Jody said, "Suppose I believe what you're saying. Suppose I believe that you believe this bullshit, how could you help me? Supposing I wanted to be helped?"

"My major is gene therapy. There's a chance I could reverse the process."

"This isn't science. I'm not saying that you're right about your theory. There are a lot of things that you don't know, that can't be explained by science. If you don't know that by now, you will. What you're talking about is magic."

"Magic is just science that we don't know yet. Do you want me to help or not?"

"Why would you want to do that? As far as you know, I kill people."

"So does cancer, but I still work on it. Do you have any idea what kind of competition there is for jobs in my field? It's an all-or-nothing field. I could end up getting my PhD and giving saccharine enemas to rats for five bucks an hour. What I learn from you would put my resume at the top of the stack."

Jody didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to drop the phone and go after him. Another part wanted to accept his help.

She said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing yet. How can I get hold of you?"

"I can't tell you that. I'll call you. What's your number?"

"I can't tell you that."

Jody sighed. "Look, Mr. Scientific Genius, figure out something. And by the way, I really didn't kill those people."

"Then why are you even listening to me?"

"I guess this conversation is over. Get in your car and get comfortable with asking rats to bend over. Good-bye."

"Wait, we could meet somewhere. Tomorrow. Someplace public."

"No, it has to be at night. Someplace private. You could have cops everywhere." She watched him as she talked. He had put the binoculars down and she could see that he was Asian.

"You're the killer here. Would you meet you someplace private and dark?"

"All right. Tomorrow night. Seven o'clock, at Enrico's on Broadway. That public enough for you?"

"Sure. Can I bring a blood-sample kit? Would you let me?"

"Would you let me?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

"Just kidding," she said. "Look, I don't want to hurt you, but I don't want to get hurt either. When you leave here, drive like hell and take an indirect route home."

"Why?"

"Because I really didn't kill those people, but I know who did, and he's been following me. If he's seen you, you're in danger."

The line was quiet for a minute, just the ghost voices of a cellular connection. Jody watched the Asian guy watching her.

Finally he cleared his throat. "How many of you are there?"

"I don't know," she said.

"I know that all of the victims don't change. It couldn't work. The geometric progression would have the entire human race turned to vampires in a month." He sounded more confident now that he had brought the conversation back to science.

"I'll tell you what I know tomorrow. But don't expect much. I don't know much. Or I'll tell you now if you want to talk face to face, but I don't think it's a good idea to talk about this with you on a cell phone."

"Yeah, you're right. Not now, though. Not here. You understand, don't you?"

Jody nodded, exaggerating the gesture so he could see. "The longer you stand there, the better chance you have of being seen by… by the other one. Tomorrow night, then. Seven o'clock."

"Will you be wearing that dress?"

Jody smiled. "Do you like it? It's new."

"It's great. I didn't think you would be a woman."

"Thanks. Go now."

She watched him climb into the Toyota, the cell phone still in hand. "Promise not to try and track me down?"

"I know where you'll be tomorrow night, remember?"

"Oh yeah. By the way, my name's Steve."

"Hi, Steve. I'm Jody."

"'Bye," he said. He disconnected. Jody hung up the phone and watched him drive away.

She thought, Great, another one to worry about.

It hadn't occurred to her that her condition might be reversible. But then, the med student didn't know about how the body had turned to dust. Science indeed.

Jump or dive, he thought. The silk suit whipped about his legs in the chill wind. The tower's aircraft warning light flashed red across his face and he could see heat swirling off it, dissolving over the bay.

His name was Elijah Ben Sapir. He stood five feet ten inches tall and he had been a vampire for eight hundred years. In human life he had been an alchemist and had spent his time mixing noxious chemicals and chanting arcane incantations trying to turn lead into gold and tap the secret of eternal life. He hadn't been a particularly good alchemist. He had never been able to pull off the gold transformation, although by a bizarre miscalculation of chemistry he did manage to invent Teflon some eight hundred years before DuPont would find a use for it. (It should be noted, though, that archaeologists recently uncovered a Viking rune stone in Greenland that mentions a Jew who entered the palace of Constantine the Magnificent in 1224 selling a line of nonstick hot pokers for the Emperor's torture chamber and was promptly given the bum's rush to the city gates. The accuracy of the story has been questioned, however, as it begins, "I never believed that your letters were true until Gunner and I…" and goes on to recount the sexual exploits of two Vikings and a harem of brown-skinned Byzantine babes.)

Ben Sapir's search for eternal life had been somewhat more successful. Granted, it came with the side effects of drinking human blood and staying out of sunlight, but he had gotten used to that. It was the loneliness that he couldn't abide. Perhaps, after all these years, it would end. He was afraid to hope.

It had been a hundred years since a fledgling had lasted this long. She had been a Yanomamo woman in the Amazon Basin and she had hunted the jungle for three months before she returned to her village and turned her sister. The sisters declared themselves gods and demanded sacrifices from the village. He found them by the river feeding on an old woman, and he took no pleasure in killing them. Perhaps the redhead, perhaps she would be the one.

Dive, he decided. He leaped away from the tower, jackknifed into a dive, and plunged fifty stories to the black water. The challenge was to avoid changing to mist before hitting the water. That was too easy.

The impact of the water ripped the clothes off his back; the stitching of his shoes exploded with the pressure. He surfaced, naked except for one sock that had strangely survived the impact, and began the long swim back to his yacht thinking, I shouldn't have saved her from the sunlight. I must be desperate for entertainment.

Chapter 28

Is That a Blackjack in Your Pocket?

Tommy booted the Emperor out of the store at dawn. It had been a long night trying to keep the crazed ruler away from the Animals while throwing stock and trying to figure out the logistics of his meeting with Mara, all while under the influence of Dr. Drew's polio weed, which seemed to affect the part of the brain that motivates one to sit in the corner and drool while staring at one's hands. When the shift ended, he declined the Animal's invitation for beers and Frisbee in the parking lot, swiped a baguette from the bread-delivery man, and caught the bus home, intent on going straight to bed. He knew his plan was foiled when Frank, the biker/sculptor, met him outside their building holding a familiar-looking bronze turtle.

"Flood, check it out." Frank held up the turtle. "It worked!"

"What worked?" Tommy asked.

"Thick electroplating process. Come on in, I'll show you." Frank turned and led Tommy through the roll-up door into the foundry.

The foundry took up the entire bottom floor of the building, here was a huge furnace making a muffled rumbling sound. There were several large pits filled with sand, and plaster-of-Paris molds lay in them in various states of completion. In the back, near the only windows, stood wax figures of naked women, Indians, Buddhas, and birds, waiting to be cut up and placed in plaster of Paris.