Jules pulled one of the kitchen chairs as far away from the three cats as he could and sat down. “I dunno. I guess Mo taught me.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and thought some more. “Come to think of it, I guess I already knew I’d be able to do those things, even before Mo told me anything at all.”

“How so?”

“Oh, y’know, readin‘ vampire stories inArgosy as a kid. And there were even some movies I saw. Silent movies at the big theaters on Canal Street.”

“So when you first became a vampire, you already knew what vampires could do.”

“Sure.”

“And how do you suppose Maureen learned about it before she gave you lessons?”

“Heck, same way I did, I guess. Some older vampire taught her. And she probably already knew about vampires even before that, from readin‘ novels or penny dreadfuls. How about you? How’d you learn? When I first approached you outside that candy store, you knew exactly what I was offerin’.”

Doodlebug smiled. “Oh, I used toswim in vampire lore.Weird Tales, comic books, movies-Dracula’s Daughter,Son of Dracula,Mark of the Vampire — I saw them all. By the time I met you, I knew perfectly well what to expect. And that’s my point.”

Jules looked mystified. “I lost ya somewhere.”

“When it came to vampires, I knew what to expect: Vampires sleep in coffins. They need to drink blood every couple of nights or so. They can change into three other forms-bat, wolf, and mist. So when I became one myself, I only tried doing those things I already believed vampires were capable of. I was limited by what Ithought I knew.”

“Are you sayin‘ vampires can change intoanything?”

“Notanything, no. But my Tibetan teachers showed me that the range of possible transformations is far, far more varied than the three options that became part of the petrified forest of European legends. One could spend a hundred lifetimes attempting to master all the possible permutations. Some of my teachers have devoted centuries to that very quest.”

“Hold on a minute. Malice X never went to Tibet to study with them monks. How comehe could change himself to a panther?”

“I can only assume he wasn’t exposed to media portrayals of black vampires that would’ve affected his mind-set when he became one himself. Even if he was familiar with the same movies and stories that you and I grew up with, they didn’t mold him and limit him in quite the same way. There may be African folk legends he was exposed to that center on men transforming into panthers.”

“Let’s see if I got this down. What you’re basically sayin‘ is, what we can do as vampires is all a mind-over-matter kinda thing, right? Like them Indian guys who can walk across fire barefoot, just ’cause theythink it ain’t gonna hurt them none.”

“Exactly.”

“So the next time I run into Malice X, I can change myself to King Kong and stomp the creep into a smear on the sidewalk?”

“I’m afraidthat particular transformation is out of the question. Remember what I said about mass? Mass can’t be created or destroyed. But thereis something you can do that Malice X cannot. And the wonderful thing is, you can do it thanks to a personal attribute you’ve always considered a handicap.”

“Oh yeah? What would that be?”

“Jules, unlike me or Malice X, you areblessed with mass. Four hundred and fifty pounds of it. Forget about trying to recruit a platoon of followers. You don’t need them. With some guidance and practice, you could will yourself to become a trio of hundred-and-fifty-pound vampires.”

Jules walked along a twisting, looping path of yellow chalk his friend had drawn on the concrete floor of Maureen’s basement. Doodlebug, now six inches tall, sat on his shoulder.

“Faster,” the Barbie-doll-sized Doodlebug said. He struck Jules’s shoulder repeatedly with an iced tea spoon. The tiny blows didn’t sting, but they were irritating.

“Hey, is that really necessary?” Jules said as he resentfully plodded around the maze.

“I’m the bird that taps against the window.”

“Thewhat?”

“The distraction that will inevitably present itself at your most crucial and vulnerable moment of concentration. Remember, you’re learning to form and control multiple bodies, which requires the clear mind and keen mental vision of the finest archer. You’ll need to maintain this pure mental state in deadly combat, surrounded by perhaps dozens of enemy vampires, explosions, and flying projectiles. Even the tiniest distraction while you are manipulating multiple bodies could prove fatal, if you let it. Now walk the pathfaster.”

Doodlebug whacked his earlobe with the spoon, which really hacked Jules off. He’d show that pint-sized pest. Aping Jackie Gleason’s nimbleHoneymooners dance steps, he pirouetted and dipped along the path, careful to keep his toes precisely on the chalk line. He felt Doodlebug grab hold of his collar, and he smiled as he heard the spoon clatter to the floor.

“That was the easy part,” Doodlebug said. “Nursery school. I don’t think you’ll be able to take this next exercise so lightly.”

Jules stared at the electric train set. Doodlebug had instructed him to assemble it so that the tracks crisscrossed the yellow chalk line. The train was a souvenir from Jules’s and Maureen’s happier days together, a hobby they’d shared on those long nights when there was nothing good on TV and one or both of them weren’t in the mood for sex. He was surprised Maureen had hung on to it. He finished assembling the looping track, complete with tunnel, bridge, flashing crossing lights, and New England-style town center. Then he placed the locomotive and its ten connecting cars on the track and hooked the electric control box into a wall socket.

While Jules was on his hands and knees, Doodlebug shimmied up his sleeve to his shoulder. “Very good. Turn on the train to its maximum speed. You are to walk the chalk path, counterclockwise. Here’s the complicated part: You must time your movement so that wherever the chalk path and the train tracks cross, you and the train reach that intersection simultaneously. You are not permitted to stop and wait for the train to arrive-you may slow or quicken your steps, but you must keep moving at all times.”

Jules eyed the layout carefully. The chalk path and the train tracks intersected at six points, arrayed at nearly even intervals around the basement. It didn’t look too hard.

It was harder than it looked.

Six attempts later-make that three crushed model autos, five flattened pedestrians, and one crumpled church steeple later-Jules made it around the entire course successfully, meeting the train at each intersection. He sat heavily on a bench by the wall, toweling off his dripping forehead and neck as if he’d just run the Crescent City Classic.

He grinned a Cheshire cat smile, despite his exhaustion. “How aboutthat, Tinkerbell? I think I earned myself a coffee break.”

“Actually, Jules, I was just about to suggest that you brew a pot of coffee…”

Ten minutes later Jules stood at the starting line again. This time, however, he held a china cup and saucer in each hand. Both cups were filled with steaming-hot coffee. Doodlebug had returned to his normal size and shed his Barbie clothes for a black leather skirt, neon-pink tank top, and black vinyl thigh-high boots. He sat on a stool with the train set’s control box in his lap.

“I’d like to seeyou do this, hotshot,” Jules grumbled.

“Oh, those monks had me doing much more unpleasant things than this,” Doodlebug answered brightly.

“Yeah? Well, I still think this is a dumb-ass idea. This is Mo’s best china you got me messin‘ with here. I bust any of it up, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“That’ll give you all the more incentive to concentrate, won’t it? On your mark, get set-”

Doodlebug switched on the train’s juice. The coffee cups clattered jarringly as Jules headed down his increasingly hateful path. He made the first intersection. Despite much clattering of cups and saucers, he timed the train’s journey through the tunnel perfectly and made the second intersection with nary a spill. At the third intersection, however, his right toe clipped the corner of a trestle bridge as the train passed over it.