It was like being a kid again and believing Dad could keep the monsters under the bed from getting me as I slept. Only this time the monsters were real, and instead of leaving the closet light on, he had his Casull in his lap to keep them from coming through the windows and ripping my throat out.

'Course, when I come to around noon, he was sprawled out in the recliner snoring like a chainsaw, with Rex curled up at his feet and drooling a puddle out in front of both of them. I give Dad's chair a nudge with my foot and he woke up with a start, cocking back the hammer.

"Easy old man," I said, punching up the pillows so I could lean on one arm. "I thought you was supposed to be watching over me."

He put the pistol down, stood up and then give Rex a nudge. "Damn mutt, you were supposed to keep me awake." Rex stared wide-eyed up at Dad for a second, then come over to see if I was okay After sniffing around my face while I pushed feebly at him, he decided I was okay and curled back up.

"Look at my house," Dad said, standing up to stretch, still mumbling excuses as to how he came to be sleeping when he was supposed to be guarding me. He started picking up broken things and straightening this and that, pausing only long enough to complain about how sore his shooting wrist was, rubbing it now and again. From the vantage point of the couch, I watched him mutter and mumble his way into the kitchen where he fished the coffee pot out of the mess and blew Vampire ash off it before plugging it in. "Least this still works," he yelled to me, and brewed up a pot.

When it finished brewing, he poured two cups and pulled a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. With a steady hand he poured a stiff dollop into each cup. "I can't believe how much trouble kids can be," he said, handing me the cup. "Tell me one more time."

"Vampires, Dad. Vampires," I snapped. "Blood sucking, Goddamn, got-Lizzie Vampires."

"I just can't believe it," he said.

"Can you believe that son of a bitch was standing there with a hole through him big enough to pack a lunch in?"

"Only 'cause I seen it."

"I'd already shot that bastard four times up in the mountains. Stabbed him, too."

He sat quiet for a minute. "Always told you that Colt was too small," he said at last.

I swung my feet out of bed and winced at the discovery of pain. "I gotta find Lizzie. I gotta go to New York." The room got a little fuzzy and he laid his hand on my shoulder, gently laying me back down.

"We gotta fix you up first, boy. Can't fight no Vampires all busted up. I'm gonna call the vet."

Doc Near has been practicing veterinarian medicine in the greater LonePine area at least since I was born. I know this to be true because he delivered me. Since the nearest hospital is close to a hundred miles away and the M.D. only comes up from Jackson on Wednesdays and Fridays, Doc Near is accustomed to treating a variety of human ailments and conditions on top of his animal doctoring. Him and Dad go way back, so when Dad made the call to Doc Near's receptionist saying it was an emergency, she said she'd send him right over.

Within fifteen minutes he come rattling up the road and parked his old blue truck down by the barn, no doubt expecting some sick cow or birthing mare to tend. Dad went out on the porch and waved him up to the house. While we waited, he pulled a box of powdered-sugar donuts out of the cupboard and set them out on the table along with another cup of coffee fortified with a splash of whiskey.

"Cmon in," he hollered when he heard boots on the porch.

Doc Near pushed the door open and stood there in his one-armed coveralls, which made me suspect he'd been preg testing over at the Dryers' place, and also made me hope he'd washed up proper. There was sixty-odd years of living lining his face -

every wrinkle and crease was like the rings in a tree trunk, bearing testimony to the hard winters and long summers he'd spent outside with his arm stuck up a cow or down a horse.

His eyes lit right up when he saw them donuts. "Howdy, old man. What's the emergency? Can I have some of them donuts?"

"Help yourself," Dad said, "and that's the emergency." He pointed at me.

Doc took a look at me setting bruised and uncertain on the edge of the bed. "Damn, Tucker. How'd you get so banged up?"

"That's a long story," I said.

There didn't seem to be much for him to do other than poke and prod around the painful parts and shake his head whenever I grunted. He set my ribs tight with gauze and cleaned up the scrapes I had around my neck and on my face where I'd been punched. He went out to his truck and come back with a handful of painkillers for doping up racehorses. Each one was about the size of a new potato and he said to gnaw off an aspirin-sized chunk whenever I got to hurting, so I went ahead and took a double dose. Right away, I got to feeling better and by the time I had told him my story, things seemed bearable. Down deep inside, though, lay a terrible fear and longing for Lizzie, quiet and despairing like a wounded bear holed up in the brush.

By the time I finished up telling about Dad shooting the Vampire, Doc was staring at me with his mouth hanging open. "That's some story," he said. "Are you sure you didn't fall on your head?"

"He's dead serious," Dad said, and Doc swiveled around to face him to see whether we was just pulling his leg, but Dad nodded solemnly. "I wouldn't have believed it neither, but I shot that son of a bitch and he just stood there looking surprised and not thinking at all about dying."

"Know anything about Vampires?" I asked.

"Tucker, for Chrissakes, I'm a veterinarian," he said, but that didn't seem to matter much once he started talking.

After fifteen minutes, about the only thing I learned for sure was that Doc Near could put away the donuts. All he had to say was really no different than anyone who had been single for twenty years and had a weakness for late night television. He said Vampires are real strong. I already knew that. Vampires are real hard to kill, he said, which I had also learned. Vampires drink blood, he said, and although I hadn't found that out specifically, Snort's death seemed ample evidence of that theory Other'n that, all he knew was that Vampires come from Transylvania, they're sort of a cross between dead and alive, which was why folks call them undead, and they can't stand sunlight, crosses, or holy water. "You got lucky," he said at last.

"I don't feel particularly lucky."

"Think about it. You tangled with one of them mythic creatures of the night and whipped his ass."

"Yeah, maybe so, but they still got Lizzie. And there's a whole lot of them I gotta get through to find her."

"What the hell do they want with her?"

"I don't know."

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," Dad said. He pulled a box of ammo out of his gun case, tossed it up on the bed with the Casull, and pulled a beat-up suitcase out of the closet by its rope handle.

"We ain't about to find out anything, 'cause you ain't going with me to New York."

"I sure as hell am." He drew his shoulders up high and stuck out his chest in what Mom used to call his John Wayne pose. Used to piss him off, too, but me and my brother liked to hear her teasing him that way. Ain't no one else in the world could've got by with it.

"Someone's got to watch your back, boy. Be damned if I'm gonna sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while you get yourself in trouble."

"Rex'll watch my back." He thumped the stump of his tail at the mention of his name. "Besides, I need you here in case she tries to call or something."

"You know," Doc Near said, cutting off our debate, "it probably wasn't the shooting that killed him. It was the log you stuck through him. Or the fire. The next time may not be so easy. You think about that?"

"If that's so, even the .454 won't be enough. You're gonna need something special," Dad said.

"How the hell am I supposed to kill them, then?" Then it hit me and I snapped my fingers. "I'm gonna drive up to Lenny's. If there's anybody can help me out now, it's him."

LAGUARDIA AIRPORT

October 9, 2001 5:15 A.M.

In the chill of the early morning, in a darkness that gave little evidence the sun would ever rise again, the Lear jet taxied to a stop outside an isolated terminal building. Wordlessly, the pilot emerged from the cockpit, negotiated stoically through the seated passengers and opened the hatch, extending the stairs.

"Quickly," Elita snapped, "we haven't much time. David, you and your friend put her in the coffin by the back hatch. The ground crew will meet you there and escort our little Queen to the hearse. Make certain you leave the casket open a bit. Remember, she's not undead yet. It would be a shame for her to expire by such pedestrian means as suffocation before Julius has an opportunity to turn her. I'll join you outside."

She took the stairs cautiously, scenting the predawn air like a panther. Satisfied, she walked briskly to the back of the jet, heels clicking across the tarmac. In all black, she was dressed in the manner of a mourner, a silk scarf around her throat and thin gloves past the elbow. She was aware throughout of Julius' presence, watching. Always watching. A baggage handler popped the back hatch and rolled a metal stand to the door. David and his companion wrestled a deeply lacquered coffin out of the plane and set it onto the stand. It was light in their powerful hands but unwieldy, and a corner of the hatchway ripped a long scratch down the center.

"Imbeciles," she snapped, rearranging the weighty bulk as easily as she might her hair. "Come, quickly" She studied the horizon for light. Pulling the scarf tighter, she ignored the famine in her stomach and soul, accompanying the lackeys as they rolled the coffin toward the hearse.

Julius was indeed waiting, demurely leaning against the hearse. He was dressed casually in tan linen pants with a soft leather bomber jacket. Calm as usual, his features were drawn and she wondered if he ate at all anymore or instead chose to suffer the hunger silently, using the pain to fuel his grandiose schemes. He embraced her lightly, kissed her coolly on the cheek. His gaze fell on the coffin. "I trust all went well?"

"We have her, if that's what you mean." She smiled weakly while inside she raged at Wyoming, her hunger, Julius, the Queen, and cowboys in general.

"Where is Desard?"

"He chose to stay behind and take care of any..."

"Loose ends?" Julius interjected. "So loyal. So obedient."

"He'd make a fine dog," Elita said sarcastically.

"Charming as usual at the end of a long night. Let's take a look, shall we?"

"Here?" she asked, arching her eyebrow. "With all these people around?"

He waved his hand around. "Why, it's practically deserted. And who would dare question the newly bereaved?" He flipped the lid open, and stood frozen at the sight revealed. Lizzie lay on a satin pillow, her cascading hair framing her pale face. Still drugged, she rested peacefully, innocent as a child and breathing shallowly. "Quite lovely, even beautiful, I'd say. That certainly makes my task more pleasant. It's a pity, however, that she had to be brought against her will. I had hoped the party would whet her natural appetite for. blood and create a willing participant." He stroked her cheek absently, ran his fingers through her hair.

Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her forehead. "Now I shall appeal to her intellectual side, since the physical failed so abysmally I certainly would not want history to write that I had not properly seduced the catalyst of our greatest act since Genesis."

"The uncreation," said Elita dutifully, knowing just when to chime in with the proper words for the conversation they had shared so many, many times before. She knew that it was likely to end sooner, and thus she was likely to get home sooner, if she simply helped him cycle through his enthusiasm, rather than try to divert him.

"Yes, yes," responded Julius, nearly in a whisper, "she will give me the power to reverse creation." Abruptly, he shut the coffin lid. "Job well done, Elita. Well done."

"Thank you, Julius," she said, hoping her jealousy was undetectable, "but can we continue this charming reunion later tonight?"

She looked at her watch. "The sun is so very damaging to my complexion."

He smiled tightly. "Gentlemen, bring her along." Elita tried her best to ignore the rumbling in her veins.