CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"We've got one more member for our little party to arrive before we get started, Agent Boyd," Tom offered over his shoulder as he led the man back across the darkened foyer into the sitting room.
"Who's that?"
"You remember Tony, the black guy who was with us when we were here last year?"
"The frigging prostitute with the big dick that Broussard had porking him all the time?"
Tom frowned. "I think Tom did hire himself out to one of those Nazis-"
"What do you need him for?"
The vampire smiled. "I'm going hunting - both black and white game. I suspect Tony can open doors even you can't."
"Jesus!" Boyd caught up with the black-haired youth. "I don't know what bug's biting your ass, but you can't go playing Clint Eastwood in one of those westerns of his."
Tom turned and smiled. "Don't worry, Agent Boyd - my gun's going to be loaded with real bullets."
"Jesus H. Christ, kid! What the fuck happened over there in Germany to get you so riled up?"
"Emil was murdered by one of these creeps-"
"Huh?" Boyd stared at him. "I didn't think you vampires were easy to kill-"
"Easy enough it appears."
"Can we have some lights on in this place?"
Tom came close and smiled in his face. Boyd shuddered and stepped back. "I think I'll have to ask you to contact the electric company for me tomorrow. You probably can pull strings I don't know about."
"Yeah." The FBI agent nodded. "You'll need heat too - is it gas?"
"I think so." He indicated the sofa. "I need information - so, please be seated."
"What is it you want to know?"
"Who sent the Arab bomber who got Emil-"
"Arab? They were supposed to be in on this thing."
"They apparently were. The Aryan Nation guy almost got that Lynda Renfroe's kid - Karl had to make him one of us to save him. The Militia bozo didn't do much damage when he shot me in the chest-"
"They're both dead?"
Tom shrugged. "And I know where to hunt their leaders. What I don't know is if you forgot to tell us about the Arabs and I'm on the wrong continent or if they're somehow involved with this gang of murderers you've got over here."
"The blacks must have brought them in."
"Blacks as in Black Muslims?"
"That's it - the Nation of Islam."
"How do they get involved with white racists?"
Boyd snorted. "Hey, kid! Crazy people do crazy things. Every one of those groups are racist to the bone and every one of is sick in the head."
They were interrupted by a timid knock at the front door. "That's probably Tony," Tom told the agent as he stood up. "I'll be right back."
The vampire grinned as he recognised the slim black man standing on the veranda and consciously checking the street for people who might see him. "Come on in, Tony," he offered quietly and watched as the man jumped toward the steps before he could stay his instinct.
"Brother, you could scare a homeboy shitless sneaking up on him like that."
"I haven't oiled the door - must be good American workmanship that let me open it without it squeaking."
Tony hadn't moved. "You boys biting anything cute these days?"
"Hey! I promise no bloodletting inside these walls. Come on in. Agent Boyd from the FBI is waiting for us."
The black man took a tentative step toward the black-haired vampire. "That kiddy porn man?"
Tom laughed. "You were dicking Southern rednecks before you met Marcus Eichmann - what's the difference?"
"Brother, even us girls of the evening have our pride." He chuckled softly. "Besides, black meat's bigger than you white boys have."
"Tony, I need your help - yours and Boyd's."
The black man became immediately serious and crossed the veranda. "You ain't just jiving this nigger with sugar in his tank?"
"I'm serious. Emil's dead and I'm hunting."
"You? What about the Prince?"
"He's still crying blood-red tears there in Berlin for all I know. You get to me, I'm going to make you sorry - or die trying. And I'm going to do it on my own - right this fucking minute."
Tony stepped into the house, his earlier fear forgotten. "Count me in, brother. You did all right by me. What happened to Emil?"
"Come into the sitting room."
Boyd leaned back against the sofa and Tony sat on the edge of it as Tom MacPherson gave them both a synopsis of the past week in Berlin. "So, that's it," he concluded. "If there were only three groups of nuts over here coming after Karl, we got them all. Only, one of them got Emil before we could stop him. And he was an Arab working for who - the Black Muslims?"
"That nigger Shahrikhan's been sucking up to those Arab asses the past couple of years. Says its religious brotherhood, but they've got oil money and he's got poor niggers. This sounds like something that asshole would do," Tony offered without waiting for the FBI agent to comment. "I never did like the way he greased his hair down to pretend he was white."
"You don't know there's a connection," Boyd interjected and Tom turned his full attention to him.
"Who else?" he asked softly. "Who else was after Karl? Who else has an Arab connection?"
Boyd shrugged and said: "That's hard to say. There's at least fifty fascist groups operating in the United States at any one time-"
It was as far as he got. Tom touched his surface thoughts and Tony felt the agent stiffen on the sofa beside him. The vampire kept digging until he found Boyd's store of information on the meeting where it was decided to kill Karl von Muribor.
He smiled as he began to gather the information to himself. Tony pulled away from the agent, distancing himself from the pain that was obvious in his face.
"You're hurting him, bro'," he told Tom.
"So?" he hissed back and kept the door to the FBI agent's mind open. He grinned suddenly and mumbled: "So, I'm looking for Nathan Muhammad-" He pulled back from Boyd's thoughts. "Sit up, Mr. Agent Man. I'm through hurting you."
The agent blinked and his fingers came up to massage his temples. "You guys could kill a guy just fucking inside his head," he growled.
"I've never tried it," Tom offered cheerily. "Want to be my guinea pig?"
Boyd cringed and shook his head.
"Okay - so, we've got good old Nathan Muhammad who sat down with those other crazies and decided Karl had to die-"
"He was acting on orders!"
"Orders? Like the ones Hitler and his top boys gave all those middle-grade Nazis the Allies sent to prison?" He smiled. "Or like these nuts over here Koughlin and Goebbels gave marching orders to - killing doctors at abortion clinics and beating up guys on DuPont Circle?"
"He was under orders from the Blackest Brotherhood - and he was working under the deepest cover."
"I wonder if your J. Edgar would have been half as scrupulous after the war if he'd had an agent in Hitler's boardroom?" Tom turned to Tony. "I'm going hunting. I'm starting off with these guys who got Emil - but they're black. The white ones come later. Are you with me?"
The man grinned broadly. "Who's paying my way through computer school, Tom? Shit, yeah - this can be as fun as the goodest shit."
"I'll try to protect you - but you could get hurt."
Tony laughed and stood up. "My Mama's always saying a boy who died for Jesus is in His arms all the way to heaven. These here niggers ain't exactly Jesus-like, the way I see it."
"So, I've got you." He turned to Boyd. "How about you, Special Agent man? Do you go to sleep there on the sofa for the couple of nights or are you with us?"
Boyd frowned and rubbed his hand over his buzz-cut. "You don't give a man much of a choice, do you?"
Tom chuckled. "I try not to."
"I want you to come up with the best picture of the front of this Nathan Mohammed's house you can imagine," Tom told Boyd. "Put it right there in the front of your mind."
"You're going to yank that out of my head too?"
"Yeah. So, I can get all three of us there."
"He lives in Anacostia."
"You scared, honky?" Tony asked and grinned at the man. "We got us a secret weapon not even those brothers on the river can beat. We got us a vampire on our side."
"Jesus! It's two o'clock in the morning-"
"That ever stopped you cops before?" Tom asked and held the agent's picture of the informant's house in his mind, placing himself and the other two on its porch.
"So, what do I call this brother?" Tony asked the FBI agent as he stepped to the door.
"He's an imam at the storefront mosque down the street and heads up the local Blackest Brotherhood."
Tony grinned back at him. "I ma'am? You saying this brother's got sugar in his tank, white boy?" He banged on the door.
Tom glanced out at the street. "It doesn't appear to be so bad," he opined.
Tony chuckled from the door. "You're thinking of the projects and the park along the river. That's where we niggers kill each other off and sell all those drugs you hear about." He turned and pounded on the door again.
They heard movement inside the house and the black youth scrunched deeper into his pea-jacket. "You're about to be in the middle of it now, Tony," he mumbled. "Like Mama's always saying, you're one evermore big-ass fool for sticking your nose where it don't belong."
"Who is it?" a muffled voice called from the other side of the door.
"FBI," Boyd answered back, flashing his identification at the blank face of the door.
Tom heard two locks opened before the door opened several inches for the person inside to peer out at them.
"What do you want at this time of night?" a man's gruff voice demanded.
"We need to talk to you."
"It can wait-"
"Hey, bro'," Tony said. "You want me to stand out here in the cold with these two honkies for everybody to see?"
There were long moments of silence before the door opened and a small, wiry man turned on an interior light and stepped back in invitation to them to enter. "This is crazy as shit," he growled at Boyd.
Tom stepped over the threshold and grinned. Tony shut the door behind them.
"So, what do you want?" the man demanded.
Tom touched his mind and the man's eyes grew wide. "What-?"
Sit! The vampire commanded him.
The imam stumbled to the nearest chair and collapsed into it, staring back at the black-haired white man.
Tom pushed against the imam's thoughts and ignored the frown of pain that grew across the man's face. And stopped. An attractive woman holding three small children to her looked back at him.
"The woman and children - they're yours?" he asked and the man nodded slowly.
"Let me pick through your thoughts and I won't hurt them."
"I ain't got no insurance, man," the small man mumbled, his eyes watching Tom. "They need me."
"I want information. I'll give you your life too - if you give me what I want and don't fight me."
"You take it, man," the imam told him, his voice full of his fear. "It's yours. Just don't hurt us."
"You were at a meeting, maybe a month ago - one where you and some white racists decided to kill a man in Germany. Think about that meeting - let me see it in your head."
He sat at a table across from two white men in a frame farmhouse in southern Maryland. One of the honkies was decked out in fatigues, the other wore an ill-fitting, shiny polyester suit that had nits and was bald. The pink toes at the head of the table was middle-aged and gone to fat, but she was the only one of the white people who seemed to have any brains at all.
He didn't want to be here. He still couldn't believe the Blackest Brotherhood had any kind of business with these Nazis. But Shahrikhan's right hand man had sent him. Personally. And it sure wouldn't be smart to piss off the whole Nation of Islam. And, besides, his contact at the FBI wanted to know all about the meeting. So, he'd swallowed his pride and his doubts and driven out here to hobnob with people who made those Southern bubbahs look like the winners of the National Spelling Bee.
Pink toes smiled at them and he felt he was looking into the face of a tiger getting ready to pounce. "Gentlemen, our organisation was pretty well wiped out last year when the FBI caught the leader with his pants down," she said, laying out the groundwork of the meeting. "It's taken us this long just to put the most basic information back into place."
She smiled. "There was one man who was instrumental in bringing Koughlin down and almost destroying the new order before we could get it off the ground."
The fatigues-clad white man glared at each person sitting at the table. "That's the commie Kraut who broke into the leader's computers."
Pink toes nodded. "Karl von Muribor is his name. And he's queer as a three-dollar bill on top of being some kind of commie."
"We can get him," the honky with nits in his polyester growled.
"Get him?" Pink toes asked.
"Moira," the man continued, "we need to make an example out of this piece of shit. Show people they don't mess with us doing our job. I say we kill the bastard. Shit! Let's kill his queer buddies too while we're at it."
She glanced at the fatigues-clad man and he nodded his agreement. She turned to face Nathan Muhammad then. "Will your people join us in getting rid of this German?"
He was the Brotherhood here. And he knew Shahrikhan wanted to be in good with these crazy white people for some reason. "Count us in," he said.
The pink toes named Moira laughed. "Okay. We're all agreed this fruitcake has to go. We make an example of him so we can show our followers we take care of our problems fast. That's the first step in putting the organisation back together so we can lead America to its greatness."
She placed her attache on the table and opened it. "These are pictures of Karl von Muribor and of his house in Berlin." She passed a folder to each of the men.
The bald man in the shiny suit opened his folder and said: "That sure is a pretty house - it's on a lake too." He smiled. "This reminds me a little of our compound back in Idaho."
"He's got a nice place," Moira agreed. "This house is the Grunewald section of Berlin-" She grinned toothily. "It the richest neighbourhood in the city. Our queer boy has money."
"Don't they all?" the man in fatigues groused. "It's the sick motherfuckers got all the money."
"That's why we're going to bring a new order to this country," she told him. "So, good people have what's rightfully theirs." She glanced around the table again. "How do we remove this queer, gentlemen?
"My people suggest each of you pick the best man you've got and send him to Germany to take out this creep. We'll pay each man's round-trip fare, we have the contacts to put them up, we can get them their passports, and-" She smiled and placed her hands palms down on the table. "And we'll pay the man who takes this boy out a cool ten thousand dollars for being the best America has to offer."
They agreed to that and the meeting continued, re-establishing links that had been broken the year before when Reverend Pat Koughlin was arrested.
Tom pulled back from the imam's thoughts and gazed at him. He went back through what he'd learned from this Nathan Muhammad while his companions stood quietly in the man's living room and waited for him.
He had mental images of the men from the militias and Aryan Nation. If those pictures were not the same men he had names and locations for from the hitmen, he would find them. Boyd would know this Moria woman and where she lived. He smiled mirthlessly. That only left the black sons of bitches who were willing to join up with the garbage who'd been at the table.
"You've been very helpful," he told the imam and watched the man relax. "There's just a couple of more little things and we'll let you go back to bed-" He felt the man stiffen in the chair before him. "Who's this asshole in the Black Muslims who told you to go to that meeting? Was it the same one you reported back to? Was it the same one who brought in the frigging Arabs?"
"Man, I don't know about that!"
"Take it from the top. Who's the bozo who sent you to that little get together?"
The small man stared up at him and Tom felt his hate. Centuries of evils had coalesced at this moment and between the two of them. "I don't want to hurt you," Tom told him gently, "but I'll put his name out of your memories if you make me - and it won't feel good if I do."
"You-!" The man began to push himself out of the chair, almost ready to resist. And collapsed.
He jerked his head in Boyd's direction. "He knows him as Allen - Delano Allen in New York," he mumbled.
"Del Allen in the Mayor's office?" the FBI agent demanded.
"Is he the same person you reported back to?"
The man nodded. "I don't know what he did with the information, mister. What he and Shahrikhan do with stuff that gets back to them is their business." He wagged his head slowly. "There ain't too many men at the top, if you know what I mean."
"Thank you, Imam Muhammad. You've helped me a lot."
"What're you going to do to these people?"
Tony chuckled. "They're gonna be dead as doornails, Mr. Imam."
The man glanced back at Boyd for verification. "This is supposed to be America," he told the FBI agent.
"Some people forfeit their right to a trial by their peers," Tom told him. "You want to stay off that list, don't plan on killing people." He turned to the others and, forming a mental image of the sitting room of the house on "E" Street, placed the three of them in it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Man, it's cold in here!" Tony complained and wrapped his arms around himself. "And this dark shit's too fucking much."
"Agent Boyd has promised to have the gas and electricity turned on tomorrow," Tom answered him softly.
"What did you learn from Muhammad?" the FBI agent asked and made his way carefully through the dark to the sofa.
"I want to know who this Moira woman is - the one who called that fucking meeting where they all decided to kill Karl," Tom told him.
"You got that?" The agent turned and peered into the dark room trying to find him.
"That and a lot more. Who is she?"
"She's-" Boyd shook his head and sat down on the sofa. "You don't need to know that, son."
"Fuck that shit!" Tom growled. His mind was a bullet crashing into the agent's brain. The information was at the forefront of the man's thoughts as the vampire had know it would be.
The mind of mortal and vampire sought to please if one could access it. Ask a question and the mind pulled up an answer before deciding to give the information out. Reading a man's mind by-passed that man's ability to decide to give away information.
"Jesus!" Boyd cried, his hands grasping his head. "That hurts!"
"Moira Writer, Mr. Special Agent man," Tom told him, leaving his mind. "Who is she?"
"She's the new special legislative assistant to Luke Renfroe. She used to be mid-level in the Christian Centre before Goebbels blew his brains out and Koughlin got put away forever."
"Luke Renfroe?" Tom mumbled. "He's Speaker of the House of Representatives, isn't he?"
"That's him."
"And this count's his special assistant?"
Boyd forced a smile to his face. "That kind of talk isn't exactly politically correct, Tom MacPherson."
"Ordering my lover killed isn't exactly lady-like either," he shot back. "So, give."
The agent sighed. "This is marked secret. She's the target of an on-going investigation-"
"Yeah? So was that orgy thing last year with all the Congressmen porking young guys you found for them. Give, Mr. Agent."
"She was one of those born-agains back in one of those rinky-dink colleges in the northwest - Washington, I think. She was in one of those campus Christian things that started getting popular back in the late 70's and early 80's and climbed up the ladder with them. She came to Koughlin's attention in the late 80's and joined him in Tidewater and, then, moved over to Fairfax when they formed the Christian Centre and put Goebbels at the head of it. She was the number three man in the CC and was in charge of keeping the faith according to Pat pure.
"Anyway, when it started getting out Goebbels spread his legs for every Tom, Dick and Harry with a big gun and Koughlin was suddenly linked to racial murders across the country, she jumped ship and landed in Renfroe's office."
"It took her the better part of a year of manoeuvring, but she's become his special legislative assistant in charge of Congressional liaison. That gave her access to the money from the political action committees coming into the Speaker's coffers as well as the Congressmen who agreed with Koughlin but were smart enough to stay just far enough away they didn't land on his list of certified fascists."
James Boyd pushed himself off the sofa and shrugged. "That's what we know on her. She's kept a pretty low profile."
"I think she's decided to come out of the woodwork and try to put Koughlin's coalition of certified nutcases back together. Where does she live?"
"Congressional Hill - near the Folger, off Massachusetts."
Tom nodded. "I'm going to need a street address before we go over there tonight."
"Tonight?"
"You think she needs more time to make more of a mess than she already has?"
"Hey, Tom, it's already four o'clock," Tony interjected. "You ain't getting no white woman to come to the door at this hour - not in DC, you ain't. Tomorrow evening, you have your boy here flash his badge and she'll open up like a book."
"He's right," Boyd told him. "She's home by seven every night. We catch her as she's pouring her first drink."
Tom gazed at the agent suspiciously for several moments. "You won't spirit her out of town?"
Boyd laughed. "I'm sort of curious what you dig up in that brain of hers. Fact is, I could use a couple of you guys when we start interrogating a suspect."
Tony looked at him dubiously. "Man, you saying you like your head being opened up like he was doing to you earlier?"
"No, not me. But it sure saves time and I'm guessing it's a lot more accurate than a polygraph."
"Will you mind relaxing here for a little while, Agent Boyd?" Tom asked.
"I guess that'd be okay," he answered tentatively. "Where are you going to be?"
The vampire smiled. "I thought I might take a walk through the neighbourhood. I want to pull some of these thoughts in my head together. And I want to talk to Tony a little."
"Sure. I'll be right here."
"What're you thinking about, man?" Tony asked the moment they reached the curb and turned toward 6th Street.
"There's going be dead people, starting with this bitch near the Folger. This Delano Allen too. He was responsible for killing Emil. I want you with me - especially with these Black Muslims-" He stopped and turned to face Tony. "Are you going to have problems with that?"
"You going to feed on them?"
"I-" He realised he was hungry. "I may."
"Man, you've changed since last year." The black man chuckled. "I remember Emil and that Prince Karl ribbing you all the time about you not doing human blood."
"I didn't have one of my lover murdered last year either."
Tony nodded. "I hear that."
"Are you with me then?"
"All the way, man - just like last year." The man smiled back at him. "Come on, bro'. You wanted to walk; let's walk." He chuckled and took a step toward 6th Street. "`Sides, it might keep your mind off my neck," he shot back over his shoulder.
Tom was beside him in a moment. "Tony, I never - none of us - threatened you."
"I know it." He grinned. "But it's sort of nice to rile you up once in awhile just to keep you off balance - that being the best way of keeping you white boys under control."
"Tony!" This was a side of the black man he didn't remember. He figured part of it was because he was no longer prostituting himself but was pretty close to being through the computer school Karl was paying for. And he realised the man was relating to him from the American experience - something Tony hadn't done with either Karl or Emil.
"So, tell me what you boys been doing this past year over there in Berlin."
Tom grinned at the rapidity with which the man had changed the subject. "We've started our own porn production company-"
"Any pretty boys with that?"
"One or two . . . And before you ask, I don't know how good they are in bed."
Tony stopped and stared at him. "You white boy's ain't fucking the help?"
"Karl has some hang-ups about that."
"Lord, but don't I know it. That boss vampire probably keeps things so nice and level, you've been snoozing the past year."
"How are you doing, Tony? You should be getting through that computer school pretty soon-"
"Another four months before I've done my time." He snorted and started to walk again. "I've got to say I feel like I got my future by the horns for the first time in my life - and it ain't going to matter if I like dick or not."
"Our production company's holding a place for you - just like Karl promised."
"You going to let me sample all that European stuff you guys are putting out. Man, let me tell you, that last vid was the best one I ever saw."
"Glad you liked it. I directed it."
"You did?" Tom nodded as they turned onto 6th Street.
"You cool enough to think now, boss man?" Tony asked quietly.
Tom stopped and stared at the black man. "You bastard! You've had me running on about everything-"
"So you could get all those thoughts pulled together in that cute head of yours without worrying with them, honky. Now, then, tell old Tony what we're going to be doing and how we're going to do it."
"I'm going after this Moira Writer first. It seems she's got her all her fingers in the pie. I get the big picture from her - from the inside. That's something our FBI agent can't give me."
"I'm with you so far, boss man. You going after this fool nigger Boyd and that preacher were talking about next?"
Tom frowned. "I want to. He's the one who hired on the bomber. But I don't want to start a race war either."
"What race war?"
"This shit's something with the Mayor of New York. He hides behind that to keep the lines between the Nation of Islam and the Arab nuts open. I'll bet you those Muslims can scream to high hell if one of their boys has his neck bit or I tear him up."
"Toss him out a window. Those streets up there in New York are pretty tough and the buildings sure are high."
"Yeah. But the Black Muslims are probably the best organised group around outside of the Marines. I want to go after everybody who had anything to do with killing Emil - but I want to be right too."
"So, you're going to knock out the crackers after you fuck this white bitch?"
"They've got to be the easiest to take out. One night a piece."
"And Mr. Secret Agent Man back at the house and me - we get to watch a real vampire do the nasty shit?"
"You want that?"
"I may be as squeaky clean as the next clean Gene, boss man, and puke my fool head off when I'm seeing it - but, right now, it sounds like the best horror movie in town." He grinned broadly. "Besides, you just might need this darky when you go up against Mr. Shahrikhan's boys."
"I can't promise to keep you safe, Tony."
"You just keep an eye open for this nigger, boss man - and give him a few drops of blood if it looks like he's gone down for the count."
"You'd want that?"
Tony turned to gaze at him. "I ain't so sure about that. I like that mind ride of yours - it's faster than a speeding bullet. Only, forever is a really long fucking time. But, if my only other option is going to meet Jesus too early, I'd sure choose it in a New York minute."
"We'd better start back before our FBI man puts out an APB on us."
"You got it figured out which way you're going to go?"
"Yeah. And I want a lot more info on the Muslim connection to this before I put you into the middle of it."
"Okay, folks, this is the way I see this thing going down," Tom told the two men sitting on the sofa across from him. "We start our hunt tomorrow - with this cunt in the Speaker's office." He fixed the FBI agent with his gaze. "She's dead meat, Boyd. I want that understood going in. She fucked with me and mine, and that's something I'm not about to let anybody get away with. But I'm going to tear everything she knows out of her head first. Names, addresses, mental pictures - you name it, they're mine."
"You going to share?"
Tom grinned. "Vampires have photographic memories, Mr. Special Agent Man. You can have everything I get out of her and the others - including every scream in place."
"Who've you got down as next?"
"That one goes to the Aryan Nation, I think. They're just one group with one place to take out - out in Idaho, isn't it? Besides, they were the first to hit at us."
"They're going to have 20 to 30 men in that compound of theirs - all of them pretty well-armed."
Tom grinned. "I guess that means you and Tony need bullet-proof vests then."
"You're going to put us into the middle of that?"
The vampire laughed. "Hell! I never killed anybody until-" He glanced at the clock on the mantle. "About eight hours ago. I'm new at this business."
"Where was that?" Boyd asked, his cop instinct injecting itself.
Tom grinned and leaned close to the man's face. "Not in your jurisdiction, Mr. Special Agent. Let's just say your fascists over here don't have a German connection anymore."
"What happens if Moira Writer isn't the only bad apple in the Congress?" Boyd asked slowly.
"They're dead."
"Including the Speaker?"
"Including him, the President, the Pope, and anybody else who wants a piece of my ass. These arseholes killed Emil - it's payback time."
"You can't do that. I can't let you do that. You're talking about taking out the American government here."
"You can't do much to stop me, Mr. Special Agent," Tom told him, an edge growing in his voice.
"Hey, boys!" Tony growled. "Tom ain't talking about nobody good in the government. He's talking about people like that Broussard and Treman last year - like this Writer woman."
"He said he'd kill the Speaker of the House. That man becomes President if both the President and the vice-president go down."
"Yeah? And you'd let some heel-clicking cracker take over the country just because he's in line for `Hail To The Chief' - no matter what he's done?"
"There's the courts. The law-"
"We don't know if this bozo's in this shit or not," the black man pointed out as he turned to Tom, "you can put him to the side until you know where he stands."
"I already did."
"I don't think our man here thinks you did. I got the definite impression you'd take him out too - just for smiling funny." Tony smiled. "Why don't you both agree to let Prince Karl make the decision of what to do with Mr. Luke Renfroe?"
"Sure, I'll go along with that," Tom allowed and turned to watch Boyd put his sense of duty on hold.
Frowning, the FBI agent looked from one to the other of his companions before he shrugged. "I don't like it," he grumbled, "but I'll go along with it."
Tony grinned and pushed himself to his feet. "Now, we're all back on friendly ground," he offered as he began to pace the length of the room. "I'd like to know more about my end of this thing. I'm sort of running blind with this shit."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the FBI agent demanded.
He stopped and faced Boyd. "It means I get called over here and find out one of my buddies been killed over there in Europe. Before anybody fills me, I get to go on the mind ride to visit some local bigwig in the Nation of Islam in the middle of the night and watch our vampire here play in his head.
"It means, boys, I'd like to be filled in - coz I figure you two know something about what's going on and I don't. And it means I especially want to know all about this Blackest Brotherhood thing - coz it sort of figures we're going soon be turning those brothers white as fresh-washed sheets and I'm going to be involved in that up to my eyes."
"These characters decided to put Pat Koughlin's organisation back together," Boyd told him, "and they wanted to make an example of the Prince to kick things off." He glanced at Tom and asked: "That about it?"
He nodded. "Everything but this Blackest Brotherhood and your man Delano Allen."
"The Brotherhood wants a black homeland - with no whites allowed. They don't brook any opposition to Shahrakhan from within the Muslims and it's begun to look like they're spreading that out to the black community as a whole. They've kept their skirts clean - on the surface. But there's been some Malcolm X-type murders of the smaller fry who want to think for themselves."
"And this Allen guy?"
"It's hard to believe he's in on this kind of shit. He was a cop for years - moved into admin fast. He got his law degree a few years ago and started working in community development efforts in Harlem and Bed-Sty. But he's never shown the slightest inclination to racist thinking-"
"Mr. Agent man," Tony hooted. "If that nigger's a Muslim, he naturally doesn't like whitey. He thinks you boys stink. He wants you out of sight and out of mind."
"We didn't even know he was a Black Muslim."
Tony grinned. "You know it now." He turned to face Tom. "So, we got bubbahs with AK-47's out in the boonies of America we're going to see. And, when you get rid of them, we're going visiting brothers with uzis on street corners. This ever more sounds like fun, bro'."
He nodded and faced Boyd. "One thing I want to know before we call it a night - can you get to these Arabs this Brotherhood hired?"
The agent was silent long enough both his companions were uncomfortable. "You mean go in and wipe them out?"
"Emil isn't the only innocent they've killed. There was that Pan Am flight in the 80's. And some GI's in some disco after that."
"Listen to me, Tom MacPherson, neither the FBI nor the CIA has the authority to do things like that any more - not since some cowboys in the CIA joined up with Texas oil money to kill Kennedy. The American government isn't about to start killing foreign nationals, no matter what the cause. Any American official caught thinking about it can kiss his retirement good-bye and may be kissing his ass good-bye too. You got that?"
Tom nodded. "Good. Now, we ain't about to so much as talk about it again, are we? Coz if we do, that's when I walk out the front door and start covering my ass real close."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The mist hung close to the bottom step, resistant to seeping through the narrow crack between the stone door and its seal. Beyond the mausoleum, fog clung to the lake's surface and hid the jetty that defined the lakefront of my Berlin property. Water lapped against the pier, rhythmically breaking the silence.
I didn't want to view Emil's body again. I did but I didn't.
When I was with my guests at the farm near Flaming, I could almost forget what lay behind the door of this mausoleum. I could nearly put its awareness aside that my life could have function. The loss of the man and my sorrow at that loss was not so overwhelming.
Even when I had been alone during the day now behind me and the awareness of what I had lost was full in me, it wasn't totally painful. There was still life about me. My Americans guests and their antics spoke of that life continuing. From Lynda Renfroe clutching at maternal controls no longer there to her son exploring himself and his freedoms, the cycle of life was full. There was a balance between life and death away from this mausoleum, away from the house on the Wannsee. It was one my soul appreciated - and had sought throughout most of the evening now past.
But I was here. I had to be here; I had no choice. The body of the Swiss youth behind the door of the mausoleum drew me to it. It held my soul enthralled.
Emil's body focused my knowledge on the life ahead of me which would not include the Swiss I had learned to love so completely. And on the pain that knowledge held. I wallowed in that pain, my pain at his loss. It held complete possession of me now I was here that I knew nothing but that pain. A future of pain, a future of forever lost moments looming before me.
I forced the mist that was my body through the crack beneath the floor, spreading out across the damp stone floor beyond it.
I took human form and stood naked in the cold, silent darkness of the tomb and focused my eyes on the sarcophagus against the wall before me. On the effervescent paleness there that slowly became the shape of a body. Emil's body.
"Why did it have to be you?" I mumbled as I approached him. "It should have been me," I told him and knelt before him. "Or that damned American boy I have underfoot."
I immediately regretted including Jody on the list I would have given to death if I had the opportunity. I had saved the boy, as a host must save his guest. I had lived up to the responsibility his presence in my household put upon me. And I would not change what I had done for him even for Emil's life. Duty was one's first obligation in life and always had been.
I crawled closer to the sarcophagus, reaching out to touch my Swiss lover's arm in the darkness. "Liebchen," I mumbled and lay my cheek against the cold stone of death as tears welled in my eyes.
Memories flowed through my mind. An endless stream. The Promenadeplatt in Zurich the night I had found him. His willingness to follow me to America and watch me wait for Tom - because his love was already greater than his pride. His acceptance and inclusion of the American in our bed. His love's expansion to include the incarnation of the vampire who had held my soul through more than a hundred years. His laughter. His smile. His touch.
Memory combined with the physical reality of the pain that lay across my future. I was lost in their combined possession of me. I knew there were now two who possessed my soul equally. One now alive. The other dead with the sure promise of return if I could but find him when that happened.
My fingers encircled his wrist as tears became rivulets along the creases of my cheeks. I knelt there remembering and knowing the future before me.
I held his arm tightly, not yet willing to permit him to leave me. Flesh was reality as I knelt before the body I had known of one of the two souls I loved.
It grew at the far borders of my consciousness. Becoming a force that would become knowledge with which to invade my thoughts. A sure, slow, rhythmic thump against my finger.
It breached the barriers of my mind and rushed toward the centre of awareness, an unresistable invasion. My eyes grew round and sense became knowledge.
My fingers clutched the wrist I had held, searching it. And finding the pulse beneath its layers of derma.
I pulled back, pushing myself to my feet, and stared at the body before me. "Emi?" I whispered.
I touched his bared chest, feeling for the broken, jagged ribs there only yesterday. And found smooth, unbroken skin. Felt the smooth outline of his ribs. "Liebchen?"
My fingers moved hesitantly to his light, curly hair and began to search gingerly through it for the broken pieces of skull below the crown of his head that had been there yesterday. Again, there was smooth, unbroken skin - and smooth, seamless bone beneath it.
I pulled back, standing erect and staring down at him. Studying him and attempting to understand.
Death's chuckle echoed through the corridors of my mind, everywhere at once. The man on the white horse had had his joke and, now, he permitted me to understand. He had not come riding out for Emil Paulik as he had done for the American teen-ager. We had not contested my Swiss lover and I had not lost. There had been no hooves pounding through the walls dividing the planes of existence. No sound of armour. His sickle had not hissed through the elements to claim Emil.
Emil was a vampire. He would never know death, as I would not. But death had visited me with a knowledge I'd conveniently forgotten. And he had visited me with it closely as he had not when Tom's first incarnation I'd known died under the Cossack's blade in Petrograd or his second incarnation had died in that field of edelweiß.
"Du lebst, Emi," I whispered reverently, my relief gushing warmly out onto the cold, damp stones of death. "You live."
I reached for his mind, to touch it and know it too continued to exist.
Nichts. Nothing.
But . . . I stood in silent corridors. But they were corridors which still stood. There was life within them that held them together. I understood he lived as long as those corridors stood.
Coma.
It made sense. His skull and chest had been crushed. His body needed repair itself and had closed down most of its activities in order to do so, including thought. We did much the same when our bodies transformed our human cells into vampire cells. That took but a day. I permitted myself to wonder how long repairing the extensive damage Emil's body had sustained would take.
I opened his mouth and a final rush of relief coursed through me at his jaws' willingness to open. I bit into my wrist and opened a vein. And held it over his opened lips that I could sustain him with the life in my blood.
When I had healed myself, I gathered his body in my arms and pictured us both in our bedroom in the farm house near Flaming.
"My Prince!" Valentin mumbled sleepily as I stepped into the bedroom with Emil in my arms. "What-? Mein Gott!" he groaned as he realised who I held.
"He is dead, Prince von Muribor. Bury him. You cannot bring him back."
I smiled at him. "Blood flows through his veins."
He stared at me as if I were a lunatic. "Wirtlich?" he managed finally.
"Really. He didn't die, Valentin. His wounds are healing; he's but comatose."
"Gott sei Dank!"
Yes. Thank the god I could not believe in. Thank whatever forces made vampires capable of surviving even ceiling joists crashing into their skulls and crushing their bones. Whatever. Whoever. Emil was alive and would soon be with me again.
I realised then that Valentin was in my bedroom - and that it was nearly dawn. The strangeness of it forced itself into my mind.
"Why are you here?"
He glanced about the room cautiously before finally fixing me with his gaze. "The young ones, mein Herr. They are American and Czech. They are not German and do not understand German honour and brotherhood. I fear-"
I understood immediately. There was a bond between Valentin and myself - and, by extension, between him and my lovers. His loyal service to me ensured my loyal responsibility to and for him.
More than a hundred years separated our respective births. The political and social systems each of grew into were gone, lost under the waves of advancing history. Yet, to his mind - and to mine - we were both Germans. We accepted the brotherhood of our blood binding us.
The same might well not be true for the pleasure-driven American and Czech boys who were guests in my home. And who were now vampires. Their momentary pleasure could be death for this man waiting for me in his master's bedroom, taking refuge in its safety.
"Neither of them would hurt you," I offered and hoped it were true.
"They are still very much children, my Prince. They would not realise-"
"I'll speak with them this evening. I'll guarantee your safety then."
"Thank you, Sir." His attention returned to Emil. "He will need care through the day."
"In a dark place." I glanced about the room, trying to find a place he would be safe and comfortable.
"The larder, my Prince - it doesn't open on the outside. I shall watch after him."
I met Valentin's eyes. "You don't have to," I offered.
He smiled back to me. "But, Sir, I would be honoured if you will allow me."
I allowed the mortal to take Emil from my arms. Grudgingly. Now I had him back, I did not want him to part from me again. But dawn was streaking across the sky beyond the house. I already was tired and was beginning to feel faint. It would be a supreme effort of will to remain awake in the coming light of day.
"Sleep well, my Prince," Valentin called from the door as I sat on the edge of the bed.
I pushed off my shoes and lay back on the bed. Alone in my bed again - but not with the loneliness I had known when I thought Emil dead.
The sun's orb was above the horizon. I could feel it.
Alone? How could I be alone - even with Emil not beside me? I had Tom in addition to the Swiss.
But where was he? I hadn't seen him since the afternoon the Arab blew up the house.
Barbara Nightwing moaned as she moved her head in her sleep and she was pressing the wound against the pillow. Sure is soft, she told herself still asleep, love this goosedown.
There was an incongruity to that and it tugged at her sleep, pulling her awake. "We don't have goosedown pillows," she mumbled and opened her eyes.
The bed was placed wrong. It was softer. The walls were coloured wrong.
She sat up in bed and looked about her, groping for the memory of how she'd come in this strange place. She relaxed when she found Lynda scrunched up beside her. When she relaxed, she remembered.
She remembered that nice young lover of the Prince's stumbling. Then sweat getting into her eyes. But it hadn't been sweat. It'd been blood. Her blood. Her head was bleeding. And she knew she'd been shot.
She'd screamed. And fainted. Right there on the dirt road in sub-freezing temperatures.
Lynda had smiled and told her she was okay. It was only a scalp wound. When? Yesterday, she thought.
Another progression of thought. Scalp wound? Wounds meant bandages. And scalp meant under the hair.
Not my hair! Her hands shot to her head and began to search fearfully for the wound Lynda had said she had.
They found hair the moment they touched her temples. Gingerly, they moved to the back of her head before searching out her crown.
She smiled. She was finding all the black hair she always let be there.
Her fingers moved toward her forehead across the top of her head less carefully now. Until she found the bandage. Then she stopped.
And wanted to scream.
All her black hair. Lovely black hair. Gone. A swath an inch wide across the top of her head. Like the band that held earmuffs on her head when it was cold.
Instead, she clamped her jaws closed and elbowed Lynda awake.
"How bad does it look?" she demanded as the red-head was straightening out and turning toward her - before she could open her eyes fully.
"What?"
"My hair? My whole head?"
"God, honey! You weren't this touchy yesterday."
Barbara leaned back against the headboard, relaxing. "Maybe I was so surprised to be alive, I wasn't thinking clearly."
"It doesn't look too bad. Valentin says you can it off by the end of the week. Anyway, your hair will grow back."
"Doodles, I want to go home. I want to forget all about this shit. All of it."
Lynda Renfroe nodded. "I know. That's how I've been feeling since Jody-"
"Jody is one reason why we can't just forget it, Doodles."
"He's really a - one of them."
"You told me about how he and that cute guy he's sweet on-"
"Barbara Nightwing! That's enough of that, right now!"
She gazed at her lover and didn't flinch. "We went through this yesterday, didn't we? I thought you were getting to the point you accepted our little boy's queer as we are."
"Damn you!"
"What happened last night after I turned in?"
"They went out to the barn-" She paused, thinking her way through the events of the night before. "I guess maybe they did suck on some of the cows or something because Jody had some blood on his shirt when they came back in.
"They went to their room - it was barely past midnight and they were going to bed. Prince Karl was somewhere and Valentin had made himself scarce as hen's teeth . . . Honey, I listened at their door."
"Oh, Jesus!" Barbara wagged her head. "I can just see it now - lesbian mom gets her jollies listening in on her kid making it."
"Barbara!"
"Come on, Doodles, tell Mama everything you heard." She grinned at the other woman. "You know what kind of gossip I am. I just can't leave the juicy stuff alone."
"It sounded like they were necking and it was getting pretty heavy."
"And you continued to stand there listening to them?"
Lynda nodded.
"How long?"
"Maybe 30 minutes-"
"Jesus! So, what happened?"
"I couldn't see a thing."
"But you could hear. What happened?"
"I heard Jody gasp. Then he groaned - like he was hurting. My hand was half-way to the knob and I was going to go in there and give that little foreign piece of shit what for-"
"And?"
"Jody said for him to give him the rest of it."
"That's it?"
"They kept on and on, Honey. I couldn't believe it. That boy doing it to Jody."
"You're as bad as some Church of God mom trying to understand why her daughter's pregnant, Doodles. Those kids like each other. They like what their bodies do for each other. And they do it. Where's the smart ace reporter I'm in love with - the one who doesn't wear blinders?"
"But, Barbara, that boy was fucking Jody."
"So?"
"That's my son we're talking about."
"Those are two grown vampires we're talking about, Doodles. Even if they were still human, they're old enough to know what they want. And be legal doing it. You'd better hope our son learned some of our better points and makes them part of the way he runs his life."
"You're going to just accept that boy is lying down and spreading his legs for some foreigner we don't even know?"
Barbara grinned. "It'd be a lot better if it was one of beer-swilling buddies back home between his legs, wouldn't it? One who'd have it spread all over northern Virginia in a week."
"You!" Lynda pushed off the bed. "Jesus!"
"I think we need something to eat," Barbara observed after her stomach had growled audibly. "Think we can find plain old eggs and bacon?" She grinned. "And black coffee?"
Valentin woke with a start. His eyes darted frantically about the dim larder until he saw Emil lying at the far end of the room and remembered where he was. And why. He pushed himself to his feet and stretched.
He heard the women's voices beyond the door then and frowned. The American women! They were awake and in his kitchen. Why couldn't they be like Germans? Or even the Russians? And wait for him to do what the Prince employed him to do? Americans were so damned impetuous.
He glanced back at Emil, squinting to ensure he rested comfortably, and let himself out the door as he composed his face for the coming confrontation with the crazy women from America.
"Guten Morgen, gnadische Frauen," he greeted them. "Kaffee?"
Lynda glanced from the muscleman to Barbara. "How's your German this morning?"
Barbara grinned back. "I haven't picked any up recently. But it sounded like he asked us if we wanted coffee." She turned back to the man and nodded emphatically.
They chatted as Valentin busied himself, first, with making coffee and, then, putting together something with flour, eggs, and milk. Lynda fell silent and watched him for several moments.
"What's going on in that devious mind of yours, Doodles?" Barbara finally demanded.
"Did you notice he was in the larder when we came into the kitchen?"
"He cooks on top of everything else he does for Prince Karl."
"Yeah. But there's only two of us left who eat human food. Besides, the door was closed when we came in."
Barbara studied her for a moment. "What're you trying to say, Lynda Renfroe?"
"He's got something or someone in that larder that isn't exactly kosher."
"Maybe he sleeps in there?"
Lynda rolled her eyes. "He's got a room - right next to the boys'."
"You are a nosy one, aren't you?" She glanced at Valentin who was now frying his concoctions. "You think he's planning on shooting us?"
"No. But my curiosity is aroused."
Barbara laughed softly. "Well, go see, Doodles. I'll trip him up if he comes running after you."
Lynda smiled at her as she rose and wagged her head. "My five foot, two inch Washington Redskins linebacker. Maybe I ought to feel sorry for him." She jerked her head in Valentin's direction.
Barbara grinned back at her.
Lynda opened the larder door and turned on the overhead. "What-?" Valentin cried from across the kitchen and she heard him start toward her before she had even looked into the small room.
"Hold it, big boy," Barbara growled and her chair scrapped across the floor as she rose to block the approaching man.
"Nein, Frau Renfroe! Sie mußen nicht!" he called as he charged toward her. Lynda heard the wind being knocked out of him then and knew Barbara had gone for the servant's solar plexus.
Lynda stared at the body at the other end of the larder. "Jesus!" she groaned as Valentin reached her.
He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away from the door even as Barbara was pulling on his arm to keep him away from Lynda.
Lynda turned to face the two of them and pointed back into the larder. "That's Emil in there - the Swiss boy."
Valentin released her and nodded sheepishly. "Emil."
"What's wrong with him?" Barbara demanded, pushing past the man to see into the room.
"Er ist krank." He grabbed his stomach when he saw Lynda's lack of comprehension, miming a cramp.
"That doesn't look like a stomach ache to me," Barbara groused and pushed past Lynda to enter the larder.
It had taken most of the afternoon, all of the crepe-things Valentin had made, and several pots of coffee, but the women sitting at the table had an idea of what had happened to the Prince's Swiss lover.
"So what do we do for him?" Lynda asked. "Should we call in a doctor?"
"I think we'd better wait until the Prince can answer that." She chuckled. "And, somehow, I sort of doubt vampires go to doctors like we do."
"We can't just leave him laying on those sacks of flour in there."
A smile played across the smaller woman's lips. "Maybe you ought to feed him?"
Lynda nodded, her thoughts still on the man in the larder, and failed to pick up on her lover's mischievousness. "Yeah. Maybe some soup? I make a mean chicken soup-"
"I think they only take blood, Doodles. You could cut your wrist and let him drink that."
Lynda blanched and pushed away from the table, her chair scrapping over the floor. "Jesus shit! Girl, don't you ever set me up like that again!"
"Want to take a shower with me?" Jody asked, barely nuzzling Hans' ear with his lips.
The Czech smiled and opened his eyes. "That would nice. Will we do more than bathe?"
The American chuckled. "That too. Want to do me again?"
The smile fell from Hans' face and he glanced at the door at the end of the room. "Your mother. She will know, Liebchen - and she hates me already."
"Fuck her and the horse she rode in on."
"Jody!" The Czech turned back to him. "She is your mother."
"Yeah. My mother listening at the door while we made love last night - I don't care what she thinks."
Johan Kys grinned in spite of himself. "Did you enjoy your first time as much as you pretended to?"
"Yeah, I did." The American's face broke into a broad grin. "But I put on the dog too. I wanted that bitch to know I had your frigging dick in my ass."
"Do you think next time, you could moan a little less loudly," Hans chuckled. "I was almost embarrassed."
"I hope nosy Lynda was. I'd have loved to see her face while she was listening. For a frigging lesbian, that woman has dick on the brain."
"It is you who are on her brain. She is a mother lioness protecting her cub."
Jody pushed down the bedcovers and grabbed his tumescent manhood. "I'm not exactly a cub any more. Or have you already forgotten just because we changed positions last night?"
Hans grinned and reached for Jody. "I have not forgotten."
Jody laughed and was gone. |Come to the shower if you want more, cute ass,| he projected to the other boy and turned on the shower.
Lynda's face tightened and her eyes narrowed. "They're showering together," she hissed to Barbara.
"We'd have heard them going down the hall, Doodles."
"You hear the water running, don't you?"
Barbara listened and nodded slowly. "That doesn't mean they're both in there-"
"You want to go check their room?"
"So what, Doodles? They're old enough. They like each other-"
"Yeah. And that foreign floozy's balling my kid silly."
"That man has the right to decide who and what he does-"
"Not when he's living under my roof and I'm paying the frigging bills, he doesn't."
"I pay half of them," Barbara reminded her softly.
"Shit! And you don't care if Jody spreads his legs for every man in DC."
"Lynda, that's not true." Barbara pushed her chair from the kitchen table and rose. "I think I'm going to take a walk and avoid what looks like a full-fledged argument if I stay around."
Silently, Lynda Renfroe watched her lover enter the hall, heard her enter their room, and watched her pass back by her on her way to the back door. The silence between them continued as Barbara pulled on her coat and stepped out into the cold. She felt deserted. And confused. And angry.
Jody almost dying - because she brought him with her. Barbara nearly getting her head blown open - because she brought her with her. That poor Emil lying in a coma there in the larder because someone bombed the house in Berlin. Trying to communicate with a servant who couldn't speak English. And Jody going queer on her - with one of these damned foreigners. It was enough to have her pulling her hair out