Crimes by Moonlight

Dahlia Underground by Charlaine Harris

Dahlia Lynley-Chivers woke up as soon as the sun went down. But this awakening was like none she’d experienced in her long second life: on her back, pinned down, and injured.

Badly injured.

Dahlia cursed in a language that had not been spoken for centuries. She’d lost a lot of blood. Though the air was filled with smoke and dust, she could smell a body close to her. The blood of the dead person was repellent, but it would help.

She carefully extended her right arm to discover it was free and unbroken, unlike her left. Her left leg was immovable, though her right leg wasn’t, because the beam trapping her lay at a slant.

While she was evaluating her situation, Dahlia wondered what the hell had happened when she was in her day sleep. She heard distant screams and sirens, while around and above her lay destruction. A huge pane of glass, intact, had landed upright on a vampire, shearing him in half. Though he was beginning to flake away, he looked familiar.

Her memory began filling in the blanks.

The Pyramid. She’d suddenly decided to spend the day at the Pyramid, the vampire hotel in Rhodes. The disintegrating vampire had been a handsome male in the service of the Queen of Indiana, and she’d accepted an invitation to dally with him rather than return to her room in the mansion of the Sheriff of Rhodes.

Though the night had been notable, the day must have been more so.

High above her, Dahlia could see a bit of night sky lit by flashes of artificial light. Every now and then there was an ominous creak or groan from the heap of twisted metal, shattered glass, and concrete. Dahlia wondered how long it would be before it shifted. She might yet end up in the same condition as her bedmate. Dahlia had not been afraid in a long time, but she was almost afraid now. She wasn’t so afraid she was going to yell for human help, though.

A smaller beam was lying crossways on the one that pinned her, very close to her right hand. Dahlia figured if she could grip the smaller beam, she’d get enough purchase to drag herself out. Then she could work her way over to the dead human, feed, and begin the perilous climb upward.

She had a plan.

Dahlia’s right hand gripped the crossbeam, and she pulled. But she realized instantly that her left leg would rip off unless the heavier beam was lifted at least another inch.

“Well,” said Dahlia. “Crap.”

Dahlia was extremely strong, but extricating herself cost another hour. By the time her leg slid free, she was close to exhaustion. As she rested, she looked down at herself. Ugh! She was naked and streaked with dirt, soot, blood, and pale, powdery dust. She held up a strand of her long, wavy hair, normally coal black. In the dim light, it looked white. She’d been there awhile. How much time before dawn? She made herself move.

The corpse was that of a uniformed hotel maid. Her neck had been broken in the explosion. Since she hadn’t bled much, Dahlia was able to tank up. The blood of the dead was even worse than the bottled blood substitute that had enabled vampires to become legal citizens of the United States. The vampires could truthfully say they no longer needed to feed from live humans. Of course, they still enjoyed it much more.

Dahlia lay across the maid’s body, gathering strength for the climb up through the rubble. For a black moment, her normal confidence wavered, and she wasn’t sure she could manage it.

“Hello!” called a hoarse voice from above. “This is Captain Ted Fortescue, Rhodes Fire Department! Anyone alive down there?”

She thought about remaining silent. Then she bit her lip. Dahlia was very proud, but she was also a survivor of no mean skill. “I’m here,” Dahlia called up out of the darkness.

“Human or vamp?”

“Vampire,” she said defiantly, even though she feared he’d leave her where she was when he found out she wasn’t a breather.

“Ma’am, how hungry are you?”

He’d been coached. Good. “I’ve had the blood of a corpse. I will not attack you.”

“‘Cause we can have Red Stuff O Positive ready when we raise you…”

“Not necessary.”

“There’s a corpse?”

“Two, Ted Fortescue. A vampire, though he’s mostly gone. A human woman dead before I found her.”

“We gotta take her word for it,” said a lighter voice.

“Can you grip a rope if we send it down?” Fortescue called.

“Yes,” Dahlia said. “If I try to climb, the ruins will shift.” Humans were going to save her. Humans. Though Dahlia hadn’t wanted to build her character, after all these hundreds of years it was apparently going to be built.

“Okay, here comes the rope.”

The lifeline uncoiled about a yard from Dahlia. She pulled herself to it with her right arm. Gripping the pieces of wreckage that looked most firmly lodged, Dahlia pushed herself erect. Luckily, she was a very small woman. She seized the rope with her right hand. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her right leg around the rope and called, “Pull!”

After a swaying, painful ascent, Dahlia Lynley-Chivers emerged into a nighttime landscape of horror.

One glance at Dahlia had Ted Fortescue bellowing for a blanket. The captain looked almost as battered as she did. His brown face was as dirty as hers, his close-shaved hair white from the powdery dust. Above his mask, his wide brown eyes were shocked.

Dahlia found his smell enticing. She needed some blood very soon. But her need was drowned by the humiliation of having to stand with the man’s support until her blanket was passed up. When he’d wrapped her in it with impersonal hands, Fortescue handed Dahlia down to the next human in line until she reached the base of the mountain of debris. The last person in the chain directed Dahlia to a line of humans waiting on the nearest clear sidewalk. She said, “Those are people willing to give you a drink, ma’am. Please try not to go overboard.”

“They volunteered?” Dahlia tried not to sound disbelieving.

“Yes, ma’am. A lot of people are upset that the Fellowship of the Sun took such an extreme action against your people.”

“The Fellowship is taking responsibility?”

“Yes. I guess they figured a vampire conference would be a prime target. Some of their own people hired onto the hotel staff. But they didn’t feel the necessity to tell their fellow humans to get out before it blew. In fact, their news release says it served the staff right for serving vampires. Not too many people are happy with the Fellowship.”

“My home is here in Rhodes. Is there a way I can get a ride to my house?”

“Get your drink, if you want it, and then head over to that other line over there. They’ll help you out.”

“Thank you for your courtesy,” Dahlia said stiffly. “Can you help me over to the donors? My arm and leg are broken.”

Captain Ted Fortescue had descended from the mountain of rubble by that time, and he overheard Dahlia’s words.

“Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me?” Ted Fortescue took Dahlia in his arms and carried her to the donor line on the sidewalk.

“Thanks so much,” Dahlia said through clenched teeth. “Where do you serve?”

“We’re the Thirty-four Company from the station at the corner of Almond and Lincoln. You gonna be okay, now?”

She assured him she could stand on one leg while she fed. He needed to get back to his work, so he left her there. Dahlia watched him walk away.

For a short time, she’d loved a werewolf. He hadn’t been exactly human, of course, though close enough to cause her qualms. Dahlia had always felt the same kind of contempt for humans that most humans feel for Brussels sprouts. They were good for her health, but she didn’t like their proximity.

The donor was a short woman with long white hair. Her name was Sue, she told Dahlia, and Sue held Dahlia’s hand during the feeding. If Dahlia had been herself, she would have been put off by the woman’s prattle about “we’re all one family.” She didn’t like her food to talk. But tonight was different.

Having fed, Dahlia was able to hobble to the impromptu cab rank, where a free voucher got her a ride to her home. The vampires who lived in Cedric’s mansion, already beside themselves with grief and rage, were glad to see a survivor come through the door. All Dahlia wanted to do was shower and crawl into her own bed in her own room in the windowless basement.

THE next night, all the Rhodes vampires met in the mansion’s common room. At least fifty vampires from the central United States had died in the bombing, the newspapers said. Their deaths were not the worst part of the attack, to this assemblage. The worst part was the loss of face. Their city had been targeted, and the attack obviously had been planned well in advance-but they had not detected it or forestalled it, though the plan had been devised and carried out by humans.

“We have been dishonored,” Cedric, Sheriff of Rhodes, said. Every vampire in the city had been present at the meeting, from those who had their own homes to those who lived in the nest. Even Dahlia’s friend Taffy, married to a werewolf, had been present.

Cedric turned his large blue eyes on Dahlia. Pink tears glistened in their corners. “Our sister Dahlia nearly met her final death and had to be rescued by humans.”

“I accepted human help because it cut short the time I was trapped,” Dahlia said, her back absolutely straight and her face utterly composed, though it was an effort.

“We must meet this challenge directly,” said Cedric. “This is our city. Now we are at war.”

The vamps of Rhodes had not been at war since Prohibition, when some bloodsuckers from Chicago, frightened away by the aggression of A1 Capone’s henchmen, had tried to move into the tunnels below Rhodes. They’d survived one night.

“Tell us what to do,” Taffy said. Taffy was tall and buxom, her physique emphasized by the slut-biker outfit her husband, Don, favored.

“Taffy, you and Dahlia must visit the headquarters of the Fellowship. Get in by whatever means necessary. Look for membership lists. We want to know their leaders.”

“This will have been done by the police,” Taffy said.

“And will the police share with us what they found?” Cedric had a point.

“I’ll do whatever I can to bring the whoresons to justice,” Dahlia said carefully, “but the lists will be on computers, and Taffy and I are not conversant with these machines.”

“One of the Arkansas vampires is adept with computers, but he was burned so badly he’ll take time to heal,” Cedric said. “Wait! I know someone.” He whipped out his cell phone again. It was the one piece of modern technology that thoroughly entranced the sheriff. “His name is Melponeus, he’s a half demon, and his services do not come cheap.” Cedric, who was cheapness personified except when it came to maintaining his pride, grasped the financial nettle firmly.

The half demon was at the mansion within thirty minutes. He was a short man with reddish skin, a head of thickly curling chestnut hair, and pale eyes the color of snowmelt. When Dahlia greeted him at the door, those pale eyes showed instant admiration. Dahlia, though used to this, was nevertheless pleased. She was glad she’d worn her pink three-piece suit with the pencil skirt.

“I hope you’re as good with modern technology as your reputation has it,” she said tartly and beckoned him to follow her to the common room.

“I love a good, strong vampire woman,” Melponeus said. “Such a woman, if she is willing, can take a lot of… energetic activity.”

“I am several hundred years old,” Dahlia said. “I assure you, I can take anything you could imagine handing out.” She didn’t turn to look at the half demon, but her lips curled in a little smile.

“You’re older than Cedric,” Melponeus observed. “But you’re not the sheriff.”

“I don’t want to be,” Dahlia said. “And some think I’m not diplomatic enough.”

“I remember your name, now. It was you who broke the newscaster’s arm?”

“She wouldn’t stop asking me questions, after I’d warned her,” Dahlia said reasonably. “I told her I would break her arm if she didn’t leave me alone.”

“Foolish woman,” Melponeus said.

“Deserved what she got,” Dahlia agreed. She was thinking that after the honor of the nest had been restored, she might find out what it felt like to kiss lips as full and hot as the half demon’s. Since hers were always cold, the sensation might be interesting.

Cedric greeted Melponeus with appropriate dignity, mentioned a price, and Melponeus agreed to accompany Dahlia and Taffy. When the three were setting out, Dahlia realized no one knew the location of the Fellowship’s organizational offices. Taffy had to look it up in the phone book. “This is the kind of thing detective novels don’t cover,” Taffy complained.

“You haven’t read a detective novel since Agatha Christie quit writing,” Dahlia said. “Don’t whine.”

“She’s quit writing?” Taffy was really put out. “When did that happen?”

“She died. Probably fifty years ago.”

“And why should I know that?”

“There have been plenty of novels since then. You should read some of them,” said Dahlia, who seldom read herself. “We’ve got the address. Let’s pay them a visit.” In Taffy’s Trans Am, they drove west into the old part of Rhodes.

They left the Trans Am on Trask, which ran a block south of Field Street, the location of the modest storefront housing the Fellowship headquarters. The small businesses in the area had already closed for the night. The occasional pedestrian hurried along, since the evening was chilly. The three approached Field through a filthy alley two blocks west of their goal. Since they could all remember times when filth and debris were the norm, this didn’t bother them. The two vampires and the half demon hung in the shadows of a trash bin while they evaluated the Fellowship headquarters.

“Cameras,” Melponeus murmured.

“I see them,” Dahlia said. There were cameras all around the building. After a low-voiced discussion, Dalia returned to Trask Street and ran silently east until she was pretty sure she was in line with the Fellowship building. She slid into the next alleyway and headed north. About halfway down the alley, Dahlia found a nice dark patch she didn’t believe human eyes could penetrate. She crouched and gathered herself. She launched herself upward, landing neatly on the roof. Dahlia was confident that even the Fellowship wouldn’t think of pointing a camera upward. She was right.

After a quick smile of self-congratulation, she took off her designer heels and made a great leap, landing across the street on the roof of the two-story building housing the Fellowship. She swung her legs over. Her fingers and toes clamped into the little spaces between the lines of brick, and she worked her way to the first camera. With a quick twist, she removed it from its mounting. She pitched the camera onto the roof, then did the same with all the others. Then she put on her shoes again.

She waved at Taffy and Melponeus, who began trotting toward the Fellowship. Dahlia leaped down from the roof to join them, landing on the sidewalk as lightly as a feather, though she was wearing three-inch heels.

“Good job,” said Taffy, and Dahlia inclined her head.

“I’m impressed,” Melponeus said, looking at Dahlia’s legs. “Taffy, let’s see who’s minding the store.”

Taffy knocked on the door, which bore the distinctive Fellowship symbol-a sun, represented by a circle with wavy rays leading outward. Within the circle was a pyramid.

“What does the pyramid mean?” Taffy asked.

“Earth for Humans, Eradication of Vampires, Eternal Victory,” Melponeus said. “Kind of ironic that the hotel was the same shape. Maybe that sparked the plan.”

A young man came to the door. Through the thick glass (bullet-proof?) the three could see he was a reedy Asian guy in his twenties with a soul patch.

Taffy gave him her best smile and said, “Young man, I want to come in.”

If she hadn’t called him “young man,” he might have unlocked the door, because Taffy had a great no-fangs smile, and her tight leather pants added a powerful incentive. But the “young” roused his suspicion, since Taffy looked (at most) twenty-five. He began punching numbers on a cell phone.

“Look at me,” Dahlia said in a voice that managed to compel, even through the glass. And he did, no matter what he’d been taught.

“Open the door,” she said. And her voice was so reasonable that the young man did just that.

Melponeus immediately set to work looking at the Fellowship computers. Dahlia sat opposite Asian Soul Patch at a table covered with coffee stains and notepads.

She said, “What is your name?”

“Jeffrey Tan.”

“You’re Fellowship?”

“I hate vampires. I killed one myself.”

“Did you really?”

“Yes, I did.”

While Taffy searched the office building and Melponeus began copying files onto a disc, Dahlia asked a few more questions. Jeffrey Tan had been dating a vampire, a girl he’d known before she went over. They’d been going at it hot and heavy one night, and she’d bitten him. Terrified, he’d stabbed her with a handy wooden chopstick. (Unfortunately for the young vampire, Jeffrey’s mother had brought him a traditional meal that day.)

In a flash, Jeffrey’s lover had been shriveling and flaking on his bed.

He had to live with himself, and the easiest way to do that was to find other people who thought he’d been perfectly justified.

Dahlia, who’d heard this sort of story many times before, had a fleeting moment of sympathy for Jeffrey, since she’d become reacquainted with panic the night before. But she squelched the moment ruthlessly. She asked, “Did you help bomb the Pyramid?”

“No, but I applaud the courage and determination of our soldiers,” he said unconvincingly.

“Yes, slaughtering people who are asleep is brave. Do you know who planned and executed this action?”

“They’re hiding, getting ready,” he said, his eyelids flickering furiously. “The vamp lovers in the police department and the fire department who rescued vampires, they’ll die next.”

“Where are these heroes hiding?” Dahlia asked.

Melponeus, who’d been looking at the screen of one of the office computers, said, “I think I may have the membership list,” at nearly the same moment as Taffy pulled a large file out of the filing cabinet.

“Here’s a list of the properties they lease or own,” Taffy said, as Melponeus began downloading the list. “Oh, I checked out the basement. No one there.”

A phone began ringing. Jeffrey Tan reached for it, but Dahlia stayed his hand. “What does the phone call mean?” she asked.

“I told them the cameras went out. They’re calling to check on me,” he said, and he seemed to be coming out of his trance. His gaze began flickering from Taffy to Dahlia to Melponeus.

“You said the Fellowship was going after firefighters?” Dahlia had a sudden misgiving.

“We have pictures of every traitor who worked the rescue at the Pyramid.”

Melponeus said, “We’d better hustle.”

“Shall I kill him?” Taffy asked.

“No, that would be too much of a red flag,” Dahlia said. “Though I’d enjoy it very much. Look at me, Jeffrey!”

He couldn’t disobey, but he was struggling.

“We were here to check for your leaders,” Dahlia said, gripping his chin to force his attention on her. “They weren’t here, so we left full of frustration.”

“Yes,” he said, his face slack again.

The three left the building as quickly and quietly as they’d entered. In silent accord, Dahlia and Taffy flanked Melponeus and held him, leaping to the top of the building. The three made their getaway across the roofs. By the time they’d gone two blocks, cars were parking in front of the Fellowship office.

“That was almost too easy,” Dahlia said, on their return to the mansion. She and Taffy were drinking Red Stuff, and Melponeus was sipping coffee, very strong and very black. Cedric had come to the common room to listen to their report. “They left one human, and such a puppy, to guard the office? When they’d have to figure we’d be looking?”

“Humans do underestimate us,” Taffy said. “Their thinking’s limited.”

“And we underestimate them,” Dahlia snapped. “Look who wiped out over fifty vampires at once. Even that puppy killed his girlfriend with a chopstick.”

“I’m half-human,” Melponeus said. “Some of us are honorable.”

Though Taffy and Cedric looked in another direction, embarrassed, Dahlia met his snowmelt eyes and inclined her head regally.

Cedric said, “What do you suggest we do, Dahlia?”

“This list of properties has to be checked out, as does the membership list,” Dahlia said. “We’ll be spread very thin, but I think we can do it. After all…” She didn’t have to emphasize their responsibility.

“You’re in charge, Dahlia,” Cedric said. “Melponeus, if you will come with me, Lakeisha will write a check.”

“How will we do this?” Taffy asked when they had left.

“Divide into teams. Give each team a short list of properties to search,” Dahlia said. “Each place must be searched very thoroughly but very discreetly. One special team has to kidnap a Fellowship officer, a person without family. This team can’t be averse to forceful persuasion. We need to know if there’s some place not on this list, perhaps a place belonging to one member, that’s large enough to hide ten to fifteen people. The newspaper said that’s roughly how many Fellowship fanatics are missing. We’ll check the people we can find against the list to get a better count.”

Cedric returned in time to hear. He nodded. “This seems sound,” he said. “Especially the torture part.” He smiled.

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Dahlia braced herself. “Someone must be detailed to warn the humans involved in the rescue. They saved lives that night; not just human lives.”

“Some of them were not pleased to rescue vampires,” Cedric said. “I read that in the newspapers, too.”

“However they felt, they did it. We can’t abandon those who’ve done us a service.”

“Are you telling me my duty, Dahlia?”

“Sorry, Sheriff.” Dahlia looked away to compose her face.

“This is very unlike you.”

“I’ve never been hauled out of a pit before.”

“The half demon-the half human-would take no money for his service,” Cedric said. “He told me we were on the same side.” Dahlia tried not to look self-conscious. She mostly succeeded.

Cedric nodded to Dahlia. “All right, go.”

THAT was how Dahlia came to be walking into the firehouse of the Thirty-four Company at the corner of Almond and Lincoln. Though the night was chilly, the door to the firehouse was open. The men and women inside were washing the fire trucks under floodlights. None of them whistled when Dahlia approached, though she was the center of attention in her black belted coat and black high heels.

“A cold one,” said the biggest firefighter of all, a burly guy over six feet tall. “Whatcha want, vampie?”

To rip your impudent throat out, Dahlia thought. But she recognized his high voice; he had helped the captain haul her up out of hell. “I need to speak to Captain Fortescue,” she said.

That brought a chorus of whistles and comments about Ted’s wife and her reaction to his extracurricular pastimes.

If Dahlia had been a breather, she’d have sighed.

Ted Fortescue came out, wiping his hands on a towel. His men and women fell silent when the captain looked around to meet their eyes. He recognized Dahlia immediately, somewhat to her surprise. “Evening. Have you recovered from your broken leg?”

“I have,” Dahlia replied. Her back was stiff as a poker. “I have come to warn you. The people of the Fellowship of the Sun have said they’ll take vengeance on those who rescued vampires.”

“They’re going to target first responders?” Fortescue was appalled.

“Yes,” Dahlia said.

“They’ll lose all public sympathy for their cause,” he said slowly, “aside from the obvious point, they believe in killing vampires and recruiting humans.”

“I don’t pretend to make sense of what humans do,” she said. “You saved my life. Now I am doing my best to save yours.”

“Well… thanks,” he said. The firefighters looked from the captain to the vampire, obviously thinking he should say something else. “You were human, once,” Fortescue said.

Dahlia was taken aback. She fumbled for a response. “I was a human for eighteen years. I have been a vampire for…” She shook her head. “Nine hundred years, perhaps.”

There was a little moment of total silence.

“Good luck to you, Ted Fortescue, and to all of you who helped us,” Dahlia said. She looked at each face around her. She would remember each one. “I’ll dispose of them all if I can,” she promised the firefighters, and then she walked away.

“Commando Barbie,” one of the women muttered, but Dahlia heard her. In fact, she smiled a little, all to herself.

WORRY was not a familiar pastime for Dahlia, who was more of a direct action person. During the bit of dark remaining, Dahlia and Taffy visited two Fellowship locations, a “church” on the south side and a “meeting hall” on the east. Both buildings were easy to break into, and the two vampires searched both very thoroughly. They were straightforward modern constructions: no hidden passages, secret rooms, or false floors.

The next night similar results were reported by the other search teams.

The Rhodes vampires felt the pressure. By the time they had to retreat to day sleep lairs, they’d only learned where the Fellowship plotters weren’t. Their shame was mounting.

Even the abduction-and-torture team reported failure. True, they managed to find a family-free Fellowship official, and true, they managed to snatch her unobserved, but to their immense irritation, the woman had a weak heart. She died too early in the proceedings to offer any useful information. In fact, the team simply restored her body to her house, and no one was the wiser.

Taffy arrived at the mansion the next night radiating excitement. She made a beeline for the common room. Dahlia was sitting at the table, lost in unhappy thought. “Don says we should look in the tunnels!” Taffy said, seizing her friend.

Dahlia said, “If you shake me again, I’ll break both your arms.”

Taffy let her go with alacrity. “Sorry! I’m just so excited!”

“That’s a very good idea,” Dahlia said. “We should have thought of the tunnels earlier.”

The tunnel system lying below the original city center of Rhodes was extensive, and it had once connected all the major buildings in the area. The tunnels had seen much use in the years before and during Prohibition. In the decades since, some passages had been blocked up as part of new construction. Vampires seldom used the tunnels anymore… but they had in years past, along with all kinds of other creatures, including regular humans.

“Do the tunnels run under Field Street?” Dahlia asked Taffy.

“Don’s faxing us a map.”

Don, Taffy’s werewolf husband, had a friend who was a historian at Rhodes’s City University. Don’s friend faxed the map to the little office where Lakeisha took care of Cedric’s correspondence. Lakeisha had been an executive assistant in life, and Cedric had brought her over expressly to be his executive assistant in death. Lakeisha knew her office machinery and had a thorough grounding in modern communications, skills most of the older vampires found baffling.

Lakeisha had had the advantage of knowing she was going to be brought over, so she’d had her hair washed, cut, and styled before her death. She was perpetually cute. “I don’t think you’ve ever gotten a fax before, Dahlia,” Lakeisha said.

“I hope I never get another one.”

“Grumpy, grumpy!” Lakeisha chided. Dahlia snarled at her.

“Did we get up on the wrong side of the coffin tonight?” Lakeisha said.

“It’s annoying that you’re not frightened of me, and it’s a mistake.”

“You don’t want to make Cedric mad,” the young vampire said calmly.

Dahlia snatched up the tunnel map, and she and Taffy retreated to the common room to study it.

“Yes! We gotcha, assholes!” Taffy said, after the two had found Field Street and examined it.

“I’ll give Don something nice,” Dahlia said.

“Not a groomer’s brush, like you sent last time? That shit gets old,” Taffy said.

“No, something really nice.”

“Not another bag of doggie treats!”

“I’m serious; it’ll be very appropriate. Lakeisha, we need you,” Dahlia called. Normally, Lakeisha would have insisted the request come through Cedric, but circumstances were hardly ordinary.

Lakeisha used the copying machine and then the intercom. When everyone had assembled in the common room, she passed out copies of the map.

Dahlia stood up on the hearth, so they could all see her. She was wearing her black leather jumpsuit and was happily aware she was being admired. Melponeus was there; she could see his curls and reddish face in the corner. Good.

“Thanks to Taffy, we’ve gotten a map of the tunnels,” Dahlia said when the silence was complete. “They run under the Fellowship headquarters, and if the leaders entered the tunnels after their attack against us, they may still be there. Has anyone here been down below the city in the last twenty years?”

“I have,” said Melponeus. “I was in the tunnels five years ago, chasing an imp because… well, it’s not relevant. There are more dead ends in the tunnels now than your map shows. The Fullmore Street tunnel is blocked with rubble at the intersection with Gill.” Pens moved over paper. “The Banner Street tunnel is divided in the middle. Someone built a bank aboveground, and in the process they made the tunnel impassable-though I’ve heard someone’s cut a hole in that wall.” Melponeus went on to list two more closed or abbreviated tunnels.

“Thanks, Melponeus,” Dahlia said. “We owe you.”

“Oh, I’ll collect,” he said, a gleam in his eye.

It was a measure of Dahlia’s reputation that no one sniggered.

Cedric strolled through, carrying a pipe and wearing a smoking jacket. Taffy rolled her eyes at Dahlia.

“Do you have a plan of action, then?” he said.

“Yes, my sheriff.”

“Good luck. Oh, by the way.”

Every vampire froze.

“You must bring them back alive,” Cedric said. “I know you want to have fun with them. In fact, I’d planned to ask you to bring me one to play with. But I’ve gotten a phone call from the chief of police, who said… and I think this is interesting… that some of his officers told him they’d been running across vampires in unexpected places, asking unexpected questions, and he certainly hoped we weren’t taking any vigilante action of our own, since the whole Rhodes police department is anxious to bring the Fellowship terrorists to justice.”

None of the vampires cast guilty looks at each other-they were all much too seasoned for that.

“Of course we were planning to kill them,” Dahlia said. “What else?”

“I’m afraid you must alter your plan,” Cedric told her, using his “sympathetic but firm” voice that carried so well. “Think of how wonderful it will look, a picture of you handing over the culprits to the police. Think of how people will say that we’ve honored our commitment to refrain from taking human blood-even the blood of our enemies.”

Dahlia looked mutinous. “Cedric, we’d anticipated…”

“Having a good old-fashioned party,” he said. “I regret that, too. But when you find these murderers, they go to police headquarters. Undrained and intact.”

And, in turn, every head nodded.

Five teams of two vamps each had been dispatched to the five tunnel accesses closest to Fellowship headquarters. Dahlia thought it possible the bombers had blasted or cut through some of the more recent walls. She would have done so if she’d been planning on using the tunnels as a refuge.

These teams were armed with shotguns. None of them were happy about it. Most vampires (especially the older ones) thought carrying a gun implied a certain lack of confidence in one’s own lethality.

Dahlia divided the rest of the Rhodes vamps into two parties. Each would enter the tunnels about a mile away from Fellowship headquarters, one from the east and one from the west. That way, the hunting party could descend without alerting their prey. A couple of cars took Dahlia’s party (Taffy headed the other one) to the east entrance she’d selected. This access happened to lie below a restaurant that had opened before World War I.

The Cappelini’s Ristorante staff was used to parties trailing through on the “Old Rhodes” tour, but they were taken aback when the eight o’clock tour party consisted wholly of bloodsuckers. Dahlia hung back. Though she was tiny and pretty, she was also unmistakably menacing. Lakeisha beamed her perky smile, tipped heavily, and the atmosphere relaxed.

The party, which consisted of Dahlia, Lakeisha, and three male vamps (Roscoe, Parnell, and Jonathan) all passed through a door the teenage tour guide had unlocked. They descended the stairs into the Cappelini basement. The very nervous young woman pointed out how various things were stored, talked about when the building had been erected, and revealed how many pounds of pasta the restaurant had served since it had opened its doors. Though the vampires gave her polite attention, she was visibly nervous as she prepared to enter the old tunnels.

She unlocked yet another door, this one a very old wooden slab. Greeted by a rush of cool air, the party descended a very narrow flight of stairs, then a steep and twisting ramp, and came to yet another door, much lower than modern doors and heavily locked. Their guide unlocked the last door, keeping up her patter the whole time, though with an effort. She flipped a light switch, and the tunnel appeared, running straight for about ten yards before turning to veer right.

Lakeisha said, “Let me ask you a question.” Relieved, the girl looked at the cute dark-skinned vampire inquiringly. Lakeisha said, “See how big my eyes are?” The next minute, the girl was under. “Sit on the floor here and wait until we come back,” Lakeisha said, and the girl smiled and nodded agreeably.

The vampires were all used to enclosed spaces, and they all had excellent vision. Dahlia barely seemed to touch the ground as she began to move forward. At first, two of them could walk abreast. After the jog to the right, the old tunnel narrowed.

The walls were brick, plastered here and there. Every now and then the narrow space widened into a storeroom, littered with old signs, broken chairs, all sorts of debris discarded from the businesses above. From time to time a ghostly door, sometimes with glass panels still intact, offered access to an underground saloon or whorehouse that hadn’t seen a customer in seventy years.

“This is great,” Roscoe said. Though Dahlia didn’t reply, she agreed completely.

They didn’t meet any other tours, because Cedric had booked them all. For two hours, the vampires owned the tunnels below old Rhodes.

Dahlia brought the party to a halt when she figured they were two blocks away from Field Street. She whispered: “You heard Cedric. No killing. If they resist, you can break a bone.” Despite the embargo, they were all tense with anticipation. It had been a long time since a worthy battle had come their way. This was a good moment to be a vampire. With a sharp nod, Dahlia turned and raced down the last section of tunnel.

IN the end, the conquering of the Fellowship bombers was almost anticlimactic. There were only seven conspirators below the Fellowship headquarters. Of those, two had been too close to their own handiwork and had been injured by flying debris from the Pyramid. Only three men resisted with any determination, and Taffy, who got to the group seconds before Dahlia, had subdued the largest of these with no trouble at all by kicking him in the ribs. Jonathan and Roscoe took care of the others.

Rather than herd their hostages back to Cappelini’s, Dahlia decided to surface at the closest access point. Lakeisha used her cell phone to call the two vampires guarding that spot, their signal to alert the police that there were prisoners to deliver.

Instead of feeling triumphant, Dahlia found herself doubtful. Surely there should have been more Fellowship people in hiding?

“Wait!” she called at the first flight of stairs. She turned. Taffy, right behind her, was carrying the man whose ribs she’d broken. He was groaning, the noise irritating her. To make sure a rib didn’t puncture the human’s lung, Taffy was carrying the man in front of her. Dahlia looked into his unshaven face.

“What’s your name?” she asked, and the man began to recite some membership number the Fellowship had allotted him.

“That’s even more irritating than the pain noises,” she said. “Shut up, asshole.”

He cut himself off in mid-number.

The practical Lakeisha extracted a wallet from his pants. “This particular asshole is named Nick DeLeo.”

“Ever talked to a vampire before, Nick?”

“I don’t deal with hell spawn,” the man said.

“I was not spawned by hell. I met with something much older than myself in Crete, more years ago than you can imagine. I will still be here when your children are dust, if anyone deigns to breed with you.” That seemed doubtful to Dahlia. “Where are the others?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you that,” he said. It was hard for him to look formidable when a woman was carrying him, and he gave up the attempt when Dahlia came even closer. He flinched.

“Yes,” Dahlia said with some satisfaction. “I’m truly frightening. You can hardly imagine the pain I’ll cause you, if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

“Don’t tell him, Ni-aaargh!” A scream effectively ended another hostage’s exhortation.

“Oh, Roscoe, is he hurt?” Dahlia asked with patently false concern.

“Hard to lend his buddy moral support with a broken jaw,” Roscoe said. “Oops.”

Dahlia smiled down at Nick. “I have ripped people apart with my bare hands. And I enjoyed it, too.”

Nick believed Dahlia. “The others have gone to get the firefighters who fished the vamps out of the Pyramid,” he said. “It’s easier to get the firefighters; they’re not armed. Three of us are going to each station around here that responded. They’re going to shoot until their weapons are empty except for one bullet, and then they’ll kill themselves. Holy martyrs to the cause.”

“That’s a terrible plan,” Lakeisha said. “You think this will discourage people from helping vampires? Make them want to join your stupid Fellowship? The slaughter of public servants?”

“We have a new goal,” Dahlia said. “We deposit these losers with the police. We go to the places they’re going to attack. They have a head start on us, so let’s be quick.”

Up the stairs they swarmed, to be met by media galore. The police knew a good photo op, too. As soon as possible, Dahlia and her nest mates faded away into the shadows. The others had their own assignments, but Dahlia herself ran full tilt toward the corner of Almond and Lincoln.

Four of the Pyramid conspirators were converging on the Thirty-four Company.

At least the big doors were shut. The firefighters inside were cooking, sleeping, playing video games-until the first rifle shot whistled through the upstairs window, missing one of their drivers by a hair. Then shots were pouring into the station from all directions. There was screaming and cursing and panic.

Until, one by one, the rifles stopped firing.

The newspaper photographers would have liked to take a picture of the four Fellowship members piled in a heap on the concrete in front of the station with Dahlia standing on top of them. But Dahlia was too clever for that. Instead, the next day’s paper had a wonderful picture of tiny Dahlia in her black leather jumpsuit in the center of a huddle of firefighters, hoisted up on the shoulder of Captain Ted Fortescue.

Any tendency the fire company might have to rhapsodize sentimentally over Dahlia’s one-woman antiterrorist action was dampened when they got a good look at the broken bones and bloody injuries the five foot nothing vampire had inflicted-though all four gunmen were alive, at least for a while.

The newspapers were happy with their pictures, the firefighters were happy to be alive and mostly uninjured, the Fellowship fanatics were secretly glad to be out of the tunnels and to anticipate reiterating their inane credo at their trials, Cedric was happy that his vampires had obeyed his direction, and the vampires felt they had at least made a beginning on their revenge for the Pyramid bombing.

Happiest of all was Melponeus the half demon, because he and Dahlia celebrated the victory until Melponeus had to crawl back to his demon brethren with weak knees and a silly grin.

As for Dahlia, she developed a strange new habit. She felt she had established a relationship with the men and women of Company Number Thirty-four.

She began to drop in from time to time. By her third visit, the humans were matter-of-fact about her presence. Ted Fortescue absentmindedly offered her some chili instead of the Red Stuff they’d started keeping at the back of the refrigerator.

When the city council of Rhodes voted to give Dahlia a special commendation for her defense of the firehouse, everyone from the Thirty-four Company attended.

“I feel like they’re my pets,” Dahlia confided to Taffy.

Taffy wisely hid her smile.

And when one of the shooters was released on a technicality, and every firefighter in the Thirty-four sounded off about it while Dahlia was there learning how to play Grand Theft Auto, none of the firefighters were surprised when the shooter vanished twenty-four hours later.

“Dahlia’s like, our mascot,” said one firefighter to Ted Fortescue.

“She’ll be around a lot longer than we are,” Ted Fortescue said. “Especially if you ever say anything like that where she can hear you.”

But no one was foolish enough for that.