"More like rape and brutality," Joe said, reflexively raising a fist. How he wished—
His arm was grabbed and twisted backward. A glance showed the scar-eyed one behind him. All around he heard pistols being cocked and machetes drawing from belts.
"Will you stop!" Franco snapped at his guards. "He is a lone, naked, unarmed man! What can he possibly do to me? Now get back, all of you and give us some room!"
"But Franco—"
"Now, Artemis! I won't say it again!"
With obvious reluctance, one-eyed Artemis and the other guards moved off. Not too far, but far enough to give Joe a chance to do what he needed to do ... if he had the nerve. All he needed was a way to distract Franco.
The vampire turned his gaze eastward again. "We made so many mistakes in the Old World. We failed to control the undead population. We just rolled through, letting our numbers spread geometrically. The Middle East was the easiest. Hardly a cross to be found. Same with India and China. We did what no president or shuttling diplomat ever could. We brought peace to every place we've touched. Indian undead now sup with Pakistanis, Greeks with Cypriots, North Koreans with South, and most amazing of all, Israeli and Palestinian undead hunting together." He smiled. " 'Blessed be the peacemakers.' Isn't that how it goes. I think I should be sainted. What's the term the Church uses? Canonized. Yes, I should be canonized, don't you think?"
Joe ignored the question. "You can't survive without the living, and there'll never be peace between the living and the undead."
"Oh, but there will. We'll control our population here in the Americas and we'll control yours, and eventually Pax Nosferatu will embrace the whole world. Here in the New World we will do things right, right from the beginning. The Old World and the Third World are now full of starving and dying undead." He glanced at Joe. "Yes, dying. We need very little blood to survive, but we need it every night. Go two nights without it and you are weak; go two more nights and your are prostrate, virtually helpless. Unless someone comes on the fifth or sixth night and feeds you blood—a very unlikely event—you will enter true death and never awaken."
"May it be ever so," Joe said, "unto the last generation."
Franco frowned. "Don't push me, priest."
"Or what?" Joe said, finding courage in the realization that he had nothing to lose. "You'll show me no mercy? I'm not expecting any."
"You don't want to plead, offer me a deal?"
Joe shook his head. He knew there'd be no deals for him. He wouldn't deal with these things.
"Then kindly stop interrupting my story. I'm getting to the good part—my part. The task of taking the New World fell to me. I decided to learn from recent history and not repeat it. As I'm sure you know, we struck on December twenty-first, the longest night of the year. I started with Washington, loosing the ferals on Camp David and the Pentagon and Langley first, then the senate and congressional office buildings next."
"Ferals?" Joe said. "What are they?"
Franco smiled, broadly, cruelly. "In time, dear priest. In a very short time you shall learn more than you wish to know about ferals."
The prospect sent a shudder through Joe. He eyed the top of the parapet again.
"I wanted to strike at the heart of the country's defenses—drive a stake through it, as I like to say—but more than anything I wanted the president. We found him. I turned him, personally, and a few days later we had him on
TV, live, via satellite, putting on a show for his nation. Did you happen to catch it?"
Joe shook his head. He'd been banished to the retreat house by then. He'd seen the beginning of the broadcast but had left the room, sickened. He hadn't seen, but he'd heard . . .
"Such a shame. You missed a psychological knockout punch. The president of the United States on his knees before a menstruating White House intern, lapping her blood. Clever, don't you think? Too bad Clinton wasn't still in office—turn around being fair play and all—but apparently he's holed up on the West Coast. Your current president did a good job, though. Really got into the part, if you know what I mean. And much more effective because he is—or rather, was—a bit more dignified than Clinton."
Joe glared at him. "You sicken me. All of you."
"But that's the whole point, priest. Physical, spiritual, and civic malaise. It's a pattern I've perfected: Go for the political and religious leaders first. See to it that they are turned early in the infiltration. It does terrible things to the morale of the citizenry when word gets around that the local mayor and congressman, along with the ministers, priests, and rabbis, are out hunting them every night. They stop trusting anyone, and when there's no trust, there's no organized resistance." He looked at Joe. "Somehow we missed you when your area was invaded. Lucky you."
"Funny," Joe said, hoping he sounded brave. "I don't feel lucky."
"But you should. You've been very lucky, and you've proven yourself quite adept at turning my game back on me. I try to hammer home that resistance is futile, then you come along and show that it can work, however briefly."
"More than briefly," Joe said. "You're going to see a lot more of it, especially if you try moving west."
"Am I? Somehow, I don't think so. Not after I'm through with you. And as for moving west, I'm in no hurry. I'm going to consolidate the East Coast, get the cattle farms established"—he wagged his finger—"all the while keeping the undead population interspersed among the living to prevent any bombing attacks. Then I may skip the Midwest altogether and take California next. I haven't decided. That's not to say I haven't been active. I regularly send trucks into the hinterlands, dropping off a few ferals here and there as they go, to wreak sporadic havoc. I don't want anyone out there feeling safe. I want them looking over their shoulders, suspicious of their neighbors, jumping at the slightest noise. As I said, I'm in no hurry, and I have all the time in the world." He shook his head. "But when I do make a move, you'll be part of it."
Joe went cold inside. "If you think ..." He paused, choosing his words. Let Franco think he'd given into the inevitability of becoming one of his kind. "If you think I'm going to help you, even after you turn me into one of you, think again."
"I sense an arrogance in you, priest. And I will see it brought down. You are mere cattle to me, yet you look at me as vermin. I won't tolerate that."
"Who do you think you're kidding?" he said, wondering if he could provoke Franco into lashing out and killing him. "You and your kind are ticks on the ass of humanity, and you know it."
But Franco appeared unruffled. "Perhaps we were, but the anatomy has changed now: we're the ass and rebellious cattle like you are the biters." He leaned closer, staring into Joe's eyes. His breath stank of old blood. "I'll bet you think that even after we make you one of us you'll be able to resist the blood hunger."
Joe couldn't help blinking, stiffening—he'd said as much to Zev just the other day—and that let Franco know he'd struck a nerve.
"You do, don't you? You really think you could resist!" He tilted his head back and laughed. "Your naivete is almost charming. You have no idea what you face. You change when you turn, priest. Everything turns inward. You awake from death and there's only one being in the world that matters: you. All your memories will be intact but devoid of feeling. The people you loved and hated will run together and redivide into two critical categories: those who can supply you with blood and those who can't. You'll have to sate that thirst. You'll have no choice. That hunger above all. The world exists for you. All the other undead around are inconveniences you must endure in order to secure a steady supply of blood. For the red thirst is insatiable. As I told you, we need very little blood to survive but would spend our waking hours immersed in it if we could. We're lazy, we're petty, and we don't want anyone to have more blood than we do."
Please, God, Joe prayed, if You're listening, don't let me end up like that. I beg You. He peeled his tongue away from the roof of his dry mouth and managed to speak.
"Sounds like you've got a lock on the seven deadly sins."
"Perhaps. I never thought of that. What are they? Envy, anger, greed, lust, pride, avarice, and sloth, right. I think you might be right. Except that sex becomes meaningless. How we used to laugh at those Anne Rice novels. The undead as tortured Byronic aesthetes. Ha! We'd read them aloud to each other and howl. Her fictional undead are so much more interesting than the real thing. We're boring. We care nothing for art or music or fashion or surroundings. We bore each other and we bore ourselves. The only thing we care about, the only lust left to us, is blood."
"What about power?"
"You're thinking of me when you say that, yes? I can assure you that power is lusted after only insofar as it can assure one of more blood."
Joe glanced back at Franco's guards. "These fellows seem pretty devoted to you."
"Not out of selflessness or personal regard for me, I assure you. It's self-preservation. You see, there's a secret, a momentous secret we keep only to ourselves."
"And what's that?"
"You'll know tomorrow night. You'll be one of us then. So treasure these moments, priest. This is your last night with your own blood in your veins."
Now, Joe thought, realizing he might not get another chance. It has to be now.
"Huh?" he said and stared past Franco's shoulder at the empty darkness. "Who was that?"
"What do you mean?"
Joe raised himself on tiptoe again and leaned over the parapet, pointing into the darkness. "There! I just saw him again. One of your undead flyers. A pal of yours?"
Franco whirled to follow Joe's point. "A flyer? Up here? I should think not."
The instant Franco's back was turned, Joe dropped the drape, levered himself up onto the parapet, and rolled over it. He heard shouts from behind as his bare feet landed on the narrow outside ledge. Knowing that if he hesitated even for an instant he'd either lose his nerve or be caught, he let out a cry of terror and triumph and launched himself into the air. He spread his arms in a swan dive, hoping it would carry him beyond the setbacks. He wanted to fall all the way to the street, to splatter himself on the pavement, leaving nothing but a mocking red stain for Franco to find.