ave you ever read Van Tynenberg’s treatise on the myth of St. George and the Dragon?” asked Bishop Solomon Birch.

“What?” asked Ludmilla Marana. She blinked hard. “You’re trying to trick me. Fuck you, Birch! Fuck you!”

“Van Tynenberg was a mortal who believed that when England’s patron saint slew the dragon, he struck with no normal weapon but with the vaunted Spear of Destiny.” He took a step closer to Marana.

“You move again and I’ll shoot!” Marana held not one, but two shotguns. In her right hand was a double-barreled Remington that dated from around 1920. It had lovely bronze-work ivy along the base of the barrels, and the stock was rather fancifully carved to resemble a perching eagle. She’d lost count of how many animals, people, vampires and other miscellaneous entities she’d dispatched with it. That gun was aimed at Birch.

In the left she held this year’s Franchi semiautomatic combat shotgun. It was not lovely, not fanciful, and it lacked any sort of colorful history. She was pointing it at Vance Byers, the vampire who’d brought her out of her haven this evening, and she’d brought the Franchi with the vague thought that this could be a trial run.

Byers was simply cowering. He’d died in the seventies, when he was in his thirties, and he still had the sideburns to show it. Naturally, when one has sideburns that just won’t go away, it only makes sense to wear faded jeans, harness boots and a differently faded jeans jacket. The vintage “Disco Sucks!” T-shirt was the crowning touch.

ii

“Baptized in the sacred blood, the spear that pierced Christ’s side was the only weapon whose purity could counteract the corruption radiating from the wyrm’s scales. Swords rusted in their wielders’ grasp, arrows warped and shattered, but the Spear of Longinus struck true and slew the monster.” Solomon was aiming a Skorpion VZ61 machine pistol at Marana. He didn’t usually like guns — he found they were mostly good for making mortals pay attention, and he had other ways to get attention — but Ludmilla Marana had a habit of fighting from long range and she was one of the few locals that Solomon wasn’t sure he could close on.

Plus, she liked guns, and Solomon wanted her attention.

“This Van Tynenberg — I assume he was Sanctified?” Marana was an official in the Ordo Dracul

— “Order of the Dragon” in English, a secretive conspiracy of mystically inclined Kindred who defended their practices fiercely.

“Not at all.” Solomon was the local leader of the Lancea Sanctum or “Sanctuary of the Lance,” a different secretive conspiracy of mystically inclined Kindred who defended their practices fiercely. “He was mortal. But even he was smart enough to know what happens when a Dragon crosses the Holy Spear. Now. Are you going to relinquish Mr. Byers to me?”

“This dumb smelly hippie isn’t worth your reputation, Solomon.”

“Yet apparently you think he’s worth violating the Prince’s Tranquility.”

Marana bristled. The Tranquility was a ban, enforced throughout Chicago, on both the creation of

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new vampires and the destruction of old ones. It was based on Lancea philosophy (specifically, Solomon Birch’s ultraconservative version thereof) but was enforced on all Kindred equally. The Ordo Dracul had been against it, to no avail.

“He’s not one of yours. He’s one of ours.”

“Well now. Mr. Byers? Is that an accurate assessment?”

“Please, I…” he weighed his chances. “I… uh…”

“You told me you wished to convert. That you wanted to come into the Sanctum and make a fresh start.”

“Er…” Byers stared at Ludmilla’s gun, as if hypnotized.

“Have you changed your mind?” Solomon asked, and abruptly he shifted his aim from her to him.

“Hey!”

Marana laughed. “Jesus, it’s not every day I meet someone crazier than me!” She pointed her other gun to Byers, a cheerful smirk on her face…

…and in a blur, the machine-pistol swept back at her, light blazing from its barrel.

“I really find blasphemy distasteful,” Solomon said, but the sound of gunshots drowned him out.

What it all came down to was: Vance Byers had joined the Ordo Dracul not long after his death. He’d dwelt in Cincinnati and studied hard, obtaining the title “Scholar of the Dedicated Hunger.” Now, for reasons that were murky to both Solomon and

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Ludmilla, he had forsaken the Order for the Sanctum and had moved to Chicago, a city well known (at least by the admittedly low standards vampires had for “knowing” things about other places) for its noisy Lancea Sanctum faction, and for the Prince’s ban on the destruction of Kindred.

What it really came down to was: Vance Byers knew secrets, and the Order didn’t want to share.

Solomon was running as he emptied his clip into Marana, tracing a stitchery of lightly bleeding holes across her dark-green leather jacket. He wanted to annoy her, maybe do more damage than she could carelessly heal. He’d already picked out the cover he wanted. The site for this increasingly heated spiritual/philosophical debate was a little-used train yard and Solomon was rushing towards a rusted boxcar. Its corner would give him cover if she returned fire, while putting him closer to her — close enough that he could soon get to hitting range, which was where he really did his best work.

All that assuming, of course, that Marana didn’t move, which she almost certainly would, but he was prepared for a bit of pursuit. He was not, however, prepared for a vampire to appear before him, as if coalescing from the dust and darkness — a vampire swinging a fire axe.

Solomon had an instant in which he viscerally regretted his forward momentum, and then he folded over the axe as it sank into his belly, deep enough to scrape his spine. His gun clattered away onto the rails.

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“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” said the vampire with the axe. Solomon had seen him around, he thought he was Quebecois, Jacques something perhaps?

Solomon heard the booming of shotguns as Jacques (Maurice?) said, “Now let’s see if I can make you run.” He bared his fangs and hissed, a sound rich with coiled malevolence. Backed by the illstarred power of Kindred blood, it was a face to terrify even as hardened a monster as Bishop Birch. But though he flinched, Birch knew this was just a trick, an illusion, and he drew on his deep faith in the rightness of his cause to overcome it.

He also drew on his relief at seeing a bat flutter down above his enemy (Henri? That didn’t sound right) and silently transform into a swarthy man in a black jumpsuit.

“No, but you can make me hit.” Solomon shook a metal bar out of his sleeve and swung it into the side of his enemy’s knee, using the follow through of its weight to pull himself off the blade, his blood instinctively surging to the hole to close it.

The two of them shuffled back and forth. The axeman gripped his weapon, one hand high, one low. Solomon gave his metal club a quick twist and it came apart, becoming two hollow handles attached by a length of chain, the fine barbed links concealed inside. Solomon shook them out and it looked like nothing so much as a razor-wire jump rope.

The Birch-chopping lumberjack blinked and Solomon grinned, thinking Just look at the strange, twinkly weapon, and then his timely companion reached claw-tipped hands over the Canadian’s shoul-

vi

ders and ripped the tendons linking shoulders to chest. Solomon looped his chain and yanked hard, sending the axe spinning off into the night. Solomon’s clawed co-congregant (whose name was Xerxes) had the Order fighter’s arms pinned and as Solomon shouldered into him to get the chain in where it could really tangle and slice, he finally remembered a name.

“Feel lucky, Pierre?”

“Let him go,” Marana called.

Solomon turned and, as he did, casually looped his chain around Pierre’s neck. Ludmilla Marana was aiming the Franchi at the three of them, but mainly at Solomon. Solomon worked the hole in his belly smaller, knowing that Ludmilla was doing the same to the wounds he could see in her upper torso — it looked like a little entry by the shoulder and a big exit wound in front. Her jacket was ruined, but the ragged fleshends of her blasted breast were wiggling to reconnect.

“But he ruined my jacket,” Birch said, “And it’s Hugo Boss. Besides, shouldn’t I be the one threatening on behalf of a covenant-mate?”

“I’m not too proud to say ‘ouch’,” Marana said. “We can both walk away from this and call it a misunderstanding, no ill will, nothing permanent. Just let Pierre go, give me Byers…”

“And call off the sniper that you haven’t been able to find?”

“If your gunman could hit me, he’d have done it.” “She, actually. Look at your, ahem, groin.”

Marana’s eyes flicked down and she saw the red dot of a laser spotting scope. More, in the drifting tendrils of gunfire, she saw where it was coming from and…

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…in a blur of movement, she had Solomon’s second aide covered.

“She should have killed me when she had the chance.”

“We believe in the Tranquility, Ludmilla, but not so much that we won’t make this fight even if you break it.” Xerxes said this — Solomon wouldn’t.

“Mr. Byers,” the Bishop said. “Now seems a propitious time to clearly declare your allegiance. Choose wisely and you can make this fight four on two. Decide badly, and it’s three on three.”

“I’m… I’m in the Sanctum.” Vance Byers could best be described as a pool of mangled flesh, gunpowder burns and bloodied denim. But unlike his clothes, his flesh would soon look just fine.

“There it is, Marana. Be a good sport and walk away, hm?”

A deep, bad craziness glinted in Ludmilla’s moonlit eye, but then it cleared and she abruptly pointed her gun up towards the sky. “Take him then. Find out just how smart it is to hug a traitor. When he betrays you guys for the Circle, I’ll even help you hunt him. But if Sanctified start displaying our Coils, this will go to a serious level.” There was a green blur and she was gone.

“Apparently, she’s trusting us to let you go,” Xerxes said in Pierre’s ear.

“She knows I’m trustworthy,” Solomon said. “Release him.” He locked eyes with the badly hurt mystic and said, “Here’s how you do it: Run away.” The command was backed with the potent force of Solomon’s own blood and will, and Pierre was in no shape to disobey.

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For a moment, the Sanctified looked down at Byers.

“Where’d you learn to fight with that chain?” Xerxes asked.

“I just make it up as I go along.” “Nice.”

“Yeah. It’s a pain to clean, though.”

Finally, Solomon reached down to help Byers to his feet. “Be worth it,” the Bishop of Chicago told his newest congregant.

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he next time Vance Byers caught Solomon’s attention, it was, in its own

way, even more unpleasant.

Bishop Birch was conducting a midnight mass at the Temple of the Dark Crusader and expounding upon the finer points of his theological beliefs.

“The question arose: If we are meant to be tormentors of humanity, driving them to the path of righteousness, why (as he put it) hide our darkness under a bushel? Why not,” Solomon intoned, “Do away with this troublesome Masquerade and let mankind know who truly rules the night? A tempting thought, to be sure, yet one in violation of our deeper design. For if we were to provide that fearsome break, that indisputable proof of our reality — aside from the wrath of the other covenants, and aside from any specious mewling about humanity destroying us — we would be diminished in our purpose.” He took a deep breath during his dramatic pause. Then, behind his ceremonial golden mask, he frowned. “Kindred en masse, known to mankind en masse, would be a terrifying phenomenon, but one that could be known and one against which, inevitably, the mortals would feel bound together. Now, hidden, we meet our prey face to face, one on one, and each victim is isolated not only by the terror of our presence, but by his isolation from his fellows…” He paused again, and then said “…and Mr. Byers, what do you possibly have to say which is more important?”

This time, the silence after his words was unbroken by the low muttering that had caught his attention and distressed him.

x

The vampire crowd parted like the Red Sea as Kindred edged away from the Bishop and the target of his ire.

“Um…” Byers said, looking like a kid caught talking in class.

“Come here!” Birch thundered. He didn’t bother using any supernatural compulsion. He didn’t need it. Vance shuffled up to the altar.

“With whom were you speaking?”

Vance cleared his throat and looked around nervously, but didn’t speak.

“Ah. Honor.” Solomon raked his eyes over the congregation. “With whom did he speak?”

A dozen fingers pointed. Solomon beckoned with a finger tipped by a glittering metal claw.

“Georgia,” he said as she approached. “I’m surprised and disappointed. What were you two talking about? Gossip? Stock tips? The great deal you got on a new Ford Focus?”

“We were…” Vance began, but Solomon whipped his talon over to point as he said, “I didn’t ask you.”

“Um, we were… talking about spiritual matters,” Georgia mumbled, shifting from foot to foot.

“Spiritual matters. I see.” Solomon relaxed his demeanor and took his mask off. His face, while grave, was not unkind. “I imagine you were comparing our Theban theories with his Ordo Dracul learning?”

“Well…”

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“I know what an avid student you are. When it’s all new and exciting, it can be easy to focus merely on metaphysics, on what the power of the blood can do, rather than concentrating on the issue of what it means, but I assure you my dear, that’s ultimately what’s more important.” He actually smiled. “And you know better than to talk in church, don’t you?”

She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Bishop.” “I know you are. Just do better, okay?”

She nodded, with her eyes still low, so she didn’t even see the metal gauntlet sweeping down until it crashed onto the top of her head, the cruel claws combing through her hair to lay bare the bones of her scalp. She squealed like a human and collapsed at Solomon’s feet.

“Now now,” he admonished. “Remember that you’re dead. You can do better. No crying! Tears are not for us, we are creatures of blood! Draw on the blood, Georgia, draw the blood to your wounds!”

She whimpered, but he saw the injuries closing.

“Good. Now leave the Temple and think about what you did.” He turned to Vance.

“Maybe I’ve been unclear,” he said. “There is no place for your Order philosophy in this Temple. None. Don’t discuss it. Don’t explain it. For the sake of your future, I would encourage you to do all that you can to forget and ignore it. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. I mean, uh, yes sir.” “Look me in the eyes.” Wincing, Vance did.

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“Tell me the truth. Are you teaching the Order’s ‘Coils of the Dragon’ to members of the Lancea Sanctum?”

“No, Bishop.”

Solomon tilted his head. “Very well then.” With a flick of bloodstained fingers, Birch made a gesture of dismissal. Vance backed away to his seat, never taking his eyes off the Bishop.

“Now,” Solomon Birch said. “Where was I? Perhaps I’ll just start the sermon over.”

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ou’ve been a member of our covenant for what, half a year now? Not so very long.”

Vance Byers looked around red-draped richness of Solomon Birch’s private

chapel. It wasn’t the echoing darkness of the Temple, but a chamber in Birch’s own haven. He’d met the Bishop’s private herd of humans, the Brigman family, and they’d shown him down to this small but exquisitely appointed basement chamber. They couldn’t accompany him inside: The chapel door was an airlock, and inside the nitrogen-saturated atmosphere was too oxygen starved to support a flame, or a human life.

“Six months, yes.”

“Why do you suppose I’ve called you here?” “Is it about Theban Sorcery?”

Solomon raised an eyebrow. “In a sense, I suppose you could say it is. Please, sit.” He gestured at a handsomely carved wooden chair and pulled up its mate.

“I’m very eager to start my studies.”

“Indeed. You know, some might suspect that you joined us merely to learn our ‘magic tricks’.”

“Oh no Bishop, I just want to, y’know, express my faith materially.”

“Tell me the truth until you leave my presence,” Solomon commanded, eyes wide and imperious. “Are your intentions purely spiritual?”

Vance’s mouth writhed and tics wracked his face, but he said, “Yes. Really. I joined the Lancea Sanctum from spiritual motives.”

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“Hmm.” Solomon reached into his pocket and removed a small object. “Do you know what this is?”

Vance looked at the tan shell, discarded by a growing cicada. “It’s a… a chrysalis.”

“We use it for one of our rituals,” Solomon said. “When I heard some of our younger congregants discussing ‘chrysalis’ I assumed they were learning that rite.” He stared at it and his lips moved while he spoke in a whisper too low for Byers to catch. The insect casing dissolved into smoke and ash. “But they weren’t discussing Theban practices, were they? They were talking about Ordo witchery.” He sat back and slipped his hands into his pockets, face neutral, tone bemused. “You’ve been teaching Coils to the Sanctified. Haven’t you?”

“No Bishop, I swear I haven’t, I swear it on the Holy Spear!” Vance said, but he stopped as a swarm of beetles crawled from his lying mouth.

“Interesting.” There was a loud bang, followed by a crunching sound. “You can resist my naked will. That bespeaks inner strength — a hidden strength, if I may comment — but a strength nonetheless, that will help you greatly if you turn yourself towards a higher purpose.”

Vance didn’t answer. The bang had been the sudden release of a compressed gas cylinder driving a wooden stake through a large and convenient hole in Byers’ chair back and then into his heart. Solomon had triggered the blast with a tiny radio controller in his pocket. The chair was positioned just so.

“You must learn,” Solomon said, producing an X- acto knife from behind his small altar, “That will-

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power is a deficiency when turned to resisting the truth.” He set to work removing Vance’s nose. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. When I said you were not to teach the Coils, that was not a ‘wink and nod’ prohibition.” Deftly, he cut open Vance’s pants and set to work on his genitals. “When I said there was no place for it ‘in the Temple’ I did not mean the physical enclosure, but in the hearts of all who follow the Spear.” He began trimming Byers’ ears off and raised his voice, saying, “I hope I am clear now. You are not to teach your Draculan blasphemy to anyone. At all. If you do it again, I will not stop with just the fleshy parts, but will prune your arms and legs before handing you to Ludmilla with my apologies. I hate,” he said, leaning close enough that his breath stirred the hairs of Vance’s sideburns, “Absolutely hate having to apologize to heretics. And Vance, that bitch is crazy.” He stood back, rummaged for a box of Clorox wipes, and started cleaning his hands and his knife. The excised pieces were placed in a bronze bowl and set aside, out of Vance’s frozen field of vision.

“I’ll just disconnect this piece in back,” Solomon said, “And position you here so that you can look on these ikons and meditate. I have high hopes for you, Vance, really I do. But you have to understand that this is not a social club. This is the Lancea Sanctum and it is for the rest of your Requiem.”

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