"Prisoners first?" Morley asked.

"I wouldn't. Even if they could be trusted they'd get in the way. Straight ahead. Where the women are going. That will be where the masters hole up."

We reached the cavern floor. The grolls went ahead, swinging their clubs. Muttering to himself, Morley minced around an ankle-deep pool of filth. He flicked a toe at a night creature. Some were trying to fight back now.

Tinnie and Rose added shrieks to the uproar. In a free second I saluted them with my sword. They didn't appreciate the gesture.

Morley kicked a human thighbone out of his path. "You ever wondered what bloodslaves feed on while the disease is running its course?"

"No. And I don't want you to tell me."

We climbed toward the gap through which the females had fled. It was a hole maybe four feet tall and three wide. It was clogged with bloodslaves trying to reach the protection of their masters.

The grolls hammered them with all the passion of miners who'd hit a gravel reef.

"And you wanted to bring mules," Morley crowed.

Dojango's crossbow thunked, creaked, thunked again as he sniped at a hero with designs on the lamp we had left at the entrance.

The night people began to press in. Not good. Armed or not, there is only so much that can be done against such numbers.

I still had a few tricks folded up my sleeves and tucked into my boots, but I wanted to hoard those as long as I could.

The grolls opened the hole.

Morley spoke to them. They threw once-human trash aside and wriggled through. I followed with the lucifer stone. Morley came last.

Nothing tried coming through after us.

"Well. We made it to the heart of the nest. Just like the heroes in the old stories. Only that was the hard part for them. The hard part is just beginning for us."

The brides of blood had ranged themselves before the stone biers of their lovers, who had not awakened. There were fifteen of them. In only four had the disease run its full course. One of those I had faced across a table in Full Harbor, in a house where I had loved another in whom the disease was only a few years along and still reversible. Beside her stood a man whose face betrayed him as he who had passed me a note. She shuddered when she met my gaze, slipped her hand into his.

Well. Did you ever want to cry?

From the hole behind us Dojango said, "They've got the lamp. And the fires are out. Don't look like they're up for breaking in here, though."

"Figure we got troubles enough already. She here, Garrett?"

"Yeah."

"Cut her out of the herd and let's get on with it."

I beckoned Kayean.

She came, eyes downcast, towing the man. The other brides, and the eight or so bloodslaves with them, hissed and shuffled.

The tip of Morley's unicorn horn intercepted Kayean's man and rested on his throat. "Where is he, Clement?"

"Kill him here, Dotes. Don't take him back."

"If I don't take him back, they'll kill me. Where is he?"

Which was all very interesting.

What the hell was going on?

"Back there." The bloodslaves pointed past the brides. "Hiding with the children. You won't get him out without waking the masters." He stared at me, eyes filled with appeal. "Take her out. Before they wake up."

An excellent suggestion, and one I would have loved to have put into effect. Except that, though unspoken, we had come in knowing that if we went out again we would be leaving them dead behind us.

It had less to do with emotion than necessity. If we left them alive, they would be after us as soon as the sun went down. There would be no outrunning them. And they dared not let us go. They would have the Karentine army all over them as soon as we reported the location of the nest.

"We need to talk, Morley."

"Later. Come out of there, Valentine."

Something stirred, hissed, back among the biers. The hissing formed words, but just barely. "Come get me."

I said, "Folks, things are going to get nasty in a minute. Some are going to die the real death. You don't want it to be you, I'm taking volunteers to sneak out to the big cavern. We pull this off, you can migrate to another nest." And if we didn't we would be their midnight snack.

After a few seconds one of the newer females started toward us, eyes downcast. Most male bloodslaves become what they are by choice. Few women do. They are selected and collected for the masters by night traders like Zeck Zack.

One of the old females objected. She tried to stop the deserter.

Dojango's bolt hit her square in the forehead, driving four inches into her brain,

She fell and flopped around. The bolt wasn't enough to kill her, but plenty to scramble her mind.

I let the volunteer through. "Anybody else?"

The old females looked at the fallen one, listened to the creak of the crossbow rewinding, hissed back and forth, and decided to leave us to the mercy of their masters. One by one, the crowd departed. The little ones too.

They have no loyalty to one another at all.

47

"Kill that thing," Morley snapped. He repeated himself in grollish.

Marsha thumped the flopping woman till she stopped.

"Valentine. Come out."

Hissing again. I raised the lucifer stone overhead so I could look at this creature who so interested Morley Dotes.

Then a lot came together.

I knew that face. Valentine Permanos.

Six years back the kingpin's chief lieutenant, one Valentine Permanos, and his brother Clement had vanished with half the kingpin's fortune. There had been rumors about them running to Full Harbor. Morley would have to come across with more numbers to make it all add up, but I saw enough of the edges to relax with my allies.

"Let's do it, Garrett," Dotes said, getting a two-handed grip on his unicorn horn.

Valentine Permanos began shaking one of the still forms.

His face was a horror. They say the swiftness of the disease's progress depends a great deal on the will of its victim. This one was much farther gone than his brother. He wanted to become one of them.

I recalled old rumors that he had been dying a slow death when he scooted on the kingpin.

Morley drove his horn straight into the heart of the first vampire he reached. So did I. The body shuddered. Its eyes opened for a moment and filled with that look of betrayal, then glazed over.

Morley did another one. So did I. He got a third. I lined one up. Morley cursed. "Dojango. Throw me another horn."

"That's a hundred marks, Morley. What's wrong with the one you got, actually?"

"It's stuck in his goddamn ribs! Now throw me another horn."

I moved to my fourth victim. My shakes were going away. Six more after this one. Over the hump. We would be headed out in a few minutes.

I drove the horn down.

With no warning, the one Valentine was shaking flung itself toward me.

I twisted away. Dojango's hasty bolt ripped its face open. Morley whacked it with his horn. The ceiling was so low the grolls had to stay on their knees. Still, Doris managed to bounce his club off the vampire's chest.

The monster leaped back from whence it had come, eyes burning, amazed, hissing something we weren't meant to understand. I noted the huge ruby pendant it wore, then grabbed Morley's shoulder and kept him from pursuing it. "Get back here! Now!" I backed up. "That's the bloodmaster himself. Touch me. Everybody touch me."

"What the hell?"

"Do it!" Hands clasped onto me. "Close your eyes." I palmed a sweaty slip from my sleeve, ripped it open. I counted to ten, expecting claws and fangs to rip me with each beat.

I opened my eyes.

They were all up now. They had their hands to their temples and their maws open in soundless screams. They swayed back and forth with the madness.