1

He dreamed of death, and Undeath. Inspector Garreth Mikaelian stood backed against the wall of an alley in San Francisco's North Beach, pinned by the hypnotic gaze of eyes glowing like rubies, unable to move even enough to ease the pressure where the handcuffs looped over his belt pressed into the small of his back. Red light glinted in the vampire's hair, too . . . not a beautiful woman, some distant part of him noticed, but she used her long, showgirl legs and mahogany hair to seem like one.

"You're going to like this, Inspector." She gave him a sultry smile. "You'll feel no pain. You won't mind a bit that you're dying."

There was pleasure in the touch of her soft, cool lips, and it persisted even after the kisses moved down his jaw and became bites pinching his skin in hard, avid nips. High-heeled boots made her five-ten tower even higher above his five-­eight. Lassitude held him passive while she tipped his head back to reach his throat better.

Her mouth stopped over the artery pounding there. "Lovely," she breathed. "Now, don't move." Her tongue slid out to lick his skin. She stretched her jaw. He felt fangs extend, then she bit down.

A spasm of intense pleasure lanced through him. Catching his breath, he threw his head farther back and strained up against her sucking mouth.

Presently, though, as cold and weakness spread through him, concern invaded the ecstasy, a belated recognition of something unnatural, wrong. Evil. Fear stirred. He started to twist away sideways, but to his dismay could not move. Her body slammed into his, pinning him helpless against the wall . . . despite the fact that he outweighed her by a good fifty pounds. The fear sharpened.

Use your gun, you dumb flatfoot, a voice in his head snarled.

Her grip blocked him from reaching the weapon. He sucked in a breath to yell for help, but her hand clamped over his mouth. In desperation he sank his teeth into it. Her blood scorched his mouth and throat . . . liquid fire.

The vampire sprang away, ripping out his throat in her retreat.

He collapsed as though drained of bone as well as blood.

She laughed mockingly. "Goodbye, Inspector. Rest in peace." Her footsteps faded away, leaving him face down in his blood. Leaving him to listen in helpless terror to heartbeats and breathing that gradually slowed, stumbled, and stopped.

Garreth woke shaking.

Sitting up in bed, he leaned his forehead against updrawn knees, waiting for the adrenaline rush to subside. Shit. How many times did that make for the damn dream this week?

Except that it could not be called a dream exactly. A dream was something one woke from, returning to the ordinary. For him that would be his San Francisco apartment, and joining his partner Harry Takananda in the Homicide squadroom at the SFPD's Bryant Street station. Instead . . .

Garreth raised his head to look around the den-come-efficiency above Municipal Court Clerk Helen Schoning's garage in Baumen, Kansas . . . wood paneling, leather chairs, kitchenette, and closet forming one side of the corner bathroom. The uniform hanging on the open door, tan shirt with dark brown shoulder tabs and pocket flaps to match the trousers, belonged to the Baumen Police Department. Despite heavy drapes which left the room in midnight darkness, he saw every detail clearly, even to the lettering on the shirt's shoulder patch. The daylight outside pressed down on him like a great weight. And his throat already tickled with building thirst.

He did not wake these days, merely exchanged one nightmare for another. The vampire was memory, not dream. She had existed . . . Lane Barber, born Madelaine Bieber seventy years ago in this little prairie town where he tracked her, where he had killed her. But not destroyed her.

Falling back against the pillow to the accompanying grit of dried earth in the air mattress beneath the sheet under him, he sighed. In all honesty, he had to agree that Bauman probably deserved better than to be called a nightmare. Everyone believed the cover story he used to justify asking questions about Lane, that his father had been her illegitimate son. They accepted him as one of the Biebers, albeit a strange one, no doubt because he came from California. The 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM shift despised by Baumen's five other officers suited his needs perfectly and the rolling hills around town pastured plenty of cattle who never missed the blood he took from them.

Vampires did not have to drink human blood.

It was a quiet town, unnoticed by the rest of the world, a good place to hide, to bury himself—he smiled wryly—at least until someone began wondering too much about his quirks, and why he never aged.

And then? When he wanted to leave this nightmare, what did he wake up to? Where did he go?

The pressure of the unseen daylight outside shifted. Approaching sunset. Rise and shine, my man. Garreth swung out of bed and after folding it back into a couch, headed for the bathroom.

He shaved without turning on the light so his eyes would not reflect red. A sharp-boned face with sandy hair and gray eyes stared back at him from the mirror, boyish-looking despite the mustache he had grown and still a stranger's face even a year and half after replacing the beefier one he had grown up with. No, boys and girls, he mused, running the humming razor around the edges of the sandy mustache, it isn't true vampires don't reflect.

As he dressed, the tickle in Garreth's throat grew, flaring to full-blown thirst. Taking a thermos from the little refrigerator, he poured some of the contents into a tall glass and leaned against the counter to drink.

The cattle blood tasted flat and bland, like watered-down tomato juice, never satisfying the appetite, no matter how much he drank; but he refused to become what Lane had been, preying on people, drinking them dry whenever she felt it safe to do so and breaking her victims' necks to keep them dead. He scowled down into the glass. Since he got along on animal blood, that was all he would use! He just wished . . .

Garreth finished off his breakfast in a gulp and rinsed out the glass in the sink. I just wish 1 could like it.