Blood Lines

himself up to spring forward at Tawfik's apparently unprotected back.
    'AKHEKH!"
    For a single voicing of the name, Tawfik joined the chant, the points of light began to coalesce, the silver ball stopped spinning, and Henry barely got his arm up over his eyes in time. He staggered, almost fell, and tried to blink away the afterimages left by the tiny fraction of the brilliance that had actually gotten through.
    The volume of the chanting rose, then fell to a nearly subliminal murmur, almost easy to ignore, and Henry realized that the overlay of spell-casting had stopped.

    'You are interfering in things you have no understanding of, Nightwalker." The voice was cold, distant, a counterpoint to the golden sun now burning in Henry's mind, larger and more brilliant than it had been only two days before.
    Teeth clenched, Henry ignored the pain and wrapped the sun in his anger, dimming the overpowering life of the wizard-priest to the point where he could function. Through dancing patterns of light he saw Tawfik frown, an elder disturbed by the actions of a youth; those actions not a threat but merely an annoyance.
    'Fortunately," Tawfik continued, still parent to child, teacher to student, "we have reached a point in the ceremony where a short pause will not affect the final outcome. You have time to explain your presence here before I decide what to do about you."
    For an instant, Henry felt himself sliding into the role the wizard-priest defined. Snarling, he thrust it aside. He was Vampire, Nightwalker. He would not be made subordinate again by mere words. The confusion Tawfik had used and twisted before had all been burned away in his rage at Vicki's disappearance and the elder immortal's part in it. He has hurt one of mine. I will not have that .
    He'd nearly gained the edge of the platform, less than an arm's reach away from Tawfik's throat, when red lines flared and slammed him back against the wall of the disco.
    'I told you when we first met that you couldn't destroy me. You should have listened." The words stood out flat and uncompromising against the background chant as Tawfik realized that the Nightwalker's relative youth could no longer be manipulated and dropped the pose of bored disdain. After the challenges he had ignored the night before, he had known this confrontation would come, but tonight, when all his attention should be focused on Akhekh, tonight was not the time he would have chosen.
    Not even the ceremony of sanctification had blocked the approaching glory of the Nightwalker's ka. He wanted it, wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his long life, and he had known from the moment the wards were shattered that tonight, at this moment, he held enough power to take what he so desperately desired. But the power he held wasn't his and Akhekh, for all he named his lord a petty godling, had painful ways of claiming ownership. The centuries had taught caution. After the ceremony, when Akhekh would be in a mood to grant favors, there would be power to spare and no risk of angering his lord. And once he had the Nightwalker's ka, he need never fear his lord's anger again.
    If words were not enough to hold the Nightwalker, then other steps had to be taken. With a curt gesture, he raised the volume of the chant a fraction and then carefully, so as not to disturb the magical structures already in place and using only his own power, he began to weave a spell of binding. The mortals, still in the stairwell, could be ignored until they arrived, then their destruction would become part of the ceremony.
    Stunned and bruised, Henry struggled to his feet. He had no idea how far behind him Celluci was as the scent and sound of the acolytes blocked the scent and sound of the detective's approach.
    "So you distract him and Mike shoots him. Simple."
    Not so simple. Although if a physical attack had no effect, perhaps the wizard-priest could be distracted in other ways.
    He was fond enough of the sound of his own voice. Henry moved away from the wall. There was only one thing he was interested in hearing about. "Why did you attack Vicki Nelson?"
    Tawfik smiled, fully aware of what the Nightwalker attempted, for the accumulated power gave him access to all but the deepest levels of that glorious immortal ka. It didn't matter. In a moment he would invoke the binding spell and the moment after begin the third and final part of the calling. And the moment after that, he would feed. Answering the Nightwalker's