Perpetual Darkness

"It is said that the mutation occurred as the result of a transplant. A young woman dying of leukemia received bone marrow from a Changer just a mutation removed from becoming a 'Perp.' Now, as you may or may not know, a Changer is a vampire that has a limited hereditary ability to stay 'lit,' as it is described, perpetually for several days before the need to go dark and re-enter Death-mode, or 'Coffed.' No one is exactly sure when or why the Coffed mutated into the 'Un-coffed,' (Un-coffined) but one thing is for certain — once a vampire becomes a Changer, it will eventually become a Perp. That is, in a perpetual state of being lit. Instead of following and fearing the sun, it follows and re-enters the darkness. Why we are here today, of course, is to discuss the recent claims that some of these Perps seem to have the ability to transport west to the nearest night zone, somehow during the exact second before dawn where the sun will break the horizon. So far, it appears that they are limited only to jumps back and forth to the point from which they could actually see the horizon, but the physics of it is why I have invited Dr. Kronen here today to try to conjecture precisely as to how this 'transport' ability can be accurately understood and explained. I will then turn the discussion back to how the creatures can rejuvenate without a need to un-plug and go Coffed. Dr. Kronen, sir, if you will?"

Brief applause escorts Dr. Kronen to the lectern.

"Zank you all, ples be seated, " Dr. Kronen said in a thick German accent.

He eyed the audience of young academics who had gathered to hear him speak in the dimly lit underground meeting room.

"Ze Apostles, eh?" he thought to himself.

Cambridge had been the University he had wanted to attend as a young man, but his parents had kept Kronen home and insisted he attend the University of Tübingen.

Tonight's secret meeting thrilled Kronen, and at the same time made him sick to his stomach. He never felt safe talking about Sophie and the Changers, even though he wore the cross underneath his shirt.

What nobody at the Cambridge seminar knew at that time, was that this transport ability had been extended by certain Perps, with the involuntary help of second parties. Alistair's case is the first which has been unequivocally documented.

Whatever the active principle of the infection should prove to be -- virus, bacteria, amoeba, or some esoteric life principle from beyond science, as many, inevitably, still claim -- it can be diagnosed by physico-chemical blood analysis. It is still controversial whether the "Changer" and "Perp" phases can be distinguished by this means, but frankly the question is rather academic, as comportmental clues are generally quite sufficient.

The origin of Alistair's infection cannot be traced. The contemporary vogue for vampire fiction and films provide ample cover for individuals of idiosyncratic complexion and dress; quite likely, it was while picking up his daughters and nieces from the vampire flick at the mall in Auckland that the targeted infection occurred.

The first of the return flights, overnight from Auckland to Hong Kong, went about as well as these things ever go : they all got at least some sleep. Rather than hanging around the airport from 6am to 1pm, they headed into town to visit HK Central and the Peak Tram.

Wandering around in SoHo as the city started to emerge from night, Alistair suddenly sat down hard on the pavement and hunched over. He described it later as being suddenly and entirely emptied of all force and intelligence; his sensory perceptions were unimpaired, but he was, for a couple of minutes, deprived of all his motor and cognitive means.

The girls did not panic, were calm and supportive, and soon he was on his feet again. The younger girl later claimed that she saw a cloaked figure emerge from a nearby darkened doorway, but she has always had a well-developed imagination.

The rest of the return journey, Hong Kong-Frankfurt and Frankfurt-Lyon, was apparently uneventful. In fact, unbenownst to both, Alistair and Dr Kronen crossed paths in a busy Frankfurt restroom, Kronen entering a stall thirty seconds after Alistair had left it. It was long thought that respiratory aerosols were the prime path of transmission; later research has shown that they are hardly infectious at all, but that skin contact with other bodily fluids can be exceedingly virulent. So most likely, Kronen caught it off the toilet seat.

Having got home and to bed at midnight, Alistair was up before dawn, feeling fine, but unsurprisingly not adjusted to the cumulative twelve time zone changed. He was slouched on the couch channel-surfing when it happened again.

A few minutes later he was fine again, and didn't know what to make of the whole thing. Logically he should have seen a doctor, but he was supposed to be working that day, and reluctant to take the route of sick leave after an extended holiday.

And in fact, he was fine all day. The following day it became clear that he had the flu -- pretty much inevitable, as his entourage in Lyon had all had it during his absence -- and, although that certainly did not explain the Hong Kong event, he gave it no more thought.

Dr. Kronen, however, was not fine. After that quick layover in Frankfurt, he noticed a sudden onset of burning on his buttocks - a feeling he was all too familiar with during his quest to find the origin of the infection that caused the change in the Perps and his beloved Sophie.

He had hoped that the London flight would be quick, but the delays forced the plane to sit on the tarmac an extra 2 hours. Dr. kronen's burning intensified, and at one point he was afraid that perhaps he, too, had been infected intentionally by a Changer.

His mind searched through all of the faces he had seen that day, and one stood out in particular. He was an average guy with soft grey hair and a nice red sweater, but there was something definitely sinister in the way he glared at Dr. Kronen when he left the stall in the Frankfurt airport restroom. Perhaps this mystery man was the Perp who had been following him since his stay in Vladivostok. That same, impenetrable stare was certainly familiar in the men's restroom.

Dr. Kronen knew he needed to drink some of his homemade antiserum, but the vial he had smuggled it in exceeded the 2 oz size limit that was currently forbidden on planes.

"Good morning, Dr Cascu!"

"Good morning, you're looking..." Cascu didn't finish the sentence.

"Yes I know : nice tan, but I'm looking terrible. Divine retribution for taking a summer holiday in the middle of winter : I got the flu from hell."

Alistair had been sad when his previous doctor had retired, and initially rather suspicious of her young Rumanian replacement. It seems young French doctors are too lazy or too greedy to take on a little country practice; whereas the miracle of the European Union opens the jobs up to all comers, as long as they speak French. Hence the veritable onslaught of Rumanian doctors in rural France: it helps, perhaps, that their principal alternative is a career at 300 euros a month in the Rumanian health system.

And Cascu, in any case, was a goodun. Alistair had grown to respect and trust him. Always he would go the extra distance, look at the big picture, ask probing questions unrelated to the original subject of the visit. Alistair liked that.

Most doctors would now go through a perfunctory "Say aaah" routine, then write a scrip for four or five palliatives, sign the sick leave form, then ching ching, next please! Cascu, he knew, would not let him off that easily. So he stretched his aching body out on the examination table.

But the examination was over rather quickly, as it happened. Examining Alistair's skin, the doctor's eyes narrowed, then widened, and he took a step backward, and asked if he had experienced any symptoms other than the classic flu ones.

His tone and manner were still friendly and professional, but something there conveyed a clear subliminal message to Alistair : something like "please don't be alarmed, but you're in really deep shit now." As he related the strange "jetlag" episodes in Hong Kong and Lyon, Cascu broke out a couple of surgical masks, put one on, and gave the other to Alistair. Then he filled the air of the consulting room with an antiseptic aerosol spray. At least now we don't need to keep pretending to smile, thought Alistair.

"So, what's it all about Doc?"

Cascu explained that there was a need for specialised blood tests. "I don't think they can be done in France. Germany perhaps. Your girlfriend : you live with her in town during the week, yes? Have you ... excuse me, have you made love since your return? Yes? Then she will need to be tested too. And I'm putting you both on a month's sick leave."

"WHAT!" Alistair hit the roof. "You're going to have to fill in a few more details before I can agree to that!"

"In the first instance, you should both be quarantined until we get a blood diagnosis. I suggest you should go to your place, out here in the country. I really don't want to be mysterious, but I promise I will tell you more tonight, I'll make a housecall."

Well that's something, thought Alistair. A doctor in France making a housecall. Wonders will never cease.

Sorin Cascu spent most of the afternoon on the phone to Rumania. He was something of a rarity among his generation of Rumanian doctors, in that he actually had a detailed working knowledge of the medical aspects of ... the subject. It had been in decline for decades at the Bucarest medical school, becoming a little-chosen optional subject, and had been completely scrubbed from the curriculum during the European Union normalization process. For this is the other side of the coin concerning freedom of movement for European professionals : the body of knowledge imparted must be standardized, from the Atlantic to the Urals (or nearly. To the Carpathians, anyway.) So European committees lop off any trace of folk remedies, esoterism, empiricism or anything else not "rigorously science-based".

However a couple of the older professors continued to teach the subject, not exactly clandestinely, but informally. A Transylvanian himself, Sorin had considered it an essential part of his medical education, and attended all the evening classes, despite his heavy workload. In his fifth year, they were denounced by the modernists for misuse of university premises, and were obliged to switch to private venues. This had created no great logistical difficulties, since there were fewer than a dozen students in the class, out of a cohort of six hundred. But it had certainly facilitated the development of his relationship with Dumitra...

Dumitra! Their love had seared his soul, and, as a wise friend had noted, perhaps made his heart inaccessible to ordinary women.

Among the study group, she was always the most engaged, inquisitive, and as Sorin soon realised, her interest extended well beyond the medical aspects of ... the phenomenon. She was involved with other groups on the subject, not medical at all, and tried to take Sorin with her on her journey of discovery. He resisted firmly, wishing to stick within the medical domain. She interpreted this as weakness and fear, and began to despise him a little.

The final betrayal and break-up happened days before their final exams. This timing is probably what saved him from the depths of howling despair : discipline, rigour and hard work enabled him to shut her into a tiny corner of his mind.

Alistair's case brought her back in full force, by association. He persuaded himself that she could be a useful resource in his research.

Professor Albu, his old mentor, was delighted to hear from him, and eager to help. He remembered Dumitra, of course, but had no news of her since medical school. He gave Sorin a number of contacts among those of the medical profession who were still engaged in the surveillance and control of ... the phenomenon.

For the centuries-old networks were breaking down. Part of the social fabric through the centuries of feudal and imperial regimes, the struggle against vampires had continued, in one form or another, throughout the twentieth century. Of course, the Communists had attempted to wipe out this superstition, subjecting exorcists and potion-brewers to severe re-education; but the Party itself had been infiltrated to the highest level, and following a narrowly-averted coup d'état, they changed course and medicalized the phenomenon. By discreet sanitary measures, they locked down vampirism to tolerable levels.

Now, only the older professionals took the business seriously, and had no funding. Although official statistics were no longer collected (move along, nothing to see here), there were clear indicators that the phenomenon was on the rise.

Alistair and Halima spent much of the afternoon speculating as to what cruel and unusual disease they were subjected to. "Some sort of tropical fever? Malaria?" she guessed.

"No, nothing like that's endemic in New Zealand." he replied.

"Rabies then? Been bitten by anything?"

"No, NZ is the cleanest place on earth for all that nasty stuff."

"Oh really. Then I guess it's some obscure sexual affection. You'd better come clean with me. Or should that be — you'd better come cleanly with me?"

"At last! The doctor's here!"

"Don't think that'll get you off the hook my dear..."

Cascu had, by arrangement, brought some groceries. They had agreed to make the quarantine as complete as possible, at least until they had some test results.

"So, Doctor : what have we been tested for exactly?"

"Well." Cascu looked uncomfortable. "It's a phenomenon that is often associated with Rumania..."

"Child gymnasts? Creepy dictators? Deplorable orphanages? Vampires?"

"The last one, I'm afraid."

"..."

"Oh come on Doc. I never got bitten by anything bigger than a large mosquito. There were pretty young women dressed as vampires in New Zealand, but none of them even tried to kiss me in the neck. I don't understand it, I gave them every opportunity. But all joking aside, you expect social security to pay us sick leave for ... suspected vampirism?"

"Actually, that is a non-trivial problem in itself."

"Ah, so you and I and Halima are likely to end up being prosecuted for fraud because of your crackpot ideas?"

"No. You and I and Halima are likely to end up being prosecuted for fraud because social security will never admit to such a medical condition, even if it does get identified and categorised scientifically. Which is far from being the case at the moment. Yes, I'm afraid we're all in for financial difficulties if my tentative diagnosis gets confirmed."

"Doctor, frankly, if we're to turn into vampires, financial difficulties are not the most pressing of our worries!"

"I wish you wouldn't laugh when you say that. On the other hand, there's no harm in it. As long as the worst is not certain."

In the meantime, Alistair and Halima were both on ten-day sick leave for the flu; an unusually long break but not unheard of. In fact, Alistair's flu was severe, and incapacitated him nearly that long. Halima had already had it, but during her holidays, with no time off work, so there was technically fraud, but again, nothing implausible.

Alistair and Halima had decided to suspend their disbelief, for the ten day period, and co-operate fully with Cascu and any other experts who could elucidate the matter. At the end of that time, if nothing conclusive turned up, they would go back to work and regard the whole thing as a fairy story.

Cascu had explained that the "vampire" infection was distinct from actual vampirism, which itself was a strictly hereditary condition. There were few observable symptoms of the infection and no harmful effects, other than the little detail of being the slave of the vampire who originated the infection. How did the vampire take control of the victim, and to what end? Evidence was very fragmentary and anecdotal on that score.

"The doctor who will be analyzing your blood samples was very interested in your episodes in Hong Kong and Lyon, especially when he learned that they happened at about dawn. He is convinced that you were used in some sort of teleportation mechanism. Ok, go ahead, laugh. I'm getting used to it. I confess I wonder if he's right in the head myself, I've never heard of such a phenomenon, but he claims to understand the physics of it. Kronen, his name is. He should receive your samples in Tübingen tomorrow. In the meantime, it seems likely -- to me, anyway -- that there is a vampire hanging around Lyon who has control over you."

"Well, I've been on a salary most of my life." Alistair remarked.

The following day, after a few more tries, Cascu had located Dumitra: she was a staff anaesthetist at a provincial maternity hospital. She was to start her shift that evening at eight o'clock.

In what was to become a regular routine, he went to see Alistair and Halima as soon as he closed up his surgery. They had spent the day scouring the internet for any useful information about vampires.

"How can you filter anything useful out of all this crap?" said Alistair.

"Well, 99% of everything on the internet is crap", remarked Halima. "This is no different."

"Well, maybe in this case it's just 100% crap!"

In fact, 90% of the hits were references to modern vampire fiction, which they discounted completely. Most of the rest was older fiction or folklore, a few anthropological or historical accounts, and pretty much zero scientific study.

"There is a reason for that." explained Barzu. "People who really know about the subject keep it secret. Either because they are vampires themselves; or because they know that any attempt at publication would result in them being tracked down and killed by vampires."

"Sounds plausible," admitted Alistair. "But Occam's Razor tells me that the more plausible reason for the absence of scientific literature is that the phenomenon doesn't exist. Sorry if I sound like a broken record."

The discussion was interrupted by a call on Cascu's mobile. It was Kronen, with the first results of their analyses.

"The tests are quite rapid to execute, and quite conclusive, concerning the "A" and "H" samples : both are positive. The "S" sample is negative, however."

"Thank you, Doctor Kronen. The S sample was mine, I included it as a control."

"I'm afraid the test isn't very specific : it's quite binary in nature. It indicates that the subjects are either vampires themselves, or have been infected by contact with vampires' bodily fluids. I have developed a serum which appears to negate or attenuate the... imperative effect, do you understand me Dr Cascu? Yes? It requires cultivation from the subject's own blood serum. I believe I ought to confide the formula to you, Doctor."

"That would be an honor, Dr Kronen."

"Bloody hell, so there are two crackpots now? And we're to be their guinea pigs eh?"

Still, it seemed like some sort of breakthrough, or milestone at least, and required a commemorative drink. During the ensuing discussion, Cascu noticed that it was eight o'clock, tried to excuse himself, and was warmly retained. Then found himself telling the story of himself and Dumitra, to a receptive and sympathetic audience. In truth, she was a sort of ghost that he dreaded facing alone. Halima took his hand and said : "Well, are you ready to call her now?"

"Doctor Dumitra Nicolu? This is Doctor Sorin Cascu." Silence.

"Sorin? ... What can I do for you, Dr Cascu?"

Without a doubt, she sounded shaken, full of emotion. Then mastered it with her habitual hard, biting tone.

"I ... I am working on an unusual case, involving vampires. Since we once shared an interest in the subject, I thought it might be possible to collaborate. Also, this offers an opportunity to inquire as to your health, your employment, your happiness..."

"It's all shit, Sorin. All of it. This job. My happiness, very amusing. And as for my health, thanks for inquiring... I'm HIV positive. Intravenous drug use, don't you know. Oh yes, give me the bourgeois moralist lecture on that, could you please Sorin dear? How could I? Well guess what, shit happens. I'm off the morphine now thanks. Nearly got struck off for that. Now I do crystal meth whenever I can afford it. I did some tonight. It's what keeps me alive."

"Are... are you with anyone?"

"Ha! You should know me better, Sorin. Only a loser could want me. Oh, plenty do, believe me. But I don't do losers, as you know. And as for your vampire story, forget it. I don't know any vampires. In fact, there's no such thing. So get out of my life again now, OK honey?"

Sorin blurted : "But, but I love you!"

But the line was already dead.

Dr. Kronen pushed the button overhead for the flight attendant; he simply could not wait any longer to take the antiserum. His legs were now burning and he felt as though he might pass out.

Within seconds one appeared, and she looked at Dr Kronen and noticed that he was moist with perspiration.

"Are you alright, sir?" she asked.

"Err, I am fine. I need a lavatory, now," Kronen replied.

The flight attendant looked him over and saw that the man seemed nervous, in a hurry.

"Hmmm," she thought aloud. "Passengers are supposed to remain seated while the plane sits in taxi. We should be taking off soon. It's best to keep your seatbelt fashioned."

She looked around and spotted another passenger who pressed his overheard button. Off she went.

Dr. Kronen knew he needed to act soon, so he stuffed his attache case down his pants and made a dash for the lavatory. What he didn't realize, though, was that the flight attendant was watching his every move and had radio'd security.

Courtney felt dumb.

She also felt cold, hungry, tired, lonely and depressed. But most of all, she felt really dumb.

She was sick of lurking around Lyon in the rain (it should at least be snowing!). She had no-one to turn to, and she really needed to go Coffed. And now she was going to have to call her mum, to sort it all out for her.

And it had seemed like such a great idea at the time...

The thing about being a teenage vampire -- an honest-to-god, hereditary one, not a fashion victim - was that you could have a lot of fun with it these days. Especially with the kids who took it seriously.

Not that she ever exploited that in a nasty way. It's just that she could flaunt her difference rather than having to hide it. Nobody ever took her really seriously on that stuff anyway, which was all part of the fun.

But this transport thing -- and it had been a really big thrill, the most exciting thing in her short experience as a vampire -- had gone sour on her.

Her mother was a Californian vampire, and I mean that in the best possible way. Really into personal development : transcendental meditation, transactional analysis, Zen buddhism, you name it, Lara had tried it. Courtney laughed at that stuff, but really it formed an integral part of her culture and values. Lara's inner seeking had lead her to New Zealand, where she had met and married Ted, an eccentric carpenter (who now did a nice little sideline in coffins). They had had Courtney, then divorced ten years later. She had returned to California with Courtney, but two years ago, because of her involvement with vampire politics, where she was increasingly branded as a dissident, she had sent Courtney back to New Zealand to live with Ted.

Mixed marriages were frowned upon in vampire culture (and in some subcultures, punishable by death) but were much more common than was generally acknowledged (children of mixed parentage were even more common, but that's another question). There is no way to predict if a half-caste child will be a vampire or not : the canine tooth thing is completely unreliable. The only way to know is to wait for the child to reach puberty, leave a nice comfy empty coffin open, and see if they take to it.

What were Lara's feelings when fourteen-year-old Courtney started sleeping in her coffin? Joy or heartbreak? She never would say more than : "I love and accept my daughter totally, as she is."

But she must, surely, have been relieved when it turned out that Courtney was a Changer, like herself. Of course she would still have loved her if she had had "special needs". Such as the need to stay in her coffin except at night time, like an ordinary vampire. But a Changer was much easier to live with, if you had chosen the route of integration into "normal" society, as Lara had chosen, for herself and for her daughter.

===========

"Courtney! Do you know what time it is in California? It's 4am! What the hell is so important?"

Courtney was already having trouble fighting the tears back. She just went with the flow for a couple of minutes. Her mother was quickly into supportive mode, and coaxed the whole sorry story out of her.

She had found the transport story on the internet. She had found that there was a surprising quantity of true vampire lore available among all the rubbish one could trawl through; not in the fashionable vampire fiction itself, but in the net culture surrounding it. Apparently she was not the only young vampire who liked to dabble, behind the safe anonymity of the net. She had identified three or four genuine vampires on MSN, among all the prattling make-believers.

So when "Jake" claimed that he knew how to teleport, she had taken him seriously, and she had learned to brew the potion and recite the incantation. And one night, she had climbed to the peak of one of Auckland's volcanic cones, and awaited the dawn while concentrating on a place a couple of hundred metres down the hill to the west, in an open field.

And it... had worked. No fireworks, no funny noises. No definable sensations either. She was just, suddenly, over there.

She'd been so excited she'd forgotten to be scared. And she'd forgotten ... sort of... to tell her mum about it. OK, so she knew her mum would disapprove. Lara wanted her to be knowledgeable in vampire lore, but to abstain from exercising it, as she herself did.

And she'd gone the extra step. The one that Jake had described as experimental : the use of a helper. He was evasive as to whether he had tried it himself. But the principle worked well, he claimed, and caused no harm to either party.

The opportunity had been there : her best friend's uncle was returning to France after a month's holiday. She'd never been to Europe, and, at seventeen, that was starting to become an affront to her cosmopolitan self-image.

The potion she needed to brew for herself required some organic material from the helper. That was easy enough : from the amount of hair on his pillow, you'd think he was on chemo. Then the contamination : easy to manage during a barbecue, a drop of her urine in his wine glass. She couldn't help thinking that by that stage of the evening, he probably would have drunk a whole glass of it if she'd asked him nicely. Still warm. With a pube floating on it. Then she slapped herself mentally for having such thoughts.

It had all gone perfectly, on a technical level. She had felt remorse in Hong Kong, seeing Alistair slumped on the pavement, and had nearly gone over to help him, but he had recovered pretty quickly. She had seen a lot in her thirty-odd hours in HK, but she was ready to move on by mid-afternoon the second day, when, according to her calculation, the sun was set to rise in Lyon.

But after twenty-four hours in Lyon, she'd had enough. Being able to stay Lit for several days was great -- she was legendary for her ability to party like no other -- but with all the walking, she was physically tired out. And the 50 euros she had changed didn't go very far. And most of all, she knew nobody and she didn't speak the language.

No problem : the return trip was supposed to be easy. The plan was to hang around the airport, befriend some New Zealanders, and brew a second potion with their involuntary help. It had been going pretty well with Barry and Keisha, she had easily gotten an organic sample, but then she realised that they were heading for Copenhagen. Her second try turned sour : they must have thought she was a bit weird, they shook her off. In truth, she was already unnerved, and that finished her off.

"So, Mum, what do I do now?"

Many things wafted through Dr. Kronen's mind as he continued his lecture. All of the strange circumstance and coincidence, Cascu, Alistair's blood samples and credible tales of teen-age vampires. These, as well as the incident on the plane, combined to keep him ill at ease. He felt bad about injecting the stewardess, and hoped she would be fine, but it got him off the plane and more importantly, he was feeling himself after taking a dose of the anti-serum. His theory that blocking electrolytes in the central nervous system, especially the specific ones he had isolated, (and partially omitted from the formula he gave to Dr. Cascu), interfered with the process of teleporting as he now knows Alistair survived being taken at dawn and was instead still safe under the watchful eye of Cascu and his staff.

He would need to win over a majority of those present at the meeting, he decided, most prominent of which was Dr. Errin Davidson. She alone was the only living human being, he felt, who understood the concept and math involved with Super String Theory, as well as having been the only person entrusted to decipher Einstein's unpublished notes and personal scribbled rants against Quantum gravity. Here, she pieced together a startling revelation superseding the Master's published conclusions, Field Theories and all the implications derived from his Special and General theories of relativity.

She insisted that in analyzing his private notes and calculations where he sought to establish a 'Theory of Everything,' a quest that consumed all of his later years, she identified a few, apparently anecdotal revisions to his original Field Theories all with solutions that ended in futility and infinite dead ends. Yet upon having spent months trying to decipher each step within these side bars, she suddenly, as if in a trance, and with a slight perturbation in one double set of integers, a set the genius had highlighted, a whole series of cascading proofs washed over her like waves in the Bay of Fundy.

And she would have missed it, had it not been for the work she had done in helping to explain his work on capillary motion and critical opalescence, which, suffice to say, together, and in the context of transporting physical molecules intact, had a bizarre connection to some exotic anomalies he had conjectured in some equations he had worked out in describing his world shattering work in photoelectric effects.

The larger point, of course, was that if things such as worm holes and parallel universes could be derived as by products of his monumental equations and independent solutions to his Field Theories, then why not his daydream doodles concerning teleportation.

Kronen knew these things would excite Ms. Davidson. He would just have to convince her of the biological framework of which he was the accepted authority, and she was aware that he had been a lone champion of her most recent work, panned universally, suggesting that at the quantum level de-materialization and re-materialization, in fact, occurred all the time. And ultimately, her assertion that a naturally occurring holographic effect inherent in photons allows for any object once illuminated to have a permanent frame by frame existence, observable, if you know how to detect it.

In other words, when you look at a hologram, it is not just a three dimensional reproduction you are viewing, rather, it is an actual object that exists within a phantom super string trail of that object as it moves about. For our Dr. Kronen, knowing that the Holographic Principle is the most profound insight to the basis and new foundation for string theory, getting Dr. Davidson on board, in all actuality, was his main priority. He believed she was the only theoretical physicist alive that would condescend to even hypothetically use her expertise and talents on a subject as arcane and fantastic as teleporting vampires. And as the lecture neared its end, from the look of intrigue on the unadorned, though quite attractive face of Errin Davidson, Kronen started to feel he might get the young genius to at least examine his evidence and assumptions.

"Iancu, I have summoned you here to offer you a difficult and dangerous mission, if you decide to accept it."

"Thank you, Master Mirca. But I am here to do your bidding without question, whatever the nature of the mission."

"Thank you for your loyalty, lad. But please listen, and reserve your response."

Hank had never been to the top-floor Boardroom before. The empty room was imposing in the darkness, with its massive table and dozen ornate, heavy chairs. The impressive effect was somewhat weakened by the banal Bay Area nightscape visible from the panoramic windows.

Here, then, was the nexus, the very soul, of the small network of Silicon Valley start-ups that constituted the Organisation. Within these walls were determined, not only the economic orientations of the all-vampire business group, but the social and political actions that defined the Organisation's aspirations to leadership in vampire affairs.

Hank had had his first summer job in the Organisation, as a trainee programmer, when he was fifteen. As a Changer, he had no need to follow that route; he could, like his father, become an ordinary "good citizen", seamlessly integrated into American society. Probably it was loyalty to his mother, Coffed all day, a prisoner in their suburban house, that fuelled his adhesion to the Organisation, and made him passionate about the Mission : Vampire Liberation.

"Iancu, the Board is aware of your prowess : in technology, in traditional lore, and in the arts of ... proactive self-defense. Your are the cream of the crop, Iancu, the best of your generation. We expect great things of you. And I will not hide anything from you : this mission will be a test, not of your abilities, of which we have no doubt... but of your loyalty to the Organisation, and to our Higher Cause."

Hank knew that Master Mirca was one of a minority of "ordinary" vampires on the Board. Inevitably, the Changers and Perps, those who could freely navigate between the two worlds, were at an advantage in business experience, and in money matters. Despite the egalitarian priciples and social vocation of the Organisation, it surely rankled that the others were largely confined to subsidiary, technical roles. But the Organisation gave them such freedom, compared to their exceedingly limited opportunities in the outside world, that the "Coffers" (as some Changers and Perps disparagingly referred to them) were, without exception, fanatically devoted to the Organisation. And, by the same token, always inclined to doubt the loyalty of their Changer and Perp comrades.

"No, don't protest, Iancu. Listen. A renegade vampire has misused one of the Organisation's secret technologies. For the Higher Cause, it is essential that we keep the technology secret, and that we retain a monopoly over it. The acts of this renegade has imperilled the Organisation's very existence. To say nothing of the patent violations."

Hank guessed that he was talking about the Teleportation technology. He knew that it was the brainchild of Master Mirka himself, or Mark Davidson, as he was known to the wider world (or more accurately, to that select circle of nuclear physicists who were aware of the work of the brilliant, secretive researcher).

"The mission is limpid in its simplicity, my boy." (Hank kept just enough ironic distance to laugh inwardly at the florid pomposity of the vampire in full flight; but at the same time, he was genuinely thrilled, caught in the moment.) "You are to track down the renegade and kill ... her."

"I will eliminate the renegade woman, Master Mirca."

"To be more precise : the renegade girl. The subject is seventeen years old. Some on the Board objected that you might fall in love with the girl, and turn renegade yourself! What do you think of that, Iancu?"

"Ridiculous, Master. I serve a Higher Cause, and the decision of the Board is absolute." His heart was racing.

"Good, Iancu, good... You know, of course, that should such an absurdly romantic thing occur, I would be obliged to track you both down and eliminate you myself."

Hank's blood ran cold. It was no empty threat : Mirca was the absolute master of their "proactive self-defense" training, a veritable killing machine. He realised then that Mirca envied and hated him, and had put him up to an impossible dilemma in order to destroy him.

Three options:

  1. Track down this girl and kill her (Mirca clearly didn't think him capable of it).
  2. Go renegade, with or without the girl. And they would both die.
  3. Or turn down the mission. And lose the confidence of the Board, of the Organisation.

While waiting for the bus, Courtney noticed a shop on the other side of the street, called "Pompes Funèbres Générales".

She spent several minutes looking wistfully at the window displays. Almost drooling, to be honest. People passing by started giving her funny looks. But then her bus arrived.

Her mother had told her off, of course. Not for being on her own in Europe without authorisation -- that was just a prank -- but for using powerful vampire lore. She had sounded very scared indeed to Courtney, and wouldn't explain why. She had absolutely forbidden any repeat attempt at the teleportation trick.

"Well, what about this guy, Alistair? Is he reliable? He's Ruth's brother, right?"

"Yes, he's OK - a bit whack, but ... well, Ruth trusts him and all."

"Then you'll just have to throw yourself on his mercy. Turn up on his doorstep and tell him some bullshit story about a ski holiday that went wrong. The hardest part will be getting a coffin. My poor darling, you must be feeling awful..."

During the journey, she started getting alarmed that they weren't getting very close to her destination. She asked the driver, in attempted French, which stop would be the closest to Marcenod. He answered in bad English (but better than her French), "That last one, I think. About ten kilometers. But I'm going there myself after work, I can take you."

At last, a break, she thought. Unless he's a creep?

When Hank came back the next day to pick up his equipment for the assignment, he was received by another Board member, a Perp, Peter Brown.

"This laptop, Iancu, looks like an ordinary Dell. And it functions like one too, well-loaded -- roaming internet, GPS, and so on -- but most of the electronics in the case is in fact a miniaturised directional vampire detector. It only has a range of about ten miles, but the software integrates with Google maps, so once you are in the area, you should easily be able to target your subject."

Hank booted up the computer. Nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary one. "Yes, it will fool airport security easily enough", said Brown.

Airport security? Hank had hoped -- naively, he now realised -- that they would allow him to teleport. But no, here were his tickets to Lyon, via London.

The portable coffin was pretty cool too. Quite heavy, and it filled most of his backpack, but the hinged, bevelled panels snapped together in seconds, and the solidity and comfort were astounding. The weapons and accessories were also of the finest quality.

"Er - Master Petru? I see I have one week in Lyon, to accomplish my mission. But then, one week in London on the way back?"

"Ah, yes, you have a second mission in England : to eliminate a nuclear physicist, a certain Dr Errin Davidson. She has been getting too close to certain domains on which we intend to enforce an effective monopoly."

"But Master Mirca did not mention this second mission?"

"The Board decided to exclude Mark from this particular decision, because of a potential for conflict of interest. Dr Davidson is a non-vampire, but nevertheless his sister."

After the phone call to Dumitra, they couldn't leave Sorin on his own. Some old bottles were cleared out from the back of the drinks cabinet, and significant bonding occurred.

Alistair was of the opinion that he should go and get her -- drag her by the hair, if necessary; kicking and screaming, preferably; back to France. On the basis that she, at least, didn't believe in vampires, and was therefore the only sane person they had been in touch with all day.

Halima was more pragmatic. "Crystal meth is a bitch. Not impossible to break away from, but really really hard. Requires lots of motivation, and preferably a clean break from the old environment. We can look after her while she dries out, if she wants to. But can she get a job here, Sorin?"

"The French hospital system is very hard to break into, for foreign doctors. It might take us a long time to get her a job. I'm not sure she would be motivated enough to wait."

"What about the vampire-hunting business?" said Alistair, serving another round. "Is there any money in that?"

Kronen was exhausted from his incredibly long journey. First the incident at the Hong Kong airport, and then the confrontation with the flight attendant on route to London - all of it seemed like a distant dream.

He had presented his theories with such vigor and enthusiasm that he knew that he needed to get rest soon, or the effects of the antiserum would weaken. He hoped that Ms. Davidson would offer refuge in her flat, but he knew that that would be too forward, and she was not the type to sex up a stranger - though that was what he secretly wanted.

She was tall and slender. Her stylish black glasses accentuated her prominent cheekbones and crystal blue eyes. Talking about Holographic Technology had never been so exciting to him before. Davidson's youth, beauty and naivete added a new dimension to his quest. Perhaps she would fall in love with him?

He was getting slightly delirious, and it must have shown because Davidson ran back to the doctor and asked him if he was alright.

"Do you have a place to stay tonight, Dr. Kronen?" she asked.

"My agent forgot to book a room and I don't know my way around London. Perhaps you could recommend a place," he said.

"Well, I live in the country, about an hour's trainride from here. Come with me; there is a tiny bed and breakfast in my village," she smiled at him.

"Alright, but please, call me Gustav," he said.

At breakfast the following day, Alistair, still completely sceptical about the vampire affair, challenged Halima :

"Well, what about your fabulous international address book? Surely, among all the high-placed officials you know, you can find a friend or acquaintance who knows something about vampires?"

She took the bait, and spent most of the day busy with her Blackberry. The results were somewhat disappointing. Gunter, a friend in the Austrian police, had a story about immigrant-sniffer dogs who found six occupied coffins in a refrigerated truck from Rumania. By the time they were transported to the nearest morgue, the coffins were empty. "Inconclusive", ruled Alistair.
A friend in the FBI seemed to know something, and offered to find out more, but when he called back it was clear that he couldn't say anything for security reasons. Intriguing and frustrating, but "still inconclusive".

Then, in the late afternoon, Halima said : "I might as well try Svetlana, she's highly placed at the World Health Organisation. Who knows, perhaps they have a relevant program ?" "Probably an affirmative action program for vampires", Alistair suggested.

She called Svetlana, and they spent five minutes shrieking and cackling about a night, or several nights, on the vodka in 2006. Alistair had come to expect and accept this kind of introductory ritual, when Halima called old friends. It was that sort of address book.

Svetlana snorted and giggled about the vampire thing, and said that it was not unlikely they had something, she would call back after checking with a friend who managed a whole branch of the organisation which ran dozens of outlandish and unlikely programs, from African bush doctoring to Native American spirit healing, and a highly-politicised European Wiccan program.

She called back with the news that there was indeed an allocated budget and offices in Geneva, but that no credible takers had responded to the published expression-of-interest process. There had been a Serbian group, but some of them had documented links to organised crime, and another was a wanted war criminal. Despite insistent invitations, the governments of Rumania and Hungary had declined to participate or to sponsor any national organisations or individuals.

"So, there's a budget of several million dollars there for the taking, if Sorin can put together a solid business case!" said Halima.

"And perhaps a job for Dumitra, if she can get over her prejudice against vampires." suggested Alistair.

That evening, as they were preparing dinner, Alistair suddenly became restless. He paced up and down, sat down and stood up abruptly, held his head in his hands.

"What's wrong?" asked Halima.

"I need to... I need to... "

"Vomit? Have a pee? ..."

"I must...."

He bolted for the front door and went out, bumping into a girl who was standing forlornly in the courtyard.

"Courtney! What the heck are you doing here? Come in, you look exhausted!"

He took her inside and introduced her to Halima, who had seen her in photos from Alistair's recent holiday.
Courtney told some barely-coherent story about hooking up with some boys from New Zealand who had been snowboarding in Austria, but there had been a mix-up in the dates. She did indeed look exhausted, perhaps ill. They told her that a doctor would be dropping in soon, which seemed to alarm her.

Alistair was looking very contented, but soon became agitated again. Cascu arrived -- he was invited for dinner. He immediately took Alistair aside, they went to the living room : "Are you aware that this girl is a vampire?"

"WHAT? Oh stop it. This is Courtney! She's practically family. And she needs ... I have to get her ... some wood. Something... a box. A wooden box?"

Cascu almost giggled. "Yes, she visibly needs a coffin, very badly. Let's go and get one, your van will do the job. I'll make a couple of phone calls on the way."

They came back to the kitchen to find Courtney sobbing in Halima's arms. "She claims she's a vampire, and that she followed you here from New Zealand."

"We'll talk about that later!" said Alistair urgently. "We're going to get a, a coffin!"

They were back in little more than an hour. In that time, Cascu explained about the Imperative effect, which was visibly working very strongly on Alistair. "She didn't even need to express her wishes. That would seem to indicate that her natural vampire powers are very strong."

"Then she could make Halima do anything? She's infected too remember! Is it safe to leave them together?"

"No, infection is not enough. The vampire also has to prepare and ingest a serum, using organic material from the infected person... The girl is visibly in no state to do that."

When they got back with the coffin, Courtney was trembling, and barely able to walk. They installed it in one of the girls' rooms, and Courtney eagerly laid down in it and ... went out like a light.

"I didn't have time to ask her about her cycle : depending on individuals, vampires of her type can stay awake for anything from a day or two to a week, and their coffin time is proportional. Considering what she's been through in the past week, I would expect her to stay in that state for at least 48 hours."

"That state... " Halima touched her face. "She's cold, doctor! Can you check her pulse?"

Reluctantly, Cascu replied, "I don't expect I'll be able to find one. Don't be alarmed, it's part of her natural cycle."

The phone rang. "It may be her mother, I left a message on her cell phone." said Halima. Alistair answered, almost screaming, "Courtney is dead!"

Lara answered calmly : "You mean she's lying in a coffin?"

"Yes! and she's..."

"And her skin is cold, no pulse, doesn't appear to be breathing? That's OK, Alistair. I understand your distress, but please believe me : Courtney has done that, two or three times a week, since puberty. She generally wakes after ten or twelve hours, but in the circumstances, it could be a couple of days. Listen, I'm a friend of Ruth's, you can ask her about me."

"Does she know about the vampire stuff?"
"Well... Not really. She knows there's something unusual about Courtney and me, she's covered for me before, and she keeps an eye on Courtney, but she knows I'm reluctant to talk about it and she has never asked for details... Ruth is good like that. A good friend. And Courtney is a good girl, you have nothing to fear from her... directly. But what she has done is very stupid, and may have dangerous consequences."

Alistair felt seriously out of his depth. He explained that Dr Cascu was on the case, and handed her over to him. His head spinning, he asked Halima to hold him tight... "I think I need to vomit. Or maybe I just need to pee."

Dawn broke over Manhattan as the dark sedan glided up the empty avenue. It was a ghost city, the half-dead walking among the living at this hour; the early risers and dog walkers out for jogs in between the derelicts and madmen who haunted the city while it slept. A silent, invisible workforce moved among them like shadows, vanishing into the air, like the gray steam rising from the potholes. A belching, blackened underground terrain beneath them, the land of the dead, stirred quietly as the city came to life and the black sedan continued its silent course crossing the potter’s field, that was now midtown.

Her papers and files spread next to her in the backseat, Susan continued to work. The jolting pace of the morning already put her in a foul temper. Rising at four am to feed Maximus, she’d felt the pinch of her nipples, as the tiny baby sucked, reminding her of the painful early days of breastfeeding when it wasn’t milk that she produced but colustrum. And she wanted to scream. She’d wanted to pluck him from her teat and and put him back in his crib while she climbed back into bed and block the sound of his shrieks with the ear plugs she’d been given on the flight home from Japan. But she hadn’t. After being fed, she burped him, and sat, restlessly checking her messages on her blackberry while Jonas stood in his robe, sleepily making her coffee. Then, showered and dressed, a half hour later, she’d slipped out into the dark morning into the waiting sedan and left. And now, the familiar, faint sour odor of breast milk rose from the lace nursing bra under her jacket, nearly overpowering her usual scent, “Poison” by Dior. It seemed she could never escape.

The sedan came to a halt at the stoplight, and she glanced at the driver. She could only see the thick stub of his neck, reminding her of a Chechnyan torturer, like the one whose face she’d seen in the paper Sunday morning his eyes locked with the cameras. Two sockets staring back. Now the driver met her gaze through the rear view mirror and Susan looked away, annoyed, sending him a glance of subtle disgust. A moment later, the light changed, the car lurched forward and Susan felt the familiar jump to life as the sedan turned onto west sixty-sixth street.

The driver pulled up to the curb in front of the studio. She gathered her papers, tucked her files into her Vuitton attaché, then wrapped the trenchcoat around her, as the driver opened the door from the sidewalk. But the belt of the trench had come loose, as she’d stepped out, and the driver caught a luxurious glimpse of her silky legs which appeared barelegged in her flesh-colored hose, and imagined them twisted around his neck, while he took her on the dark red carpeted floor of the car.

Wrapping the trench tightly around her, Susan walked purposefully past him as if he were a lamppost, and felt the exhilarating rush as she swung through the doors of the studios, as she’d done for the last fifteen years. The guards greeted her as she entered, beaming “Good morning” as she breezed past them toward the elevator doors, which opened, as if waiting for her. As cozy as a club, one in which she was an exclusive member, having worked her way up after college as an intern, she smiled to herself at the comfortable thought of her desk, her notes, and the thrill that lay ahead of lining up another show. This was it. This was what made it worth it. It was the one true place she could call home.

“What’s the line up?” she asked, stifling a yawn as she sat at her desk, facing Robin, her production assistant. “Fatties, sex addicts or that fat little chef, the one who looks like a muppet."

"Vampires." Robin said, pressing the edges of a folder that sat on her lap.

Vampires? Weren't we all vampires? Hadn't she been the one to wake before the crack of dawn and want to disappear into the silken folds of a coffin that morning?

"Give me that folder," she sneered. Lowering her eyes, Robin handed it to her boss, who, after snatching it from her hands, roved the memo impatiently. "Who is this quack? Dr. Kronen? Great. Another panel of weirdos.."

Her phone lit up. It was Ken, her secretary, on the line. "Sue, you’ve got a call."

"Who is it?"

"It’s your nanny."

She paused, weighing for a second whether or not to pick up. "Tell her I'll call her back," she said, hanging up. Then, she turned to Robin. "Now talk to me about vampires."

Master Petru tried to relax. The flight was going to be long.

It had all come together so quickly, over the last few days. The Board had decided that the opportunity was too good to miss : the Master Plan was to be executed, years sooner than anyone had anticipated. The risks were great; the rewards greater. And so much depended on him : Peter Brown, Chief Technology Officer of the Organisation.

The Organisation had been aiming for an invitation to the Davos summit for a couple of years now. An honorable ambition, to be sure : the outside world saw a fast-moving tech start-up, doing cutting-edge research, partnered with some industry heavyweights; but too small to have a place at the top table, in normal circumstances. A number of things had come together over the past year, to make the invitation possible : those research partnerships with several Fortune 500 companies; some well-publicised technological breakthroughs that frankly nobody understood the science of; Brown's carefully-nurtured friendship with one of the West Coast's best-known business figures. But in the final analysis, it was the financial crisis that made the difference : a certain number of Davos invitees had been either too broke, or too embarrassed, to turn up, and some wild-card invitations had been given out at the last moment.

So here he was, hitching a ride in his friend's corporate jet (this well-known friend shall remain nameless, because he is an innocent tool and victim, in no way implicated in the events that followed). He was not admitted to the inner staterooms; he was with the second circle, with the staffers, and the journalists who, like him, had been invited to tag along.

Two of the three journalists were generalists, who would be writing papers on geopolitics and global economics. The third, to Brown's irritation, was a technological writer who was very curious about the Organisation's activities. He tried to shut him down without offending him, but found himself having to say more than he wanted : unusually, the journalist was no idiot.

There was plenty of legitimate stuff going on in the Organisation that he could have talked about, but Brown's principal problem was that he, personally, was involved almost exclusively with the occult side of its work. In fact, the Organisation was a great deal bigger than it appeared (to its partners, to the municipal authorities, to the tax department, among others). More than two thirds of its employees were Coffers, vampires who never saw the light of day, and whose legal status was roughly equivalent to that of undocumented Mexican workers. Likewise, three quarters of the research and development was not only secret, but downright clandestine.

Brown managed to break off the discussion by claiming he needed to sleep. Nothing could be further from the truth : as a Perp, he not only had no need, but was indeed unable to sleep, and had not done so for nearly thirty years. But he knew that he would have to go through the motions, to avoid raising suspicion. He wished he had paid more attention to the self-mastery lessons of that pompous twit, Mirca. If he were able to put himself into a trance state, that would be good enough to fool these people. But he was annoyed at the waste of time, when there was so much to prepare.

Although he had no staffers with him, he had two operatives infiltrated into the Davos organisation : one a humble kitchen hand, another a room-service waiter. They were already well aware of the work to be done, but would need a detailed briefing when he arrived.

What with the commotion of Courtney's arrival, they had completely forgotten the World Health Organization's proposition. The following day, Halima briefed Cascu, who immediately began making phone calls.

The people at the WHO were very keen, and encouraged him to move quickly : if the budget was not allocated by the end of the fiscal year, it would be lost forever. They promised to expedite the paperwork, and assured him that it would be possible to pay salaries for half a dozen staff in February.

Professor Albu was the obvious person to head the project, and he was enthusiastic. "I know exactly which minister and which bureaucrats will have blocked the dossier, so that I never got wind of it. But I'll have the last laugh now. I have to retire from the university this year anyway. My wife died two years ago; my children are adults. There is nothing they can do to me now... Sorry to be so melodramatic, Sorin... I realise it's not like the old days. We won't be risking our lives."

"Well... not by defying the Rumanian government." said Cascu. "But there are other risks..."

He outlined Lara's warnings, of a militant Californian vampire organisation linked to business interests. "Does Kronen know of this outfit?" queried Albu. "He's starting to get some publicity, I'm sure they won't like that. We must warn him. And also try to enlist him for the WHO project."

Sorin broached the difficult subject of Dumitra, omitting nothing. "I'd be pleased to work with her, Sorin. She has an excellent mind. But she will have to deal with her toxicological problem first, you understand."

Sorin knew now he had a mission. He arranged for a locum to replace him in his medical practice, and began making travel arrangements.

A couple of days later, Hank was operational in Lyon.

The Organisation's worldwide vampire-monitoring instrumentation was still approximative and patchy, and of low resolution. The last fix he had, from the day he left California, indicated a vampire to the southwest of Lyon, with margin of error of fifteen miles. (Vampires were few and far between in France; perhaps because of the prevalence of garlic?) He had a hire car; the idea was to criss-cross the zone until he got a directional reading from his portable detector.

He tried hard not to think about the consequences of his actions, of his future. He was serving the Cause. He was prepared to die for it. He expected to die on this mission; that didn't bother him, in itself. What ate him up, what he tried not to think about, was that he would most likely die at the hands of his own people.

By not thinking about these things, he tried to keep himself on the straight and narrow course of his mission. He would accomplish his mission. All of it. And then, logically, die at the hands of Mirca, who would not leave his sister unavenged.

The other options, which he was trying, and spectacularly failing, not to think about, were less honourable, and had no more favourable outcomes. Kill the girl, but not Davidson? Mirca would leave him alone, but presumably the Organisation would send someone else to eliminate him for his failure. And not execute the mission at all? Refuse to kill, and accept death? Unthinkable. Yet he couldn't get it out of his mind.

After several hours of driving, he finally got a reading in mid afternoon. The device gave a directional signal, but no indication of distance. In concrete terms, it overlaid a vector on the Google Maps display (though he kept losing his mobile internet connection in the hilly terrain).

He could see no town or village in the vector's path. Is she wandering about, or hiding in a forest? Then, another reading from a few miles further : the two vectors crossed, right on top of an isolated house.

He drove past it slowly. Centuries old, he guessed; picturesque, rather dilapidated. A couple of smoking chimneys. After careful consideration, and detailed examination of maps, he drove several more miles, around the other end of the valley, and parked the car inconspicuously, near where the tiny country road deteriorated into a stony farm track. He was about a mile from the house. He would approach it on foot, through the woods.

But first, he needed to go Coffed. He was at the end of his tether physically, in no condition for a mission that required skill, precision, force and speed. He took the backpack, and set off down the track into the forest. Finding a suitable site on a thick carpet of fallen leaves, out of site of any passing tractors, he snapped the portable coffin into shape, settled into it, and pulled the weatherproof nylon cover down onto its Velcro fasteners.

The Board's ordinary business was expedited in a perfunctory manner. Everyone was restless; they were all on standby, awaiting the results of the Davos mission.

If the mission was successful, it would be probably a week before Mirka could get back with labelled bags of organic material; another couple of days to brew the serum; and then they could finally go into action. There was no way to know how many samples would be recovered, or which world leaders would fall thus into their power. There was, indeed, no formally defined process to assign Directors to victims; but all assumed that the well-defined informal pecking order would prevail, with their Chairman, Master Valeriu, having first pick.

Valeriu sensed the restless mood and decided to take the bull by the horns. He made a game of it. They brainstormed a list of names, in three columns : Political leaders; business magnates; top journalists. He stopped the count at forty prime victims. Then he took an anonymous poll : who would be your first choice?

After the count, there was a rare moment of levity when it turned out that, of twenty-three directors present, seventeen wanted Putin.

Hank came awake slowly. Pushing the nylon cover off the coffin, he got a face full of snow. There was a good three inches of fresh powder.

Damn. That would make his tracks very easy to follow. Quite likely, his car would be stuck as well. Too bad. There was nothing to be done about that; he had a job to do, and had no particular plans for later. Twenty-two years old, an engineering degree he would never finish. Too bad.

His timing was good: it was about 3 am. The crescent moon on the snow gave plenty of light. He packed up, and walked down the track until he was in sight of the house.

The laptop confirmed that there was still a vampire there. Now that he had a line of sight bearing, the detector gave him much more information. He was able to localise the presence in the leftmost upstairs bedroom, of a vampire of great power, who was currently, to his relief, in a Coffed state.

It is hard enough to kill a Coffed vampire. As for a Lit one... don't even think about it. Not unless you're a specialist like Hank... and even then, you'd be better off waiting till they go Coffed.

In all cases, as Hank knew, there would be blood. An unnatural amount of blood, at startling pressure. Also, horrible screaming, and a fierce struggle. The key to success is to strike the mortal blow while the victim is still fully cold, before they start to wake from the Coffed state; in which case, the screaming and struggling may be restricted to only a couple of minutes, and the aggressor has a reasonable chance of escaping the severe injuries or death which are the common lot of those who attack vampires.

He selected a polished cherry-wood stake, about eighteen inches long, with a sharp silver tip. He chose a rock from the ground, the heaviest one he could comfortably swing with one hand, as a hammer. He laid his pack down discreetly just off the track, and sat on it for a couple of minutes to compose himself.

Mirca had drilled him in how to prepare himself mentally in the moments immediately before a mission. To forestall any scruples or weakness, he filled his mind with thoughts of his mother, and of the better world to come, when she would be free at last. And his mission was to hasten that day...

But unsummoned came the thought : what would his mother think of this mission? The killing of this seventeen year old girl? And though he tried to blank it out, he found himself clutching his knees and sobbing silently for several minutes. But he let it pass, and, emptying his mind, entered the first-level trance that eliminated all fear and remorse, all love, all pain, but left his mental and physical faculties intact.

It was important to enter the house discreetly. Not for fear of waking the vampire, but other people in the house could be a nuisance. There was a dog in the courtyard; he was prepared to kill it silently, but it didn't even bark, it wagged its tail and made a fuss of him, so he didn't bother. After scouting around, he decided he might as well try the front door. It was unlocked.

In the dark of the hallway, he avoided the pitfalls of various noisy obstacles, and found the staircase. Two doors upstairs; he knew it must be the one on the right. The door opened without a creak, and there was the coffin. Swift execution was the imperative : he threw open the cloak of the sleeping figure, and pulled up her pyjama top.

With his right hand, he held the silver tip of the stake against the cold skin of the vampire's naked chest, right over the heart. His left hand raised the hammerstone high.

The moon emerged from behind a cloud, illuminating the face of the victim; and in that instant, Hank hesitated. She was supposed to be blonde! Don't be a fool, he told himself : seventeen year old chicks dye their hair all the time. But this raven-haired beauty was no seventeen year old, he realised. And her skin was starting to warm... Her nipples hardened. She was hot.

Dumitra opened her eyes : "Where did you come from, vampire boy? ... And where have you been all my life?"

Hank never fully understood what happened next. He suspected at the time that he was subjected to a branch of vampire lore that his teachers had concealed from him. Or maybe the intensity of pheromones released by a rapidly warming vampire is impossible to resist. As she threw him onto the bed, she said "Oh... I have to tell you. I'm HIV positive."

"S'okay", said Hank. "I've got some condoms." What the hell was he doing with condoms on this mission, he wondered? The boy scout thing, he supposed. Cover all the possibilities.

In the hour before dawn, as they made love for the third time, with less urgency this time, Dumitra, who was never one for wasting time, questioned Hank closely about his mission, and about the Organisation.

She summarized : "So, we have to kill the vampire girl. Easy enough. But these other people know too much, we'll need to kill them too. The Rumanian doctor. The Arab woman. The New Zealand guy." She paused for a second. "And, to be safe, we should kill his daughters too."

Hank went soft. Dumitra laughed harshly. "I thought you were a hard man? No moral scruples, no remorse, serving a Higher Cause? But you've got a soft heart."

Then, tenderly, "In that case... I suppose we'd better prepare to face this Master Mirca. But in the meantime... fuck me some more, Boy Wonder."

As she ate her breakfast, Halima wondered what challenges Dumitra would cause her today. She had gone Coffed after lunch the previous day, and could be expected to wake any time.

She had been apprehensive about being left alone to accompany Dumitra's drying out; with good reason. But there really hadn't been any other options.

They had decided that Courtney would be safer in Geneva, under the protection of the WHO. Albu had been positively drooling with excitement at the possibility to study the Imperative effect with a co-operative master and slave as subjects. Alistair had negotiated three months' unpaid leave with his employer, and both he and Courtney had signed contracts as lab assistants ("lab rats, more like it", as Alistair had observed, not inaccurately.)

When he had returned from Rumania with Dumitra, Cascu, exhausted, red-eyed, was visibly in shock from the realisation that his beloved was a vampire. He had handed her over into Halima's care, then took himself off to Geneva too.

In the few days since then, Halima had grown to like Dumitra, but certainly not to trust her. Sullen and depressed mostly, prone to sudden rages, projecting a palpable aura of nihilism, she was nevertheless an intriguing and engaging personality, full of piercing insights and the blackest of humour. She seemed to be sincere in her desire to break free of meth and make a new start; but it was really too early to tell. In any case, she was full of surprises.

And she proved it again that morning, turning up to breakfast with a boy in tow.

"Ah... good morning." said Halima tentatively. "And who is this?"

"This is my lover... well, what is your name, darling?"

Hank felt a bit sullen and shy, but he was so elated with love that he couldn't be mean to anyone. "Iancu", he replied.

"Oh, so you're Rumanian too?"

"No. Yes. Not really. It's a family tradition."

Halima had been on the phone with Lara a lot, she had a fair idea how the Organisation would operate. And she knew a terrorist when she saw one. Or more precisely, an assassin, she thought.

As she prepared breakfast for them, she asked a few questions, in a conversational manner. Hank answered readily enough, confirming her suppositions : yes, he was a vampire, he was from California, he had come here looking for a vampire, but not Dumitra.

Interesting situation. Debriefing a terrorist is a delicate task, you need to decide if you want maximum information or if you're more interested in turning him around. That seemed a distinct possibility : he had failed in his mission, he had found love, could his loyalties be reversed? He was plainly on Cloud Nine.

Dumitra too. They were completely wrapped up in each other. As they had breakfast, Halima nudged the conversation around gently, encouraging Hank to continue volunteering information, filling in harmless family details about herself and Alistair to make him confortable, to draw him out.

Dumitra realised what she was doing, and felt a brief raging surge of jealousy. Had she met her match as a manipulator of men? But she was confident of her superior hold on Hank. And she smiled to herself, and decided to play along. "Come on, Iancu", she said. "Halima is wondering what you really came here for. I think you should tell her."

And so he did. He made a full and frank confession of his mission, in a remarkably detached manner.

She should be terrified, she realised. They might be toying with her. These two could tear her apart and eat her, take her hostage, anything at all. Whose side were they on? Their own, she supposed. Their very own Republic of Two. They were capable of the worst, or the best. Should she appeal to their better instincts? Or simply offer them a family, a clan, to value and protect them?

She decided that she would lay all her cards on the table, and take the risk that they might report back to the Organisation. She explained about the WHO operation: dedicated to advancing the understanding of public health issues surrounding vampirism, it was in no way hostile to vampires, but on the contrary, was destined to promote co-operation. She herself was considering a firm offer to manage the team; she was reluctant to give up her current job. She invited him to join them.

"I'm finished with the Organisation", said Hank. "There's no going back, they will kill me if they can."

His cell phone vibrated against his thigh. It was a text message, from Peter Brown : "Abort mission. Drive to Davos, Switzerland, and await instructions."

This was the first seminar of the new World Health Organisation Vampirology Institute, and Professor Albu was as happy as a pig in muck. The attendance was not numerous but select: Sorin, Courtney, Alistair, and Dr Ayotunde of the WHO. Dr Kronen was excused; they were expecting him in another couple of days.

Ayotunde was the head of the "Unorthodox Practices and Pathologies" section of the WHO. Outsiders generally assumed that the section was a haven of quackery, featherbedding and corruption; nothing could be further from the truth. Olutobi Ayotude was both indulgent and rigorous in his management style; he gave the most unlikely teams the benefit of the doubt, and a decent budget, but he followed their progress closely, and if they didn't come up with either publishable scientific results, or pragmatically applicable methods, they got the chop. Less than half of the programs survived beyond their first year, but he had nurtured some remarkable successes. He was currently in the indulgent phase with respect to Albu's program: polite suspension of disbelief.

"Today's subject is the history and sociology of the Imperative Effect," Albu began. "The scientific basis of the effect is relatively well-understood these days, thanks in great part to the work of Dr Kronen. I will not go into that aspect today.

"As far back as history or legend records, vampires have been feared for, among other things, their alleged power of compulsion over their victims. This phenomenon is real enough, but has been greatly magnified in the transcription and re-telling.

"The archetypal vampire habit, or compulsion, of sucking the blood of their human victims without killing them, gives rise to a phenomenon of cross-infection: the vampire ingests the victim's blood, and this blood is metabolised in the vampire's body in ways which enter into synergy with certain forces which have generally been classed as paranormal or supernatural, but which have now definitively entered the realm of nuclear physics. But I am wandering onto Kronen's territory... In short, the vampire acquires the capacity to control their subject.

"On one condition: the subject, or victim, must have been infected by certain organisms hosted by the vampire. Without entering into detail, it seems that mitochondria are the active principle. However, it turns out that the classic schema of the vampire biting the subject and sucking a certain quantity of blood, is a fairly ineffective vector for these organisms. It is estimated that only 15% of attacks result in an infection.

"However, repeated attacks on one victim -- which, at least in feudal times, may have been the rule rather than the exception -- will generally result in infection over the long term. The incubation period is itself rather long --from a few months to several years."

The atmosphere was studious. Professor Albu continued, "The rate of infection is considerably increased if there are sexual relations between the vampire and the subject. This was far from uncommon in the archetypal case of blood-sucking attacks. But the mechanism also holds, of course, for consenting sexual relationships, which, if they are sustained for more than a few months, inevitably give rise to the Imperative Effect.

"It follows, as you will no doubt already have realised, that vampire marriages are exceptionally long-lived and stable."

Here he got his first laugh of the day. "So, Professor," said Ayotunde, "married vampires control each other? Who has the upper hand, the husband or the wife?"

"In general, vampire marriages are fairly egalitarian", said Albu. "Vampires have differing levels of the vital force which is Kronen's domain, but this variability is evenly distributed between the sexes. In any case, this force does not, in practice, give the stronger vampire control over their spouse : it's more of a situation of nuclear stand-off: each can destroy the other, so mutual respect is an obligation."

"And in the case of a, er, morganatic marriage -- between vampire and non-vampire?" asked Alistair. "I suppose the vampire has complete control?"

"Quite," Albu approved. "To return to vampire marriage : once the Imperative Effect is in place, it is permanent. Marital harmony or otherwise is not guaranteed; the peculiar intimacy of the vampire marriage seems, anecdotally, to have been a great source of misery in all historical periods. Vampires are notoriously hard to kill, which explains the relatively low spousal murder rate. The only cure for the Imperative effect, short of death, is exile; historically, this is a recurrent phenomenon. This has not been scientifically studied, but it appears that the minimum distance to escape the Effect is of the order of a thousand miles.

"Needless to say, there is no such thing as divorce for vampires."

Courtney stood up. "You're wrong about that, Professor. Vampires can get divorced."

Everyone turned to look at her, surprised. She stammered, "At least, they can in California."

This provoked general hilarity. But Courtney was close to tears. Albu held up his hands for silence and gave her the floor. "Please continue, child."

"My mother went to New Zealand to escape an abusive relationship. She was manipulated by her husband, and she refused to manipulate him, on moral grounds. Then she met my father in New Zealand, and married him. That sounds like bigamy I suppose, but she was only married with the vampire rite in California, there was no civil marriage... I don't know whether that makes it better or worse... Anyway, she left my father when I was ten... she couldn't help controlling him, and she couldn't bear that."

She was overcome by emotion for a while. The men shifted uncomfortably in their seats; Sorin eventually gave her a hug. She continued, "She took me back to California and negotiated a divorce with her vampire husband. She never told me how it worked, but it seemed pretty complicated. I had to stay with friends for a couple of weeks while she was preparing for it, then I attended the final ceremony. She looked ill, she'd lost weight, and quite a bit of hair, it took weeks to recover her health afterwards. Some sort of vampire official made them sign some documents and then made them recite something I didn't understand, sort of a poem.

"Then he pronounced the divorce. I remember that part clearly, he said, 'Lara Panaitescu, Peter Brown, your bond is dissolved.'

"And that was that."

Hank got up abruptly and left the table, explaining "Text message. From my mother."

Dumitra and Halima looked at each other; their eyes met; they smiled. "So, is this love?" asked Halima.

"I think so, yes." She was radiant.

They had already cleared the decks with respect to Sorin, the previous day. It had been a stormy, intense conversation:

"He still loves you. Do you love him?"

Dumitra wept silently. "Yes, yes I love him. But it is an impossible love. It can never be. He is not hard enough."

"You mean he is weak?"

"No, no, Sorin is strong. But too gentle, too respectful."

"You need a man who will slap you around?"

Dumitra laughed, and wept. "Maybe."

"And how did you manage to conceal the fact that you were a vampire? You were studying the subject together..."

"Oh you know, love is blind. You see what you want to see. And I was careful. Very careful. We used condoms..."

"Yes, his blood test for the Imperative effect was negative... that's quite remarkable!"

"I didn't know myself that I was a vampire, until puberty."

"But your parents...?"

"I am an orphan. Yes, I grew up in an orphanage, a big one in Bucarest, in the seventies and eighties. Not a happy childhood, no.

"When I was fifteen, and needed a coffin, I didn't know what was happening to me. I ran away from the orphanage. I thought I was going mad. I nearly died. In the end, by instinct, I broke into a funeral parlour, and collapsed into a coffin. When I awoke two days later, the undertaker raped me."

"Then he threw me out. I broke in again a couple of nights later and stole a coffin. I also tried to set fire to the shop, but it didn't take.

"This was just after the revolution, in 1990. Things got pretty desperate at the orphanage. There literally was not enough to eat. I could have got more if I had consented to sexual favours, but I decided that, if it came to that, I would be better off to leave and become a prostitute. So I learned to steal instead.

"But I stayed at the orphanage, and finished high school. I was 16. Yes, I was a smart girl... Under the old regime, I could have attended university, but now there was no money for anything. The orphanage apprenticed me to a hairdresser.

"One day I happened to pass the undertaker's shop. I saw him through the window. He saw me, then fell to the floor, screaming in pain. That made me happy. I smiled and walked on.

"I came back another day. He saw me, and ran to the back of his shop. To hide from me. I wished he would fall and bump his head and... he did. I had discovered the Imperative effect.

"So I kept going back. I would stand outside the shop and make him do things. Anything that crossed my mind. Like the time I made him take off his pants and shit into a coffin." She smiled at the memory. "That attracted quite a crowd!"

"One day he beckoned me into the shop, and begged for mercy. He knew more about the Imperative effect than I did. To cut a long sordid story short : we made a deal. He agreed to pay money into my bank account, every month. Not very much, but enough to live on, and to attend university. We had to adjust for inflation several times, but it saw me through medical school. And it's still useful."

"You mean he's still paying?"

"I don't see why he shouldn't keep paying until he dies. Do you?"

Hank sat on the toilet, trembling. A moment of choice had arrived.

He realised he'd never really made any choices. Last night, he had explored the possibility, but in the end he had gone with the flow of what he conceived as his manifest destiny. His mission had failed, but that was through no fault or decision of his own.

He felt that he had fallen through a sheet of ice and exploded into a new world; but, he realised, he had taken no responsibility for himself, for his actions. If Dumitra suggested they join the WHO, he would have gone along with that; if she had wanted him to stay with the Organisation, likewise. If she had wanted them to strike out on their own, the two of them against the world, like Bonnie and Clyde... he would have embraced that destiny, with joy.

And he said to himself : this is not how it should be. Dumitra is fragile, her moral compass is impaired. It is I who must decide for both of us what is right, what is fitting. She needs me, I must be strong and decisive for her.

So where does that leave us? he thought. Unexpectedly, I have a chance to resume my trajectory within the Organisation. There would be no reproach from anyone for the failed assassination. A new mission in Davos... Murder and mayhem among world leaders, that is an enticing prospect.

What about this WHO crowd? Can they genuinely advance the interests of vampires? They perceive themselves to be the good guys... but doesn't everybody? Will they forgive me for attempting to murder the girl? They will never trust me, that's for sure.

I could slip away now, take the car and go to Davos. And abandon Dumitra? Never. Strike that one.

I could take Dumitra with me. She would come. She would be a valuable resource for the Organisation. For the Cause... What is the Cause? What is the finality? The means are hateful, can the ends be unstained?

Not enough information. Impossible to make a definitive decision. Play for time. Play a role. Keep our options open. Go to Davos, via Geneva. Be a double agent. Tell no-one. Not even Dumitra? Not even Dumitra.

After Courtney's account of Californian divorce, the phone rang.

It was Kronen, from New York. He would be arriving the following day. Albu turned on the speaker, and Kronen arranged to meet them at the CERN particle accelerator facility in the Geneva suburbs. "I will be coming directly from the airport. I have arranged for certain tests involving Courtney and Alistair."

He was up early, he explained, because he was going to be interviewed on breakfast television. "Some people criticise me for seeking celebrity, but you must understand : I work at the frontier between nuclear physics and cellular biology, it is very hard to get funding for my research because I don't fit into the normal categories. And publicity for my work may bring me to the attention of funders."

It turned out that the station he would be on was available on their cable TV, so they promised to watch him.

Alistair remarked to Sorin : "So, I suppose tomorrow they are going to tie us to titanium targets and bombard us with muons, gluons, leptons and hardons!"

Sorin smirked, and said "I think you mean hadrons."

Alistair replied, "Well in theory, it would be hadrons. But once they get us tied up, eh? Can we trust them?"

Sorin sighed. "You don't take all this very seriously, do you?"

Alistair reflected. "To me, this whole thing is science fiction. And I stopped taking science fiction seriously when I was fifteen. I loved it because it was full of really neat ideas. But I worked out that neat ideas are actually a dime a dozen, and that I was more interested in decent writing."

"So where does that leave us?" Sorin wondered.

"In need of a better script, perhaps?" Alistair ventured.

Courtney suggested that they should arrange a demonstration of teleportation for the benefit of Dr Ayotunde, and especially, for Dr Kronen.

Sorin was in favour. Dr Ayotunde grinned hugely but offered no opinion. Dr Albu wavered. Alistair was strongly opposed. His ostensible reason was that it would be dangerous, and might attract unwanted attention. But he had at least two other reasons. For one thing, it would require getting up very early. And for another, Alistair was quite pleased with his current situation : they had matched his salary and accorded him generous living and travel expenses; he was in no hurry to see it all come to an ignominious end. Because he didn't believe in this teleportation lark. Not even a little bit.

The phone rang again : it was Halima. Albu made as if to turn on the speaker; then thought better of it, and transferred the call to his office.

When he came out, fifteen minutes later, he looked grim. He told them that there would be no teleportation demonstration. He explained about the arrival of Iancu, and of the murder attempt, without going into detail. And he avoided Sorin's eyes.

Ayotunde said : "We must warn this woman, Davidson, that she is a target! And we must warn Dr Kronen at once! These people may go after him too! He must avoid drawing their attention."

Albu called him at once, and implored him to cancel his TV appearance.

Gustav Kronen was ready. He'd been through security, makeup, and a briefing from the production assistant : cues she will feed you, hooks you can hand back to her. Surprisingly, this fellow Robin seemed to have familiarised himself with Kronen's work; he felt little hope that the show's host, Sue Hanson, the latest star of the breakfast slot, would have taken the trouble to do so.

She had shaken his hand limply, given him one of those smouldering "let's have sex" looks that are the merest politeness in this high-flying New York milieu. And now she was on air, going through her opening patter, and he had ten minutes to go before his segment.

He found himself ruminating over his experience with Errin Davidson. The train trip had been quite exhilarating : they had been able to discuss their respective work in depth, free from uncomprehending students or journalists, and their intellectual excitement had spilled over into a natural intimacy. No trace remained of her rather stiff and formal professional manner; her girlish laughter came easily, and her awkward adolescent mannerisms charmed and excited Gustav. She had remembered about the bed-and-breakfast when the journey was almost over, and it was, she judged, too late to bother the lady at such an hour. Gustav took this as proof that she wanted him, that her offer of her spare bedroom was no mere politeness, but the pretext for an adventure they both desired.

Arrived at her charming cottage, Kronen took a shower then waited excitedly while Errin took hers. Wearing underpants and a carefully-adjusted half-open dressing gown, he preened himself before the mirror, then stood waiting outside the bathroom door. When he heard the shower stop, he waited a couple of seconds, then opened the door at exactly the same moment that she pulled aside the shower curtain.

And there she was, in all her splendour. Smallish, rather pointed breasts, with big, soft, orange nipples. Perfectly white, silky skin, lightly freckled. Broad hips, with a ginger tuft, much redder than her light auburn hair, not trimmed but naturally sparse; revealing a plump, well-rounded mound of Venus, deeply cleft.

He took in all this in an instant; and only then did he register the expression of shock and dismay on her face. He backed out of the room, babbling something about a toothbrush, and fled to the spare room.

The following morning at breakfast, Errin had been bright, cheery and efficient. Gustav had felt compelled to offer an apology for his vulgar misunderstanding; she stammered "Oh - let's not talk about it please", and they both blushed deeply.

Confounded Englishwomen, thought Gustav angrily. Why can't they show their sexual feelings simply, like the rest of humanity? It made him feel like he was fourteen all over again.

Kronen's phone vibrated. Damn, I should have switched it off, he thought. Seven minutes to go. He saw it was Albu, and decided to take the call.

"Albu, I can't talk, I'm about to go on air."

"You must not go on the show, Gustav! Your life is in danger! Errin Davidson's also!"

Albu quickly outlined what Hank had told Halima about his mission. "So if you draw attention to yourself and your work, you will naturally become a target too."

The continuity man signaled to him : two minutes. He thanked Albu and hung up. Well, he thought, they say that ridicule doesn't kill. We'll see if that's true. They think I am vain, pretentious, publicity-seeking? Let them watch this. They'll see that I know how to take one for the team.

Sue had still not decided on how to handle this segment. She was intrigued by Kronen's positioning, mixing nuclear physics, biology and the occult; she would enjoy the challenge of bringing some understanding of these subjects to a wider audience. But she knew that only one in a hundred among her breakfast audience would have the interest or patience to follow her in picking her way through a difficult subject. Let's be generous : three or four in a hundred. Could she afford to bore the others? It would be so much easier to patronize him, cut off his laborious explanations, make him look a fool. Better ratings. Unless he was a really talented communicator, he wouldn't stand a chance with her. She got so sick of
serving up patsy questions to untouchable celebrities; she was legendary for being really savage, on occasion, with unknowns.

Still hesitating, she welcomed Kronen onto the show, getting up to reach over the coffee table to shake his hand. Taking care to lean forward, she made sure he got a good eyeful of her lace bra. Not so much for the effect it would have on him; it was more for the TV audience. That was one dirty little secret of her success; the audience didn't get to peek over Kronen's shoulder and leer at her tits, but they loved to watch her do that. Bless their perverted little hearts.

But actually, he didn't sneak a peek at all. They locked eyes during the handshake. And Sue knew instantly : Dr Gustav Kronen, I am going to fuck you. This was no theoretical or long-term intention; it was direct and immediate, and, she instinctively knew, shared; they would fuck that very morning. Or die in the attempt.

She felt a surge of exhilaration; an erotic charge, certainly, but intensified by joyful relief. It had been so long since she'd experienced that moment of truth. Not since, goodness, well before the baby. She had feared that that part of her was gone forever, a page turned. She felt tenderly grateful to this geeky German for bringing her back from the half-dead.

She could tell by the way he was squirming in his seat that he was getting an erection. And then, as he shifted position, God, did he flash it at her deliberately, or was he really as clumsy and awkward as he looks? That's quite some chubby... she instinctively calculated the angles; no, none of the cameras would have picked it up. But certainly, some of the ladies in the studio audience will have got a look. She herself was thoroughly wet.

All of this was occupying only one minor channel of her multitasking mind. Meanwhile, the interview was going wildly off the rails. She fed him his cues, about vampires and nuclear physics, and he responded with hammed-up vampire impersonations from horror movies. In a cavernous Boris Karloff voice: "Come here my darlink, I vant to zuck your blood!"

There were isolated giggles and stifled shrieks of laughter from the studio audience. The floor manager and the warm-up guy were staring at each other in horror. There was not supposed to be any comedy segment in today's program; the audience was not cued up for it, and it could turn to chaos very quickly.

Sue made one last attempt to bring him back on track : Tell us about your theory of teleportation? "No no, wampires haff no need of zat : zey can fly!" and he got to his feet, wafting his arms up and down. The studio audience erupted in laughter; the floor manager was obliged to adapt, conducting without a score, indicating to the audience when to turn up the volume of laughter and when to cut it off.

It got better. Sue and Gustav were adapting too, improvising some genuinely witty banter. As she steered the segment to a close, she heard herself saying "Thank you Dr Kronen for a fascinating insight into your work. Please stick around, I'd like to talk to you after the show."

He got a huge round of applause as he left the set, and Sue welcomed the following guest : a famous dame patroness of the arts, whose financier husband had just declared bankruptcy. She had consented to discuss the issue of the coming crisis in arts funding, but was visibly brimming with self-pity as she reached the end of her hour in the sun.

-----------

Oh fun. Here was Ken, the show's director, come to tear strips off her. "Jesus Christ, Sue, what the hell possessed you to pull a stunt like that without telling anyone? Bringing in a comedian disguised as a scientist. You realise it could have turned to shit in a hundred different ways?"

They had never liked each other. He had been on the show forever, had disdained her in her years in menial tasks, had been a hard taskmaster when she had started hosting the show. It was only in recent months that she had unequivocally gained the upper hand, and she had not yet had the occasion to make him really feel it. She replied to him so quietly that none of the eager ears around them could make out the words, in a tone that sounded apologetic and conciliatory. "Listen, you little wanker, if I want to take risks on my show then I'll take them. The audience loved it, the ratings will be good. If you want to make a fuss about it, then I suggest that you will soon have the opportunity to expand your career horizons in a new environment. Clear?"

She found Kronen, dazed and haggard, in front of a coffee at a table in the cafeteria. His face lit up when she arrived. She sat beside him and immediately put her hand on his cock. "Dr Kronen..."

"Please - call me Gustav", he said in a strangled voice.

"I'd like to invite you to brunch. Do you know New York well? I know a charming little restaurant in Brooklyn Heights."

She whistled up the car. He shuffled out of the studio in her wake, hunched over, clutching his clipboard in front of him.

As they settled into the back seat, the Chechnyan torturer looked at her enquiringly. "To Denny's", she said, dismissively. She was already busy with Kronen's flies. He bent across to kiss her, but she averted her face, obliging him to kiss her neck, which he did very competently, progressing to her shoulder. To avoid any awkward fumbling, she unhooked her bra herself. He rapidly unbuttoned her blouse and smoothly pushed the cups up, his hands barely touching her skin. Oh good, she thought, he's not a squeezer. And suddenly she had a violent need to have her breasts sucked. That was something she strictly forbade Jonas to do; they were the exclusive domain of Maximus, for as long as he needed them. And now, she was going to be unfaithful to both of them...

She laughed suddenly. These are my tits, this is my cunt. I will do what I want with them.

But Gustav was no sucker, it seemed. He kissed the underside of her breasts in a rather perfunctory manner, and started working lower. Sue was carefully controlling her breathing to avoid any gasping or panting effect. Among the many vulgar behaviours she despised, noisy sex ranked highly.

Gustav removed her (shamefully humid) panties rather expertly, and peeled back her silk stockings to the knees. Quick, moist kisses of her abdomen and thighs made his intentions clear, and she opened her legs to allow his tongue to reach its goal.

A broad lengthwise sweep of the tongue forced an involuntary yelp out of Sue. Vexed with herself, she clenched her teeth and whimpered as he took the long, engorged lips into his mouth and sucked. She felt the orgasm rising and fought it. Too soon; everything must be under control, on schedule, on cue. But to her horror, she found that she could not prevent it, barely delay it. As it washed over her, she sought at least plausible deniability in silence, but made little sobbing noises in her throat.

Seizing the initiative, she sat up and pushed him backwards, bending over him to remove his trousers and underpants completely, so that she could fuss over his penis. That was a lesson she had learned early and had always served her well : you can make a man do anything you want, just take control of his joystick.

She nibbled at his testicles and licked the shaft a little bit, then took the head gently between her teeth and ... did nothing with it. She moved upwards, sweeping her breasts over his abdomen. Now it was Gustav's turn to sigh and moan. Her breasts had been oozing all morning, they were dribbling now. Climbing over him, she swung them up into his face. He nibbled and licked politely, but still did not suck. Well, she certainly wasn't going to beg him.

She sat on his balls, her vulva pressed against the base of his shaft. Who's in the driver's seat now honey? she thought. But despite her rich interior dialogue, they hadn't exchanged a word since the cafeteria.

Gyrating from the hips, she started inching slowly forward, sliding up the shaft towards the head. At a snail's pace. She became aware of the driver's eyes in the mirror, watching her glistening breasts, dripping their milk onto Gustav's belly as they swayed rhythmically.

He became impatient with her game, and pushing himself up on his elbows, he slid his hands under her thighs and lifted. He managed to free his legs, and sitting up, pressed her thighs back with his torso. She was now flat on her back with her legs around his neck, and she could see the girders of the bridge behind his head as they left Manhattan.

Grabbing his tool, he flicked the head back and forth against her clitoris for a few seconds. She was resolutely silent. He positioned the head between the lips, and paused, leaning on her thighs with all his weight. She exhaled : "ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu" and bit her lip, hard, to stop anything else slipping out.

He started moving rhythmically: very quick, shallow thrusts, penetrating barely an inch or two. She was making a keening noise. As the car turned off the bridge into Brooklyn, the driver half-turned to look her in the face, with an expression that was both blank and intense : lust? envy? hatred? contempt? she wondered; and came.

Halima had agreed with Albu that both Iancu and Dumitra should come to Geneva, where they could both be kept under surveillance. In the circumstances, that meant that she had to escort them there.

"I'm worried about Dumitra being in a big city at this stage. It's probably easier to buy meth than cigarettes in Geneva these days."

"Indeed", Albu replied. "But the physical danger to you, and to the two vampires, can be better managed here. Who knows when another assassin will turn up on your doorstep?"

Albu pressed her, again, to accept the job of managing the Geneva team. "My administrative and organisational tasks are taking away too much time from research. And now we have security concerns, which I have no experience with. We need you here."

"I'm still thinking it over", she assured him.

They took Iancu's rental car: it was pre-paid for another four days, he assured them. The trip was uneventful. Here I am, Halima thought, chaperoning an assassin and a drug addict, both of them vampires. Oh well, I've seen worse. My ex and his family, for example.

She delivered her charges into the tender cares of Dr Ayotunde and his security staff, who had dealt with far tougher cases than these young lovers. Then she joined Alistair in his charming studio apartment, with a view of the lake. They ate the dinner Alistair had prepared, with a bottle of wine (a Seyssel, from a little vineyard halfway between Lyon and Geneva). They finished the wine in the bath, then they made love.

Afterwards, Halima started grilling Alistair about his relationship with Courtney.

"Relationship? We have no relationship. I'm her slave, that's all."

"That's what I'm concerned about", she said, smiling. "I think I'll accept the job here, so that I can keep an eye on you two. She's seventeen, she's pretty, she's adventurous : sooner or later she's likely to try a little sexual experiment."

"Oh come on, you flatter me. Why would she be interested in an old schnok like me? And what makes you think I'd play along, eh? Honest to god, I have no sexual interest in seventeen year olds."

"But you're her slave, right? She can make you do anything she wants."

"No, she can't make me do anything I can't make myself do! And in the words of the immortal poet, Georges Brassens : La bandaison, ma foi, ne se commande pas!"

"You mean that if she made you lie down naked on the bed, and she did ... this to you, nothing would happen?"

"Have you looked at her? She's not equipped to do what you just did."

"Or ... this?"

"Oh, cut it out. On second thoughts... Carry on. But she wouldn't get ...that reaction from me."

Halima sat up in the bed. "Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much", she said, starting to poke him in the face with a pillow. "Don't you want me to take the job?"

"On the contrary, I'd be delighted if you took the job. But not out of jealousy." She was batting him around the ears with the pillow now. "You know there's only one woman in the world you Ow! have to fear on that score... Ow!" She was bashing him over the head now. "And that's Penelope Ow! Cru-u-u-uz! And the odds of that are pretty damn long."

They collapsed in a giggling heap.

Hank and Dumitra were installed in a medicalized living space in the WHO building. Part hostel, part hospital, he thought, taking the measure of the security arrangements, the video surveillance, the orderlies who were used to dealing with the sort of borderline psychiatric cases that Ayotunde's department attracted.

Through the night, they talked and made love, talked some more and so on. Since Hank had interrupted her Coffed state the previous night, Dumitra soon showed signs of needing her coffin again, as Hank had hoped. He was not yet ready to reveal his double agent status to her; he hoped things would be clearer to him after the Davos mission.

Once Dumitra was Coffed, Hank wrote her a note, and made his way out of the building. They were under strict instructions not to go anywhere, and it had been made clear to them that if they tried to leave, they would be restrained; but it was easier than he had expected, he could probably have walked out the front door with just a little bit of stealth. But he chose to climb down from the third-floor balcony, bare handed. Nothing difficult for him, except for the weight of his backpack. To avoid the possibility of being filmed, he told himself. But for the hell of it, too.

He picked up his car and drove out of town, north around the lake, then taking the motorway east. He had a little more than an hour before dawn. Turning north at Lausanne, he got off the motorway near the lake of Neuchatel, and drove until he found some secluded park space along the lake front.

He got out of the car and assembled his coffin on the shingly beach; then stood in the cold January dawn, waiting for the sun to rise.

Hank was gazing out over the lake when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Iancu. Good, your coffin is ready. I must use it at once, the sun is rising."

Mark Davidson climbed into the coffin. The light was already fading from his eyes, as the daylight increased. Only his exceptional mastery of vampire lore, and of his own mind and body, enabled him to function even for a minute or two after dawn. Any other ordinary vampire (Changers and Perps excepted, of course) would be in convulsions by now : the refuge of a coffin is vital to their metabolism, as soon as the sun breaks the horizon.

But Davidson was tough: lying in the coffin, he had to remain in control. "Remember, boy : we must be in Davos by 6 pm to meet Petru."

"Yes, Master Mirka. It's only three hours' drive from here", Hank replied.

"I always knew I could rely on you, Iancu", said Davidson in a whisper, with a faintly ironic smile. And then he was out.

It had been quite a shock when Peter Brown had informed Hank that Davidson would be joining him by teleportation. The implication was clear : Davidson had, at some time, unknown to Hank, infected him and brewed the Imperative serum. (Perhaps he did that systematically to all his pupils; or perhaps only to those he didn't trust?) He could therefore teleport at dawn to wherever Hank was; moreover, he could compel obedience. Hank was relieved, in retrospect, that he hadn't chosen the route of open rebellion.

Davidson's power over Hank did, however, suffer one rather obvious drawback: as a common vampire, he needed to spend his daylight hours in a coffin. As it was impossible to teleport with, or in, a coffin (it had been tried, with disastrous results), this made him entirely dependent on being well received at his arrival.

Theoretically, then, the tables were now turned, and Hank had the upper hand. Insofar as they were enemies; which he still wasn't sure of.

But what could he do with the advantage? It was all or nothing : he either had to obey Davidson, or kill him. And this was no seventeen year old girl : if he were to drive a stake through his heart, he would undoubtedly wound him mortally, but he was certain that Davidson would manage to kill his attacker before expiring himself.

Hank pondered : what if he just filled up the coffin with rocks, and sank it thirty feet deep in the lake? He decided it wouldn't make any difference to Davidson until sunset (he was, to all intents and purposes, already dead; he couldn't be drowned). Waking up at the bottom of the lake probably wouldn't faze him either; he would simply swim to the surface and start tracking Hank down.

He decided that there was really no other option, he had to see the mission through. Unless he happened to come across a building site with lots of fresh concrete.

As they walked down the long, slightly curved corridor at the CERN particle accelerator, Alistair was humming the song Supermassive Black Hole. Courtney rolled her eyes, and explained to Halima, "It's the Muse song from Twilight, the vampire movie. He does it to wind me up."

Alistair hummed louder, and started to croon: "You caught me under false pretenses, how long before you let me go? Yooooouuuuuuu, you set my soul alight."

"Oh, cut it out!" Courtney snapped.

Alistair made a gulping sound, and stopped dead, one foot in the air.

Courtney gasped, "I didn't do that! ... did I?"

Alistair smiled and started walking again. "Your wish is my command... mistress."

Halima glared at him. Alistair grinned at her, uncertainly, then with mock fear. She muttered, "Just wait till we get home..."

"Why wait?" he murmured back. "We could find an empty storeroom..."

"No", she said, louder. "The mad scientist is waiting for us."

"Well of course, Kronen's experiment, whatever it is. Actually, it was the black holes connection that brought that song to mind. It wasn't the vampire thing."

"Ah yes", said Dr Cascu. "Will this large hadron collider we're walking along generate black holes when they start it up? Will they grow and destroy the earth? Or will technical issues or legal injunctions save the world?"

"I thought it was supposed to be running since last September?" said Alistair. "That was the plan", said Cascu, "but technical issues arose -- helium leaks and things like that -- and it won't be in working order until this autumn at the earliest."

"Nine months till the end of the world eh?" said Alistair. "We should give up our jobs, run up debts, enjoy ourselves. It's a shame the banks aren't lending."

Hank drove slowly through the small town until he spotted a ski shop. He turned down a side street and parked as unobtrusively as possible. He bought the cheapest pair of skis he could find, a bag for them, and a few accessories; then hurried back to the car and camoflaged the coffin with them. Then breathed a sigh of relief.

There is nothing quite as coffin-like as a coffin. It really doesn't look like anything else; and he had no plausible explanation for driving a stiff around Switzerland with him.

Getting the damn thing into the car had been hard enough. Though he was short, Davidson was solidly built, and heavy as hell. He had manoeuvered the car as close as possible, and heaved the coffin in through the back hatch, having folded down the back seat. He had to jam the front passenger seat forward and incline the back of it toward the windscreen before he could force the hatch shut.

Ford frickin' Fiesta. God damn poky European cars.

No way was he going to walk blind into that meeting with Davidson and Brown. Hank had set up a rendezvous with the Organization's men on the spot : Milòs and Laslò. They were, respectively, cook at the Davos Conference Centre, and room service waiter at the resort's most prestigious hotel. The Organisation had sent them to get jobs there during the winter season, in order to get inside knowledge of the workings of the conference. Now they were vital to the implementation of the Master Plan.

Hank had arranged to meet them at 3pm, in a café on the outskirts of Davos, outside the security perimeter. He knew them both slightly, from their time as interns at the Organisation, a couple of years previously.

The Organisation offered a generous internship program for science and engineering students from all over the world. By a curious coincidence, most of the applicants, and all of the successful ones, happened to be vampires.

Although younger than both by a couple of years, Hank had been their instructor in Proactive Self-Defense.

Laslò had cut quite a dash. Tall, blonde and angelically beautiful, he had usurped Hank's position as the acknowledged heart-throb of the young Californian vampirettes, and had lost no time in working his way through the field, to Hank's irritation. After a couple of months, perhaps sensing a danger, or perhaps because he had exhausted its possibilities, Laslò abandoned the limited vampire social scene, and branched out into San Francisco night life, where Milòs had already found happiness... but not among the women.

"Iancu! Man, I'm glad to see you. Coffee? Something to eat?" Laslò ordered for him.

Discreetly, they recounted what they knew of the operation. Laslò was to collect samples of organic matter from the rooms of world leaders : hair, nail clippings, anything he could get. And Milòs was supposed to add something to the food, he didn't know what.

Clearly, neither of them knew what it was all about; probably they knew nothing about teleportation or Imperative serum. It took Hank about thirty seconds to work it out.

World domination eh? He smiled grimly, and did not inform them of his conclusions.

Instead, he asked them how they were planning to proceed : the conference was to start that evening, and the town was already buzzing with the world's most powerful businessmen and politicians.

Milòs had studied the menus he was to prepare over the next few days, and had worked out strategies for incorporating the mystery ingredient into sauces and soups. The main thing was not getting caught.

"It's easier for Laslò", he said, smiling. "He has an army of helpers."

"Well, hardly an army", said Laslò modestly.

"He's bedded five chambermaids. They would do anything for him!" said Milòs, clearly proud of his friend.

"Six, actually", said Laslò.

"Oh, who's the latest? The Swedish girl with the big..."

"I haven't had my way with her yet, though I did get a feel of those ... they're the real thing, in case you were wondering. No, it's the Turkish lovely on the fifth floor."

"Ooh, I thought she was saving herself for marriage?"

"Well, she is... but we've found a compromise arrangement."

Milòs laughed knowingly.

When Alistair and his companions arrived in the conference room, there was a palpable tension in the air. He ascribed it to the presence of Sorin and Dumitra, visibly ill at ease in each other's presence. Albu introduced them to a couple of CERN physicists, and to Errin Davidson, who had arrived that morning from London.

Alistair congratulated Kronen on his TV appearance. "That was quite a performance, doctor! You may have found a new career, you have a real talent for improv comedy! Though you had some good help — that interviewer is really..." He caught Halima's glare and said no more, but wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. Kronen beamed. "Yes, Sue is quite something, she..." His voice trailed off as he saw Errin looking at him, and he reddened.

"It's time to begin the biology presentation!" he said briskly.

"Biology? But it's ten o'clock on Thursday," said Courtney playfully. "I thought we had physics?"

"Before we get to the practical physics", Dr Albu explained, "Gustav wishes to brief us on the biological underpinnings of the phenomena we are to experiment together."

"Today's subject is mitochondria," Kronen announced. "Can anyone explain what mitochondria are?"

"They're um, little bitty critters in our cells?" suggested Alistair. "Plants have chloroplasts, us animals have mitochondria, because we don't do photosynthesis, we do, um, the Krebs cycle and stuff like that. They are little powerhouses for the cells. Is that right?"

"Near enough," said Kronen encouragingly. "Who can explain where mitochondria come from, originally?"

"Well, when our ancestors were single-cell organisms floating in the primeval ocean, a couple of billion years ago," suggested Sorin, "it is generally thought that mitochondria were independent organisms, that got engulfed by our ancestors and lived in symbiosis inside them."

"Very good!" Kronen approved. "Then, the theory goes, they gradually lost their independence, and most of their genetic material migrated, by successive mutations, to the nucleus of the cell. They still have a fragment of DNA of their own, but not enough to reproduce independently."

"That's really weird!" exclaimed Courtney. "It's like we're two different species at once!"

"Actually," Kronen said, "your own case, and that of Dumitra, is somewhat different. The principal biological difference between vampires and the rest of us -- or at least, the only difference that we have been able to isolate thus far -- lies in the mitochondria. Yours are larger, and apparently far more complex, with a great deal of their own genetic material. We have not yet been able to sequence their DNA, we hope to begin that project soon, since it seems we may be able to obtain sufficient funding and resources." Dr Ayotunde smiled benignly.

"What we do know is that vampire mitochondria have extraordinary capabilities. Firstly, they seem to be responsible for inducing the pseudo-death or "coffed" state, and for preserving the body's cells from any harm or deterioration during that phase. It also seems that they play the predominant role in the extraordinary capacity of a vampire's body to heal itself of any injury, no matter how severe, with extraordinary speed."

"Oh here we go," murmured Alistair. "It's science fiction time again."

"Do I sense scepticism?" suggested Kronen.

Dumitra spoke up. "I suggest a little demonstration, Doctor." She came to the front and faced the others, rummaging in her handbag. She took out a wicked-looking clasp knife and unfolded it. Before anyone had time to react, she slashed both her wrists, expertly, deeply, clinically.

She dropped the knife, and, with a triumphant smile, held up her arms in a parody of crucifixion. Bright red arterial blood spurted from her wrists, once, twice, then weakened to a trickle, a drip, stopped completely. The deep wounds became shallower, pink scar tissue formed in welts, then subsided, paled. Within two minutes there was no trace of any cut.

In the stunned silence, Alistair started to clap slowly. "That's quite a stunt! Tell us, how do you do it? What's the trick?"

"There's no trick, Alistair," Courtney said gravely. She was visibly shaken, but not surprised, by the demonstration. "I've always had to be very careful to conceal that from people. I have to try to avoid all risks, because if I ever got a cut or graze, at school, or playing with friends, and somebody saw it heal..."

That same afternoon in Davos, Peter Brown also had a rendezvous with Milos and Laslo. He interrogated Laslo about his sample collection methods, and smiled with approval when he explained about his helpers. He enumerated a number of high-value targets, which Laslo undertook to give the highest priority to.

"And our number one target is Vladimir Putin", said Brown.

"No way!" said Laslo. "I've talked to the permanent staff about him. Apparently, every year, he brings his own staff, chambermaids and everything. Nobody gets near him. He doesn't even use the hotel's toilets : he craps into a sort of potty thing, and they ship it all back to Russia."

"Wow, that's weirder than Howard Hughes!" said Milos.

"No, it's sort of rational paranoia", Laslo continued. "It seems the CIA pulled a trick on Brezhnev in the seventies : they cut into the waste pipe from his room, collected a sample of his shit, and diagnosed the liver disease that eventually killed him. Putin doesn't want to be diagnosed, it seems."

"What are all these samples for, anyway?" asked Milos anxiously.

Brown smiled broadly. "It's a research project. We wish to discover whether, as we suspect, a large proportion of world leaders have vampire ancestry. We need to analyze biological samples to do that."

"Then why do you want me to add stuff to their food?" Milos pursued.

After an almost imperceptible hesitation, Brown replied : "It's a biological agent that will react in a certain harmless way on the metabolism of a person with vampire ancestry, and leave traces in samples taken afterwards. It will greatly enhance our capacities of detection and analysis."

"That's great!" said Laslo enthusiastically. "I'm proud to contribute to the project!". Milos kept his own counsel, but accepted the bags of blood Brown handed over to him.

The town was already buzzing with business magnates, power brokers and deal-makers. World leaders were mostly expected the following afternoon, in time for the inaugural dinner.

Shortly after nightfall, Hank and Mark Davidson met with Peter Brown in a different café on the outskirts of Davos. Brown was terse and businesslike: "As our direct-action operatives, your mission is to obtain biological samples from high-value targets which we can't access by other means. But your first duty is to avoid detection. Even at the expense of failure in your assigned missions. And in the event of your being captured or killed, it is imperative that there be no connection to myself or to the Organisation. Any compromise of my status as official invitee would be disastrous."

Hank realised that Davidson was seething with anger. Understandably so : Brown was apparently treating the two of them as equals, and as his inferiors; whereas Davidson was a fellow Director, and chief of the Security section of the Organisation. In Davidson's mind, and perhaps in that of Brown, his status as a mere Coffer put him perpetually in a position of inferiority, and resentfully on the defensive.

"Master Petru, there is no need to lecture me about security imperatives. Indeed, it would be well to defer to me on the subject. Give me the list of targets, and let me deal with the matter."

"Of course, Master Mirka." said Brown, with a forced smile. "I treat with you as an equal. But you must understand that, in this mission, there can be only one operational commander."

"Indeed", Davidson concurred. "However, for security reasons, I think it would be unwise for us to meet again at Davos. There are police, soldiers, cameras everywhere. Iancu and I will execute our missions without any further reference to yourself. I believe this will be the most effective strategy."

"Fine", said Brown, realising he had been out-manoeuvered. "Vladimir Putin is our highest value target. Our local operatives do not have access to him." He outlined what was known of Putin's domestic arrangements. "Over to you, Master Mirka, to devise the plan to get what we want from him." On the one hand, Brown realised, if the Putin mission succeeded, he would have difficulty claiming much credit for it. On the other hand, if it went sour, then he would carry no blame.

Brown decided to undermine Davidson by pampering Hank. He's the up-and-coming lad, everyone says it; he would like to see him take over security in a few years, if he could find a way to sideline Davidson.

"Iancu, my boy. Tell me about your previous mission. You understand, we had to cancel it: we couldn't afford to take the risk of a high-profile murder case being linked to vampires, given the overriding importance of the current mission. And eliminating a renegade vampire will be of no importance, if this mission succeeds. Did you get close to your target before we called you off?"

Hank realised that this was his moment of truth : if he was playing straight with the Organisation, he had to spill the beans now, and explain that he had infiltrated an enemy organisation which was conducting advanced research on the Imperative effect. If he didn't tell all now, it would be very difficult to explain himself later. He had been thinking about this situation all day; and hadn't reached a decision.

On instinct, he went with the minimal version. "I located the target in a country house near Lyon. But when I entered the house to complete the mission, it turned out that the girl was no longer there. The following day, I made discreet enquiries, which confirmed that a seventeen year old girl from New Zealand had been there..."

Brown interrupted him : "From New Zealand? Seventeen?" He seemed intrigued.

"Yes, but she had left... to visit Switzerland", said Hank, guessing that the Organisation's detection equipment would have picked up the movement anyway.

"Yes, it seems she is in the Geneva area." said Davidson. "Perhaps you can go find her after this mission and romance her eh? Ha, ha, ha. Private joke", he explained to Brown.

Davidson spent the rest of the night prowling the streets of Davos, taking the measure of the security systems. Hank took the opportunity to get some down time : they only had the one coffin between the two of them, so he went Coffed in the garage the Organisation had rented on the edge of town.

Alistair took advantage of a coffee break at CERN to call his sister Ruth in New Zealand. He updated her with the latest developments, and quizzed her about Courtney. "You must have known her as a little girl, you've known her mother for years, haven't you?"

"I've known Lara practically since she got off the plane from California. I introduced her to Ted."

"Oh, Courtney's father, right?"

"Well..."

"What do you mean, Well?"

"Well actually, Lara was pregnant before she arrived in New Zealand."

"Oh... Oh fuck..."

"Come on Alistair. It's not like her father is Darth Vader."

"No... For what it's worth, Courtney's father is a vampire named Peter Brown."

Alistair was, on balance, rather disappointed when it turned out he wasn't to be strapped to the target that day.

Kronen ushered them into the laboratory, and made a little speech : "The protocol of this experiment has been determined by Dr Errin Davidson and myself, with the able assistance of Dr Vassiliu of CERN. I am therefore taking upon myself the risk -- or should I say, selfishly claiming for myself the honour -- of being its first subject.

"Oh, so it's Kronen who gets bombarded with hardons" said Alistair to Halima. "Why am I not surprised?"

"This is not the large hadron accelerator", Sorin explained sternly to Alistair. "This is the Low-Energy Ion Ring. Only 78 metres across."

"The object of this first phase is to demonstrate the holographic effect hypothesised by Einstein, according to a theory reconstructed by Dr Davidson from fragmentary references in his manuscripts. The space of this module" - Kronen took his place in a structure which somewhat resembled a hexagonal phone booth - "will be suffused with a stream of energized particles from the accelerator ring."

Errin Davidson who was standing on the opposite side of the lab, took over the explanations. "And a holographic image of Dr Kronen will appear -- all being well -- in this space", she said, indicating a second phone-booth structure.

"Can we dim the lights please?" asked Kronen. "Hamming it up for dramatic effect", muttered Alistair. "We don't know for sure if the intensity of the hologram effect will enable it to be seen with the naked eye", explained Davidson.

The holographic image of Kronen appeared, large as life, and twice as cheesy. He clowned around, smiling and waving to the others. "Come in Kronen," said Alistair. "Could you manage a bit of dignity? How will it look on the network news?"

"We are taping the event for our own records only", observed Dr Vassiliu. "There will be no media releases for the moment."

"Then think about the documentaries. Forty years from now, your grandchildren are going to cringe."

"Then perhaps we can do a second take?" said Kronen, seeming genuinely concerned.

The image of Kronen faded as Dr Vassiliu reduced the power of the ion beam. Errin Davidson seemed ecstatic, amazed and thrilled to see her theories so dramatically confirmed.

Sorin said : "This experiment is fascinating, but I don't see the connection with vampirology."

Professor Albu replied, somewhat embarrassed : "We had intended to repeat the experiment with a second subject, a vampire, because it would seem that there ought, theoretically, to be a considerable amplification effect due to certain specifics of vampire physiology and cellular biology. However, our subject, Courtney, is not yet eighteen, so cannot legally consent to the experiment."

"Why didn't you say so before?" said Dumitra, smiling. "It seems I'm the designated crash-test dummy today. Is there a form I have to sign, or can we just get on with it?"

As Dumitra was being installed in the phone-booth structure, Dr Vassiliu called them all to attention and gave a grave little speech.

"All of the information about the first experiment, which is a joint project between Dr Davidson and myself, is in the public domain. This is a fundamental requirement for all work at CERN, of course. There is keen interest in the holographic effect we have demonstrated today, in the worldwide quantum physics community, and there will be considerable interest and interaction, mostly on the internet of course.

"I must stress, however, that the second experiment, involving Dr Kronen's theories, is entirely ... informal. This is, in itself, highly irregular, however, we feel that the issues surrounding the interaction of cellular biology and nuclear physics are not yet... ripe for public discussion. I must therefore urge you all to discretion. Even to ... though as a scientist I can hardly believe I am asking you this... to absolute secrecy in this matter. The director of CERN has been informed, and has given his... tacit approval."

Dumitra viewed the hushed assembly with amused detachment. She was rather enjoying herself : all this fuss somewhat took her mind off her other preoccupations, namely her severe meth cravings, her desperate feelings of abandonment since Hank's mysterious departure, her all-pervading sense of her own worthlessness and desire to die.

"We're ready", announced Dr Kronen, from the control console where he was standing, tensely and awkwardly, with Vassiliu and Errin Davidson. "We will increase the power of the ion beam much more slowly this time, as we are unsure of the correct power level."

"I feel I should say a few historic words", said Dumitra. "Fit for a future documentary. Are you ready?"

Vassiliu smiled and told her to go ahead.

"Beam me up, Scotty."

The holographic image started to appear in the second phone box after only a few seconds, and rapidly became denser, but seemed strangely blurred.

"Projectionist! Get the focus right!" heckled Alistair.

Courtney gave a little scream : "Look! She's gone unfocused here too!" And indeed, Dumitra herself seemed as blurred and translucent as her holographic image.

"Power down!" commanded Kronen, and Vassiliu dialed back the ion beam rapidly.

There was a sound like a balloon popping, and Alistair thought he felt a puff of breeze. Dumitra was now quite opaque and focused, standing in the second phone booth.

There was a stunned silence, followed by a ragged cheer from the scientists.

"How do you feel?" said Sorin, helping Dumitra out of the cabin. She had a serene smile, and seemed to glow with health and wellbeing.

"Clean." she said. "Unburdened. Released. Fuck, that was good."

"How good was it, exactly?" said Alistair, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, better than any drug I've ever tried. Better than... " she paused for reflection. "Better than all but the very best of sex. Can I do it again?"

Sorin was flushed and elated. "You're taking it all pretty seriously, aren't you?" teased Alistair.

"Yes, isn't she wonderful!" he enthused.

"She? Oh you mean Dr Davidson! Well, she's... " a sidelong glance at Halima... "not my type of course but I can see where..."

"Do you think she has an ... involvement with Kronen?" Sorin queried.

Alistair paused a few seconds for reflection. "Involvement? I think not... That is, I'd say he had a go, and got knocked back, categorically. You can trust me on this. I'm a world authority on the subject."

Sorin grinned at him gratefully. "And do you think that..."

"Do you think that you would have a chance with her? Well, this is a subject on which I am an acknowledged non-expert. However, for what it's worth, I can assure you that you have an infinitely better chance than Kronen had. Because Kronen is a player; and Davidson, I think, is not. And nor are you."

Sorin thought about this for a moment, then thanked him gravely.

That evening, while Dumitra was taking her HIV medication, Halima had another try at getting her to talk about Hank. She had been worrying about his disappearance all day, and furious with herself for trusting him too much. "So, where do you think he's gone?" "Skiing, of course. You saw the note he left me. He talked a lot about skiing, ever since we met", she lied. She was determined to cover for him, whether he was coming back or not. Getting to the point, Halima challenged her : "Do you think he's gone back to the Organisation?" Dumitra frowned, then smiled wryly. "I honestly don't know". "And you honestly wouldn't tell me if you did. I understand. You're loyal to him. But where do his loyalties lie? If he tells them what we are doing here, they will come after us. They will kill us all if they can." They stared at each other, neither flinching. Halima added : "So if you hear from him... " She paused. "Ask him to get in touch with me." She thought of something else : "How's your meth craving? Bad taste to talk about it, I know, but..." Dumitra frowned, and answered : "It's odd, I don't know where it's gone. But I could do with a cigarette."

Hank was awakened near dawn, rather roughly, by Davidson, returned from his nocturnal prowlings.

"What are your instructions, Master Mirka?" he said, vacating the coffin.

"Oh, enjoy some free time, lad." said Davidson, taking his place in the portable sarcophagus. "I will tell you all the details of the plan at sunset, when I awake. Be here then, dressed and equipped for cat burglary. That is all."

Doesn't trust me, thought Hank. Fair enough.

He now had ten hours of daylight to fill, before the nocturnal mission. He was itching for action, he had no desire to think through the consequences. He knew full well that this was his last chance to flee, to put as much distance as possible between himself and a vengeful Organisation.

He decided to go skiing.

The following morning, Milòs and Laslò met for breakfast at their habitual café.

"So, how did it go at the banquet?" asked Laslò.

"Well, I called in a few favours and managed to get put in charge of the sauces."

"You mean, you sucked a few cocks!"

"Don't be so crude, Laslò. That isn't how it works. As it happens, the principal sous-chef is in love with me. So anyway, it was quite easy to incorporate the blood into almost everything, barring desserts."

"Oh, so you worked out it was blood?"

"Well, it sure tastes like blood!" Milòs smacked his lips noisily. "What about you? How did your collecting go?"

"Well! During the banquet, while the guests were out, I did the rounds of my little helpers..."

"Getting your cock sucked?" suggested Milòs.

"Oh no, very businesslike, no time for funny business. Between them they got quite a haul : toenail clippings, lots of hair, stuff like that. We carefully labelled it all and I filed it in my collection. Last of all I called on Heidi."

"Surely that's not her real name?"

"Well, actually her name is Sophia. But she's a farmer's daughter from a high Alpine valley. She'll always be Heidi to me. Anyway, I had arranged to meet her in one of the presidential suites. She was leaning over the bath, cleaning it, and I thought : here's trouble. Then I saw her panties on the floor, and I knew it was a trap. Sure enough, she hitched up her dress and smiled at me from both ends, if you see what I mean. I tried to explain that there was no time, but before I managed to finish the sentence she had my cock in her mouth. Well, maybe I stammered a bit."

"Well, you know how sometimes you just can't fight it? So anyway, we got naked on the master bed, and we were doing some sixty-nine. Warm up for the main event. And that's when the door opens, and it's Madame, home early from the banquet."

"Singer songwriter? Used to be a model?"

"That's the one... I guess she's in her forties, but if I could have my pick of all the Presidents' wives... So anyway, I'm thinking we're both going to get fired for this, but she's grinning like a Cheshire cat. So I smile at her and I'm about to offer her some dick, but that's not what she's interested in. She literally pounces on Heidi's pussy!"

Milòs whooped with delight.

"Keep it down!" said Laslò. "This is definitely very confidential. So, Heidi's not fighting her off, on the contrary, and here's me, holding my dick, as the saying goes. But she's interested in me too, and I help her get undressed, and I get to snuffle around her crotch too. She's obviously much better than me, because by the time I get her to come, Heidi's already come three times or so. So then she climbs on top of Heidi, missionary style, and she's kissing her and stuff, and she wants me to do her from behind."

"In the ass?" asked Milòs eagerly.

"No, no... Not many women actually like that. You'd be surprised. The little Turkish girl on the third floor being an exception." They both laughed.

Laslò continued : "So, I'm boning the Dame - she seems to like it pretty well - and she's doing Heidi with her fingers, and after a while I can tell they're both going to come. So I thought I might as well let rip too -- you know, get it over with. Work to do, and all. And that's when the door opens again..."

"And it's Monsieur, right? I saw him getting hustled out of the banquet early, by his minders. He looked like he'd had one too many."

"From what I hear, one drink is one too many for him. So anyway, here he is, with a glazed expression and a big goofy grin, and he takes a few steps towards us, then registers what's going on -- in case you've forgotten, I'm fucking his wife in a three-way with the chambermaid -- and his jaw drops and his eyes are like saucers. And I sort of half-turn towards him, and my cock slips out and I jizz on him."

Milòs was shaking so much with laughter he almost fell off his chair. "You were supposed to get a sample from him... not give him one!" he gasped.

"Good point..." Laslò frowned.

"So... how come you're here, and not being renditioned to some Middle East torture chamber or something?" gasped Milòs.

"Well, that was when the alarms went off. Security lockdown. So we all just got dressed, avoiding each other's eyes, and went our separate ways."

"And so did you get a sample from him?"

"Well not from him... but I managed to find quite a few of her pubes, among mine, and in my mouth and stuff... I'm hoping that'll compensate a bit. Tell me, what do you know about the break-in? All the staff got interviewed by the cops, but they wouldn't even let us talk to each other."

"Well I think we can guess who did it", said Milòs. "But apparently it went badly wrong. Two Swiss soldiers got killed."

"Oh shit. Fuck. This is serious."

"Oh, so you've finally realised it's not all fun and games?" sais Milòs, sarcastically.

"So, what's it all about?" said Laslò.

"Fucked if I know. But I want out of it."

Their phones beeped, simultaneously. They both had a message from Hank, asking them to meet him urgently.

The approach to the hotel was fairly easy, much easier than Hank had anticipated. Davidson had plotted it out well, he realised; it was physically challenging, with fences to vault and walls to climb, but not very risky for someone of his calibre. He had to be very careful with the timing; Davidson had determined the pattern of military patrols precisely, and his safety margins were slim.

The real danger was the random patrols which supplemented the regular ones. But Davidson was lurking in the shadows, ready to cover him in that event.

Likewise, entering the hotel wasn't all that hard. Laslò had given him some useful clues about how to work around the alarm system. Once inside, he took off his grey overall, and headed for the Russians' suite in his bellhop uniform.

There, he had a stroke of luck. He had all the necessary material and skill to pick the lock of the suite, or to force it if necessary; but it would have taken time, and might have attracted attention. But the door was ajar, and he glided through. The suite was big, and apparently empty. He found the legendary potty, and collected the precious sample with distaste. He had almost reached the suite's exit door again when a door opened, and a young woman emerged from a small office.

Startled, she addressed him in Russian, then in English : "What are you doing here? It's off limits, surely you know that." She's probably feeling guilty about leaving the door open, thought Hank. Good looking : perhaps she's waiting for a lover? Do I have to take her down? A quick decision was required : he knew he could do it without fuss, and would do her no lasting harm. He would get away OK, but there would be an investigation, and who knew the consequences? Better try to bluff his way out.

"I'm sorry. I saw the open door and ... I thought you might be waiting for someone. Why not me?"

She grinned at this, and seemed to weigh his proposition. Oh Christ, he thought : what if she says yes?

"Run away, little boy. The important people will be back soon. Another time perhaps." Hank winked at her, and made a graceful exit.

Back outside in the snow, he knew the job was almost over. And he realised that the time for decisions was near.

He had never thought much about politics. His loyalty to his vampire kin was automatic, unquestioning. Being asked to kill for them had been a true test, a borderline moral dilemma which circumstances had allowed him to sidestep. Mere burglary he had no moral qualms with. World domination? Most of the directors seemed to be decent enough people. On balance, they would likely do a better job than the incumbents.

But his brief contact with this other crowd, the vampirologists of the WHO, had perturbed him more than he cared to admit. Ordinary enough people, but they were making their own decisions; like fish swimming freely in a sea of possibilities, weighing freedom and responsibility, making moral choices. He realised that he had been an ant all his life, marching in a column, never straying from the path determined for him, never imagining that he might take initiatives on his own account.

Checking his watch, he waited before crossing the last open space before the security perimeter fence. Once the scheduled patrol had disappeared, he set out across it, walking fast but noiselessly in the snow. He spotted Davidson a hundred yards off on the other side of the fence, at the arranged meeting point. Suddenly Davidson waved him back, but it was too late.

"Halt! Hands in the air!" First in German then in English, a two-man security patrol intercepted him, close to the security fence but still on the wrong side. Still in the closed security zone.

Play dumb again, though Hank. What am I doing here. Nothing much. The gear I'm carrying is a giveaway, though. It's not looking good.

He waited patiently, hands held high, as the Swiss soldiers closed on him, automatic weapons at the ready but not actually pointing at him. Nice touch, he thought.

As they came to a halt facing him, a couple of yards away, one of them made a quiet choking sound, then slumped. Garotted by Davidson, who had approached soundlessly, invisibly behind him.

The second soldier brought his gun to bear and opened fire as Davidson sprang at him. He was almost stopped in mid air by the impact of four or five powerful bullets, but landed on his target, his knife plunging downward in an arc, over the soldier's body armour, through his throat into his heart.

As they sprawled in the snow, Davidson face down on top of his victim, Hank suddenly saw things more clearly.

All this for a hunk of shit, he thought wonderingly. A doggy bag of Putin pooh. He slipped the ziplock bag out of his pocket, and threw it away as far as he could into the snow.

Did he consider, perhaps just for a split second, abandoning Davidson? Probably not. One doesn't leave a fallen comrade in the field, not if one can help it. He was already moving toward him when he heard Davidson's voice, rather muffled : "Master Iancu. I shall require assistance. One of the bullets seems to have sectioned my spine, so I am not currently able to walk. You will kindly carry me."

And Hank realised that he didn't have a choice. It wasn't a mere moral question. Davidson was using the Imperative effect, so his opinion really didn't matter. He picked Davidson up and slung him on his back, and started to run.

That same morning, Alistair suggested to Halima that they should invite Sorin Cascu for dinner. He didn't even have time to smirk or wiggle his eyebrows before Halima had suggested that they also invite Errin Davidson. In a few minutes she had arranged everything, and seemed extremely pleased with her idea.

Errin was delighted by the invitation, and relieved to escape the company of the group of CERN scientists, dominated as it was by the charismatic Dr Kronen.

Sorin struggled to contain his excitement and nerves, but managed to be both natural and charming. There was little need for small talk, as dramatic events of the day provided ample subject matter; but one way or another, they seemed to spend most of the evening talking about sex. This was perhaps unseemly, considering that Errin and Sorin were, at best, in the very early stages of courtship; but it may have been for the best in the end.

"The Hungarian lad." said Alistair. "Did you see the way he was looking at Courtney? I didn't like that a bit."

"Yes I did see the way he was looking at her. And I rather liked it." said Halima provocatively. "And I saw the way she was looking at him..." She smiled.

"She's only seventeen! And he's much older surely..." "He's twenty-five." Halima noted. "And she's nearly eighteen, and quite able to look after herself!"

"So you think we should just let him have his wicked way with her?" said Alistair. "And break her heart? This guy is an artist, anyone can see that."

"I called her mother this afternoon", said Halima, one jump ahead as usual. "Courtney had already talked to her about him. His name is Laslo, by the way. She's rather excited about him, but she's going to keep him at arm's length for a while. Her mother trusts her judgement, in any case." "I think she's a sensible girl", Errin offered. "And Laslo certainly is rather dishy. I met him this afternoon." "Did he make a pass at you?" suggested Alistair. "No, as soon as we were introduced he started talking to me about Courtney. He seems smitten."

1027. alistairConnor - 11/21/2009 8:32:07 PM

Alistair and Courtney had been with Dr Albu that morning, discussing the program of experiments for the week, when the three young vampires had arrived from Davos. Albu had immediately summoned Halima, to assess the security situation -- which was dramatically dangerous, as soon became apparent as Hank's account unfolded. She and Albu had then conducted a more detailed debriefing with each of the young men separately.

Sorin had turned up later, accompanying Dumitra who had been undergoing a battery of tests at WHO's AIDS research centre.

"But did you notice the way the Czech boy was looking at Alistair?" said Sorin to Halima. "Milos?" she said. "Yes I did, and I didn't like it much..."

Sorin added, "You can see he has an eye for the older man."

Alistair reddened, and blustered: "I'm a man in his prime! If this Milos fancies me, it's clearly because of my youthful, dynamic style." He felt obliged to join the uproar of laughter that followed this declaration.

Errin, who had heard only vague rumours of the events of Davos, was avidly curious to hear the full story. Sorin and Alistair deferred to Halima on this; she had already decided that Errin was worthy of trust, but felt obliged to impress on her the importance of absolute secretly.

"Oh, cross my heart and hope to die! Let's prick our thumbs and become blood sisters!"

Alistair winced. "No more blood, please. It makes me feel all funny. I wasn't really cut out to be a vampire's victim."

"Oh, sorry", said Errin. "I know it's a serious business. It's the wine going to my head, I'm afraid."

Halima began by announcing that, in light of the day's events, she had decided to accept Albu's pressing invitation to join the WHO team. "To deal with security, in the short term, and organisational matters if things ever calm down enough."

"Ah, so I'm the last to know, of course!" Alistair protested

Halima recounted what they had pieced together about the conspiracy for world domination, in which the three young men had played a more or less unwitting role. "So, did the Organisation get away with the samples?" asked Sorin. "It seems so", said Halima. "This guy they call Master Petru apparently collected everything. He seems to be the mastermind."

"What about the other one, the one who got shot?" asked Alistair. "I made discreet inquiries", said Halima. "It seems the Swiss police found him."

"Well, that's a relief!" said Alistair. "If I understood correctly, Iancu was expecting the killer to come after him and kill him too. They'll keep him locked up for decades for the murder of the two soldiers."

"Appararently Milos wanted to bring him back here with them", Halima said.

"Three men and a coffin in a Ford friggin' Fiesta! That would have made quite a road movie!", suggested Alistair. "Still, I'm glad the justice system is dealing with him, and not us."

"You forget", said Sorin, "that he can teleport at dawn to wherever Iancu is."

"Um. Yeah. I have trouble taking account of little technical details like that. But what about the bullet holes? Won't they slow him down?"

"Dr Albu estimates that it may be a couple of days before he's able to walk. That gives us a breathing space", said Halima.

"So, how can we protect Iancu?" Errin wondered.

"It's not just a matter of protecting him", Halima pointed out. "Once this guy shows up, Iancu will be completely in his power. Rather than killing him at once, I would expect him to use him as a weapon against us. So we also have to protect ourselves against him."

"I reckon Dumitra can keep Iancu under control", affirmed Alistair. "I think she'll give this other guy a run for his money. She barks, he jumps."

"Well it's mutual", Halima remarked acidly. "She would do anything, absolutely anything, for him. But actually we have concluded that she's our best bet for keeping him under control."

"That, of course, means trusting her!" said Alistair. "Do you think that's wise?"

"No, it certainly isn't", Halima conceded. "But we don't have much choice. It's no use trying to separate them. The bond between them is too strong. I rather envy them."

"Why?" said Alistair. "Our relationship is like that too!"

"Of course dear", said Halima, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, when they were reunited this afternoon, you could tell that nothing else existed for them. Impossible to get any sense out of them, so we left them alone together. Dumitra confided to me later that they had unprotected sex -- I'm sorry, Sorin."

"They both seem to cultivate this aura of doom", said Errin. "Nothing really matters, they expect to die young. Rather a punk ethic. I have no truck with such nonsense, myself. Everyone can be saved if they want to be."

And it was on this voluntarily optimistic vein that the evening drew to a close. Both Halima and Alistair were watching the other two for signs of bonding, but the doctors Davidson and Cascu were too reserved and demure to be scrutable in that respect. While clearing up the dinner things, the hosts were doing their best to keep their hands off each other, and not entirely succeeding. Errin announced that she must go, and Sorin leapt to his feet and offered to accompany her. It was logical enough -- he had a car, she didn't -- and she didn't seem much inclined to object, anyway.



Key to writers:

NuPlanetOne
Jenerator
alistairConnor
Webfeet


the story begins at The Mote

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