So far she hadn’t reached for a weapon, but the Gangrel didn’t find that reassuring. She must have surmised that Lazio had hit her car because he knew who she was. If she wasn’t going for a gun, maybe she did have supernatural powers.
Employing their inhuman speed, or as much of it as they could muster in the debilitating daylight, Angus and Judy leaped out of the Cadillac and raised their rifles to their shoulders. Cawing, the raven flew off the Gangrel’s arm. The hunters’ guns were loaded with tranquilizer darts. They wanted to take Dracula alive, to make her tell who’d sent her to Sarasota.
The murderess gestured with her left hand. Though she was standing in shadow, the large emerald ring on her left hand flashed. The vampires tried to shoot, then Judy cursed when nothing happened. Both rifles had jammed.
“She’s a mage,” Angus said.
“She’s dead meat,” Judy snarled. She threw down her gun and charged Dracula. Wishing fleetingly that the Brujah weren’t quite so reckless, Angus pounded after her. Meanwhile, moving at merely mortal speed, Lazio clambered out of the Cadillac.
A single stride carried Dracula to the entrance of a trendy-looking women’s clothing boutique. The green stone on her hand glowed as she opened the door - which, at this hour, should have been locked — lunged through and slammed it behind her.
Running won’t help you, Angus thought with the cold satisfaction of a predator closing in for the kill. We’re faster than you, and we can smash down any door you lock behind you. In another minute we’ll have you.
The Thunderbird burst into yellow, crackling flame. The two Kindred instinctively recoiled, then, overcoming their fear, circled around the blaze toward the door through which Dracula had disappeared. Above their heads, something rumbled.
Startled, Angus looked up to see shards of the building’s brick facade hurtling down at him and Judy. He threw up his arms to shield his head, and then the rain of rock crashed over him.
Despite his supernatural strength, it hammered him to his knees, bruised flesh and cracked bones and, most terribly of all, tore his protective layers of clothing. Instantly his exposed flesh began to cook, filling the air with an odor of roasting meat. Terror yammered through his mind.
Grimly, exerting every bit of his willpower, he quashed the panic. Lurching to his feet, shedding chunks of brick, he turned to Judy. Her garments were torn like his, and for a moment she slapped frantically at herself as if her body had burst into flame. Then, evidently overcoming her fear as he’d quelled his own, she scrambled over the pile of ruddy broken stone, kicked the door to the boutique off its hinges, and raced on into the shadowy interior. He dashed after her.
The shop smelled faintly of perfume. Smiling mannequins clad in silk blouses and sequined gowns posed on pedestals. Dracula was nowhere in sight, even though the Kindred were still only seconds behind her.
“Where is she?” Judy snarled.
Angus thought it was a damn good question. Some of the reports of the murderer’s crimes suggested that she could become invisible. He didn’t intend to walk right past her and so let her get away.
He was no Toreador or Malkavian. In human form, he had merely human senses. But his animal forms had their own keen perceptions, and here, out of the sunlight, he could transform himself. It wouldn’t matter that his protective clothing would vanish when he did.
Smiling inside his hood, grateful to get rid of his encumbering garb even if only for a moment, he willed himself to change. Like communing with the birds or simply moving around, the shift was harder than it should have been, particularly now that he was injured and expending vitae to heal. Still, after a moment his garments melted away and a pelt of gray fur spread across his alabaster skin. His jaws extended into a muzzle and a tail sprouted from the base of his spine. Dropping to all fours, he became a wolf.
Suddenly vision was less primary a sense than it had been an instant before. The world was a web of enticing, informative aromas. Sniffing, he caught the smell of his companion, and then the odor of.a human female. The scent trail led to a blond mannequin dressed in a loose green floral-print dress, beaming at nothing in the rear of the shop.
Staring intently, head held low, Angus slunk toward the figure and Judy stalked after him. Rippling like the reflection of a moving object in a fun-house mirror, the dummy turned into Dracula. Her eyes wide, her bloody face finally looking rattled, she scrambled toward a doorway in the back wall. The short corridor beyond it appeared to lead to fitting rooms, a store room and an exit.
Angus and Judy charged. The mage gestured, her ring
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flared, and a portion of the ceiling groaned and caved in on the vampires. It wasn’t as damaging an attack as the avalanche of brick, but by the time they floundered clear of the mass of acoustic tiles, fluorescent-light fixtures and boards that had engulfed them, their quarry had reached the exit. She yanked open the door, admitting an excruciating blaze of sunlight, and dashed outside.
“Dead,” Judy rasped, clearly on the brink of frenzy if she wasn’t berserk already. “The bitch is dead.” Heedless of the daylight now, she charged toward the door.
In large measure, Angus shared her rage. Dracula was making him and his comrades look like fools, and no kine, witch or otherwise, could be allowed to get away with that. He almost scrambled after Judy before he remembered that he needed his clothing back. Snarling, resenting the extra seconds it was taking him to shift, he reverted to human form and then sprinted after the Brujah elder.
Plunging out into the sunlight, enduring another stab of pain, he found himself in an alley. Still visible, Dracula was standing about sixty feet away. Evidently she hadn’t had time to camouflage herself again, or was simply unable to do so. Perhaps, now that the vampires had defeated the spell once, it wouldn’t work on them anymore. The sorceress had struck a melodramatic pose, hands upraised and the gem in her ring glowing like a green sun as if, unable to shake the Kindred off her trail, she were drawing on every bit of her magic to annihilate them.
Midway between Dracula and Angus, Judy was dodging to and fro, trying to come to grips with the human woman. But every time Dracula clenched her fists, a wall of roaring flame erupted from the cracked gray pavement. Only the Brujah’s agility kept her from being caught in one of the blasts. Even so, as more and more barriers sprang into existence, she was gradually being imprisoned in a sort of blazing maze. Soon she’d have no more room to maneuver,
and then, no doubt, Dracula would incinerate her in a final conflagration.
Intent on her work, the kine apparently hadn’t noticed Angus’ emergence into the open yet, but he didn’t doubt that that would change if he rushed her. Then she’d trap him between walls of fire, too. And so, instead of charging, he lifted his eyes and silently called for aid.
Birds hurtled down from the sky at Dracula, pecking and slashing with beak and claw. Staggering, caught by surprise, she cried out, ducked her head and threw up her arms to ward the attackers off. A raven, perhaps the same one that had flown to Roger Phillips’ house, swooped upward, clutching the mage’s beret in its talons.
Taking advantage of Dracula’s distraction, judy managed to extricate herself from the walls of fire. Running at merely human speed now — apparently her wounds and the sunlight were taking their toll — the tail of her black leather trench coat flapping behind her, the Brujah dashed at her tormentor.
Angus charged, too. He felt parched and drained himself, but it shouldn’t matter. In another moment he and Judy would get their hands on Dracula, and then the battle would be over. No mere human, not even one who could witch down walls and draw flame from asphalt, could contend with their superhuman strength once they’d had a chance to bring it to bear.
Dracula cried out an incantation in a language that, to Angus’ ears, sounded like Hebrew. Her ring pulsed with light, and a whirlwind roared into existence above her head, scattering the attacking birds. And then, when Judy and Angus were only a second away from grabbing h
er, she thrust out her fists at them.
A blast of air smashed the Gangrel in the face, knocking him off his feet and sweeping him back across the pavement. The magical hurricane twisted his hood, blinding him, but he didn’t need to see to know that the wind was ripping the tears in his clothing wider. The fresh bursts of pain as the sunlight seared hitherto shielded patches of flesh were proof of that.
He scrabbled at the blacktop, trying to anchor himself, but he couldn’t find anything to grab. Somewhere behind him, Judy screamed, a shriek of agony audible even over the howl of the wind.
Whatever was happening to her was likely to happen to Angus if he couldn’t stop his helpless tumbling. Reasoning grimly that a few more holes in his garments scarcely mattered now, he attempted a minor transformation.
After one terrible moment, when nothing happened and he thought that his shapeshifting power had failed him, his nails grew into curved, razor-sharp claws which punched through the fingers of his gloves. Using every bit of his inhuman might, he clutched at the pavement again. His talons ripped into the asphalt like the spikes, on a mountaineer’s boots, holding him in place.
He yanked at his mask, which was fluttering madly in the wind, but couldn’t get the eye holes back in their proper positions. After a moment, more concerned about seeing what was happening than guarding himself from the light, he tore off the hood.
Hot pain flared across his forehead, cheeks and nose. Noting that Judy had stopped screaming, he looked around for her, then snarled with rage at what he saw.
The wind had pressed the Brujah against a Dumpster. Obviously she hadn’t been able to anchor herself as he had, and the gale had hurled her through some of the walls of flame. Now she lay motionless, burning, her lithe, lovely, whip-scarred body already blackened and shrivelled beyond recognition. Angus had no doubt that she’d died the true death.
His fangs bared, still using his claws to resist the tempest, he began to crawl toward Dracula. The top of his head felt sizzling hot, and he wondered if his hair was about to ignite.
The wind died abruptly. Perhaps Dracula had realized that it wasn’t going to keep him away from her, and had turned it off to create some other effect. Hoping to deny her sufficient time to do so, he leaped up and ran at her.
The emerald ring glowed, and then the world blazed white with glare. Only Angus’ dark glasses kept him from being completely blinded. Burning pain stabbed across every inch of his body, as if his clothing had become transparent.
He thought he understood what was happening. Dracula’s magic was collecting sunlight and focusing it on him like a magnifying glass. It was a good trick, but, staggering onward, he promised himself that it wasn’t going to be good enough.
Blisters swelled and burst on his face and hands, releasing blood that boiled away to steam. His skin blackened, crackled and flaked off. But now Dracula was only ten feet away. Grateful that she apparently couldn’t maintain this particular spell and retreat at the same time, he stretched out his arm to grab her. And then all the strength went out of his legs.
Angus collapsed. Sprawled on his belly, he struggled to drag himself forward, only to discover that suddenly his arms wouldn’t obey him either. Dracula tittered, a giddy sound that made him think she’d believed he was going to reach her. He wished she’d been right.
Something popped with a noise like a balloon breaking. Dracula gasped and clutched at her shoulder. The dazzling glare surrounding Angus died abruptly, and he saw that someone had shot her with a tranquilizer dart.
Lazio, of course. Because he’d been slow getting out of the Cadillac, Dracula’s first spell hadn’t targeted and disabled his rifle. And now Angus and Judy had detained the fleeing mage long enough for the kine to catch up and nail her.
Dracula swayed. The emerald in her ring flickered feebly for a moment, but no new miracle ensued as a result. Evidently the drugged dart had already muddled her sufficiently to keep her from using any more magic-
The cessation of her last devastating spell, and the sight of her helpless at last, lent Angus a final surge of strength to rear up and plunge his claws into her hip. Yanking her to the ground, he bit her in the throat and began to feed. Lost in the bliss of taking the nourishment he so desperately needed, he didn’t realize that Lazio had come up behind him until the mortal threw a coat over his smoldering head.
War, war is still the cry. “War even to the knife!”
— Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
When Elliott awoke, a dark figure was standing over him. In the blink of an eye he bolted upright and grabbed it by the throat, and then realized it was Lazio. Startled, probably frightened, the mortal quailed.
The Toreador felt the pulse beating in Lazio’s warm flesh. It had been three days since Elliott had fed, and the Beast murmured in the depths of his mind, telling him to rip the human open and drink his fill. Ignoring the impulse, he hastily released the dresser. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was having a nightmare.” It had been his usual one about Mary’s death, but he didn’t see any need to say so. Probably Lazio could guess as much anyway. “And I didn’t remember where 1 was.” He’d moved into one of the lavishly appointed guest rooms in Roger’s mansion for the duration of the crisis. After years of keeping to his own dark, silent, dusty home, it was disorienting to awaken anywhere else.
“That’s all right,” said Lazio, straightening his tie and shirt. His voice was an odd mixture of excitement and sadness. “I shouldn’t have come into your room uninvited.
But I have news, and I didn’t want to wait to tell you. We caught Dracula!”
Elliott felt a thrill of elation, alloyed by a certain wariness. “But I gather there’s bad news, as well.”
Lazio sighed. “Yes. Dracula’s a mage, and she destroyed Judy before we got her.”
The actor stared at him in horror. “Oh, God, no. Not Judy, too. I should have been there! I should have insisted on coming along!”
“It wasn’t your part of the fight,” Lazio replied. “Even Judy and the Justicar could barely function in the daylight. There wouldn’t have been anything you could have done, except possibly lose your own life, too.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” said Lazio firmly. “I was there.”
Elliott decided that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Looking away, he said, “All right. I’m sure that Gunter, Angus and the others want to confer with me as soon as possible. Just give me one moment alone and then HI be down.”
Frowning, the human cocked his head. “You’ll be all right?”
“Yes,” said Elliott resisting the impulse to snap at him. “Just go. Please.” Eyes narrowed, Lazio studied him for another moment, then withdrew.
Elliott’s face twisted, and red tears ran down his cheeks. He wanted to throw himself back down on the ornately carved bed, pull the covers over his head and hide from the world, sobbing his heart out like some anguished mortal child.
Judy was gone. Since Mary’s death, he’d shut the Brujah out, just as he had Sky; now he’d never get a chance to make it up to her, either, to show her just how much he’d treasured her friendship. For a moment his grief and regret were almost insupportable. Somehow emblematic of all his other guilts and sorrows, they started to drag him down into his familiar despair.
But then a flash of realism, of disgust and sheer boredom with the old, crippled Elliott obsessively wallowing in his personal tragedies, cut through his self-flagellation. Judy’s death was a calamity. He was certain that he’d never stop missing her, not even if he survived until the end of the world. But it wasn’t his fault, and the last thing she would have wanted was for him to sit around crying about it. She’d want him to carry on the fight.
Rising, he strode into the bathroom and washed, then dressed and combed his hair with his customary care. Though he’d told Lazio he’d hurry, he was sure that the evening’s business could wait another few minutes. Performer that he was, he understood that the a
ppearance of haste in a leader could arouse his subordinates’ anxieties. And in the wake of Judy’s demise, no doubt that was the last thing any of his fellow Kindred needed.
When he was certain he looked his best, he sauntered downstairs, sighing when one of Roger’s shrieks resounded through the house. As he’d expected, he found Lazio, Gunter, Angus and the mortal prisoner in one of the cells at the rear of the house.
The huge Gangrel’s skin was red and peeling, presumably not quite healed from its exposure to the sun. Elliott noticed with fleeting amusement that, at the moment, the Justicar and the burly, perpetually ruddy-faced Gunter looked a bit alike. Nude, trembling, eyes wide, seemingly unharmed except for a telltale pastiness and scabby puncture wounds on her throat and hip, Dracula lay strapped down on an operating table with an IV drip in her arm.
“Allow me to introduce the terror of Sarasota,” Angus said. He gave the prisoner a leer, lengthening his fangs slightly. She flinched.
“Thank you for catching her,” Elliott said. “I’m glad that you two came through all right.” He looked at Lazio. “And I’m sorry I didn’t say so before.”
The mortal smiled. “That’s all right.”
Angus raised his raw, flaking, hairy hand. He’d jammed an emerald ring halfway down his little finger, which appeared to be as far as it would go. “She used this bauble to work her sorcery.” He gave Dracula another malevolent smile. “She doesn’t seem very magical without it, do you, little one? At least not with my special recipe flowing into your veins.” He rooted in his pocket and produced a steel apparatus resembling an oversized staple-puller with two long, white, pointed teeth for the upper prongs, “She must have used this to simulate a vampire bite; I wouldn’t be surprised if the points are genuine Kindred fangs. And I imagine she employed a spell to evaporate the missing blood.”
“How clever,” Gunter boomed jovially. “And now let’s slice some answers out of her.’*
“Exactly what I had in mind,” said Angus. The nails on his right hand lengthened and thickened into pointed claws. Dracula jerked helplessly in her restraints.
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