Jody handed Rivera back his gun and the battery to his jacket. “Wire those back up as soon as you get back in your car. They work.”

Marvin let go with a barrage of barking, which translated, “I have found some dead people and I am going to make a fuss if I don’t get a biscuit and the ear-scratch girl is dead and sick.”

“Easy, Marvin,” Abby said. She steadied herself against the big dog and Cavuto caught her by the arm to keep her from falling. “I really don’t feel good.” She crumpled to the sidewalk. Tommy caught her in time to keep her head from hitting the concrete. “My tail kind of hurts.”

Jody snatched Rivera’s gun out of his hand again. “Give Tommy your car keys.”

“What! No!”

Jody smacked Rivera’s jacket, heard a jingle, then reached in his pocket and took the keys. Rivera stood there like he was five, being dressed by his mother. Jody threw the keys to Tommy.

“Take her to the loft. Foo will still be there. Maybe he can change her back in time.”

“Where are you going?” Tommy said.

“I’m going to the ship. Maybe I can stop one of them there. They’re going to come to the loft, so be ready.”

“Not so fast, Red,” said Cavuto.

“You will shut the fuck up!” Jody said. “You guys are six blocks from the Marina Safeway. The Animals should be at work, or will be there in a few minutes. That’s where I went when I wanted to find them, that’s where these vampires will go. So shag ass over there and warn them. Wire the batteries back into your jackets on the way there or they’ll have you for lunch. Call for another car if you need to, but we just saved your lives and your car is ours.”

Rivera smiled. “I’m okay with that.”

Cavuto said, “You are?”

Tommy picked Abby up and held her with one arm while he reached into her messenger bag, took out her phone, and handed it to Jody. “Call Foo, tell him we’re coming.”

“I will. Be careful.” She kissed him. “Save our minion.”

“Got it,” Tommy said.

Marvin whimpered at them as they went away, which translated to, “I’m worried about the ear-scratching dead girl with the Gummi bears.”

She stood under the eave of a post office that looked out on the Safeway parking lot, watching the old man with the dogs pounding at the door. Well, that would make seven. She knew she should wait for the others, but what fun was there in that. A lean black guy let the old man and his dogs into the store, then locked the door behind him.

She moved to the side of the building, then along the front behind a long train of shopping carts, where she could look through the windows without being seen herself. They were spread out, each working an aisle to himself. She really should call for the others. Neither would be that far away, but she did so little on her own anymore. She examined the window. Thick Plexiglas, she wasn’t going through that. She could kick the door down, of course, but then they would run and there’d be chasing and if any got away Rolf would pout with disapproval for months. Not that she wasn’t beyond pouting herself. She once awakened to find Bella and Rolf merged together in mist without her and refused to take solid form for a year except to feed.

That was how they began each night, merged in mist form, still inside their titanium chamber, experiencing every corner of each other’s consciousness, every memory, every emotion, every want, every fear-complete knowing, complete intimacy. After an hour or so, they would assume their solid forms, then leave the chamber and feed, or watch a video of a sunrise or sunset. That was it! Mist. She would go into the store by stealth. Except for the one with the dogs, they were all young men, weren’t they? She knew she could hold the rapt attention of a young man. She’d take each one, drain him without the others even knowing what happened, then share the experience with Rolf and Bella tomorrow night. It was always fun to bring something new and dangerous to their night.

She wouldn’t be able to wear her special suit, or take any of the weapons, but it was just as well. She couldn’t leave bodies. Seven. She’d be as full as a tick, ready to pop. She checked that none of them was by the door, hid her weapons under the shopping carts, then lay down and oozed out of the Kevlar bodysuit, across the sidewalk, and under the door.

Rock and roll was blasting out of the PA system, filling the store with a relentless chainsaw rhythm guitar that drowned all other sound. She swirled around the registers, then started to make her way across the aisles. The first two were empty, then in the third, the old man was sitting all by himself on a milk crate. Scented candles were lit up and down either side of the aisle, as if someone had laid out a landing strip. She could sense the others around her, but her perceptions weren’t as sharp in mist form and the odor and heat from the candles made it nearly impossible to tell how far away they were. Their heartbeats and breathing were lost in the music, but there was blood in the air. All over in the air. She floated up to the ceiling, where she could see over the tops of the shelf gondolas. There were two of them working on the other side of the store, bobbing in time to the music.

Rolf would have wafted back out the door and called the others, and Bella would have drawn an elaborate plan to stalk them, one at a time, and pick them off when they were alone, but that was exactly why she wasn’t going to do either of those things.

As she pulled herself into solid form she felt a horrible wrenching in her chest, like her heart caving in on itself. Not a physical pain, but a sudden absence. One of the others was suddenly not there. Rolf. Just not there. She stood there in front of the old man, naked, shaking, trying to bring herself back to the hunt.

“Don’t scream,” she said.

He didn’t like that the men were locked in the walk-in cooler, and he didn’t like that the Animals had tied him up, rubbed liver and steaks all over him, and set him on a milk box, but he had done his duty to his city. He had alerted the only people who would listen to the presence of the black ship, told them what the strange faux-Hawaiian had said about the old vampires coming for them, and he could have some peace of mind in that. They didn’t have to duct tape his hands so tightly, and tape his ankles to the milk box. They could have just asked. Ah, youth.

She materialized about twelve feet in front of him, nude, nubile, and athletic, so black she might have been made of polished ironwood, yet the death-pallor made her lips appear lavender. Her hair was trimmed close to her scalp, her eyes appeared to be gold, but he couldn’t tell for sure. She shivered for a moment, as if a current was being applied to her body. He watched her muscles tensing and relaxing, rippling under her skin in waves.

Then she stopped shaking and opened her eyes.

“Don’t scream,” she said. Blood tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

“Oh my, if you aren’t lovely,” said the Emperor.

She smiled and he saw fangs there, and he suddenly felt as if he might wet himself.

She moved a few steps closer to him. “Are those steaks on your shoulders?” she said.

“Yes. There’s liver in my pockets as well.”

She cocked her head as if listening. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Her hand shot out and in an instant her fingers were wrapped in his beard and she was pulling his head back, not yanking, but pulling with an irresistible strength, as if he’d been hitched to a power winch. “Where are they?”

He could feel his vertebrae cracking, feel her raking her fangs over his neck. Then the sound of a high-pressure gas burst and she wasn’t there, and there was a length of heavy nylon line in the space where her face had been.