“What kind of tension?”

“There’s a small but vocal minority within the high council who wants greater control over the vampire community. The majority, the status quo, says we continue with our laissez-faire approach. Only when a vampire threatens the Great Secret do we act. Outside of that, we’re each on our own.”

“You mentioned ‘reintroduced,’ meaning this tension has existed before.”

Her blue heeler began sniffing one of the memorials in the garden. Phyllis whistled. The dog lowered its leg, gave an open-mouth dog grin, and trotted away.

“It’s always been under the surface but not this pronounced,” Phyllis replied, “not recently anyway. The flip side to control is who determines what control is? What is acceptable, what is not, and how are the rules enforced?”

“Not recently? There’s a history to this?”

Phyllis’s aura dimmed and nodules of discomfort budded along the penumbra. Considering how cool she’d been before, this must be some bad news.

“Civil war. It happened in the thirteenth century, about a hundred years after the Araneum was formed in reaction to the growing threat of the Knights Templar. The vampire leaders turned on each other, followed by assassinations, then more violence, and eventually an undead bloodbath. We almost exterminated ourselves.”

“What saved us?”

“It wasn’t because we came to our collective senses. All trust in the leaders collapsed and the violence lost its momentum. Basically, we got tired of killing one another.”

“Interesting lesson. I’ve heard about our past troubles but I didn’t know of a war among us.”

“It’s not a moment we’re proud of. The war proved we are more human than we want to admit, despite what we say and how we act. The human lurking inside of us does more than nag our conscience with the need for compassion and the yearning for love. It also nurtures the irrational lust for mass violence and destruction.”

“And Carmen’s kidnapping by the aliens has rekindled this argument?”

“More than rekindled. And it’s more than about Carmen. Or you. The aliens are a new threat and we have to decide how to deal with them. They’ll be back and they’ll want more. We have to be ready. We’ve learned the humans are willing to sell themselves for petty material gain.”

“That a surprise?”

“’Course not. Heaven help us if we get in the way.”

I hadn’t realized any of this. I was worried about getting my ears boxed by the Araneum, while the problem was way beyond that.

Phyllis continued. “The aliens have a psychotronic device, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Meaning they have a primitive understanding of psychic energy but the point is, they know. This time they used money and the illusion of power to control humans. The next time they might have a more advanced version of the psychotronic device, something that can directly manipulate humans, or even us.”

“Where does this leave me?”

Phyllis extended an index finger and touched the tip with her other hand. “Right here. At the vanguard. You’re the point man in our negotiations with the aliens. They come back, you’ll talk to them.”

“And if I find a way to rescue Carmen?”

“Consult with the Araneum before you do anything. We’ll help in whatever way we can.”

“You sound like you know something I don’t.”

“We’re not keeping anything from you, Felix.” Her aura stayed calm. Still, Phyllis represented authority and those in charge always take liberties with your fate. If you object, it’s because you can’t “appreciate” the big picture.

“What about Goodman?” I asked. “He’s dead but the people he worked for know a lot about Carmen and me.”

“The government has a vested interest in keeping what happened quiet. We have family and chalices in place who can arrange that.”

She opened the messenger bag and pulled out a small glass bottle with a chartreuse-pine spider inside. “You know about this?”

“I do. Wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why?”

I told her my experience with the spider bite and that it had left me worse off.

She stuck the bottle back into her bag and slipped out pages from The Undead Kama Sutra. “And this?”

“Carmen about had it figured out.”

“So it works?”

“She was close.”

Phyllis nodded, allowing herself a fleeting expression of regret. She put the pages back in the bag. She pursed her lips and whistled. The dog perked its ears and loped back to her. She clipped the leash to its collar.

“Later, Felix. Try and stay out of trouble.” Her aura pulsed and she smiled. “For as long as you can.”

I sat where my adventures usually began. In my office on the second floor of the Oriental Theater in Denver, Colorado.

I flipped from website to website on my laptop. The owners of the Grand Atlantic Resort blamed a foiled robbery for the shootout week before last. The hotel canceled all reservations and conferences, citing security concerns and structural damage. Two days later the resort was sold to Cress Tech International, and the next morning, the assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard arrived off the shore of Hilton Head Island. Helicopters ferried a battalion of marines, who formed a perimeter around the hotel complex. Landing craft shuttled Seabees and their heavy equipment from the ship to the beach. The sailors quickly demolished the hotel and surrounding buildings. They hauled the debris to the beach, where a dredging crane clawed through the piles and dumped them onto a barge guarded by patrol boats. By the time the sun had set the next day, all that remained of the Grand Atlantic was a shallow hole littered with concrete, broken glass, and twisted lengths of rebar.

The Beaufort County citizens’ coalition threatened to sue the federal government and Cress Tech for violating scores of environmental and economic impact laws. The Hilton Head Association of Retirees also threatened to sue, because the noise from the demolition had ruined their golfing “experience.”

No mention of aliens or kidnapped women. A link on one of the websites told about a helicopter from the Department of Homeland Security, recovered from a marsh inland of the Carolina coast. A spokesman from Homeland Security didn’t say if the incident was related to what happened at the Grand Atlantic.

Rizè-Blu announced that it was temporarily suspending production of its cosmetic actualizers Olympicin, NuGrumatex, Luvitmor, and Tigernene, citing problems with quality control. The price of Rizè-Blu shares fell, and a Swiss spokes-blonde stated that the drop in production had nothing to do with the sudden cancellation of all the Eden Water-Green Planet projects, Rizè-Blu’s partnership with Cress Tech.

Of course, I knew the truth. Clayborn had told me that without updating the formula, the actualizers would be useless. Without the profits of the actualizers, Rizè-Blu and Cress Tech couldn’t afford their scheme to take over the Earth’s fresh water using Eden Water-Green Planet.

I never found out the number of women kidnapped or the number of innocent people killed as “collateral damage.” Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook remained listed as dead in the plane crash.

I turned off and shut my laptop.

Where did this leave me? And the aliens?

I thought about the characters I’d met during this adventure. The ones I’d killed-Goodman, Krandall, and Peltier. The one who paid the ultimate price for helping me-Karen Beck. The one who had saved me-the homeless drunk Earl in Kansas City. I still owed him. Plus the fiery Jolie and her chum Antoine. I knew I’d see them again. As I would Phyllis from the Araneum. That was a meeting I hoped would never take place, since it would mean the aliens were back.

And then there was Carmen.

I collected the pages of her unfinished manuscript for The Undead Kama Sutra. I shuffled them and pulled a page at random.