The Count turns his head and whistles.

– Oh, man, that is rude. I mean, who needs to see that shit? Nasty.

He takes a seat on the floor next to me.

– But that’s the way they rock it here. One of them dies, doesn’t matter what they were before they went out, they get gutted and nailed to the wall. Some kind of lesson thing. That’s what the guy told me when I asked.

– They’ll boil his bones and eat the marrow.

He looks at me.

– No shit?

I pull a hand from my armpit. It’s stopped shaking. I take the smoke from my mouth.

– Yeah. That’s the deal.

– Whoa. Man. Can’t say I’m looking forward to that.

He nudges me with his shoulder.

– Then again, check this out. You know the bones, that’s where blood gets made. In the marrow. Like, by the time we’re adults, it’s only made in a few places. Your spine, sternum, pelvis, some little patches in your upper arms and legs. That’s where you get your good old, controversial pluripotential hematopoietic stem cells. Try saying that shit five times fast. Stem cells manufacture blood cells, determine that they will be blood cells. So think about this. Drink another Vampyre’s blood and get sick as hell. Unless it’s super freshly infected and has been made into anathema. In which case you get high as hell. So what happens when you eat a dead Vampyre’s marrow, man? His stem-cell factories?

He licks his lips.

– I’m guessing you get some weird deep Amazonian Carlos Castaneda shaman fungus high.

He shakes his head.

– I’m not saying I’m gonna be thinking about where that shit came from, but I’m dying to try me some of that soup.

The Enclave pulls a wad of tumors from Daniel’s body.

The Count turns his head again.

– What say we move this conversation?

He stands.

I watch pieces of Daniel hit the floor.

I stand. The Count reaches to help me and I pull away and stumble, but I keep my feet.

He raises his hands.

– As you wish, man. Just trying to help.

I follow him.

He limps on that foot I ruined for him. I limp on the knee Daniel tried to fix for me.

– Wanted to thank you, by the way. I don’t remember too much about what went down at my place. But from what I can put together, probably would have been easiest thing just to waste me.

He grins.

– ’Course, knowing I still hold the purse strings on my trust fund, that was unlikely. I mean, experience has taught me you can knock me around if it amuses you, but Terry would be steamed if you ever kacked my ass before he can get his hands on those accounts.

He stops, blinks a few times, takes a couple deep breaths.

– Sorry. Whew. Shit I went through the last twelve hours, wrung me out, man. Going cold turkey on the anathema. Bleeding the Vyrus dry. That was some extreme shit. I mean, I knew I was asking for trouble, but damn.

He snaps his head from side to side.

– Whammywhammywhammy! Shit had me on the ropes. Oh, check this out.

Ahead of us two Enclave are sparring.

A whirl of blurred white limbs.

Crack of bone on bone.

The Count makes karate hands and chops the air.

– That’s the shit I’m really looking forward to. Getting my kung fu on. I know I’m not the kind of guy you expect extreme patience and discipline from, but if it means coming out the other side with moves like these guys, I will meditate until my ass bleeds. I mean, whoa that shit is badass.

The stairs are close by. I turn and look at them.

The Count comes over.

– Me, I’m a little surprised they can get it up to do that shit. Losing Daniel, way I gather it, that’s like a major setback, yeah?

– I guess.

– Guess nothing, man. You’ve been hanging out at this place for a few years now, right?

– I come by sometimes.

– Sure. So he was the man. I mean, I only spent a couple hours with the guy while he was helping me get straight last night, but even I could see he was righteous beyond the ken of normal men. If you follow.

– I follow.

– So now, the way he laid it out, one of them is always on point, leading the way toward what he tried to do. Toward the whole transmutation thing they’re into.

– Something like that.

– And he was way ahead of the pack. He was, like, the best hope they’d have for, like, forever. Now, man, it’s like they are at square one or something. Got to pick up with whoever’s been fasting the longest. What I hear, the dude in second place is way back from where Daniel was. But here they are, carrying on, doing their thing. And on top of that, they’re getting ready to eat their Dalai Lama’s marrow. Telling you, these are some well-adjusted citizens.

– Count.

– Yeah.

– You’re talking a lot.

– Well, I do do that, don’t I?

I face him.

– I have something I need to do. So get to the point.

He scratches his head.

– The girl. Right.

He points at the stairs.

– Come on, I’ll show you where.

He starts. I don’t move. He looks back.

– C’mon, man. Not like it’s a secret or anything. Place isn’t that huge. There’s a sick girl in the house. Everyone knows it. So come on up.

He leads me up.

– Daniel kind of filled me in. Not that he was gossiping or anything, but he was just talking. He always spacey like that?

– No. He wasn’t.

– Was last night. Don’t get me wrong, man was like a fucking magician with me. Like, I don’t know what, like Zoltan the Mind Master or something.

He stops on the stairs and looks into my eyes.

– Dude locked eyes with me, put a hand on me, was like he, man, went into me. Which I know is just the gayest thing you’ve ever heard, but that’s what it was like. The Vyrus, it was tearing me apart. Eating me. Was like he told it to chill. Got me to balance with it. And I did. A-fucking-mazing. Only lasted for a couple seconds maybe. But I was there. This perfect point where the Vyrus was kind of at its most pure and raging, and I was, I don’t know what, riding it or something. Talk about a high? That is something I will feel again.

He moves his eyes from mine.

– After that, he gave me a little blood. Knew I couldn’t contain that shit. Vyrus settled. I mean, I am starving here, but it settled. Best thing? It worked.

He inhales deep, lets it out.

– Like, all my thinking about anathema, and how you hooked me on the bad dose, and the way that…man. The way that felt. Wanting to get out from under that more than anything. And the reading I was doing for Terry. Learning about regular viruses and shit. I knew there had to be a way to burn that shit out of your system. I knew it.

He taps my chest.

– And, Joe, I knew you were the guy to turn to.

He starts back up the stairs.

– Not that I thought you’d nurse me through if I asked or anything. I just figured me and my money are too valuable to lose. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t ready to die, man. Was I ever.

We reach the top of the stairs and he puts a hand on the wall and closes his eyes.

– Hang on a sec, man. Still rocked. You see things, Joe. When you dose like that, you see things. I’m not saying they’re real, but you see them.

He opens his eyes.

– I saw shit. All that stuff on the walls and the floor. I mean, that was no act. I started flippin’. I thought something was coming for me. Started reading Crowley and shit online. Wicca.com. I mean, lame. But I was scared. Once I stopped feeding. Once I poured out the last load of anathema Terry sent by, I went somewhere else. I was ready, man. I was ready to die.

He takes his hand from the wall.

– Then you came. Well, you had to. You and Phil are the only ones who ever came over. Phil to drop off blood and anathema. You to tell me how much money Terry wanted transferred into the Society account. Knew Phil would call you if he found me first. Only real risk far as that went was if I would drink him.