple to his knees.
Stone is whispering: "Enough! Enough! Enough!" as if the words are an incantation for a magic spoil he does not know how to cast.
Shatterhand lords over the fallen vampire.
"Last words, brother?" he exclaims. "Speak. What do you have to say?"
Tom stares up at him. Shakes his head.
"Nothing."
Shatterhand is furious. "Nothing will come of nothing—speak again!" he roars.
Conrad Blutmann is on all fours like a dog sniffing its way through the smoke and the heat and the flames to locate life. He chances upon Wings and Fritz, but they have been overcome by the smoke. They do not move.
They are lost.
Blutmann presses on.
"Peter! Peter! I'm here!"
From the next room he hears a howl of pain and fear so appalling and dreadful that he can barely go on. Keeping one hand over his mouth, he steadies himself before letting the pitiful sounds draw him into the room and to a corner where he can just make out his son curled up in a fetal position.
"Peter!" he cries. Take my hand. I can save you, son."
The vampire raises himself up and leans into a wall. He blinks into consciousness. But when he sees Blutmann, his face tightens with anger. His eyes are black pools of hatred. The vein in his forehead bulges. To his heart he presses a copy in French of the Marquis de Sade's The 120Days of Sodom.
Blutmann has crawled closer. He is reaching. Reaching.
The vampire appears mesmerized by the extended hand. He hesitates, studying the hand as if he's not fully aware of what it is or what it means.
"Peter, please. There's not time. We'll be trapped by the flames. Please take my hand."
The vampire's upper body moves forward. He extends a pale, porcelain-white hand.
The fire is spreading all around them.
Reaching.
And then the vampire grasps Blutmann's hand.
And Blutmann, relieved, begins to pull his son toward him.
"Yes, that's it," says Blutmann. "We can do this."
But he does not see that the vampire is gritting his teeth, his breathing raspy. The vampire has committed to a final breath of cruelty. He howls like a wolf. The vein in his forehead suddenly bursts. Blood covers his face like a mask, and with his free hand the vampire makes a fist and hammers it into the side of Blutmann's head. Man and vampire slump forward.
Two bodies lie still.
Predatory flames seek them out.
And soon, they are devoured.
The wail of fire engines and the rolling din of a gathering crowd bleed into the scene.
Tom feels the world growing smaller and smaller.
He cannot see to see.
But in one bright, magical corner of his consciousness this is what he knows: that at the deepest part of the blackest kernel of fear, one can die laughing.
And so he begins.
A chuckle. And then it wells up into laughter.
Shatterhand screams.
He blocks his ears, and in doing so he cuts himself further with the doomsayer. But he knows, in turn, that he cannot allow himself to be moved by his brother's transforming laughter. It is a magic he cannot resist.
As Tom's laughter spirals into the stars, Shatterhand turns and runs, runs for the shelter of the House of Night Runs into the fiery maw that was once the front door. Everyone is watching: Miss Henny, Nickel, Gast, Millicent, Stone, and Tom Brown.
There is a horrible belch of flames.
And the last supporting walls of the House of Night come crashing down.
For a curious span of seconds, all is eerily silent except for the crackle of the fire.
Millicent has raced to Tom, and she is holding him and the babe.
Suddenly Tom raises a hand and points at the conflagration.
"Look!" he cries.
But it seems that only Tom can see the mysterious, inchoate form emerging from the leaping flames—the silken, black shape of a giant bat winging up out of the inferno into the cosmos.

         Twenty-two
One month later
Healing has begun. Recovery is under way. You see it everywhere on campus and around town—the gradual return to normalcy. The press, of course, has had a field day. President Davis has, surprising as it may seem, taken the lead in reassuring everyone he can that Mantis College remains intent upon fulfilling its educational charter. A peaceful return to the pursuit of knowledge is the only answer to lingering questions about chaos and horror.
On the Mantis quad the late November twilight brushes cool air through the ruins of the House of Night As you might export, the Omega gargoyles have been carted off to secret rooms in various nonvampire frat houses—trophies of the campus tragedies. Elsewhere, healing is the watchword, healing perhaps symbolized by the fact that Tommy Don Wiggins's broken ankle is mending salubriously. He promises to be back in rare form next season.
A healing closure is under way this evening at the Sweet River Cemetery. Imagine that you see Henny Blutmann there squatting down near the grave of her brother, the former dean of students. She appears sadly calm and yet beyond sorrow. Listen as she speaks to her brother.
"Conrad, we are trying valiantly to bury the past. Life goes on as it must. Palmer and Nickel are at the Empire viewing the premiere of Frankenstein. Happy horrors, I suppose. Nickel hat decided to quit school. He's leaving for Hollywood. Palmer is growing more deeply in love with Agatha each day. Millicent, dear, brave Millicent is trying to be as courageous as possible in the face of Tom Brown having left town. I think she believes he will return—I hope that he does." She hesitates, seems to listen to the November wind momentarily. "Other news—well, it looks as if Loretta Block plans to reopen Nightingale's. She wants to rename the place 'Cafe Bliss.' And John Stone—within a week after that final, horrible night he committed suicide."
She rises and smooths her dress. Smiles wanly.
"Conrad, be near when we need you. Be our guiding spirit in troubled times."
Her lips move as if she needs to say more, but then she is silent and walks away.
"Frankenstein! The man who made a monster!"
Nickel is chortling as he and Palmer Gast head away from the Empire to the train depot.
"I really felt sorry for the monster," says Gast. "His maker abandoned him."
Nickel chuckles. "Hey, friend, it was only a movie. You and I—we know what real horrors are about." 
Gast nods. "Guess you could say the Alphas and the Omegas made a monster, too."
"Let's hope it stays dead," says Nickel.
At the depot he locates his suitcase, and the two young men stand uncomfortably. Nickel's train has pulled in. He needs to be boarding soon. They look at each other and laugh softly, nervously.
"Hey," says Nickel, "that's what my hero, Lon Chaney, once said; 'That's all there is to life—a little laugh, a little tear.'"
For the last time, they press thumb against thumb, the secret Alpha gesture of greeting as well as departure.
"You gonna keep being a vampire?" says Gast
Nickel shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe all actors are sort of vampires. What about you?"
"There's still something about the vampire life that makes me believe I can write the inexpressible, survive the unbearable, and reach the unattainable. Besides, I keep having this nightmare about Shatterhand coming back."
The conductor is calling for passengers to board. The moment arrives much too quickly. The two young men exchange an awkward hug, and with that Nickel is charging toward the train. But he stops and wheels around and shouts, "Being an Alpha was magic!"
To which Gast responds, "Be not afraid! Be brave!"
And then Nickel disappears into the train only to emerge at the rear of the final passenger car. He is waving at Gast and Gast is waving back, a lump rising in his throat.
"Give Aggie and Millie a kiss for me," Nickel calls out
"I will."
And there is one more exchange of waves. Nickel, beaming, heading west to the land of the silver screen, shouts once more over the thrum of the departing train.
"See you in the movies!"
Gast watches until the vanishing point of the tracks swallows up his friend far in the distance.
On the way to the New Path home to visit Agatha, Gast strolls behind Nightingale's. He reasons, of course, that he is only imagining it, but there, on the late autumn breeze, if he listens closely he can hear it: a haunting whistle—"Ode to Joy." But it dissolves with ghostly suddenness.
Millicent is sitting on the back steps holding the babe when Gast arrives.
"You missed a good flicker," he tells his sister.
She shakes her head. "No horror movies for me, thank you. Was Nickel's train on time?"
Gast nods. "He wants me to give you and Aggie a kiss for him."
"I'll miss him," she says.
"Me too. I do already. Didn't realize how much I would."
"Agatha's studying, but I know she'd love to see you."
Gast starts to brush past her to go inside. He hesitates, looks down at his sister and the babe, and then sits beside them.
"What does it all mean, Millie? When will we find the meaning of life?"
Millie smiles at him. Then down at the babe. "I don't think we discover the meaning of life. I believe that each person must mold and shape the meaning of life for himself or herself."
"The meaning of your life, Millie, will always be beautiful."
"And so will yours."
"Truth is beauty—is that it?"
She stares out into the twilight sky, a smile continuing to seize one corner of her lips. "Umbram fugat veritas—'Truth puts the darkness to flight.' "
"Guess I should keep believing that. But so often these days I feel kind of empty. I miss Bucky. And now I miss Nickel. I miss Dean Blutmann and Lawrence and Angelus."
"Dean Blutmann was a good man," Millicent follows. "I've been thinking about naming the babe Conrad in his honor. I'll see what Miss Henny thinks."
"I like your idea." Gast pauses. "Millie, you miss Tom Brown, don't you? When he left town, I think it was for more than just a need to heal his wounds."
"One day Tom will return. I know he will," she says. And then she adds, "I'll know it when he's on his way."
"How? Intuition?"
"No. I'll hear him."
"Hear him?"
"Yes... he'll be laughing."
Gast kisses his sister on the cheek, pokes playfully at the babe, and pushes to his feet
"You gonna be OK?" he says.
"I'll be swell."
Later, after she has put the babe down for the night, Millicent slips a bridle on Mr. Hoover, climbs onto his solid back, and rides toward the railroad tracks. She rides past the train checker's shack where the old gargoyle of a man sentries the night. She does not allow her eyes to meet his.
At the edge of the stillness and the darkness, Millicent waits for love to shake all the mysteries of life into light.
"Tom," she whispers. "Oh, Tom." She waits and she listens.
She is listening for the sound of approaching laughter.