Books 1–4

by Nancy A. Collins

The candles flickered wildly in the wind gusting through the cemetery, throwing strange shadows on the disfigured bust situated at the head of the grave. The group uncorked the remaining wine bottles and huddled around the meager light. Soon the odor of marijuana mingled with the smell of lichen and dead leaves.

  After a half-hour’s vigil, Pierre stood up and kicked at the now-extinguished candles. “This is bullshit! I’m going to end up with pneumonia because Philippe thought he saw a ghost while tripping his brains out!”

  The other members of the group shifted uneasily, but it was evident they had each come to similar conclusions.

  “I don’t know about you”—Pierre addressed this to Celeste alone, although she seemed unaware of it—”but I’m going home to—Sacré Bleu!” The half-empty wine bottle slid from his numbed fingers, smashing onto the grave slab.

  Pierre pointed with a trembling hand at something down the narrow alley that wound between the tombs. His companions turned as one, and Celeste gasped aloud.

  “It’s him. It’s Jim!”

  From my hiding place among the monuments, I could see a masculine figure standing a few hundred feet away. Despite the cold, he was bare-chested underneath the jacket, his skin as pale as moonlight. I felt a momentary shock of recognition as I stared at the face of the dead rock star. Was it possible? Was Morrison a vampire? The Lizard King, resplendent in jeans and a leather jacket, beckoned with one languid hand, but did not offer to come any closer.

  “Celeste, he wants you,” Raoul whispered in awe and envy. “He wants you to go with him.”

  Celeste’s eyes had the glaze of someone discovering her fondest fantasy brought to life. “Me ... he wants me ...” Her voice was dreamy and detached, as if she was talking in her sleep. She stepped forward, eager to embrace her one true love.

  “Wait a minute, Celeste!” Pierre said, stepping forward to grab her arm. “Hey, are you going to stand there and let her go with that thing?” He sounded genuinely frightened and more than a little jealous.

  “Let go of me, Pierre,” Celeste said, her gaze still fixed on the Lizard King. “There’s nothing to be worried about. It’s only Jim. He won’t hurt me.”

  “Celeste, please,” the boy begged. “That’s can’t be him! Morrison’s dead!”

  “You don’t know that!” Celeste retorted as she wrenched herself free of his grasp and hurried toward the dead singer.

  That’s when I moved from my place in the shadows, bowling over the startled youths as I ran past them. I saw the Lizard King touch the girl’s cheek and take her by the hand. I knew that he was going to lead her deep into the necropolis, where he could feast undisturbed. If he disappeared into the labyrinth of crypts and tombstones, I’d never find them in time.

  I tackled the vampire, knocking it free of Celeste. The Lizard King thrashed violently underneath me, but could not break free of my hold. Now that I was closer, I saw that the leather jacket and jeans the vampire wore were filthy with grave dirt. Morrison’s face snarled at me, but I could tell that the vampire wasn’t the dead singer resurrected. Vampires are like chameleons—they can remodel their faces using a supernatural equivalent of protective coloration. And this vampire had chosen the semblance that would ensure him good hunting, by making himself to look like the dead singer. However, he had used the funerary bust for his model— right down to the smashed nose. Still, from a distance the illusion was good enough to attract prey, and by the time they were close enough to notice what was wrong, the vampire had them securely mesmerized. I had to hand it to the dead boy, it was a clever lure.

  The Lizard King hissed, exposing his fangs. I kept one hand clamped on his throat, pinning him to the ground, as I reached for my knife.

  “Leave him alone. You’re spoiling everything!” Celeste wailed as she brought a memorial vase filled with rank water and withered daffodils crashing down on my head. I fell back, momentarily stunned.

  “Jim, sweetheart! Are you all right?” she asked as she helped the vampire to his feet. The look of devotion on her face disappeared as the Lizard King grinned down at her, his eyes glowing and fangs unsheathed.

  “Nooooo!” Celeste’s scream of denial was as thin and high-pitched as that of a child refusing to go to bed.

  The Lizard King grabbed the girl by the hair, pulling her close. Celeste struggled, her shrieks bursting from her like the cries of frightened birds.

  Although blood from my head wound was trickling down behind my shades and dripping into my eyes, I managed to get to my feet. “Let her go,” I growled.

  The Lizard King snarled in return, tightening his grip on the girl. Celeste sobbed hysterically, too frightened to scream.

  “Celeste!” It was Pierre. He had remained, even though his companions had fled the moment the girl began to scream. He stood just beyond reach of the vampire, and I could tell the young idiot was getting ready to jump the monster.

  I stepped forward, hoping to draw the Lizard King’s attention away from the boy. It worked. The vampire snapped his head in my direction, baring his teeth like a cornered rat. I could hear the groundskeeper’s hounds baying close by. So did the vampire, his stolen face registering alarm. There were too many witnesses about. He’d have to abandon his catch.

  The Lizard King propelled the hysterical Celeste into Pierre’s arms. The boy did not bother to question his luck and ran in the direction he and his companions had come from, the girl in tow.

  The vampire turned and ran, but I was right after him. He sprinted through the graveyard like a broken field runner, but I managed to keep up with him. I caught him by the cemetery wall. He was clambering over the spikes that crowned the perimeter when I buried my knife up to the hilt in the meat of his left calf. The Lizard King screamed as the silver blade penetrated flesh and muscle, but succeeded in getting to the other side.

  In the years since taking up the mantle of vampire hunter, I had discovered that although I was impervious to silver, most vampires were hyper- allergic to it. As I followed the Lizard King over the wall, I could tell his nervous system was already affected by the silver toxins in his bloodstream. The vampire dragged a rapidly degenerating left leg behind him as he plunged into a knot of late-night party-goers, bleating and waving his arms. Luckily, they thought he was just another drunken freak visiting Jim Morrison’s grave. I took my time killing the bastard when I caught up to him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1977: This was the year I noticed I’d stopped aging... at least to human eyes. For some reason, my metabolism decided twenty-three was ideal for me, and stayed there. That was also the year I began buying black-market human blood. After years of living off the blood of animals, the hunger had finally upped the stakes and I could no longer thrive on anything else but the red, red groovy.

  In Rome people walk some of the busiest—and oldest—streets in Europe, unaware that twenty-two feet below the soles of their shoes lies a kingdom that extends nearly six hundred square miles, with an estimated population of six million. None of them living, of course.

  I was seated at a sidewalk cafe, nursing a glass of red wine for camouflage while I watched the evening crowds, when a tall, thin, pasty-faced young man with unhealthy purple blotches under his eyes pulled up a chair and sat down at my table, uninvited. I divined by the flicker of his aura that he was a human sensitive, and that he was also quite mad.

  “You are Blue?” His English was execrable, but I knew no Italian, so I was forced to carry on the conversation as best I could.

  “What do you want?” I stared at the black halo crowning his head; the rays emanating from his skull snapped and fluttered like banners caught in a high wind. The sensitive’s eyes were wet and bright, the pupils oscillating to a secret beat. He was dressed far too warmly for a Roman spring. Not only was he a crazed psychic, he was a junkie as well. What a combination.

  “He says tell you come.” The sensitive’s eyelids twitched as he dry-washed his hands.

  “Who told you that?” I didn’t relish the
idea of tapping into the junkie’s mind to get my information. God only knows what lay coiled behind those eyes.

  “He say tell you Pangloss.”

  The smell of old death came back to me. “Very well,” I sighed. “Where is he?”

  The psychic grinned, revealing crooked teeth. I followed him through a series of twisting back streets that took us deep into the city’s oldest neighborhoods. I could feel myself being watched by scores of dark, suspicious eyes as we hurried through the narrow alleys. I glanced skyward. Although my view was hampered by a Jacob’s Ladder of laundry lines, I could see the moon of Islam hovering over Christendom’s city.

  The psychic eventually led me to an ancient, crumbling villa with an overgrown garden. The ground floor was deserted of life and furniture, but the door to its cellar stood open. The young man hurried down the stairs without bothering to check if I was following him.

  The basement had a dirt floor and smelled strongly of mildew. The only light came from a flickering candle jutting from a Chianti bottle perched atop a card table. The card table was situated against the far wall, alongside a small, narrow oaken door with old-fashioned hinges. Sitting behind the table was a huge figure dressed in the hooded robes of a monk. The monk did not see us enter for his head was lowered, as if in prayer. The motion of his right arm, however, was far from sacred.

  The psychic snarled something in Italian and the monk pulled his hand free of his cassock. My escort made a withering remark, and gestured first to me, and then to the door.

  The monk got to his feet, the peak of his hood brushing the low ceiling. I bit my tongue to keep from gasping aloud, my heart banging against my ribs like a hammer. Whatever his religious beliefs and vices might be, the monk who stood guard in that empty cellar was far from human. The ogre’s lambent eyes glowered from under beetling brows, his nose wide and flat like a gorilla’s. His jaw jutted strangely, as if the lower mandible did not match the rest of his skull. His skin was coarse and large-pored, with a grayish complexion that made him look like he needed a good dusting. He was massively built, his hands large enough to conceal a cured ham in each palm. I could tell he was bald underneath the hood he wore, and I caught a brief glimpse of pointed ears set flush against his head. The folds of his vestments camouflaged his twisted physique, although it accentuated the unnatural width of his shoulders.

  The ogre studied me warily, and then spoke to the psychic, his voice a bass rumble that sounded like rocks being ground together. I saw rows of sharp, inward curving teeth, like little Saracen blades, set in pink gums. While they were occupied, I looked at the book the ogre had left open on the table. It was a volume of nursery rhymes, lavishly illustrated with pictures of plump, apple-cheeked children dressed in sailor suits and pinafores jumping candlesticks, fetching pails of water, and going to bed with one shoe on. My gorge began to rise and I quickly averted my gaze. The ogre fondness for human veal is well-known, but it seemed this one enjoyed playing with his food.

  The ogre produced an antique key fashioned of iron and unlocked the worm-scored door. My escort had to stoop in order to cross the threshold and I nearly banged my head on the lintel. The ogre grunted noncommittally and locked the door behind us.

  I found myself in a narrow, sloping passageway lit by a string of low-wattage bulbs attached to the roof of the tunnel. I was surprised by what appeared to be catacombs branching off in several directions, as most are located near the Appian Way, in what had once been the farthest suburbs of Rome, as ancient law forbad them within the city limits.

  We passed row upon row of loculi, the narrow shelf graves cut in the soft stone that house the bones of the poor. As the surrounding rock formations were porous and there was little moisture found in the catacombs, even the oldest bodies were surprisingly well-preserved. The dead, dressed in the remains of their winding-sheets, watched with empty sockets as we traveled deeper into their realm.

  After walking for a half-hour and descending three levels, the corridor emptied into a cubicula, one of the larger and more elaborate burial chambers reserved for the wealthy dead. Judging by its elaborate decorations, it had once been used as a shrine of some kind, although it was difficult to imagine anyone so desperate as to seek solace in such a place.

  The far wall was studded from floor to ceiling with human skulls embedded in mortar. The skulls—all of them missing their lower mandibles—were neatly stacked one atop another so that the adult males rested, upper plate to crown, alongside those of women, children, and the unfinished craniums of infants. The skulls surrounded a reliquary recessed into the wall, the interior of which was composed of thousands upon thousands of painted tibia, finger, and toe bones fitted into a gruesome mosaic. Although the colors had faded over the centuries, I could still make out the figures of a man and a woman, one hand lifted in greeting while the other hid their genitals. A mummified arm—whole from the shoulder—rested in the shrine, fixed to the shelf by a large metal bolt in its palm. It was uncertain whether the relic belonged to an obscure saint or an unlucky pilgrim.

  Chandeliers fashioned from skeletal arms clutching hollowed-out skulls hung from the ceiling. Candles burned in the upside-down craniums, casting warped shadows throughout the burial vault. The walls that weren’t dedicated to the skull shrine were pocketed with larger shelf graves, resembling bizarre bunk beds.

  Mummified monks and priests, dressed in the rotting clerical garb of some long- forgotten religious order, stood eternal vigilance alongside their patrons’ tombs. Suspended by hooks set into the walls, the ancient skeletons were held together by wire and petrified ligaments, reminding me of a brace of marionettes dangling from their strings. Some of the dead holy men clutched the rusted remains of swords, while others fingered rosaries. Most of the dead sentinels possessed enough skin to cover their bones, although it was as stiff and yellow as parchment Some seemed to laugh, others to cry, their black tongues exposed between toothless jaws. The ones who still had their feces were the worst, their lips twisted into parodies of a kiss. I wondered if they were there to keep the occupants of the catacombs from being molested or escaping.

  Suddenly one of the dead things stepped forward and fit an ebony cigarette holder between his grinning jaws.

  “I’m delighted you accepted my invitation, Miss Blue.”

  My vision wavered and the walking corpse transformed itself into Dr. Pangloss, international scholar and bon vivant. Even though he was dressed in the latest Italian fashion, his eyes obscured by dark, chunky rectangular sunglasses, he seemed perfectly at home among the inhabitants of the catacombs.

  The psychic blurted something in Italian, dry-washing his hands expectantly.

  “Yes, I can see that she’s here,” the vampire snapped in English. He said something more in Italian before reaching inside his breast pocket and producing a small packet of white powder. The psychic snatched it from the vampire’s hand and went scurrying into the shadows.

  “You must forgive Cesare,” Pangloss said apologetically. “He is a telepath with no control over what he receives. Imagine having a radio in your head that you are helpless to turn off. He depends on me to provide him with the means to escape the voices, the poor lad.”

  “You’re quite the humanitarian,” I said wryly.

  Pangloss arched an eyebrow. “Yes, aren’t I?” He brushed past me to perch on the edge of a nearby sarcophagus. “This place”—he indicated our surroundings with a languid wave of the hand—”was forgotten by the Christians before the Crusades, and has yet to be rediscovered by the human world. Our kind, however, never forget. These catacombs are held sacred by us. It is one of the few locations where we can meet without fear of vendetta. It is a neutral territory, so to speak. You need not fear violence from me while we are here. I trust I can expect the same from you.”

  I nodded my assent. Even though Pangloss was a monster who preyed on the weak and helpless, I had no reason to doubt his manners.

  “Were you surprised to hear from me, my dear?” he a
sked. “Do say yes, it would flatter me so.”

  “Yes. I admit I was surprised. How did you know where to find me?”

  “Did you think I would waltz away from our last encounter without making steps to keep myself informed as to your whereabouts? I know many things about you, my dear. I know you’ve taken up with that deluded old fool, Ghilardi. I also I know all about your ‘hunting trips.’ Who are you warring against?”

  I frowned. “War?”

  “You must be engaged in a brood-war against someone. Who is your brood master?”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said as my frown grew deeper.

  “Surely you’re not that ignorant! Who is responsible for making you?”

  “He called himself Sir Morgan.”

  The vampire’s mocking smile diminished. “You’re operating under Morgan’s orders?”

  I made no effort to restrain my burst of derisive laughter. “Orders? I’m looking to kill the motherfucker!”

  Pangloss seemed genuinely perplexed as he toyed with his cigarette holder. His voice was distant and detached, as if he was thinking aloud. “Morgan is your sire? I should have pegged you as one of his gets. All that anger and hate boiling away inside of you... Morgan must be getting forgetful in his old age, seeding a specimen like you...” He fell silent upon seeing the look upon my face, and the sardonic smile returned. “What you must understand, my dear, is that we vampires are a prolific race. Like the Greek gods of Olympus, where falls our seed there is life. Or, as is the case, unlife. As any schoolboy knows, every human we drain will rise again. And since it does not benefit us to have too much competition, we must take a hands-on approach to population control.” He pantomimed wringing the neck of a chicken. “That is not to say most don’t have a brood of our own. You’re looking confused again. Don’t you know anything about...? No, I guess you wouldn’t.

  “Every Noble worth their title has a brood—younger, weaker vampires who owe their existence to him or her. You see, when Morgan took your blood he left some of himself behind— remaking you in his image, shall we say? We tend to be very careful in our choice of prey. It wouldn’t do to pick a victim who possesses a strong will.”