"Since yesterday."

"Oh" Junior lowered his head. "I hope he gets better real soon"

"We all do" She sighed. "This is a quarantine area, sugar. I can be here because I'm a nurse, but are you supposed to be back here? I wouldn't want anything to happen to you, too"

"I'm on the patrol team, ma'am," he said. "I was just checking on people."

"You're a brave man, Junior. I'm praying for all of you"

Junior nodded. He didn't know what to say. He thought of saying that it was partly his fault that Doc Bennett had gotten sick he was the one who had told Doc about the cave in the first place-but Mrs. Bennett already looked so sad that he didn't want to say anything that would make her feel worse.

"Well ... let me know if you need somethin'," Junior said.

"It's going to be night soon," Mrs. Bennett said. She glanced out the window. Darkness was coming. "You be careful, sugar, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am, I sure will."

He shuffled back to his post. He felt kinda sick himself, but his pain was due to heartache. He wished he had been a.s.signed to go somewhere else. Here, misery hung heavy in the air, as powerful as the antiseptic smell that characterized all hospitals.

He sat on a chair next to his team members, and whittled away the time chatting with them. Every now and then, Dr. Green and his a.s.sistants would push ill folks toward the doors, on stretchers, and then Junior's team would put the sick individual's name on a list. Within an hour, they had checked in eight people, and Junior knew every one of them. But when the ninth person was brought in, he jumped up so suddenly that his chair crashed against the floor.

It was Vicky Queen.

He knew she had been ill, and he'd figured that she was sick with the same thing as everyone else, but seeing her rolled in on a stretcher-it did something to him. He stood in front of the doors, blocking the medical a.s.sistant's route to quarantine.

"Miss Queen?" he said. "That can't be you."

The woman tucked under the white sheet was asleep. It looked like Vicky, but then it didn't. She didn't have any makeup on, but Junior had always thought she was so pretty she didn't need makeup anyway. This woman had Vicky's fine features, but she was drab and limp, like a wax dummy or something. No, not like a wax dummy. Like someone lying in a coffin.

He gripped the edges of the gurney in his big, callused hands.

"Excuse me, please," the medical a.s.sistant said. "I need to get this young lady into quarantine."

"Her name's Vicky Queen," Junior said.

"Are you a relative of the patient?"

"Huh?"

The a.s.sistant sighed. "Are you related to Vicky Queen?"

"No, umm, I'm just a friend. I've known her my whole life."

"I see. Will you sign her in for me, please?"

"Okay, sure."

The a.s.sistant rolled her eyes, like she was annoyed at Junior or something. He didn't get it, but sometimes people did things that baffled him.

"What room is available?" the a.s.sistant said. "I have to know where to take her."

Junior stammered. One of his team members stepped forward, put Vicky's name on the list, and said she could go in room 113.

Vicky Queen was swept away through the swinging doors. Junior watched her being taken into a room near the end of the hallway.

He would make sure that he kept an eye on her. She had always been so nice to him. He would hate for something bad to happen to her. He would do whatever it took to protect her.

Darkness embraced the world.

The arrival of night thrilled Kyle. This one would forever hold a valued place in his memory: the night that he and his father stood side-by-side and launched a war against humankind.

The war was long overdue. For too long, vampires such as Mother had lived in secret, preying upon humans as if they were lowly parasites, like minuscule fish clinging to the belly of a great whale. The truth, as his father had forced him to realize, was that vampires were the superior race, and it was time for them to a.s.sume their rightful, dominant position in the world's hierarchy of species.

When Kyle had lived with Mother, he had often pondered such ideas, but Mother, predictably, would turn his thoughts away from fantasies of conquest. Mother was too wealthy, too old, and too pa.s.sive to care about elevating their race. But Diallo hungered for blood and dominion, and he had stoked the same flames in Kyle, too.

The prize of the battle in Mason's Corner was David Hunter. Although Diallo had not shared with Kyle how he planned to punish the man, Diallo's sly smile whenever the topic arose made it quite clear to Kyle that the human would curse his unfortunate lineage for all eternity.

As night sucked away the final threads of daylight, Kyle and Diallo left the sheltering walls of their hideaway and emerged outdoors. Diallo strode purposefully through the gra.s.s. Kyle walked in step with him.

He admired his father's appearance in the black silk shirt, jeans, and polished leather boots. Kyle wore the same clothing himself, he had acquired the tailored garments before leaving Paris. Kyle imagined that together, they resembled vengeful angels who had visited Earth to set matters right between their kind and man.

He felt Diallo's strength; it emanated from his body like cold air, demanding that Kyle keep a few feet between himself and his father, lest he grow numb from the aura of power. There was no doubt that his father had recovered. Diallo had said that he'd never felt such energy course through him.

A dome of purple-black clouds covered the world. Thunder grumbled. Lightning stuttered on the horizon and illuminated the vast, weed-dense field through which they walked. Maple trees filled the area, looking like shadowy sentinels.

Kyle did not know where Diallo was headed, and he had no inclination to ask. He would go wherever his father led him.

A hill rose ahead of them. Diallo started to ascend it, and Kyle followed, but Diallo stretched out his arm, stopping him.

"I must do this alone," Diallo said. His eyes gleamed like onyx. "Wait behind, and watch"

"Yes, Father."

Diallo marched to the peak, his shirt fluttering in the wind like wings.

Kyle did not know what his father was about to do, but his hands clenched in antic.i.p.ation.

Atop the mound, Diallo faced the west. He knelt, spread his long arms, and tilted his face upward.

Kyle recalled that his father had a.s.sumed a similar stance when he had summoned the first canines that became his slaves. Was Diallo conjuring more hounds? Already, they had dozens of dogs under their command.

No, this must be something different, Kyle thought. Father is about to perform something wondrous and awesome.

The atmosphere hummed, raising the hairs at the nape of Kyle's neck. But he was not afraid. He was giddy, eager.

He felt as though he had lived his entire long life to be ready to vividly experience events like this; the lackl.u.s.ter life of luxury and tranquillity he had lived at his mother's estate had prepared him to feel the proper appreciation for his father's electrifying power.

A jagged rod of lightning lashed across the sky and cast Diallo's profile in stark relief. As motionless as he was, Diallo might have been the ancient obsidian statue of a warrior G.o.d.

The breeze soughing through the trees picked up speed, branches swaying, leaves rustling. The wind gusted faster ... faster ... faster, the pitch raising from a low moan to an anguished cry.

The collar of Kyle's shirt flew up. The wind shoved him forward, and he dropped to his knees.

I did not know a vampire could possess such talents, he thought. Mother had never spoken of influencing the weather. He had thought that the ability for vampires to do such acts was fiction. Once again, Mother had kept secrets from him.

Squinting his eyes against the cutting wind, Kyle raised his face to watch his father.

On the hill, Diallo remained still, kneeling, arms outspread, though the gusts tore at his clothing and shredded leaves whirled around him.

The sky appeared to be boiling, storm clouds churning, shifting, roiling.

A hundred yards away, a sizzling bolt of lightning struck a tree. Orange sparks flew. The maple, cleaved in half as though hit with a giant axe, slammed against the earth.

Kyle suppressed an urge to seek cover. His father had ordered him to wait. Nevertheless, he drew up his collar to guard his sensitive ears. But the makeshift hood could not quiet the shrieking wind.

Thunder roared, so explosively that Kyle feared the ground might open up and swallow him.

Then, in quick succession, several whips of lightning slashed at the town. Kyle could not determine precisely where they struck, only that they were in the vicinity of the residential area. The sky was ablaze in gas-jet blue light.

My father is indeed a genius. What better way to stir the humans into a frenzy of confusion and fear before we attack, than by turning the elements against them?

The howling wind spat leaves and grit in Kyle's face. He reached inside his shirt pocket, withdrew the aviator gla.s.ses, slid them over his eyes. The storm-punished land seemed to be drenched in darkness.

Diallo, resembling a giant shadow, finally rose, and began to descend the hill. The furious winds did not hamper his walk; they seemed to escort him, and for an instant, Kyle thought his father was floating.

Although Kyle worried that the wind might flatten him, he stood to meet his father. Diallo touched his shoulder. His grip was like an iron clamp, and his fingers were so hot that they singed Kyle's skin.

Power.

"Now, our army will arise," Diallo said, "and we will join them"

Jackson was eager to get away from Jubilee. He never wanted to set foot in the house again. He never wanted to see it again.

He fleetingly thought of taking Mac's flamethrower and spitting a stream of fire at the place, to erase it from the town once and for all.

He and the team members carried Bertha and Ben out of the bas.e.m.e.nt. By the time they finally stumbled onto the veranda, night had imprisoned the town.

While they were in the cellar, Jackson had called Dr. Green on his cell phone and asked him to come to the Mason place, p.r.o.nto, to pick up their fallen members. They needed to be taken to quarantine immediately.

None of them spoke as they waited on the porch for the ambulance to arrive. There was nothing that any of them could say that would make sense of what had happened in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Every time Jackson shut his eyes, he saw Deputy Dudu's blood-crazed face-the face of a monster. The lurid image would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Christ, he wanted to get away from this place. From the anxious looks on the faces of everyone else, they were as ready as he was to get the h.e.l.l out of there.

The wail of the ambulance-which normally alarmed him-was the most appealing sound he'd heard all day. It meant he could leave soon.

Tanya sprinted across the gravel driveway, to open the gate. The vehicle rolled down the path, lights flashing.

Dr. Green typically would never ride in an ambulance, but he was spending a lot of time in it today. As they had for Jackson, ordinary procedures had been thrown out the window.

Jackson met the doctor as he climbed out of the vehicle. Dr. Green, normally a robust-looking guy, seemed as though he had aged twenty years in only a few hours.

Two a.s.sistants hurried to where Ben and Bertha had been placed on the veranda.

"Had a mess up here," Jackson said to the doctor. "Appreciate you coming as fast as you did."

Green dragged his hand down his haggard face. "What went on in there, Chief?"

"We killed a vampire. It used to be my deputy, but he wasn't himself anymore. We torched him with a flamethrower. But he bit those two folks before we could take him down"

"I see," the doctor said. Jackson had steeled himself for a frown, or a disdainful glare, but Green looked thoughtfuland scared. Jackson wondered what the doctor had seen while making his visits throughout town to pick up the ill.

"I don't know if we'll ever be able to explain this phenomenon scientifically," Green said, "or treat their conditions with medicine. But I believe you, Jackson. I've seen enough myself so that I'm left with no choice but to believe you"

"Being right doesn't please me none," Jackson said. "Rather be making all this up "

"All we can do is our best," Green said. He shrugged, as though too exhausted to think of a more profound comment. But he was right. All they could do was give it their best shot.

They loaded Ben and Bertha on gurneys and lifted them into the ambulance. After the vehicle sped away, Jackson turned to the remaining four people on his team. They looked weary way too weary at such an early stage in the fight. The night was young.

"I think we should go back to the police station to regroup," David said. "We've got to put our heads together and figure out where the head vampires might be hiding. We have to stay focused on Kyle and Diallo."

"Makes sense," Jackson said. "We've gotta touch base with the other teams, too, make sure they're holding up ""

The others murmured their agreement. They trudged down the path, to the gate.

A breeze had been blowing for most of the afternoon, but then it suddenly picked up speed. Jackson snared his hat before the wind s.n.a.t.c.hed it off his head and hurled it into the darkness.

Thunder groaned, making the earth tremble. Lightning skipped across the sky.

All of them began to run down the driveway.

The gust rose from a moan into a nerve-racking screech. It took the efforts of Jackson and David to force open the iron gate and hold it so that Nia, Mac, and Tanya could get through. When Jackson and David squeezed through it themselves, the gate boomed shut behind them.

Lightning cracked above Jubilee's rooftops, making the old mansion look like every bit of the haunted house that it was rumored to be.

David, Mac, and Nia scrambled into Mac's pickup, and Tanya got in the patrol car with Jackson. Jackson stabbed the key in the ignition. The wind punched the car, snuffled at the windows like a creature scrabbling to get inside.

"Do you think it's a tornado?" Tanya said.

"Don't know, might be," Jackson said. "Wouldn't be lucky for us, would it?"

Mac had slammed his truck into gear, performed a U-turn, and was roaring away down the road, heading back toward town. Jackson executed a sharp U-turn, too.

Dead leaves and weeds, animated by the gale, danced in the middle of the road. The trees swayed, their boughs shaking violently.

Jackson had seen two tornados in his life-one as a child, one as a man-and these winds were growing closer and closer to reaching that level of destruction.

He mashed the gas pedal. The acceleration threw him back in his seat.