Weston grabbed Helman by the shoulders, pushing him deeper into the chair. The first guard held a vial from the case upside down and plunged the hypodermic through the rubber seal. He withdrew the plunger, filling the cartridge.

Helman desperately tried to struggle, but except for an abrupt shudder, his body still would not obey him. He spoke hurriedly to Weston as the guard force the drug out of the tip of the needle, expelling air.

"You haven't even asked me to talk yet. I've told you, I'm Helman. I admit it. Ask me questions about anything.

But I tell you I don't know anything about Phoenix or the CIA. Ask me."

Weston looked directly into Helman's eyes.

"Did you speak with Adrienne St. Clair last night?"

Who were these people? thought Helman. Why does everybody know so much more than I do?

"Yes," he said. The guard swabbed an area on the side of Helman's neck. Helman thought the swabbing to prevent infection was hideously gratuitous.

Weston put out his arm to stop the guard from injecting the needle.

"Let's just hold off on that for a while. See what we can get from him while he's co-operative."

The guard protested. Helman could see the anticipation in his eyes.

Weston calmed him. "We can always use the needle, son. Always. You just keep it ready. It might be that he can be a bit more co-operative with us while he's alive. Or at least while his brain is still functioning." He turned to Helman.

"You better make this good. Once that stuff's in you, there's not a whole lot we can do for you. Understand?"

Helman nodded. He concentrated on his fingers. They clenched when he told them to. Weston saw the movement.

"And the next dart in that thing over there," he pointed to the guard with the battery rifle, "will paralyse your heart before you hit the ground. Let's not be a martyr."

Helman sank back into the chair. He was boxed in again. He had the sinking feeling that he had just fallen for the classic 'good cop-bad cop' routine played out between Marker One and the guard with the needle. If he could, he felt like holding some people up to the wall by their necks to watch them slowly strangle, too.

"So Adrienne St. Clair wants you to be her familiar?" said Weston.

"If you bugged the room, why do you need me to answer questions?"

"We didn't bug the room. St. Clair is in a very precarious position. Two very powerful organisations are out to kill her. The Final Death I believe they call it. You took away her only chance of escaping."

Helman's eyes narrowed.

"Do you know who it was you killed in the lab explosion?" Weston asked.

"Christopher Leung. A doctor. It was unfortunate."

Weston looked worried. "Unfortunate that you had to kill him? Or unfortunate that he died?"

"I didn't have to kill him. The lab was the only place I could get at the woman."

"My God, you were trying to kill her? Not Leung? Why would the CIA want her dead? Why-"

Helman screamed at him. "I'm not with the CIA. I don't know anything about the CIA. I'm working for the Conclave!"

Weston was pale. "Do you know what the Conclave is?"

"I do now. Do you know what Adrienne St. Clair is?"

"Of course. That's why Dr. Leung was working for me. That's why we lost four men protecting this sanctuary for her last night, in addition to the one you killed two days ago. Adrienne St. Clair is a vampire. And that's precisely why we want her. Now I want you to tell me everything you can about the Conclave. The guard is very eager to use the needle, and I'm not going to be able to hold him off unless we start hearing why you're involved."

Helman fought to keep from screaming again. He saw the guard with the needle standing near. A single, quivering drop of liquid shimmered on the needle's tip.

He told all he could.

Weston paced to take the stiffness from his legs. They had been at it for more than two hours, and Helman had to be back in his hotel room by sunset to await contact by St. Clair and the Conclave.

Helman looked exhausted. Motor control had returned to his body but the shock of the battery dart had taken its toll. The sandwiches and coffee one of the guards had brought in had gone down all right, but they hadn't seemed to do much good in steadying his insides.

Weston spoke. "Okay. You're a hit man. Retired. The Conclave gave you a contract on St. Clair. Why? We're not sure. St. Clair says it follows a pattern they have established over the centuries. You were going to be their hi-lo. Your sister and the kids are their insurance. We know they don't have many 'emissaries' in North America. They keep a very low profile. Probably they couldn't get a team together fast enough. It's not as easy to disguise a murder here as in Europe. So they chose you as a local expert. Someone who could be caught if you made too big a mess of it, and killed, no doubt, before you had a chance to talk. Killed in any case, even if you had gotten away with it."

Granger had been sitting with his eyes closed. He opened them. "They told me I was to go free after I had completed the deal."

Weston twisted his mouth. "I suppose you still write letters to Santa Claus, too. You don't understand those things, those creatures. All the people we know about who have dealt with them, usually through business associations, are fine, as long as they have a use. As soon as the use is no longer required, they disappear. It's no accident that vampires faded to nothing more than a myth. They've worked hard for their anonymity. It's their strength. How can anyone fight against something they don't believe in?"

Helman jerked to his feet. The man with the battery rifle swung it around to cover him.

"Miriam and the boys! If I'm expendable-"

Weston signalled to the rifleman to lower the weapon.

"Listen," he said, "if their lives were the Conclave's bargaining position with you, they can be ours, too. I can arrange protection for you. We have special weapons, specially trained agents. Your sister and her kids will be fine. All you have to do is co-operate with us now."

"How?"

"By doing what you're doing for the woman. You killed her familiar. She's turned to you to replace him. Her familiar was also my agent. I want you to replace him, too."

"Why? Who are you to want a vampire? And why do you need me to do it? You can follow her. Why not approach her yourself?"

"She'd be too wary of who we represent. She won't trust us. We've already made overtures. There were three prime contacts she could have made when she escaped from England. We had a man in Chicago, a woman in Washington, and Dr. Leung in Toronto. We made her initial contact with those people such that she would have no reason to suspect Chicago or Toronto was linked to the American government."

Helman's eyes widened. "You're from Washington? The government's behind this?"

"Parts of the government know about us. Very few know about the yber. And only my group knows about St.

Clair."

"No wonder she didn't want to be contacted by Washington. Who are you? Pentagon? Or just Army?

Bacteriological warfare? Create a soldier that can't be shot down and has to drink the blood of the enemy?" Helman's face was scarlet. What was going on in Washington that such things could actually be considered?

"Calm down, Helman. I don't represent the Pentagon. Or any military agency. That's why I'm concerned about your CIA link."

Helman protested again. Weston cut him short.

"We don't have to go through it again. For now I'll accept your story. You've never had any contact with the CIA that you can recall. But you're still carried in their files as a domestic assassin, code-named 'Phoenix', and I intend to find out why. If I thought you were wilfully connected with Langley, operating under their control, I wouldn't be keeping the needle from you and you'd be babbling like a two-year-old by now. Let's leave it at that until I get some more reports in."

Helman clenched his teeth and remained silent.

"Better," said Weston, and continued. "The other reason we have to approach her covertly is because she is being observed by the Jesuits. They've been waging their own little war with the Conclave for about two hundred years as far as we can determine. We don't know all that much about them. We've had agents infiltrate the Conclave; it's quite easy because they're always looking for new familiars. But you have to serve thirty-one years on probation to be inducted into the Sixth Grade of the Society of Jesus. And from there, the members of the Seventh Grade are carefully chosen. We've never managed to get even close to them."

"She told me about the Jesuits. She thought she had escaped from them in Europe. She didn't know how they had traced her here. She was surprised. Shocked, actually. But I can't believe it. How can Jesuits do what those priests did last night, it was a massacre. And most of them seemed young. Almost kids."

"Those were the novices and scholastics-training to be Jesuits. The old guys running the show recruit them for special operations. The kids go along with it. Years ago when we learned of the Jesuits' involvement in this, we were shocked too. We assumed they were some insane cult There was even some evidence linking them to a small bizarre cult in California. Then our agents posing as familiars got word back to us about how long their conflict had been going on. It's true, Helman. And if anyone is capable of what happened last night in the name of God, it's them, and the young fanatics they enlist to fight their Holy war for them. When the Jesuits were formed more man four hundred years ago, the Inquisitions in Spain and Portugal protested to Rome. Can you understand that? The Spanish Inquisition thought the Society of Jesus-the Jesuits-would become too powerful, too fanatical. The Catholic Church existed for the glory of God. The Jesuit's creed dedicated themselves to the greater glory of God. No one else in the Church felt comfortable with the Jesuits around, but within years they were too powerful to attack.

"They decided to go after the wealthy and the educated, bring the cream of Europe over to the ways of the Church.

To do that they became educated and wealthy themselves. They founded some of the best schools the world had seen.

Devoted themselves to furthering human knowledge. Something the Church had never condoned. And it worked.

Soon they were involved with the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. They got involved in politics.

They created peace. And they created wars. By lying, manipulation, and assassination."

"The Catholic Church involved itself in that? Knowingly?"

"Not the Church, Helman. The Jesuits. And it only took one. Members of other religious orders swear eternal obedience to God. Jesuits make the same vow, but to other Jesuits. If a Jesuit's superior orders him to take some action which the Jesuit considers to be sinful, he has the option of checking it out with another Jesuit. If the other Jesuit agrees, that is, if two superiors give the same order, the Jesuit has no choice but to follow the order. That's why the novices and scholastics kill with such fervour. Not only must they follow the orders of their superiors, they must make themselves know, not merely believe, that the action is not sinful. They must follow orders.

"During the days of the Third Reich, Goering took a special interest in the Jesuits. He studied them carefully, and kicked them out of Germany. And then he used their organisational plans and principles as the model upon which the SS was formed! This is not a little group of monks we're dealing with. These are fanatics of the worst sort: brilliant, and able to justify any means to accomplish their ends."

Helman felt numbed. Like most people he suspected that hypocrites lurked within any organisation, but he had always thought there were limits to the amount of hypocrisy that any one group would contain. It was astounding that such conditions could exist within an arm of a Church that was becoming more and more powerless in the world.

"Are you saying that everything the Jesuits are involved with is just a front for a group of vampire-killers who might as well be wearing swastikas as crosses?" "No, no, not at all. Not all Jesuits were involved in the actions of the past. Very few are involved in the actions of the present. We are only talking about the Jesuits sworn to save the world from the yber: the professed of the Fifth Vow-Jesuits of the Seventh Grade."

"I don't understand.

"As the Jesuits became more powerful and more of a stabilising force in the world, the vampires began to come under attack. The Church knew about them. Always has. But under the organisation of the Jesuits, the battle between the vampires and the Church began to swing in the Church's favour. The vampires did the only thing they could.

They organised, too. The Conclave was formed. Its first task was to destroy the group that was giving it so much trouble: the Jesuits.

"The more clever of the vampires, the ones who had been around the longest without being identified and killed, had amassed great fortunes. They could afford to wait a hundred years or more for an investment to pay off. The Conclave consolidated this wealth and put it to good use, "Two hundred years ago in Martinique, the Jesuit superior, Father Lavalette, was skilfully guided into some complex investments by highly placed familiars of the yber. The investments collapsed. The Conclave had arranged it.

Several French banks and trading houses were ruined. Noblemen were committing suicide. It was a horrible international scandal and everyone put the blame on the Jesuits. There was a trial. The Jesuits lost. Eventually they were outlawed in France. Because France had actually attempted the unthinkable, and gotten away with it, other countries tried it on several other pretexts, all connected with the financial scandal, no matter how insignificant.

Eventually the growing protest could no longer be ignored. The Pope issued an edict disbanding the Jesuits. They were finished. Except in Russia. Catherine the Great allowed them sanctuary. It was there that the Jesuits of the Fifth Vow, the unwritten vow, were formed. And these Jesuits were different. These were the real fanatics. They took the intensity and dedication that had existed for two centuries and directed it to only one cause: the destruction of the vampires.

Their first move was to restore the Jesuits in the world. The Pope, Clement XIV, refused their pleas, so the Jesuits killed him with poison. The next Pope was Pious VII. He knew what had happened to his predecessor. He made sure it wouldn't happen to him and issued edicts restoring the Jesuits to their former position in country after country.

Finally, more than a hundred and sixty years ago, the final edict was issued and the Jesuits were totally restored. No Pope has interfered with them since."

"That's unbelievable."

"That's history. When you really do retire, Granger, look it up sometime. Names and dates. It's all there. No one likes to talk about it. The Jesuits have their apologists. The only thing missing from the histories will be the mention of the Conclave. And that's because the Conclave is far more powerful than the Jesuits ever were."

"Why don't the Jesuits tell the world? Get everyone involved in this?"

Weston sat down on a chair across from Helman. It was the mate to Helman's chair which had also been brought downstairs. He rubbed at his face and temples.

"We don't know," he said. "It's almost as if the Conclave and the Jesuits have some secret pact with each other, some hold over each other. But up to now, it's just been a case of one on one. The Jesuits fighting for God; the vampires fighting for the Devil. All of them caught up in a supernatural conflict of good versus evil."

Realisation dawned on Helman. "Except for Adrienne St. Clair," he said. "She thinks it's a disease."

"Close enough," agreed Weston. "Let's just say that some of her ideas and some of our ideas are pretty close. We'd like them to get closer. But we need someone with personal knowledge of vampirism, who preferably has some scientific background, or at least isn't caught up in the hocus-pocus of the Conclave."

"And you won't tell me why?"

"No."

"But it's not connected to weapons research or the military, even though that's what Adrienne might think?"

"That's right."

"I have to know more."

"Let's just say that the Jesuits are probably right."

"Right about what?"

"The End Days. It doesn't have anything to do with God or the Devil, demons and angels, but the End Days are here, Helman. And Adrienne St. Clair may be the only person in the world who can stop them. If the Conclave and the Jesuits let her live long enough."

The basement was suddenly very still, very cold. The animation and emotion of Weston's eyes and face had faded, replaced with rock-like seriousness.

Helman felt his stomach tighten the way it did when he accepted a new contract. He realised he had stumbled onto something far bigger than just another closing. There was far more than one death being threatened here. There was far more than Miriam and her children at stake.

He took a deep breath to ease the tenseness of his chest, and closed his eyes. For some reason he saw an image of a basement room, perhaps the cellar of Adrienne's story. It was empty, the corners were clear. But on a far off wall, there was another door, and it was open onto a staircase descending. Don't go down, said a voice inside of him. He opened his eyes and the image and the voice vanished. The seriousness remained.

"What's my part in it?" he asked.

Major Weston told him.

Six.

Helman did not recognise the familiars of Mr. Rice as he walked through the lobby of his hotel. They did not recognise him either. They had been given a job to do, and they had done it, unquestioningly, without knowing the reasons for their actions. The results of those actions lay waiting in Helman's hotel room and Helman entered, unsuspecting.

Weston had proposed a series of daytime contacts, chiefly by phone, for keeping him informed of St. Clair's plans and actions. Helman would continue in his role as the woman's new familiar. She had told him to be prepared to travel, so it was obvious that she had a plan, however hastily arrived at, prepared. Weston wanted to know what that plan was.