Vic shook his head. “No, he don’t. Eddie thinks he’s hearing the voice of God in his head. Eddie’s this whole-milk-drinking, on-his-knees praying, Bible-thumping child of Jesus, so the Man’s been riffing off that, twisting his faith even more while at the same time making him think he’s the avenging son of Heaven or some shit.”

That nudged an appreciative chuckle out of Ruger. “Sweet.”

“Point is, if one of us—especially one of your bunch—kills Mike, then what he is, his essence will be released to the whole town. Once that happens every stick, stone, and blade of grass will be like a holy weapon. It be like everything was radioactive—none of you could even walk here, and the Man wouldn’t be able to rise.”

“That’s what being a dhampyr means?”

There was a flicker of hesitation before Vic answered, “It’s part of what it means. It’s in the folklore, in the traditions. I don’t want to get it into right now, either…that’s not part of your end of things except that you just make sure your crowd doesn’t put the chomp on him. We clear on that?” Vic pursed his lips for a moment. “If Eddie can’t get the job done by, say, next week, then I’ll just take a baseball bat to the kid’s knees just so he’s not in the game during the Wave. Been wanting to do that for some time. Kid’s a serious disappointment.”

“Maybe he has too much of his father in him.”

“Watch your mouth—”

“Not him, dumbass, I meant the—whaddya call it?—the biological father. Maybe he picked up the pussy goody-two-shoes gene or something.”

“Yeah,” Vic conceded grudgingly. “Maybe. Genetics and the supernatural make a weird cocktail. You can sure as hell bet no one’s ever studied it, so all of us, even the Man, are making some of this shit up as we go. Sometimes you never know how things’ll turn out.”

“In a pinch you could always handcuff the little punk to the radiator come Halloween morning. Let him just sit the whole thing out. Ever thought of something as simple as that, Einstein?”

“Of course I have.” Vic felt his face flush because it was so simple a solution that he’d over-thought the situation. So, apparently, had the Man. “We’re getting off the point here. About the only thing we managed to get right yesterday was stealing Boyd’s body…though we’d both better hope that our little bit of stage dressing is going to do the trick.”

“We gotta consider spin control here. Crow and that faggot reporter saw too much down in the Hollow. We have to keep him quiet. Maybe take the Guthrie bitch and hold her hostage to force him to keep his mouth shut, or threaten her and the baby she’s carrying.”

“Be a tricky play, Sport. Do it too soon it would mean having to hold her for two weeks. You got to remember that Crow was a cop and he’s still cop-connected. There’s ten thousand ways that could go south on us. On the other hand, if we wait too long he’ll probably be poking his nose where it don’t belong.”

“That Guthrie bitch probably knows what Boyd is…or was, I mean.”

“Yeah, damn it.” Vic sipped his drink. “We have to slow down any attempts they make to investigate things. I have the Man’s house rigged, but that’s only if they get there closer to the Wave. Until then we have to make things look ordinary so nothing screws up the tourist flow.”

“If we have to we can move the nest out of there. Or we can tweak the scene, make it look like Boyd was using it as a hideout. That’ll sell if Polk can handle playing an actual cop.”

“Polk’ll do whatever he’s told, but there’s another potential player in all this and he’s someone people will listen to—that Jew doctor…Weinstock.”

“What about him? We stole Boyd’s body…he don’t have jack shit.”

“Don’t you ever watch CSI or any of them shows?”

“No, jackass, I actually have a life.”

“Not anymore,” Vic said and there was a long moment when the two of them stared hard at each other, then Ruger’s lip twitched and they both burst out laughing. Ruger beat the arm of his chair as he howled and Vic had to set down his drink to keep from spilling it down his shirtfront.

“Okay, okay, that’s one for you, you son of a bitch,” Ruger said as the laughter died down. “Get to where you were going, though. How’s the doctor going to be a problem?”

“Forensic evidence. He autopsied those two cops Boyd killed. Castle and Cowan. He’s got to have lab reports and shit. And Polk told us they had morgue video of Boyd stealing your body…what if there’s tape of Cowan and Castle getting up to go out for a stroll?”

“Balls. Even so, we certainly can’t kill him right now. There’s no one to pin it on and it’d draw the wrong kind of attention.”

Vic nodded. “Plus, he’s a good friend of Crow and Guthrie. It’d be way too high profile, too many of the wrong connections, and it would just strengthen anything Crow had to say.”

Ruger’s mouth gave an ugly tremble. “I could turn him.”

Vic considered, but then shook his head. “Too chancy. We run the risk of him going brain dead.”

“Yeah…which is something I don’t quite get. About one in five of the people I turn wakes up with ‘No Sale’ written on his eyeballs. Like Boyd, only worse in a lot of cases. It’s a pain in the ass, and it’s dangerous to the plan. They don’t like following orders, even if they understand the orders, which I friggin’ doubt. When they’re not milling around groaning like extras from Night of the Living Dead, they’re trying to break out to go hunt. I had to put a few of them down ’cause they were just too unruly. You’re the expert…what’s with that shit?”

“Hell if I know. Some vampires are like that. Not everyone wakes up smart and charming. Look at you, for instance.”

Ruger shot him the finger. He said, “Are you sure they’re actual vampires? They’re more like zombies.”

“Supposed to be vamps, according to the Man. Just different. Just like some of you guys have retractable fangs and some don’t. Some of you guys have these oversized chompers that look like walrus teeth, and some don’t and can pass for Joe Normal. Lots of different species. Maybe it has something to do with ethnic background, who knows? The only ones that are a real problem are those Dead Heads like Boyd. At first I thought he was a fluke but, you’re right, it seems to be a pattern, and that could hurt us if it gets out of hand.” He shook his head. “So, I guess, we can’t risk having it happen to the Jew. Not yet.”

“Well, then the answer’s pretty obvious—we have to find out if he has any forensic stuff, find out where he keeps it, and then get rid of it. Simple as that. Steal his files, fry his hard drive. Your boy Polk’s supposed to be a computer geek, right? He could find out what the doc has stored. Delete it or some shit.”

Vic looked thoughtful as he sipped his whiskey. “That’s not bad. Another job for Jimmy-boy. And in the meantime I have to make a decision about Cowan and Castle. Much as we need soldiers we don’t need liabilities.”

“Let me handle that end of things. Those guys belong to me.”

“You mean they belong to the Man,” Vic said, a warning edge in his voice.

Ruger smiled. “That’s what I meant.”

2

Crow heard someone call his name and looked up from the hallway water fountain to see Saul Weinstock coming out of the elevator, his clothes sweat-stained and soiled and his face as gray as five-day-old steak. Crow stepped forward, offering his hand, but Weinstock clamped a hand around his bicep, spun him, and dragged him back down the hall to Val’s room. “We have to talk…right now.”

Once they were inside Crow pulled his arm free. “I’ve been trying to get to you all night. How’s Val?”

“She’s fine, she’s fine…look there’s something else I have to—”

Crow put his palm flat on Weinstock’s chest and gave him the smallest of pushes—not hard, but hard enough. “Saul…tell me about Val. Now.”

Weinstock blinked in confusion for a moment, then his face cleared. “Right, sorry, man…you can’t imagine the kind of night I’ve had. Can I at least give you the short version?”

“Shortish, but tell me something before the big vein in my head pops.”

“All right, all right…Val has a fracture of the medial wall of the orbit and a mild concussion. We did a CT scan and there’s no evidence of a subdural hematoma and though there is some damage to the maxillary sinus there’s been no blowout injury—which is a fairly common result of the kind of injury she sustained.” He looked at his watch. “I have a neurologist coming in at nine this morning to do a more complete workup. Val’s probably going to have headaches for a while, some loss of balance, double vision, maybe some short-term memory loss. We’ve been worried about retinal detachment, but it’s looking better, though we’re still waiting on that report from Dr. Barrett. I told them to page me the second he’s done with her, and they’ll be bringing her up here. Should be pretty soon. If the retina’s good, then there may not even be any vision loss. Considering the trauma she’s had, she’s got luck on her side.”

“Luck’s relative,” Crow said. “You told Sarah that Terry was lucky.”

Weinstock looked pained. “Yeah, well, around here any time a doctor gets to give news that’s not worst-case scenario ‘luck’ is a good word to use. Believe me, we don’t get to use it enough. But I hear what you’re saying, what with Mark and Connie and all.”

Crow gripped Weinstock’s sleeve. “What about the baby? I’ve been terrified to even ask. She didn’t…lose it?”

Weinstock brightened. “No, thank God. For a slender woman Val has the constitution of a bison. We ran every test in the book and even made up a few new ones, and as far as our OB resident is concerned everything is looking good. Even so, Gail Somerfield will be here later this morning and there’s no better OB-GYN in the state. I love Val, and I’ll be damned if after all that’s happened I will let anything happen to her or her baby.” He paused and gave Crow a warm smile. “Your baby.”