Clement's eyes burned deeply into Diego.

"Lies," he spat.

"Ah, Clemencito." Diego reached out a hand and brushed Clement's cheek. Clement pulled away as if burned. "You have aged terribly but the spirit I so admired is still there. I'm glad. I have missed you as a familiar."

Clement spun around to the dark shadows in the distance, where the scholastics hid.

"He is lying!" he screamed. "Kill him! Kill him now!" Clement's voice was swallowed by the wind and the roar of New York.

"Your scholastics aren't there, Clemencito. If we end this meeting civilly, they will be released, unharmed. If not, they'll receive the same as your friend, Benedict."

"You said we would be allowed to bring others. You said there would be no interference." Clement was truly shaken at the breach of the truce Diego had called for the meeting.

"I am afraid I lied, Priest. But I'm not worried about going to hell. You, on the other hand, should worry about going to non-existence. I remember that you were worried about that a great deal when you first came to me, so many years ago. The meaninglessness of death disturbed you, incredibly so. But I offered you a way. I offered you true life eternal. Yet on the night you were to have joined me, you left. You joined the army of the black pope in a quest for some imaginary afterlife. And now look at you. You're old. You're bent. Even if I took you now, you would spend eternity as an old man. Father Tithonus. Do you know what you have given up?"

Clement looked up into the night. He had tried to forget those early, questing days; the times when his soul ached with the unanswered questions all must sometime face. He was confused. He was rash. And he had heard the stories of the strange philosopher near the ruins of Madrid who, it was said, offered answers. Clement had been astounded by those answers. He had brought himself to the brink of accepting them himself. And in the end, Eduardo Diego y Rey had helped Clement find peace. For Diego had shown him that the Devil did exist. And where there was a Devil, there must also be a God. Clement had fled the night he was to be inducted as a familiar in Diego's domain. Ever since, he had battled against Diego's kind. He had never expected to meet with him again. The memories confused him. The night was cold and the God he trusted had seemed to lose His strength over evil.

Diego waited patiently. After four hundred years, he knew what men thought. He knew what Clement agonised over: what if he were wrong?

"The girl, Clement," Diego began. "The girl does not believe either. That is why she wants to join with the Americans. She thinks science can conquer her condition. She is deranged. She threatens you."

Clement was not that confused. "She threatens you too, vampire."

"So let us combine for the moment to destroy the common threat."

"Why should the Society help its sworn enemy?"

"Because you can't do it by yourself. No matter what means you choose. Heathrow was a disaster, Priest. Civilians killed. Soldiers with crossbows. Incredible. The colonel who was in charge of the bloodbath was found in his office the next day. Killed himself. Sounded like the work of someone I might know."

"No games, vampire. We both know why we fight."

"The woman must be eliminated."

"Yes."

"Our people are at cross-purposes. At Heathrow your soldiers forced my emissaries to leave in defeat. In Toronto, our assassin helped her to escape. We must co-operate."

"How?"

"The Conclave know where she has gone to hide. We cannot get at her. You can."

"Where is she?"

"Will you destroy her?"

"We will destroy all of you. Where?"

"The spirit of youth," Diego smiled.

"Where?"

"Nacimiento."

"The demon father has given her sanctuary?" Clement was astounded. "And you would dare to go against what he decrees?"

"Clemencito, your god, my Conclave, it's all superstition. The Father is not a demon. That crucifix does not embody god. When you pray, you are the only being who listens. I know you thought that once. Use your mind again and be free of the trappings of the old beliefs." Clement backed away.

"Yours is the voice of the Devil," he said, his voice hollow in the snow and the night. "And even if it isn't, you are still Hell-spawned because of what you did to Father Benedict. Bad enough that it was done on the service of Hell. But it is twice cursed if it was done in the name of nothing. Of meaninglessness. We shall destroy the woman. And since the Conclave cowers in the presence of the demon father, we shall destroy Nacimiento. And then, vampire, I personally will destroy you. You may defile as many crucifixes as you choose. It doesn't matter, I carry my God within me where you can't touch him. I will see you thrown into the Pit. Vampire! Monster! Demon!"

Clement spat on the ground before Diego and ran down the pathway leading out of the park.

Diego stood motionless, reflective.

After a minute he pulled at the false beard he wore and removed it. His fangs were shockingly visible against his lower lips. He took off his mitts and his claws flickered at the tips of his long, bony fingers. New York was the one city in the world where no one would dare question his appearance, if indeed they noticed it at all.

He chose the best-lit route to where the limousine waited for him. One late-night jogger almost stumbled when he saw Diego's face in the lamplight. Diego was tempted, but let the jogger live. The meeting had gone exactly as planned.

He had shocked Clement at the outset in the worst possible way that Clement could be shocked. In that condition, befuddled with confusing memories about the past, the Jesuit had leapt at the proposal Diego had offered him. He had accepted it uncritically. Diego could be sure that Clement would follow through with his threats to destroy with a fanatic's zeal, and a fanatic's lack of thought.

It was all so predictable. Just as Diego had known that young Clement, so long ago would balk at joining the yber and run instead to the Church. Adrienne's assassin was the only human in decades upon decades who had offered Diego any challenge. It was unfortunate that he had seemed to throw in his lot with the girl. She was predictable too.

Diego would have enjoyed facing Helman on his own.

He had certainly enjoyed facing Helman's nephews on their own. So much so that he had even made an exception to his own long-standing rule about Communion for children. He was glad that there were still a few things left for him to look forward to. He wondered if he might have a chance to actually talk with the Father. To see how he did it.

How could one live nine hundred years without killing oneself? Diego had been yber for just over four hundred years, and already the boredom sometimes threatened to make him stay out to watch the sun come up. He desperately hoped that things would be different when the Final Plan was completed.

As he approached the limousine, he decided to arrange to have the four captive scholastics eviscerated and shipped back to the Jesuits in boxes. He would have them eviscerated alive because he knew the Jesuits' doctors could determine such things from an autopsy.

It would keep Clement in the proper state of mind.

Eight.

When 'the people' had moved into Nacimiento in the late sixties, the townspeople had been considerably upset. The formless fear that had grown with the hearts and minds of the conservative and middle-aged as they had watched the counterculture creep through America like dry rot, had finally been given a focus. Murders had taken place in Los Angeles. Words like 'cult' and 'Manson' were being thrust about like I-told-you-so's for five years of free love and marijuana. 'The people' who had bought the Rand estate were peculiar enough to be called 'hippies' by the locals. They expected the worst. But as the years passed, nothing much happened. 'The people' went their way, wearing their white robes, but paying their taxes; the town went its way. Neither had anything to fear from the other. In fact, the only thing the Father feared as he stood looking out at the moonlit hills from the observation tower of the main building, was that all the required forces would not be properly assembled in time.

He had had more dreams.

Nacimiento, January 20 The Rand Estate had been built in the late thirties by Charles Foster Rand. He had been one of the chief advisors and curators to the immense collections of William Randolph Hearst. A great many of the results of Rand's expertise in art history and shrewd business dealings had ended up in Hearst's monumental paean to obsession: San Simeon, just a few miles up the coast.

Rand had spent many years involved in ongoing and never-completed construction of the Hearst castle. Walls, ceilings and floors from ancient European structures were painstakingly disassembled and shipped to the California coast. There Rand and a host of architects would construct a concrete-walled, earthquake-proof box to hold the reconstructed rooms. The castle had grown like a cancer, continually branching out into unsuspected areas. Tenth- century rooms held a confused collection of 16th-century antiques, modern reproductions and clay vessels from before the time of Rome. After six years of working under such frustrating conditions, Rand had, in desperation, begun the construction of his own estate in Nacimiento. It was his answer to the Hearst Castle. He hadn't had Hearst's money to build it with, but he had something else that Hearst didn't: taste.

Originally, the estate had sat upon more than a thousand acres of rolling hills overlooking the pacific. Through subsequent sales by subsequent owners, the holdings were now reduced to fewer than fifty acres. But the elegant main building remained.

Rand had modelled the basic layout after the spacious villas unearthed from early Grecian times. The main building was U-shaped, cupped to the west so that three sides overlooked the magnificent pool and fountain in the main courtyard and the stunning Pacific sunsets. At the bottom of the U, the main building rose in classic proportion to a height of four stories. On the eastern side, a hung-glass wall, an impressive achievement in its time, looked out over the formal gardens and sweep of land beyond. Everything was constructed in the most modern designs imaginable for the thirties. The estate was a perfect shrine to the style known as deco in its pure, cleanly spaced lines, and solidly defined spaces.

Photographs of the estate, originally taken in the fifties, appeared in almost every book that dealt with the history of western architecture. There had been no photographs taken inside the Band Estate for more than twelve years. Ever since 'the people' moved in: the familiars and emissaries of the Father.

Rand had died in 1959. He had been hopelessly in love with a boy under contract to a motion picture studio known for its children's films. The boy had returned Rand's affections with youthful passion. The studio had found out. The boy's contract was broken. He was sent away from California by his parents, back to their original home in Idaho.

The scandal had been vicious. Rand had thrown himself from the observation tower of the main building onto the marble courtyard.

A subsequent owner had attempted to cash in on the publicity surrounding the Hearst castle at San Simeon by trying to stage tours of the Rand estate. It wasn't garish enough. That owner had sold within a year. Nacimiento returned to being little more than a service community to Highway One. The only time its two motels were full was when the San Simeon and Cambria motels were all overbooked.

It was a perfect town for someone who was over nine hundred years old and wished to be left alone by humans and yber both. But it was not ready for the awesome forces that were converging upon it.

Far down the road to the south, the solid black, unblinking eyes of the Father saw the first of them arriving. Twin headlights would soon sweep along the coastal highway. They would take the small cut-off to his home. He descended from the observation tower to prepare himself.

That which he had dreamed of had begun many days ago.

Very soon now, it would end.

Nine.

The rented Mustang hummed and more miles passed by them. They ran for their lives; the lives of those Helman loved, and in some obscure way, for the lives of all the people in the world. Helman thought that if he could tell Adrienne about his contact with Weston and the Nevada Project, if she could be made to understand why he had done it, then the two of them could find some understanding in the web of confusion in which they were ensnared. But the risks were too great. If she were as opposed to government involvement as Weston said, then the Nevada Project would lose her. And Helman would lose her. He didn't want that. He didn't know exactly what it was he did want, but he knew he had to have more time with her. An attraction was there. He was sure she felt it too. But both of them needed peace and an end to the running to come to terms with it. And then, perhaps, thought Helman, they would have all the time they could ever want. Forever.

"The turn off's coming up in the next few miles," Adrienne said, breaking his silent considerations.

"What does it say: 'This way to the vampires'?"

Adrienne smiled. She had never felt as relaxed around a human. Helman had accepted her as what she had said she was, a person like any other, but with a disease. If the Father would give them sanctuary, then she and Helman would have the time she felt they needed. She would be yber no more. She would be human.

"It says Nacimiento Reservoir. The town doesn't even have a city limits sign."

Helman stared past the forward illumination of the car's highbeams. The coastal highway was empty of other traffic but he kept on the alert for darkened vehicles at the side of the road which might suddenly spring into pursuit.

"A lot might have changed since you were here last," he said.

"The last trip with Diego's entourage was only five years ago. These small towns don't change that quickly. When the Father's familiars told Diego that the Father had refused to see him again, Diego considered burning the whole town to the ground. But he said it would be ten years before anybody knew it was gone."

"Diego sounds charming."

Adrienne became deadly serious.

"You mustn't underestimate him, Granger. He was the one who arranged for the evidence of the Delvecchio-" she faltered for a moment, unsure. Then she used his word for it. "The evidence of the Delvecchio murder to be used against you. Both King and Rice would be in constant touch with him. He was responsible for Jeffery's horrible death and I'm certain that his position in the Conclave rests on his disposal of me as well. Remember, he was the one who encouraged my work in the beginning. If either of us ever meet him face to face, we will not survive."

The turn-off sign came up suddenly and Helman braked in the darkness.

"Since the Father has refused to have any dealings at all with any of the yber for the past two centuries, why do you think he'll grant us sanctuary?"

"When the Conclave was formed and the Ways set out as our sacred teachings, the Father refused to take part. Even then he was too powerful, and too revered, for the Conclave to destroy. He is mentor to hundreds of yber around the world. Since then he has had a reputation for taking in those yber who have fallen from the Ways. Most who approach him to serve as his emissaries are rejected. A very few are accepted. No one knows what the conditions of his acceptance are. But at least you and I will have a chance."

"Will you introduce me as your familiar?"

"You aren't my familiar, Granger. I won't lie to the Father. You will be introduced as my friend. Helping me in my work."

A memory came back to Helman as he drove slowly through the narrow twisted road leading through the coastal hills.

"Back in Toronto," he said. "When Rice was giving me information about you, I asked him if you and Chris Leung were lovers."

Adrienne was impassive. She thought she knew where the question might lead.

"What did Rice tell you?" she asked.

"He said it was impossible. He seemed disgusted."

"To Rice, any such relationship between yber and human, unless it were part of Communion, would be like coupling with animals. Humans are quite beneath the yber in the yber view of things."

"Then, it's not impossible?"

"No, Granger, not impossible."

He asked no more questions about the past. Except for Adrienne's instructions, they drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost within their thoughts. Thinking of time uninterrupted.

The Father's familiars had told them that they were expected. Adrienne and Helman sat waiting in an enormous lounge off the spectacular four-story high entrance hall. Helman was sure that the Father was expecting them because the Father was now somehow linked to the Conclave. He felt he and Adrienne were sitting waiting for the trap to be sprung.

Helman had asked the familiar how the Father had known to expect them. The familiar had said that the Father had had a dream. He had said it reverentially, as though it were a rare and strange occurrence. Adrienne told him that it was.

"Yber don't dream, Granger."

"Never?"

"None ever remembered a dream. Jeffery and I attached ourselves to electroencephalographs for months without ever finding a dream trace among all the brain wave readings made while we slept."

"Why would that be?"

"Efficiency, I think. Just as our bodies become incredibly efficient, so do our minds. Our memories are virtually unimpeded. Our senses magnified. We concluded that yber don't dream because there is no need to. Our minds process all the information that comes to us in the course of a night instantly. There is no backlog of shuffling and filing that has to go on while we are in an unconscious state. That's generally thought to be the reason humans dream."

"Then why would the Father suddenly start dreaming after nine hundred years?"

Adrienne shrugged. "The first changes from human to yber occur within twenty-four hours. The old incisors fell out and new fangs erupt. Within six months the organs fuse. Within a year yber are able to detect each other at great distances with a type of sense we were never able to identify, probably telepathic in nature. Our bodies continue to change for centuries as our strength and abilities increase. Diego's body is quite different from one who has been yber for only a few years. The Father must be even more altered. Perhaps after a millennia we regain the ability to dream.

Perhaps we might even be able to see into the future."