Blood Price

question again. "Are you sleeping with him?"

    "No."

    "But you would. . . ."

    Managing to look both miserable and elated, Alfred nodded. "He's magnificent."

    Overpowering was closer to the word Henry would have used. The doctor's personality was like a tidal wave, sweeping all lesser personalities before it. Henry had no intention of being swept, but he could see how he might be if he were the idle young man he appeared to be; could see how the others in the room had been, and he didn't like it.

    Just after eleven, the doctor disappeared and a gong sounded somewhere in the depths of the house.

    "It's time," Alfred whispered, clutching at Henry's arm. "Come on."

    To Henry's surprise, the group of them, a dozen young men in impeccable evening dress, trooped down into the basement. The huge central room had been outfitted with torches and at one end stood what appeared to be a stone block about waist high, needing only a knight lying in effigy on its top to complete the resemblance to a crypt. Around him, his companions began stripping off their clothes.

    "Get undressed," Alfred urged, thrusting a loose black robe in Henry's direction. "And put this on."

    Suddenly understanding, Henry had to bite back the urge to laugh. He'd been brought in as the twelfth member of a coven; a group of juvenile aristocrats dressing up in black bedsheets and capering around in a smoky basement. He allowed Alfred to help him change and he remained amused until Dr. O'Mara appeared behind the altar.

    The Doctor's robe was red, the color of fresh blood. In his right hand he carried a human skull, in his left an ancient book. He should have looked as foolish as his sycophants. He didn't.
    His pale eyes burned and his personality, carefully leashed in the drawing room, blazed forth, igniting the chamber. He used his voice to whip the young men to a frenzy, one moment filling the room with thunder, the next dropping it low, wrapping it about them, and drawing them close.

    Henry's disgust rose with the hysteria. He stood in the deepest shadows, well away from the torches, and watched. A sense of danger kept him there, a pricking up and down his spine that told him no matter how ludicrous this looked, the doctor, at least, played no game and the evil that spread from the altar was very real.

    At midnight, two of the anonymous, black clad bodies held a struggling cat upon the stone while a third wielded the knife.

    "Blood. Blood! BLOOD! BLOOD!"

    Henry felt his own need rise as the blood scent mixed with the smell of smoke and sweat.
    The chant grew in volume and intensity, pulsing like a heartbeat and pounding against him.
    Robes began to fall, exposing flesh and, surging just below the surface, blood . . . and blood . . .
    and blood. His lips drew back off his teeth and he stepped forward.

    Then, over the mass of writhing bodies between them, he met the doctor's eyes.

    He knows.

    Terror broke through the blood lust and drove him from the house. Clad only in the robe, and more frightened than he'd been in three hundred and fifty years, he made his way back to his sanctuary, gaining it just before dawn, falling into the day with the memory of the doctor's face before him.

    The next night, as little as he wanted to, he went back. The danger had to be faced. And eliminated.

    "I knew you'd return." Without rising from behind his desk, Dr. O'Mara waved Henry to a chair. "Please, sit down."

    Senses straining, Henry moved slowly into the room. Except for the sleeping servants on the third floor the doctor was the only life in the house. He could kill him and be gone with no one the wiser. He sat instead, curiosity staying his hand. How did this mortal know him and what did he want?

    "You blend quite well, vampire." The doctor beamed genially at him. "Had I not been aware already of the existence of your kind, I would have disregarded young Alfred's babblings. You made quite an impression on him. And on me. The moment I realized what you were, I had to have you with me."

    "You killed Charles to make room for me."

    "Of course, I did. There can never be more than twelve." At Henry's utterance of disgust, he only laughed. "I saw your face, vampire. You wanted it. All those lives, all that blood. Fresh young throats to rip. And they'd have given themselves joyously to your teeth if I commanded it." He leaned forward, pale eyes like cold flames. "I can give you this, each and every night."

    "And what do I give you?"

    "Eternal life."