Five Years Later: Sierra Leone
© Laurel Bowman, 2001

  
This story is based in the Forever Knight universe. I do not own the
characters; Sony/Tristar, James Parriott, et al. do, and I am grateful
for the opportunity to write about them. I might be writing about them
even faster if I hadn't started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
become infatuated with Spike, but that's another story …

 

***

It is estimated that over a million people in the Bo, Kenema and
Freetown regions have been displaced by the war. Hope springs eternal,
but in a country where there are so many refugees, a bloody civil war,
the world's highest infant mortality rate, widespread child
prostitution and rampaging sexually transmitted diseases, the outlook
for peace and prosperity is grim. It is likely Sierra Leone will be
off-limits to tourists for some time.

Lonely Planet World Guide Online (March 8, 2001)

***

On his way into the hotel in Freetown Nick stumbled over a corpse.

A power outage had cut off the lights from the lobby. Nick had been
looking away to nod his thanks at the MSF staff driver who had picked
them up at the plane and dropped him at the hotel. His reserved rented
jeep had failed to materialize. Predictably, the driver said. The desk
clerk had probably been offered more by someone else, or the jeep had
been stolen, or it had never existed in the first place.

He caught his foot on what appeared in the dim moonlight to be a pile
of rags and felt something soft but solid concealed in the mass. The
smell of death assailed him as he looked down. He had detected it
moments before, but discounted it. That smell, the sweetish rotting
odor of dead flesh, had wafted across his path several times through
the open windows of the car as they drove into the city. The latest
cease-fire with the R.U.F. had been broken in less than a week, and
the city had not recovered from the most recent incursions.

Nick looked back towards the car for some assistance, but it had
already disappeared around the corner towards the Murray Town camp,
where the doctor and nurse practitioner team that had come in with him
from Lagos were staying. He bent over the body and rolled it over. A
dead man stared up at him, slack-jawed, in his early forties perhaps.
He was missing several teeth. There were no signs of violence, or at
least of recent violence, but he was missing an arm from just below
the elbow, and the opposite leg from above the knee. Both wounds had
healed; they hadn't killed him, or not directly. He was thin but not
to starvation levels. His eyes were sunken in his head. There was
blood and saliva on the man's hand and chin. Nick's nostrils flared.
Above the scent of death there was, more faintly, a smell he
recognized from previous centuries. Bad lungs. Tuberculosis? Was that
how he had died?

He heard someone approaching and straightened up. A young man was
coming through the revolving door behind him. He was perhaps in his
mid-twenties, of medium height, and wore a wine-coloured jacket made
for a larger frame and frayed around the cuffs, emblazoned "Waverley
Hotel" over the left pocket. "Mr. Knight?" Nick nodded.

The man came towards him with his hand outstretched, saying, "Welcome
to Freetown." Nick half raised his hand to shake when he realised the
other meant to take his bag. He tightened his grasp.

"Thanks, I can manage."

The hotel clerk, for that must be what he was, came level with Nick
and saw the body for the first time. He bent over it and grunted more
in sympathy than surprise. "Sorry about this," he said as he
straightened. He motioned Nick to walk around the corpse, ushering him
towards the door.

Nick hesitated and looked back towards the crumpled body. "Isn't there
something - "

"It'll be taken care of," said the clerk. He gestured again, a bit
impatiently, and Nick capitulated and followed him into the darkened
lobby. A kerosene lamp stood on a battered mahogany desk at one end,
casting a dim golden light that did not reach far into the room. Nick
felt oddly at home. It was the first time in almost a century that he
had found himself in a public building lit by firelight.

His eyes accustomed themselves automatically, and he looked around.
The lobby was large and had at one time been luxurious. There was
little furniture left in the hall, and what there was looked worn. A
huge wooden staircase spiraled up the far wall to a mezzanine. Dull
green flocked wallpaper covered the walls, faded except in regularly
spaced large dark rectangles, where paintings must have at one time
protected the paper from the light. Overhead a huge vaulted stained
glass skylight arched over the room. In daylight, and in good repair,
it must have been magnificent; Nick's night vision could make out an
intricate multicoloured pattern of interwoven tropical birds and
plants. Half of the southern end of the skylight was boarded over. The
clerk followed his gaze upwards and said laconically "mortar attack.
Two years back."

Nick looked around and saw the other man holding out a register to
him, open to the days' date. He signed it. "What happens to - " he
jerked his head back towards the door and the man outside it. "Will
you call the police?"

"What for?" asked the clerk. "Ben was very sick. Nobody expected him
to last much longer. His family will be round to collect him."

"What was he doing out there then?"

The other man looked surprised. "Begging." His tone implied that the
answer was obvious. "It's a good location. Foreigners like you come
here. Or used to."

"But - what did he die of?"

The clerk shrugged. "AIDS. TB. He lost an arm and leg a couple of
years ago in the RUF attacks. They cut up a lot of people. Nobody
expected him to survive that. But he hung on to support his family."

"You sound like you know him."

"He was married to the day manager's cousin," said the clerk. "That's
why he used that spot. He knew we wouldn't run him off." He went to
pick up Nick's bag; Nick retrieved it ahead of him. "Here's your key.
206, third off the balcony." He pointed to the corridor leading off
the mezzanine to the left of the spiral staircase. "How long do you
plan to stay?"

Nick pocketed the key and got out his wallet. "I'm not sure. I'd like
to pay for a week in advance, in case I - " he realised that the clerk
wasn't listening to his explanation, and simply handed over the money.

The clerk scribbled "Pd 1 wk" beside his name and shut the register
back into the desk drawer. "Anything you need be sure to call." Nick
began to thank him, but he was already turning back towards the hotel
entrance, probably intending to deal with the body. Nick gave up and
headed for the stairs.

The power was off in his room also, but a smaller kerosene lantern had
been left with a packet of matches on a table by the window. Nick set
down his luggage and removed his coat, hanging it on a hook behind the
door. He unzipped the bag and opened a bottle of blood, drinking more
than half of it before he took his lips away from the cool glass
mouth. He sat down a shade heavily in the easy chair provided at one
corner of the room.

It had been a long and wearing day, even though he had managed to
sleep on the Paris-Lagos leg of the trip. Lagos airport had been a
chaotic hell, and even with several hours to find it he had nearly
missed the MSF flight. Not even the airport staff seemed to know where
it was, and the instructions Guerin had given him seemed to have been
written for a different airport. It didn't help that he was obviously
a foreigner, and probably equally obviously lost. Three separate times
he had been approached by men with broad, friendly smiles,
persistently offering their services as guides, porters or drivers. As
they attempted to distract him, he would be "accidentally" jostled
from the side or shoved from behind by another man, attempting to pick
his pocket or steal his bag. He had met such tactics so often in his
eight hundred years that he evaded these attempts on his luggage and
person without undue thought. Still, the effort of constant vigilance
against such would-be thieves, coming as it did at the end of a
wearing and mostly sleepless day, did its part to fray his temper.

Just before sunset, one young entrepreneur had gone too far. Nick had
retired to a relatively secluded seat behind a potted palm at one end
of a corridor, hoping to find a few moments' peace before he renewed
his attempts to find the MSF cargo flight. He closed his eyes
momentarily to relax, and was almost immediately jarred back to the
world around him by an extraordinarily sharp pain in the hand on his
bag. His eyes had flicked open as he grasped and snapped his
attacker's wrist before he even realised clearly that he had been
stabbed. The thief, a pockmarked, wiry young man in a stained tank top
and khakis, backed away from Nick, holding his arm and gasping with
pain.

Nick's patience deserted him. He rose and walked towards the youth,
keeping his eyes on the other's face as he felt and grasped the knife
handle protruding from the back of his hand and pulled it out with a
sharp jerk. Without looking away, Nick snapped the knife blade in two
between his fingers and threw the pieces on the floor in front of his
attacker's feet. "Tell your friends not to bother me," he growled. The
young man nodded, wide-eyed with terror, and ran down the corridor
without looking back, clutching his wrist to his chest with the other
hand.

Nick watched him down the hall. His vampire reflexes reacted strongly
to fear, anger and pain, and the urge to follow the youth and drain
him was frightening in its momentary intensity. He could feel his eyes
beginning to change and willed them back, breathing deeply and slowly
until he was calm. He resettled himself in the chair, but his peace
was gone. He felt ashamed of himself. If he hadn't been caught off-
guard, he would not have broken the boy's wrist. He had just wanted a
moment's rest. But he should have known better than to take it in his
present environment, he thought. He should know by now that it was
precisely at times like these, when he was tired, irritated, off-
balance, and hungry, that the vampire required the greatest restraint.
It was sheer luck that he had only broken the boy's wrist.

Hunger at least he could do something about. He looked around
cautiously for observers as he pulled out the flask in his pocket,
then opened and drained half the contents. He immediately felt calmer.
Over the last few years he had tried paying careful attention to when
he fed and what effect it had on his mood. He was surprised at how
constant the correlation was between fits of low patience or low
spirits, and a lengthy period between feedings. He was much better off
drinking a little, a cup or so of cow's blood, every few hours, than
leaving it a few days and then drinking five litres at once, as he had
in his hunting days.

In fact the frame of mind which had inspired him to hunt he now
recognized as extreme hunger, not lust, as his Catholic upbringing had
induced him to think, or evil. It was much like what he suspected
hypoglycemics lived with. They too had to eat small quantities
regularly to maintain their health and their spirits. But his habits
of eight centuries had been to gorge, then wait days or even weeks
until the hunger forced him to kill again. He had always, even in the
early days, been proud of his restraint when he waited as long as he
could to feed. It made him feel strong, masculine, to ignore his
body's new need for blood, just as the Church had taught him to ignore
his mortal desire for sex, or indeed his appetite for food, on fast
days. He had come to associate the feeling of hunger, of deprivation,
with virtue, long before he was a vampire.

It was a hard habit to shake, to remind himself that hunger for him
now was not virtue but simple stupidity, to teach himself that he must
remember to feed BEFORE he was starving, before the beast raged nearly
out of control, before all of his energy was spent keeping it on a
leash and taking a perverse pride in how long he could last. Until,
inevitably, his control would break again. And he still found it easy
to forget to feed, whenever he was distracted, or shaken out of his
usual routine, as he was today. Sometimes he wondered if he should buy
a wrist alarm, to remind him to drink every three hours, whether he
felt he needed it or not.

He finished the rest of the flask, catching sight of an old lady in a
colourful headscarf watching him from the main hallway as he tilted
the last of it into his mouth. His spirits were somewhat restored by
his meal, and he couldn't resist the urge to wave the flask genially
in her direction. She looked away, lips pursed disapprovingly, clearly
sure he was a drunk. My dear, you don't know the half of it, he
thought, tucking the empty flask back into his coat.

After sunset he had gone outside and conducted his own search for the
plane, eventually finding it parked at an obviously little used
terminal across the runways from the main buildings. He had slept a
little before takeoff, but once they began taxiing the noise was so
excruciating all hope of further rest was gone. The plane was an
overloaded Cessna so old he privately doubted its ability to get off
the ground in one piece. When they at last arrived, rather to his
surprise, without incident at Lunghi airport, the jeep he'd reserved
was missing, and it had taken another half-hour to arrange transport
into town. Stumbling over a body in the doorway of the hotel was the
last straw in a very long day.

He finished the bottle and set the empty to one side, and rubbed his
eyes. He wondered for a moment how he had got here. This had started
with a simple offer to make a few phone calls in Paris to see if he
could find out anything about Marcus. Five days later, here he was in
a blacked-out hotel in Freetown. LaCroix had always said he was too
impulsive, but the transition was a bit swift even by Nick's usual
standards.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, that he remembered. And he
hadn't felt like sitting around in Paris doing nothing. He had a
sinking feeling now that he'd allowed his usual preference for action
over inactivity to propel him into this expedition without giving it
the thought it deserved.

But fatigue, like hunger, always dampened his spirits. Perhaps the
trip really was a good idea; right now he was too tired to say.
Whatever his motives for coming, this could still be the right place
to be. And anyway, he was here now. He shook off his fit of self-doubt
firmly and stood up, stretching, while he considered his next move.

It was nearly midnight. There was no point trying to connect with the
MSF search co-ordinator tonight. He would try to find him at the
hospital tomorrow in the early evening. In the meantime, Nick decided,
he would scout Freetown for signs of a community, and for any other
information he could gather. The sooner he began his search, the
sooner he could leave. He hoped. He pulled aside the drapes and opened
a window. It faced onto an airshaft. Good; there was less chance he
would be observed. He stepped out onto the sill and rose into the
night air.

***

The immediate area seemed deserted. The power outage extended for
several blocks on either side of the hotel, and no cooking fires or
other signs of habitation disrupted the blanket of quiet dark that
enfolded the buildings. Many buildings were no more than shells,
ruined by some combination of fire, explosives, rain and neglect. Nick
listened and watched with a hunter's alertness but detected no sign of
squatters or other night travellers. He flew silently on, far enough
above the city to be detected only with difficulty by the naked eye. A
mortal who knew where to look and what to look for might have caught
sight of him. To the peripheral vision of the inattentive and night-
blind human eye, he would appear merely a fragment of cloud, or
perhaps a bird of prey, far overhead. A vampire would be able to see
him, but Nick made no particular effort to avoid detection by one of
his own. He half-hoped to attract their attention.

A little south of the blackout area signs of habitation began. Some
streetlights flickered in the narrow lanes, and he could hear sounds
of voices inside a few buildings. Probably taverns, at this hour of
the night. He made a mental note of their location in case he needed
to find one later, and went on. From time to time he alit and walked
through the silent streets, seeking sight or sound of human or vampire
presence. Many buildings all over the city seemed in disrepair bombed
or burned or otherwise damaged and never rebuilt. There were many
areas of the city in which he could not detect a human heartbeat; they
seemed abandoned, whether only by night or during the day as well he
could not tell. There was a smell of waste and stagnant water. Dry
grass grew in the breaks in the pavement. Windows were broken or
missing entirely, and charring on the sides of standing buildings
marked, he guessed, sites of battles during the ongoing civil war.
Nick had seen worse devastation in his travels, but not in recent
years. And not, he thought, so pointlessly. But it was hard to say.
For the innocents whose bodies and families and lives were caught in
the catastrophe, perhaps all wars were pointless.

Farther on he found the MSF refugee camp. Even at night, it seemed
busy. He flew lower. Hundreds of hearts, some sleeping, some waking,
beat faintly below him. He could see movement between the lean-tos and
shacks on the ground. Staff, he supposed, caring for the sick; and
inhabitants, going about their business. He would come back there to
look for Dr. Eckhardt in the evening if he could not be found at the
hospital. He went on and circled over the residential areas of the
city.

As he explored he became increasingly troubled. Any vampire could
sense the presence of another vampire who was a part of his own
bloodline. Older vampires, like Nick, could sense, more faintly, even
vampires who were not related to them. After speaking to LaCroix, Nick
would not have been surprised if he hadn't been able to feel any
vampire presence at all in Freetown. It wasn't the first time in his
travels that he had found himself the only vampire in a community,
though never before in one this size.

What he had not been expecting was to feel, faintly but with
increasing certainty, the presence of a family member. The sense was
almost imperceptible, but unrelenting. It felt odd, not unpleasant,
but unusual. No one he had met, he was sure. He finally landed by the
docks and did his best to concentrate. Was he imagining it? No, it was
there. Somewhere out there was a vampire of his line. But it wasn't
one he knew; of that he was equally sure. He took to the air again and
tried to refine his sense of the other's location, but everywhere in
the city felt the same. The strange vampire was somewhere below, but
muted, expertly masking his presence.

Finally he gave up the search for the moment. Besides this unknown
relative, he had felt no other vampires in his exploration of the
city. Perhaps he would find his relative, perhaps not. Dawn would come
in a little over an hour; it was time to get something to eat and
sleep for the day. Best to save his bottled supplies for when he
couldn't forage, he thought reluctantly, for he had seen no large
mammals in his travels. He steeled himself and landed in a secluded
alleyway a couple of blocks from the hotel, where he'd spotted a
refuse tip on his way out. The subdued squeaking his vampire hearing
had detected from above silenced at his approach, but the rodents
scavenging for food in the dump could not disguise their fear-
accelerated heartbeats. Rats were plentiful in this area of town;
Screed would have been in heaven here, Nick thought. It was the work
of a few moments to catch and exsanguinate a dozen. His hunger sated,
Nick wiped his hands, soiled by digging through the trash heap,
fastidiously on his handkerchief and stuffed it back in his pocket. He
had no objection to rats; he had dined on them countless times over
the centuries. But digging through garbage to get them was never
pleasant. Time to get some rest.

***

His sleep was disturbed three times. A stray beam of morning sunlight
found its way down the air shaft and through a worn spot in the
curtain onto the carpet. He awoke when it first appeared, his
instincts ever alert to the faintest gleam of the sun, but the bed was
set in a shadowed corner of the room, and he was in no danger. He
watched the dust dance in the ray, feeling oddly comforted by its
presence, and eventually drifted off again. Around mid-day a strong,
but inexplicable, feeling that he was being watched caused him to
rise, feeling foolish, and look in the closet, under the bed, out into
the hallway, and finally even to raise a corner of the curtain to scan
the balcony outside. No one was visible and he finally went back to
bed, unsatisfied, but too tired to resist slumber any longer. No doubt
fatigue was the source of the feeling anyway, he thought as he dropped
off.

Near sunset, gunfire and screaming in the street on the other side of
the building jolted him awake for good. He rose, slid his feet into
his shoes, and ran down into the lobby, tucking his shirt into his
trousers as he went, to see what had caused the disturbance.

A group of youths, hardly even adolescent, were waving guns and firing
them in the air in the street outside. Their faces were oddly
pockmarked with bandaids. One was shooting out windows in the shops
and laughing. As Nick came down the stairs, he turned and shot several
times into the revolving door of the hotel, shattering most of the
tinted glass. The last rays of sunset spilled through the shattered
windows, and Nick dodged around them and ducked into the shadowed back
of the lobby.

Several youths were running down the street, dragging weeping
children, none older than perhaps twelve, with them. Some men and
women, family members, Nick guessed, were following the gang, dodging
from cover to cover, standing in doorways and behind dumpsters and
rusted-out hulks of cars, calling and holding out their hands,
beseeching the captors. As Nick watched, one woman ran out into the
center of the street towards the group. "Tommy!" she called. "Tommy!"

Nick saw a young boy, perhaps seven, look around at her voice. He was
wide-eyed and clearly terrified. His captor, a gangling youth wearing
worn jeans and a stained white T-shirt, his face covered with
bandaids, jerked the child forward and cuffed him brutally across the
face with the barrel of his handgun. Then he turned and fired several
times towards the woman. She screamed and fell, clutching her leg. The
boy started to wail and the youth struck him again and dragged him up
when he staggered and would have fallen. The gang of boys and their
captives disappeared around the corner, firing at random down the
street behind them as they turned.

Nick started forward instinctively to help, but checked himself; the
last rays of the afternoon sun lit the pavement, trapping him impotent
in the lobby. The woman still lay in the street, her leg bent at an
awkward angle, bleeding profusely from the thigh. She was trying to
stem the bleeding with one hand while she dragged herself out of the
line of fire with the other. She called for help but no one moved
until the youths disappeared around the corner. Then there was a
sudden flurry of activity. Several women ran out to her, one ripping
off a headscarf to bind her leg, two more carrying a board that they
laid down on the road beside her to use as a stretcher. He could tell
even from where he stood that she had lost a lot of blood. Whether she
survived depended on how soon she received medical assistance.

The desk clerk, the same man who had been on the night before,
appeared from behind the counter where he had taken shelter. "Mr.
Knight", he said as if nothing unusual were happening outside. "Your
jeep arrived." Nick looked at him blankly. "The jeep you reserved from
the rental agency", he elaborated. "It was delivered this afternoon.
It's parked around back. Keys at the desk."

So it must have been just a mix-up at the agency, Nick thought. I
thought I'd reserved it at the airport. He looked at the woman
outside. She had now been set onto the board stretcher, and was still
bleeding, despite the scarf wrapped around her upper leg. The last
rays of sunlight fatally bathed the scene. "Can you drive?" he asked
the clerk abruptly.

"Sure."

"Can you bring the jeep around front and load that woman into it?"
Nick asked, nodding towards the group in the street. "I'll get my
jacket and drive her to the hospital." He didn't need his jacket; he
was not sensitive to temperature; but it gave him an excuse to delay
for a moment until the sun had entirely set.

The clerk nodded. "I'll meet you around by the front door in five
minutes," he said simply, and turned back to the desk for the keys.
Nick sprinted up to his room and collected his coat and, after a
moment's thought, his bag. He found the last of the bottled blood in
the side pocket of the bag, uncorked and drank it hastily. He didn't
know when he would next have opportunity to feed. From now on he was
reduced to dehydrated supplies, and what fauna he encountered in his
travels. He rinsed out the bottle at the sink - no point frightening
housekeeping - and bounded back down the stairs.

The last fingers of light had faded from the street in the few minutes
he had been gone. The jeep was already at the door, engine idling.
Nick pushed through the revolving door, broken glass crackling under
his shoes, and slung his bag into the back as he climbed into the
driver's seat. Two men were lifting the wounded woman into the back.
Her face was covered with sweat, and her breathing was heavy and
rasping. A scarf was bound around the wound, already soaked with
blood. Another scarf and what looked like a shirt splinted her leg to
a piece of board. She was whimpering in fear or pain.

The desk clerk jumped into the passenger seat as Nick closed his door
and turned to face the woman. He took her hand and began to speak
softly to her. His voice seemed to calm her. Without taking his eyes
from her he said quietly to Nick "First left, second right. I'll
direct you from there."

"But what about -?" Nick jerked his head back towards the hotel.

"You're the first guest in a month." The clerk gave the ghost of a
smile. "Business has fallen off a bit lately."

Oh. Well, it had certainly been quiet, barring the gunfire. "Thanks."
Nick put it in gear. The clerk went back to his murmured reassurances
to the woman. Occasionally he would mutter an instruction to Nick when
they reached a turn, without removing his attention from his patient.
Their progress was hampered by the condition of the roads, cratered in
mortar attacks and not repaired through years of civil war. Nick had
driven in worse in Vietnam and occupied France, and made the best time
he could.

Eventually the woman's whimpering subsided and the clerk faced forward
in his seat. In the rear view mirror Nick could see that the woman had
apparently fallen asleep, or passed out. Her breathing was heavy and
he could hear her pulse slowing and becoming erratic.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Bad," the clerk said briefly. "It's not much farther. Turn here. Pull
up over at the white building on the right." Nick realised as he did
so that they had reached the Murray Town camp he had flown over the
night before. Perhaps he could connect up with Eckhardt while he was
here.

The clerk had climbed into the back of the jeep by the time it rolled
to a halt. He picked up the woman with no apparent effort; under that
jacket there must have been some muscle. "I'll hand her down," he
said, gesturing with his chin towards the road. Nick jumped down,
dragging the canvas cover of the jeep aside, and accepted the burden.
The woman's heart was so weak even he could barely hear it beat. The
air was thick with the smell of blood, pervasive though not
particularly compelling. Good thing he'd fed. "Up the stairs, first
door on the right", said the clerk, jumping down beside him. They set
off at a run.

Inside Nick found a clinic. It was full of people, with every variety
of illness and injury. There were several health care workers moving
among them, wearing the MSF logo on their sleeves. Three of these were
European, the first Nick had seen since he had landed the night
before. When they saw the woman Nick carried two immediately moved to
intercept them. "Stretcher!" called one, the older of the two women.
"Plasma drip, now!" she added, catching sight of the blood-sodden
scarf around the woman's leg.

In moments their patient had been bundled onto a gurney, drip in
place, and wheeled through the swinging doors at the back of the room.
Nick waited, expecting someone to want details of the injury, and
perhaps his name, and hoping to use the moment to inquire after Dr.
Eckhardt and introduce himself. But no one seemed interested in him.
He looked around the room. The buzz of urgent activity by the health
workers did little to lift the pervasive expression of dull weariness,
of hope exhausted, on the faces of those waiting for care. He guessed
that some had been waiting for hours, perhaps days. Many had scars or
amputated limbs. Others had the drawn look of chronic illness. Amid
such suffering, no one would have time for a man with the appearance
of prosperous good health.

He turned to the clerk, who still stood beside him. "Is there any
reason for us to stay here? Will they need more information, our names
or anything?"

The other man shrugged. "Maybe. If she dies they'll want to know where
we got her."

Nick mulled this over. "Perhaps I could just give them my name and
phone number, or yours, and get out of these people's way."

"Phones are out at the hotel."

Damn. No, wait, Nick thought. "I've got a satellite phone", he said.
"I'll leave that number." He made his way to what seemed to be the
intake desk, at which sat a thin, harassed woman with wide, salt-
encrusted dark stains under the arms of her pastel nurse's uniform,
facing a slowly-moving lineup of intake patients. Nick joined the
lineup long enough to write his satellite number on the back of his
business card, then stepped around to the edge of the desk and waited
until she looked up for a moment.

"I just brought in a patient, a shooting victim," he said rapidly
while he had her attention. "This card has my name and phone number in
case you need more information about her. Not that I have much," he
added with a rueful look, hoping to initiate a sympathetic contact.

The woman took the card without any change of expression, and set it
beside her on the desk. "You're the one with Jacob", she said. "From
the Waverley. We can find him." She nodded dismissively and returned
her attention to the next patient.

Nick waited beside the desk until she looked up at him again, tapping
her pencil impatiently against the edge of the desk. Her attitude
implied that she had much better things to do than chat. He tried his
best boyish smile. "I was hoping you could tell me where I might find
Dr. Eckhardt".

"Not here," she said. "Try the hospital." She looked away without a
flicker of response. So much for my infallible charm, Nick thought as
he turned away. He was embarrassed to find that he was a little put
out. He wasn't used to women who didn't react to him. It had been very
helpful when he'd been a cop. And earlier, when he'd been a hunter, of
course.

He threaded his way through the group and returned to the clerk.
Jacob, he supposed. "Shall we go?" he said. "I'll give you a ride back
to the hotel."

Jacob followed him out of the clinic and climbed into the jeep beside
him. As Nick turned back onto the road he said unexpectedly, " you're
too blonde".

"I'm sorry?"

"That's why she didn't smile at you."

Nick looked at him in surprise, too taken aback to reply.

"I saw the look on your face. You thought she'd smile. But you're
European. You're a stranger. You don't belong here."

Nick digested this in silence. If her reaction were the norm, his task
would be much more difficult. How could he interview witnesses if his
very appearance made them more guarded? And still no sign of a
community to whom he could turn for assistance, either. That
tantalizing sense that a family member was somewhere in the city
remained no more than that, a faint intuition, and he had so far seen
no sign of any other vampires. This was beginning to look hopeless.

Jacob sat beside him, quietly alert, watching the street ahead and
pointing where Nick should turn. He was a very restful person to be
with, Nick thought idly. Nothing seemed to agitate him, and his very
calm seemed to quiet those near him. Even the wounded woman had found
his presence soothing. It was an unusual virtue in a young man;
mortals were usually much older before they learned to avoid
unnecessary movements or speech. Perhaps it was a cultural
characteristic. He asked a question that had been nagging at him.

"Why were those boys wearing bandaids on their faces?"

Jacob took a moment to answer, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. "The
attackers," he said and Nick nodded. " Cocaine plasters." He seemed to
feel that he'd answered the question, and stopped speaking.

Nick looked at him, puzzled. "What are they for?"

"You've never seen this?" Nick's expression gave him his answer, and
the clerk continued. "The children are forced into fighting with
drugs, usually. They're forcibly injected with cocaine to begin with.
Sometimes they're made to kill their own parents or family while
they're drugged. After that they have no home to return to. And they
cannot bear their memories. So they stay with the rebels, and are made
to commit more crimes. The cocaine makes them more willing to fight,
to commit crimes. And it helps bury the pain of their memories, which
every day grow more unbearable, as they commit more evil. So their
commanders give it to them to make them fight, and they take it to
ease their pain. Even though their pain will become worse because of
what they will do while they are drugged."

Nick listened, appalled, and nearly overwhelmed himself in the sudden
backwash of his own memories. The horrors he had committed, while
under the compulsion of bloodlust. But not only then. He had murdered
in hunger, yes; but also in boredom, and in pleasure in his own
powers, and in anger, and out of desire to impress his master and his
vampire love. And he had murdered out of greed, and desire, and
misery, and finally despair, when even the hot rush of self-loathing
each new killing brought him seemed preferable to the cold emptiness
he felt otherwise. He had spent a century learning to live in that
cold, trying to learn to live with the memories he could never lose.

But he had been an adult when Janette first came to him. He had had a
choice. What monsters would force such horrors unwillingly on a ten-
year-old child?

Jacob was watching the street and continued to speak without apparent
emotion. "The children make cuts in their faces and rub the cocaine
into them, and then put the bandaids over them to keep the powder in
the wound. They can stay drugged for hours this way. I have seen boys
commit atrocious acts while they wear the cocaine plasters. But if you
meet them the next week when they have no drugs, they are normal.
Except for the pain of their memories of what they have done. The pain
overwhelms many."

Nick glanced across at the other man. Jacob's tone was even, his face
expressionless. But under the dispassionate air, Nick realised, Jacob
was deeply, incandescently angry. He wondered if the clerk had lost
family members to the life he described. Better not to ask.

"It would be better to kill the children outright, than to turn them
into this," he said instead.

Jacob nodded. "Perhaps. Though alive there is still hope they can be
salvaged."

Hope, Nick thought. It was not until he met Natalie that he had begun
to feel the first, painful warm stirrings of a hope he knew he did not
deserve to feel. His memories of his countless crimes told him he
deserved nothing but pain. But somehow, since he had known Natalie, he
had begun to believe that something better than this was nevertheless
possible, even for him. Even if she couldn't find a cure, she had
helped him regain some fraction of the humanity he had lost or
forgotten in the last eight centuries. Even her brush with death at
his hands had helped him. His despair after that night had led him at
last to confront his true condition, and finally, painfully, begin to
find ways to come to terms with it, and live at peace with himself.
Ever since then he had felt somehow that though the path might be a
long one, he was on the right track.

What a lot he owed Natalie, he thought. Her faith that there was hope
even for him had set him on the way to regain his soul. But it had
taken eight hundred years for him to find her. How much hope did these
children have? Most of them would never see the age of thirty.

"How is there hope for them?" he asked. "How can anyone recover from
that?"

"It is very hard," Jacob agreed. "And there are few to help them.
Those who can, do what they can do. "

Nick nodded, absorbed in the clerk's words. He had no doubt that Jacob
was one of those who did what he could to help these poor corrupted
innocents. He wondered if there was some way he could assist in the
effort. Perhaps the deBrabant Foundation could look into it. Lost in
thought, he did not answer the clerk, and they continued driving in
silence.

The streets were now pitch-black in the tropical dark that drops
abruptly after sunset. Nick didn't need the headlights, but switched
them on to warn others of the jeep's presence. And so Jacob wouldn't
ask why he hadn't. Yet another of the necessary subterfuges that had
become second nature to him over the years, and required no conscious
thought.

As they neared the hotel, Jacob turned his head.

"Why are you here, Mr. Knight?"

"I'm sorry?" Nick collected his thoughts rapidly and wondered what to
tell him.

"Why are you here?" Jacob said again.

Nick thought quickly. Jacob could perhaps be some use, especially
since he'd found no vampire assistance so far. But Dr. Guerin had been
quite insistent that Nick keep the search for Marcus a secret. And
Jacob was an unknown quantity. In fact there was something a bit
disturbing about him. Nick couldn't put his finger on what it was. He
couldn't read the younger man, was the problem; and his eight
centuries of practice had made him a good reader of mortals. Perhaps
it was the cultural difference. But it meant that he couldn't tell if
he could trust Jacob. Better to err on the safe side, he decided
reluctantly.

"I represent a charitable foundation," he said, sticking to his cover
story. "I'm here to look at the operations run by Doctors Without
Borders in Sierra Leone, to decide if our institution will fund them."

Nick could feel the other man's speculative look, but didn't turn his
head. "They do good work," said Jacob at last, facing forward again.
"Let me know if I can help you with anything, or if there's any
information you need. I've been around here awhile." He glanced at
Nick again, as if assessing his reaction.

It almost sounded as if he knew why Nick was in Freetown, and was
offering to help. Nick nearly succumbed and told Jacob the whole
story. But he remembered Guerin's caution, and held his tongue. "Thank
you," he said. "I'll remember that," and privately resolved that if
other options failed to materialize, he would return to Jacob.

Jacob nodded and fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a pen and
scribbling on the back of a card. "Here's the hotel number. Mine's on
the back. The phones go in and out." Nick took the card with muttered
thanks and tucked it into his jacket.

The other man nodded to the street ahead of them. "You can turn right
here and let me off at the corner," he said. "We're a block from the
hotel, I can walk. Carry on straight for a mile, turn left at the
first lights - they're not working but you'll see them - and the
hospital is three blocks away on your right."

Nick slowed to let Jacob out. "How did you - " he began. He hadn't
mentioned that he wanted to find the hospital.

"I heard the nurse", Jacob said. "Thanks for the lift." He jumped out
and tapped the side of the jeep. "Good luck." Nick saw him in the
rearview mirror watching the jeep as it set off through the dark.

***

He parked his jeep outside the hospital and approached the reception
desk inside the rotunda. No one sat there, and he began looking around
for someone to direct him. Just as he reached the desk, a short,
rounded woman wearing a short-sleeved pale blue shirt with the MSF
crest on one sleeve straightened up from behind the counter, holding a
box of files. She was European, a fair-skinned redhead, and he
wondered how she dealt with the tropical sun. She assessed him with a
quick glance and set down the box.

"You're Nicholas Knight?" He nodded, surprised, and she held out her
hand. "Dr. Carmela Enkin. We were expecting you earlier."

"I'm sorry. I have a sun allergy, I had to wait until sunset to - "
Nick began before she cut him off.

"A sun allergy?" she said incredulously. "I thought you were here to
help! And you can't even go out in daylight?" She tucked the box under
one arm as she turned away from him.

"I can do other - "Nick began only to be cut off again.

"Don't tell me, tell Willem." She set off down the hallway beside the
desk, saying over her shoulder "I'll take you to him." He followed her
meekly. This was the second woman in less than an hour who had seemed
less than impressed with him. And Natalie hadn't fallen on his neck
with tears of joy either. Was he beginning to lose his touch?

She walked quickly ahead of him, her crepe-soled shoes sticking
slightly on the scuffed linoleum. Two sets of swinging doors and
numerous turns later, she opened a half-glass side door, gesturing
with her head to follow her into the small office beyond it. "Willem,
the deBrabant Foundation guy is here", she said as she walked in ahead
of him; Nick's vampire hearing picked up her sotto voce comment, "he
has a sun allergy, can you believe it? God knows what he thinks he can
... " stopping abruptly as he rounded the door. Her head was bent
close to the older man behind the desk, but as Nick entered their
heads bobbed up to confront him. The man stood and offered his hand.

"Nicholas Knight? I'm Willem Eckhardt." Nick took his hand and shook
it, then looked at him more closely. Eckhardt's hand was moist and
colder than his own, and his face was gray with fatigue. The man was
exhausted.

Worse than exhausted, Nick realised on further examination. Eckhardt
was on the verge of collapse. Nick had taken him at first glance for a
man in his fifties, but he was no more than thirty-five. The lines in
his face were deep and shadowed, and his whole body seemed to sag.
Nick saw that it was only with effort that Eckhardt didn't sway where
he stood. His heartbeat was sluggish. His clothes, Nick's nose
informed him, had not been changed for days. Several mugs stood on the
desk, some still half-full of cold, skinned coffee. Eckhardt looked as
if he hadn't slept since his wife had vanished. He probably hadn't
even left this room.

"I'm here to help," said Nick immediately. "What can I do?"

"Well, what *can* you do?" asked Eckhardt. He looked around the room a
bit helplessly. Dr. Enkin looked at him under her lashes with a mix of
pity and exasperation.

"He hasn't slept since Anneliese was kidnapped," she said, confirming
Nick's suspicion. "As if staying awake will help to find her."

"I can't sleep anyway," muttered Eckhardt, sitting down again heavily.
"I may as well be doing something. Please - " he gestured vaguely
towards the only other chair in the room.

Nick removed a box of files from the chair and sat down, balancing the
box on his lap.

"Well, what are you doing now?" he said. "Are these files connected to
the doctors' disappearance?"

Eckhardt rubbed his eyes, apparently gathering the energy to speak.
Dr. Enkin filled in as he hesitated.

"These are the files of patients and former patients of ours whom we
knew were members of the R.U.F. or former members, or who were known
to have R.U.F. family members. We pulled them a couple of days ago.
We're sorting them by location. We're trying to find any that come
from near Magburaka, where the clinic was, or Yele, which is the next
closest city. We hoped they might know something about where our
people were taken."

"You don't have this on computer?" The look on her face gave him his
answer. Nick began to leaf through the files. It looked like a
hopeless task. Half of the ones he held didn't have any home address
recorded, and the addresses of the rest were noted incompletely and
haphazardly, rarely at the same place in the file. Extracting the
addresses meant looking through the whole file every time, an
enormously time-consuming process. And then they wouldn't have by any
means all the R.U.F. members, either; just the ones they thought they
knew about.

He didn't recognize the names of any of the towns he saw. He had no
idea which ones were significant. So he'd be no use in sorting this
mess, he realised thankfully. Paper work. He hadn't resigned from the
police only to reprise the worst part of the job. Nick looked up to
the box Dr. Enkin had brought in from the lobby as he arrived.

"And those are?"

"The names we've found so far. So far we've been trying to find people
from Magburaka who are now in Freetown, and hit them up for
information. That's this box." She patted the files she had set down
on the desk corner as she entered the office.

"Any luck so far?"

She shook her head. "Can't find them, or they won't talk. We have a
stack more to look through though. And that's just in Freetown."

Nick had doubts about how much information their method would uncover.
Even if they could find informants in Freetown, who knew if they would
still have ties inland? It was hardly the most direct approach. These
were intelligent people, but they hadn't much notion of detective
work.

"Have you got any potential contacts still in Magburaka? That might be
quicker," he said.

Dr. Enkin flicked her gaze at a smaller pile of files on the table
beside him. "That lot over there. There are about a dozen. We'd got
those just a week before the bombing, from the vaccination clinic
Marcus was running. We haven't checked them out yet."

Nick was beginning to share the exasperation she clearly felt towards
the hapless Dr. Eckhardt. "But surely their information would be more
up to date?" he asked.

Dr. Enkin nodded. "The road up to Magburaka is quite dangerous", she
said. "It's become worse in the last week. There's a lot of rebel
movement in the area. We didn't want to lose anyone else, so we
thought we'd try Freetown first." She carefully did not look at
Eckhardt. It must have been his call, thought Nick. A noble stand,
refusing to risk any of his colleagues even to save his wife; but a
poor decision.

Nick rose. "It looks as if we've found something I can do," he said.
"I'll go up to Magburaka and interview your former patients." He
picked up the files as he spoke. "I'll need a map," he added. "And it
would help if you'd tell me what exactly you want to know."

Eckhardt spoke for the first time since he'd greeted Nick. "You can't
go," he said. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm expendable," said Nick. "And I have combat experience." More than
you want to know about.

Eckhardt shook his head stubbornly. "I can't let you risk yourself. We
can't let more people die."

He was seriously traumatized by the bombing, Nick realised. What idiot
had put him in charge of the rescue effort? He must have been a senior
administrator already, and nobody had had the heart to challenge him.
Or perhaps no one else wanted the job. "You're not in a position to
stop me," he pointed out. "I'm not under your authority."

Eckhardt looked exhausted but mulish, and poised to continue to argue.
Nick sighed. "Look. I know I don't know the area, but I'm still your
best choice for the job. I've been in hostile environments before. I
speak a little Krio." A very little, he did not add. "I have
experience in interviewing - people." He had nearly said "suspects",
but was pretty sure Eckhardt would be nervous about Nick's police
background. "So just give me a map and I'll be on my way." When
Eckhardt didn't move, Nick prodded as gently as he could. "It's been
nearly a week since the clinic was bombed. The sooner someone gets up
there, the better."

Eckhardt didn't respond for a long moment. Finally he nodded faintly.
"I'll give you a map", he said. "But how will you get there? We don't
have enough vehicles to lend you one."

"I have a jeep."

"And what about your sun allergy?"

"I'll stay out of the sun," Nick said. "I have lots of practice.
People are more willing to talk in the evening anyway."

Eckhardt seemed to sag a little in his chair, as if relinquishing some
small portion of control over the search allowed him to feel how
exhausted he really was. He nodded. "I appreciate this," he said.

I'm sure you do, Nick thought. You've never lived through a war; you
haven't had any experience of ordering people into mortal danger. It's
much easier if they volunteer. "I'll do the best I can. What is it you
want to know?" he asked again.

"We want to know where the bastards took my wife and Marcus", Eckhardt
said with more force than he had shown so far. Dr. Enkin glanced at
him in surprise. Apparently even mild profanity was unusual from her
colleague.

"I'll do my best," said Nick again. "Is there a way I can reach you?"

"I'll give you the hospital switchboard number," said Eckhardt,
rummaging through his desk drawer as he spoke and coming up with a
business card and a dog-eared map of Sierra Leone, which he handed
over. "But it probably won't do you much good. The phones up there are
out half the time."

"I have a - "

"There's no cell phone coverage outside Freetown," Dr. Enkin broke in.

"It's a satellite phone," said Nick. "I'll give you the number, in
case you come up with more contact names for me. Or need to talk to me
for any other reason." He wrote the number on a stray piece of paper
and passed it over. "Is there anything else?"

There was a brief silence.

"Then I'll call you when I have any news," he said.

"Better if you reported in at the same hour every day," said Eckhardt
unexpectedly. "That way we'll know if something's happened to you." He
added with the shade of an embarrassed grin, "I got the idea out of a
leCarre novel."

Nick nodded. 'I'll call in at 8 p.m. every day," he said. "I hope with
good news, shortly."

"I hope so too, Mr. Knight," said Eckhardt. "I really hope so." He
looked desperately discouraged and sad.

Nick could think of no reassurance to offer. "I'll do my best," he
said again. He considered the man before him. One thing he could do,
he thought, and looked Eckhardt directly in the eye. "Dr. Eckhardt?"
he said gently, seductively. "Once I'm gone, get some sleep."

Eckhardt blinked, seeming a bit confused.

"Get some sleep," Nick said again, maintaining his gaze and tone,
listening as the other's heartbeat slowed and calmed.

Eckhardt nodded. "I'm ... tired," he said slowly. "Think I'll lie down
for a bit."

"Come on, Willem, let's get you to a cot," said Dr. Enkin. She came
forward to take Eckhardt's arm, looking up at Nick curiously as she
passed. "Thanks", she murmured quietly.

Nick waved the files and smiled, deliberately misunderstanding.
"That's why I'm here, Dr. Enkin."

***

Three hours later Nick was fairly sure he was lost. He had managed to
find the route down through the mountains out of Freetown, and had
turned the right way at the Waterloo fork when he reached the inland
plain; but if this was the main road to Masiaka, the situation in
Sierra Leone was even worse than he'd thought.

He listened to the engine pinging as it cooled in the warm night air.
He had pulled off to the side of the one-lane dirt track when he could
no longer convince himself that this just a bad patch on the road to
Magburaka. His route had started out as a paved road, degenerated to
gravel, and for the last ten miles or more it had been a gradually
narrowing potholed lane meandering through forests and fields. He had
hoped at first that the road would improve again, and then that it
would at least encounter a better road eventually if he stayed on long
enough.

He had been travelling for three hours already, and Magburaka was only
120 miles from Freetown. He should at least be seeing some sign of
human habitation by now. There were at least two fairly well-populated
cities on the way, according to the map, Masiaka and Masuri. He should
have passed at least one of them. He must have taken a wrong turning
outside Waterloo.

He studied the map in the dim light cast by the setting half-moon. It
hadn't enough detail to be useful, but he suspected he was somewhere
south of the road, on one of the unmapped tracks that served the farms
in the district. He stuffed it back in the glove box and leaned back
in his seat, considering. Feed, then reconnoiter, he decided. He sat
without moving or breathing and listened to the night.

Around him the forest, silent at first at his advent, was beginning to
revive. Night birds and insects began a subdued chatter in the trees
around him. Some rustling betrayed the presence of small mammals in
the undergrowth. He took note of their presence but continued to wait.
He hadn't come all the way to Africa to feed on chipmunks, at least,
not if he could help it.

Ahead of him to the right he heard a faint rustle, then the sound of
grass being crushed under a heavier animal. At last. He turned his
head silently. Something very like a stunted deer was silhouetted
faintly against the night sky in a clump of trees partway down the
road. The deer was looking at the jeep. He did not move, and shut his
eyes so they would not shine in the moonlight. After an age there was
another faint rustle, and then the quiet sound of teeth tearing
through tough grass fibers. The deer had decided he was no threat. He
waited, eyes shut, a moment longer. He could feel his throat dry and
his fangs tingle with anticipation. He strained to hear the deer's
heartbeat. It slowed as the animal grazed; clearly she felt secure. It
was the moment.

Without any warning Nick levitated from his seat and swooped down on
the animal. She had time to look up, startled, and begin to twist away
before Nick was upon her, one arm wrenching her neck back so he could
imbed his fangs in the soft underside, just beside the jaw. Hot, sweet
blood spurted into his eager mouth, slowing as the deer's heartbeat
slowed. It was delicious. Not human, but still delightful; warm,
vivid, and full of pulsing life. This was more like it! The best
bottled goods would never match fresh blood.

The stream trickled to a halt as the deer died under him, and Nick
laid the body gently down in the grass. Her dimmed black eyes looked
uncomprehending up at the night, and Nick closed them for her, ashamed
now of the pleasure he had taken in her death. Perhaps he should have
tried to stop sooner. But taking only enough to weaken her would still
have been a death sentence in the world of predators that surrounded
her. He was just the lucky one who had caught her. And in any case, he
thought firmly, whatever Nat had believed, a vegetarian vampire was a
contradiction in terms. A vampire that wasn't a serial murderer was
the best that could be hoped for until there was a cure.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and leaped upwards into the treetops
and above, high into the night sky. The rush of warm night air above
the trees surrounded him in an exhilarating flood of unfamiliar scents
and sounds. He realised he was enjoying himself. The African night was
a thing of beauty, a pleasure to all his vampire-enhanced senses. Why
had he never visited before? He hovered for a moment, basking in the
fragrant darkness. And then he felt it again. That faint, troubling
sense of kinship. There was another vampire somewhere - near? This
time there was a direction; back to the northeast, towards Freetown.
He would surely not be able to sense a vampire as far away as Freetown
itself. That must be thirty miles or more, and through mountains. Was
it another vampire? Was he being followed? He hovered motionless, his
eyes closed, trying to sense more clearly, but he could gather nothing
more. The sense began to irritate him finally, and he decided to
ignore it. If the other vampire wanted to introduce himself, fine; in
the meantime he had other things to do.

He opened his eyes and addressed his attention to the work at hand.
Turning in the air, he scanned the horizon, looking for lights, fires,
or any sign of human habitation. Some distance to the northwest he saw
a faint glow; a village, perhaps, though not a large one. At least he
was headed in the right direction, then. He went a little higher and
looked for signs of a main road. A black ribbon running north-south
lay to the west also. Road or river? As he watched, a faint pair of
headlights came into view and began to travel down it. Road.

He dropped back to the jeep and consulted the map again. His best bet
seemed to be to continue down the lane and hope it connected with the
main road he'd seen, then follow that north to the connecting road,
then go west to Magburaka. He hoped. He still had a few hours until
dawn, but if the rest of the trip took as long as the first part had
he would have to break at Masiaka and rest there for the day. He set
the jeep into gear and started out again.

In the end he was lucky to reach Masiaka an hour before dawn. The lane
had petered out into a grassy track, then vanished altogether, and
Nick had had to go overland, relying on his sense of direction alone
to find the north road. Three times he had had to make wide detours to
avoid water-eroded gullies with steep, crumbling sides, for fear the
jeep would overturn or the bank fall in as he traversed it. He saw the
lights of farmhouses in the distance once or twice, but no other signs
of habitation.

When he finally reached the road, more by luck than navigational
skill, he met no other cars on it the entire way to Masiaka. The town
itself seemed deserted; there was no one on the streets, no light in
the windows. His was the only moving vehicle he saw. Many windows were
broken, some boarded up again, some with glass still scattered in the
street before the window, mute evidence of recent violence. He found
no hotels, motels, inns, or B&Bs open for business. He skirted the
town once more, looking in vain for an all-night grocer or gas station
that could perhaps direct him to accommodation of some kind. Most of
the few shops he saw were not only closed but barren, their dark,
empty windows yawning cavernously onto the road, fragments of curtains
flapping outside in the wind, unrestrained by glass. The shelves
inside were empty or missing entirely, chopped up for firewood
perhaps. There was no one on the streets to direct him. He suspected
they were cowering in their homes, avoiding danger as much as one
could in this place. The scene reminded him of the villages of Europe,
before streetlights, before regular police forces, when good citizens
stayed home after dark, and the night was the province of criminals,
prowlers, thieves, raiders, evildoers generally. And those like Nick
himself, of course. One of the few comforts he had been able to take
over the years was that much of the blood he had spilled was far from
innocent. So many of those he had encountered in the night in those
days were only slightly less dangerous than he, and with considerably
less excuse.

But Masiaka was worse even than the Europe of his past. The thieves
and criminals were hiding tonight. Something out there frightened even
them.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, he accepted that he would
have to find his own resting place for the day. His old skills took
over now, and he continued automatically out of town, looking for
somewhere on the outskirts, either a deep patch of forest or a
deserted building. It was dangerous for a travelling vampire to bed
down in an unknown city for the day; the sheer number of people around
him increased the chance of discovery and exposure. If worst came to
worst, he could conceal the jeep off the road and sleep under it, he
thought, though that was certainly not his first choice. The eastern
sky was looking decidedly lighter before he saw the ideal spot - an
abandoned church, some distance off the road, behind a clump of trees.
Its roof had partly fallen in, and the tracks around it were overgrown
with grass. Two of the windows were boarded up; the third had no
glass. It seemed unlikely that it had been in use, or even visited,
for years. Perfect.

He pulled the jeep behind it and threw the canvas roof and camouflage
net over the top, grabbed his bag out of the back and pushed his way
past the front door, hanging now by one hinge. The tang of 'holiness'
inside was faint; he felt no more than a minor nagging sense of
discomfort. The church must have been deserted for some time. Even
better. He had taken refuge in church basements more than once in his
career, but the ones still in use gave him disturbing dreams. This
one, he hoped, had been abandoned long enough to let him sleep.

He looked around the church and saw a problem. The roof had fallen in
by the door, and the plywood had been pried off the windows toward the
front. As the sun passed overhead, there would be no place in the
church that was not in direct sunlight at one point or another during
the day. He could move around as the day progressed, but that would
make for a disturbed rest, and he suspected he would need all the
sleep he could get. Was there a basement? He walked down the side
corridor and behind the former altar. He saw no sign of a staircase,
or of a door that might lead to one.

As he made his way back an irregularity in the floor before the altar
caught his eye, and he crossed over to inspect it. There was a handle
inset in the floor. When he pulled up on it, a section of flooring
came with it to reveal a square hole about as long as he was tall and
perhaps half as deep. Steps led down to the bottom from one side.
There was nothing in the cavity, no clue to its purpose. What on
earth? Perhaps it had been built to conceal fugitives from rebel
forces, he thought. Though the steps were puzzling, and it wasn't
really deep enough. But all that mattered now was that he had found
his resting-spot for the day. And none too soon - he could sense the
first rays of the rising sun breaking over the horizon.

He dropped his bag into the hole and jumped down beside it, pulling
the section of flooring down after him to cover. He kicked the bag to
one end to use as a pillow and got as comfortable as he could before
sleep overtook him.

***

He was swimming. No, he was trying to swim, but the water stung him.
It was - hot. But that shouldn't hurt? It was full of light. The sun
was up, that was it, the rays of the sun were burning him even through
the water. He swam downwards to escape the light, but it didn't work,
the water was still full of light and it hurt. He could feel it
prickling all over his skin. He swam down and down. He was scared and
forgot he didn't have to breathe, and inhaled a noseful of water. It
burned into his lungs. He gasped in pain and swallowed a mouthful. Now
his stomach burned. He hurt inside and out. He was afraid.

And then it didn't hurt anymore. It didn't hurt at all, it was just
pleasantly warm, and his fear melted away. But he was very tired now
from struggling, too tired to swim anymore. He stopped and began
floating slowly to the surface again, where the sun was waiting to
burn him. But he had no strength left to resist. His limbs were
leaden. He couldn't move. He floated slowly upwards, passive and oddly
peaceful, prepared for death.

***

Nick was floating in two feet of water when he awoke. He sat up
abruptly, nearly striking his head on the floor above him. Outside he
could hear rain falling gently on what was left of the roof, and dimly
remembered hearing it pounding down earlier. He was soaking wet. The
sensation of sodden clothing was unpleasant but the water itself,
oddly, was not. It felt warm and pleasant against his skin. He sat for
a moment and waited until his head cleared. There was no point
spending the day up to his waist in water. He would have to find
refuge elsewhere in the church until the sun went down. He pushed up
on the lid and began to climb out.

A ray of sunlight broke through the clouds and struck the floor
directly in front of him. He could feel it through the floorboards
over his head. The entire front floor of the church must be
illuminated. Wonderful. He let the lid settle back down above him and
sat back into the water. Where was the flood coming from anyway?
Wasn't the lid watertight? He felt around the edges; they were dry.
Perhaps it was flooding up from the foundation? He felt around the
floor, searching for cracks. Not that he supposed it mattered. He felt
none, but a pipe entered from one wall, angling down, on his left by
the stairs. A drain-pipe. The rainwater from the roof was being
collected and drained into his refuge. Was he in a rain-water cistern?
He'd certainly taken refuge in worse places over the years if he was.

Then the answer came to him, and Nick started in terror, his heart
thumping several times. He leaped up and pushed the lid out of the way
in a single motion, holding it over him to hide him from the sun's
rays as he jumped from the cavity and ran for the protection of the
shadows in the side aisle. A concrete tank in front of an altar.
Filled by rainwater. With steps leading down into it. In a church. A
CHURCH.

It was a full-immersion baptismal font. He'd spent the day in a
baptismal font. In water. In a church.

He calmed down slowly, sliding down beside a pew and leaning against
it, with the lid of the font propped up beside him to shield him from
the sun's encroaching rays as the sky cleared. Why was he alive? He
must have been in there for hours. Long enough for the water to reach
half-way up the sides of the tank. He'd spent hours immersed in holy
water. He was sure he had inhaled and swallowed some while thrashing
around, too; or so his dream suggested. Why hadn't he just boiled
away?

But he was alive, he thought as the fear began to recede. It couldn't
have been holy water. The church must have been deconsecrated. Or the
residual blessing on the font hadn't been enough to make the water
lethal to him. Or - there was no point worrying about it. He was
alive. He closed his eyes in relief, sagging against the side of the
pew.

He was exhausted. Also soaking wet and hungry. The sun had gone back
under a cloud and he made his way cautiously back to the font, armed
with a piece of plank fallen from one of the pews, which he used to
fish in the water for the handle of his bag. Now was certainly the
time to see if it was really waterproof.

He brought the bag back to the side aisle and opened it up. The items
on top were slightly damp, but everything underneath seemed dry. He
sorted through the contents for fresh clothes. The SPF 100 bicycle
shorts and shirt were dry enough to pull on as an underlayer; his
spare trousers and an only slightly dampened shirt went over top. No
dry socks. He hated wet socks. But under the circumstances, he'd just
be grateful that wet socks were the worst of his problems. He draped
his coat across the back of a pew and hoped it would dry out some
before evening.

He cast a thoughtful eye at the position of the sun and smeared a
layer of sunblock on his exposed skin. He might have to run across a
sunlit patch inside the church if the clouds dissipated completely
before the sun went down. Sunscreen wouldn't save him from prolonged
exposure, but it would lessen the pain of a short sprint past an open
window.

And now for dinner. He leaned back against the pillar, safe in the
shade, and closed his eyes while he listened for the sounds of animal
life. Surely the church had a rat population? He remained motionless
for ten minutes or more, to give the rodents time to forget he was
there and begin to move around. He heard nothing. He gave it a few
minutes more, then opened his eyes and sat up. This was not turning
into a good day. Resigned to the inevitable, he rooted around in the
bag and pulled out a package of freeze-dried bull's blood and his hip
flask. He ripped open a corner of the package, unscrewed the lid of
the flask, and tapped the dried blood powder into the small opening,
taking care not to spill any to either side.

The precision of his own movements reminded him of what he had seen of
heroin addicts fixing in Paris in the forties. He suppressed the
thought and the depression it brought with it. Perhaps Nat was right,
and he was an addict, but for now, blood was the only thing that
seemed to work.

He looked around the church, but saw no other water source, and headed
back to the baptismal pool, skirting a few stray rays of sun through
broken windows on the way. The idea of drinking from a baptismal font
still made him shudder, but any damage it could do him was surely
already done. He used the flask's cup as a dipper and filled it to the
neck, screwed the top on and shook vigorously. Then he unscrewed the
cap, braced himself, and drank the mixture down.

It was foul. It was worse than foul. He'd take a protein shake any
day. Tears streamed from his eyes as Nick tried not to retch, and he
wiped them away with his free hand. Next time he'd look harder for
rats.

At least he no longer felt hungry. After sunset he would do a little
hunting before setting out again. He crossed back to his seat in the
shadow by the pillar and settled down. It was still an hour or so
until sunset. Nat would probably be awake by now.

He looked around to the pew behind him where his coat hung, sodden and
steaming gently in the late afternoon warmth. It wasn't anywhere near
the rainy season, he thought as he watched water bead on the coat's
hem and drip on the floor below. Where had that storm come from?
Global warming, probably. It wouldn't make the roads any easier to
manage, either. He pulled the coat towards him and rooted through the
pockets for the phone. He had nothing to tell Nat, but she might like
to know he was still alive. Assuming she cared.

He found the phone and pulled it out of the soggy cloth that encased
it, thumbing the power button. There was a faint hiss, then nothing.
He tried again. Nothing at all this time. No lights, no sign of life.
It wasn't waterproof. Great. This was really all he needed. He turned
it off, not that it made any difference, and set it down on the bench.
He used his foot to nudge the phone into a pool of late afternoon
sunlight at the other end of the pew. Maybe it would work when it
dried out.

Then he leaned forward, head in his hands, and closed his eyes. He
thought clearly, as if hearing his own voice speaking, what am I doing
here?

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then his forehead. He felt tired.
Worse, he felt stupid. He had sauntered arrogantly into a situation he
knew nothing about. And now here he was trapped in a bombed-out
church, two days wasted already, no phone, no support, no real idea
how long it would take him to get to Magburaka or if it would even do
any good to go. He might not be able to get there at all. The storm
had probably washed out the roads. He could fly, but he would need the
jeep to get the doctor back. If he was alive.

And if he even wanted the doctor alive. That was the other thing. If
he was being honest with himself. How did he really feel about this?
About Nat setting up life happily with some other man while he watched
from the sidelines, tipped his hat, and strolled into the night like
Sam Spade? No problem ma'am, just doing my job, as he lights his
cigarette and recedes into the shadows, standing on the platform
watching Nat's train pull out ... He examined his feelings for another
moment, and put them away. It would be the best thing for her. He had
no place in her life. Nat deserved more than he could give her. He
would feel lucky if they could become friends again, he told himself
firmly, and would not ask for anything more.

He stood up, straightening against the pillar, and stretched.
Introspection always made him morose. Time to do something. Go through
the files he'd taken with him, perhaps, and see what useful
information he could glean. He sidled along the north wall of the
church, avoiding the light. The habit of long practice had led him to
park the jeep on the north side of the church towards the eastern end.
As the sun dropped in the southwest the jeep lay under the protection
of the long shadows cast by the broken church walls. Nick looked out a
broken window near the vehicle. The canvas roof and camouflage net had
stayed on, and by some miracle he'd remembered to roll up the windows.
It was probably dry inside. And a lot more comfortable than the
concrete floor of the church.

He turned back to collect his bag and coat and vaulted out the window
closest to the jeep, throwing his things in the back as he opened the
door. He settled himself into the thinly-padded vinyl-covered driver's
seat and stretched his legs out under the pedals. Bliss. It might not
be luxury but it was certainly better than a baptismal font.

As the sun disappeared under the horizon Nick finished reading, with a
mounting sense of frustration. Somehow he had assumed that the files
would contain the same wealth of information he would have found in a
Toronto police file. Not just name and address, but prior addresses,
known associates, previous convictions, favourite hangouts, names and
addresses of relatives, suspected affiliations - things he could go
on. But all the work was still to do. These were primarily medical
files. The doctor, Marcus, usually, had recorded vaccinations and
known illnesses, with terse, sometimes heartrending marginal notes.
"Malnutrition." "3rd miscarriage, malaria, husband has abandoned."
"Assaulted in refugee camp. HIV +." "l. arm high amp." It was hard not
to let the mind wander down the tracks left by these notes, to
speculate about the lives behind them, the people so afflicted, and to
wonder how they managed in the harsh world they were born to. But
there was almost nothing he could use to track these people down, if
the addresses weren't current. And the addresses themselves seemed
unlikely to be helpful most of the time. "shed behind Mandy's"?
"Alleyway near St. Luke's"? He could only hope these would make more
sense when he got to Magburaka. Nick did his best to stifle a feeling
of futility, and dropped the files on the passenger seat. Time to go
have a look for himself. He had reached into his pocket for the keys
when a faint shrilling noise caught his ear.

He turned and listened. It was coming from the church. The phone -
he'd left it on the pew to dry. It must be working again. He jumped
out of the jeep and flew through the church window, catching it on the
fourth ring. "Nick Knight."

"Good to hear you! I was beginning to wonder." The sound was thin and
crackling, but he had no trouble identifying the voice.

"Nat!" Nick began to make his way back to the jeep as he spoke.

"Is everything okay? I just wanted to check in."

"Everything's just fine." Except I'm lost, the road is probably washed
out, I have no real leads, my powdered blood substitute makes me gag,
and my socks are wet. No point starting.

"You're still in Freetown?"

"No, I'm on the way to Magburaka, where Marcus vanished. I've got a
few leads to check out. Former R.U.F. members he treated who might be
willing to talk." Nick did his best to sound confident.

"How's it been going?" Nat sounded a little on edge. Was she worried?

"Pretty well," he reassured her. "The M.S.F. have already started
their own investigation, and they have a lot of information, people on
the ground." And in the ground, probably. How old were most of those
files? "I think they're humouring me by letting me help. They don't
really need me." He remembered Dr. Eckhardt, swaying with fatigue, and
Enkin's look of transparent gratitude when Nick stepped in and made a
firm decision, probably the first one anyone had made in a week. "I'm
sure something will break in the next few days." Before she could ask
anything more, he changed the subject. "How are you feeling?" There
was no point worrying her needlessly, especially in her condition. And
surely in a few days he would know more than he did now.

"I'm fine. Still mostly on bed rest, and I can't work. But I'm allowed
to move around the apartment now, and go out once a day to rent more
videos." She was mocking herself, but she sounded drawn. She had never
liked to give in to illness, to rest or take care of herself, he
remembered; she preferred to distract herself through work. He
remembered her obstinately staying through a shift at the morgue,
mopping at her swollen eyes and reddened nose, insisting "it's just an
allergy attack, it happens every -" checking the calendar - "January",
and breaking off in the middle to sneeze. 'You're allergic to snow?'
he had teased her. It all seemed so far away.

"You sound bored stiff," he said sympathetically now.

"I am. Terribly. And I've got too much time to brood," she said at
once, and he knew he'd hid the nail on the head. "But I shouldn't keep
you on the line, I know this is expensive. I just wanted to make sure
you were okay."

"You don't need to worry about me," Nick said. "I was going to phone
yesterday but thought I'd wait until I had some news." I didn't want
to admit I had nothing yet.

"Call anyway," Nat said immediately. "I do worry. It's a dangerous
area. I mean, even for you."

"Don't forget my superpowers," Nick said lightly. "I can fly. I can
walk through stone walls. My strength is as the strength of ten..."

"Yeah, yeah, because your heart is pure. Just take care, okay? I feel
responsible for your being there at all, and it makes me anxious."

"Honestly, Nat, don't worry." Nick had reached the jeep again and was
pulling off the camouflage net with his free hand. "It was my idea to
come. I haven't been in Sierra Leone before, I grant you, but I've
been in places like it. I'm familiar with war zones. I can take care
of myself. I'll find out what I can and I'll be back before you know
it. It's Saturday now, right? I'll call you Monday to check in."

"Okay. Thanks." The air hissed and crackled. He wondered if the
battery was giving out. "Well, back to Pride and Prejudice," he heard
faintly.

"I didn't know you were a Colin Firth fan."

"Nick, you don't know any women who aren't. We just don't talk to men
about it." She sounded amused. At least he could still make her smile.
"Talk to you Monday then." She rang off, leaving Nick feeling
unreasonably cheered. So Nat was thinking about him after all. Though
she's probably only worried for the sake of her precious Marcus, his
internal voice informed him. Oh, shut up, he answered it amiably. At
least she's concerned.

Nick climbed into the driver's seat and checked his watch. It was
nearly 8:00; time to call Eckhardt, although he would rather not. It
was embarrassing to admit how short a distance he had come. He steeled
himself and dialled the hospital number. The phone rang several times
before a female voice took his name and asked him to hold. A moment
later a brisk voice answered. "Carmela Enkin. How are you doing? Any
luck?"

"I'm fine, but I'm not in Magburaka yet. I'm just outside Masiaka. I
missed a turn and it took awhile to find the road again."

"Watch yourself, there's been R.U.F. movement near there," Enkin said.
"They raided the shops in Masiaka just last night."

"Really." That explained the broken glass and emptied shops. Nick
looked back towards the town. The horizon was not glowing as it
usually did, in this century, over inhabited areas, lit by
electricity, streetlamps, and cars. At least there was no sign of
fire. Perhaps the townspeople were keeping a low profile tonight, in
fear of another attack. "Do you know what they took?"

"The usual. Food, fuel, medical supplies. Why?"

"Just thinking out loud." The phone crackled again. Nick made a mental
note to plug it into the charger as soon as the call was over. "Would
you know if they took more medical supplies than usual?"

"They cleaned the town out, from what I hear, but that's normal. They
take whatever they can get." There was a pause, as if Dr. Enkin was
thinking also. "Are you thinking they may have some need for a
doctor?"

"They probably always do," said Nick. "I wonder where they're camped."

"Masiaka," said Dr. Enkin. "That rings a faint bell. I think I might
have seen one or two possible R.U.F. members from there in the patient
files. We weren't thinking about Masiaka when we were sorting them
last week, so I didn't set them aside."

"It's only, what, sixty miles from Magburaka to Masiaka?" said Nick.
"It's certainly possible that the raiders came from somewhere near
here."

"Or took Marcus and Anneliese there afterwards," Enkin agreed. "As
long as you're there, you may as well see what you can find out." He
could hear paper rustling as she spoke, and her voice sounded farther
away, then returned. "We must have put the Masiaka file away in one of
the boxes. I'll have a look through and call you back in probably
around an hour."

"'Fine." He'd use the time to look for a few unlucky rodents. He
needed something to wash the taste of dehydrated bull's blood of his
mouth. "I'll wait to hear from you before I move on. How's Dr.
Eckhardt doing?" he asked in afterthought.

"Much better," Enkin assured him. "He slept for nearly sixteen hours
and actually ate something when he got up. He's not his old self
again, but at least he's functioning."

"That's good. Talk to you shortly." He'd done some good, then. Nick
ended the call and rummaged through his bag for the battery charger.
He hooked it up to the cigarette lighter and attached the phone,
stuffing both under the driver's seat in case of a shower. Then he
looked around perfunctorily for observers and set off into the sky.

Once again he found himself entranced by the African night. The warm
humid air bore a thousand new scents; the skies, partially free of
clouds, were full of unfamiliar stars. During the day, surrounded by
the human signs of war and devastation, he questioned his sanity in
coming here; but at night, in the Sierra Leone countryside, he almost
felt at home. He hung in the air just above treetop level, reveling in
the night air, listening for the sounds of larger animals. He heard
none and after a few moments gave up and dropped silently towards the
unmistakable sound of a small night-creature feeding. He found an
unfamiliar marmot-like rodent, which became aware of his presence just
too late. There was a second a little farther on.

His hunger satisfied, he looked around the forest. The small, peaceful
sounds of animals, insects, and strange night birds making their homes
around him, the smells of lush green plants opening themselves to the
moisture in the air and damp earth after the rain, the absence of any
sound or sight of human presence, together soothed and relaxed him.
There was time to walk back to the meadow around the church.

In following the forest paths left by animals between the trees he
found he was gradually diverted away from the meadow and around the
church towards the road. He was enjoying the stroll and allowed it.
When he emerged from the trees onto the road found he was a little way
down on the side away from town. A wind had blown up, and he debated
flying a little way down the road to Masuri to reconnoiter. But he
should probably get back. Instead he flew along the road and dropped
to the ground beside the church. Feeling relaxed and cheerful from his
stroll, he walked around the side wall to the jeep.

A decrepit Peugeot deux-chevaux, rusted and missing one headlight, was
parked behind the jeep. Three young men stood around it. A tall,
slender youth, leaning against the hood, held an ancient AK47, the
safety off, which he raised lazily and pointed at Nick as he rounded
the corner. Another, similar enough to be his brother, wore Nick's
coat, still rumpled and damp, and rested an arm on the roof as he
leafed through the files that had been on the passenger seat. The
third, shorter and muscular, was going through his bag, examining the
contents and strewing them on the ground. All three wore baggy cotton
trousers, well-used t-shirts, and revolvers stuck into their
waistbands. R.U.F. members or government troops, but likely R.U.F.

Nick came to a halt. For a moment no one moved. Then the one with his
bag bent and picked a foil package from the ground where he'd tossed
it. He waved it at Nick. "What's this?"

"A nutritional supplement." He pointed to his mouth, but the other had
already looked away. Nick moved slowly forward, keeping his hands
visible. The AK47 pointed more sharply, and he halted where he stood.
He could handle three adversaries, but he didn't want to kill anyone.
And a submachine gun, even one as old as this one looked to be, gave
him pause. Those old AK47s never seemed to die. He wondered where
they'd got it. It probably couldn't kill him unless it took his head
completely off, but a full clip would slow down even a vampire while
he healed.

The muscular youth tossed the foil package back on the ground. He
pulled a plastic tube from the bag. "What?"

"Sunscreen."

There was general amusement. The sunscreen landed on the ground beside
the foil pack. The one leafing through the files said "hey, Charlie
Mugabe. I know him."

"Thought he was killed last month at Masuri," said the gunbearer.

"Yeah." The reader rifled through the other files. "I know half these
people." He looked at Nick for the first time. "What are you doing
with our friends' names in your papers?"

Nick had had time to try to think of an answer to this question. "I'm
just bringing the files back to the clinic in Magburaka."

"It's gone." From the muscular one.

"They're starting another one. Out of the hospital." Nick tried to
capture his eye as he spoke, to calm him and take control. But none of
the men were looking at him now. The one wearing his coat was looking
at the muscular one, for instructions, Nick realised; he must be the
leader. The gunbearer was watching the other two. Nick might as well
not have been there. But he knew from the gunbearer's stance that if
he made any sudden motions, he would be shot.

"The hospital? That the one by the main square?" asked the muscular
one, keeping his eyes on his associates. His tone of voice told Nick
to be wary.

"I don't know," said Nick. "I have to ask directions when I get
there." A certain relaxation in their stance told him that if he
hadn't passed the test, at least he had not failed it.

"You a doctor?"

Nick wasn't sure what the right answer was. "Paramedic." True enough,
although his Vietnam training was forty years behind him.

The leader dumped out the rest of the contents of his bag and shook
it. Nick's clothes spilled out and he stepped on a shirt, grinding it
deliberately into the mud. "You've got no supplies."

Medical supplies, he must mean.

"They have them at the hospital."

"They've got nothing up there." The leader jerked his head and the
submachine gun was raised towards him again. "You people never travel
without supplies."

"They couldn't spare anything in Freetown."

Apparently that was possible. He felt another minute relaxation. The
leader's heartbeat, mildly elevated, slowed slightly.

"What will you do in Magburaka?"

"Help out at the clinic until they find a doctor."

His bag was dropped on the ground, empty. The leader scrutinized him
and shrugged, apparently satisfied. "Walk there." He looked at the
young man with the files and jerked his head towards Nick. "Get his
keys." The AK47 stayed unwaveringly on him. The one wearing his coat
tucked the files under his arm and approached from the side.

"Right pocket", said Nick, resigned. Inwardly he calculated rapidly.
He could overcome this one, but the others were out of his immediate
range. Better to just let them steal his jeep. This could still work
out well. As soon as they left he could take to the air and follow
them. Even if they didn't lead him straight to a rebel camp, surely he
could learn something that might lead him to the doctor. He stood
docilely as the one with the files fished out the keys.

"Over there, on your face, hands behind your head," the leader
ordered, and the machine gun jerked towards the concrete patio outside
the church door. Nick lay down on the pavement, hands behind his head.
Were they planning to shoot him after all? He hoped not. Without human
blood it would take a long time to heal, and he wanted to follow them
when they left.

"Count to a hundred before you look around or think about getting up,"
said the leader. Nick nodded without looking behind him. He could hear
them turning and walking towards the jeep, the gunbearer last, walking
backwards and keeping the gun trained on Nick.

"Why we don't just waste him?" he could hear one muttering, and the
leader answering "Save the ammo. How long will he last out here?"
There was a rustle and a clinking sound, and the leader's voice again,
"here, you take the car. Fitz and I'll get the jeep."

Nick's shoulders were tense from keeping his position. He didn't move.
The Peugeot door chunked open and shut. The ignition didn't catch, and
didn't catch, and caught. He could hear the car reversing at high
speed and swinging around in a squealing turn, before slamming into
forward and disappearing around the corner of the church. Hot dog. He
probably didn't get to drive too often.

His shoulders ached. He heard the leader climbing into the jeep. The
click of the key being inserted in the ignition. The engine turning
over. The leader: "Come on, Fitz, I haven't got all day." The
gunbearer taking one, two, three steps backwards towards the jeep.
Opening the door. Turning to climb in.

The phone rang.

His heart sank. Dr. Enkin had called back early. All bets were off.

Everything happened at once. "What the f - ?" he heard from the
leader, and scrabbling as he looked for the source of the noise. Nick
had begun to roll to one side. The gunbearer, startled, waved the AK47
and let off a burst in his direction, stitching a line of bullet holes
along the concrete and through Nick on its way to the church wall
behind him. He was jolted by the force of the impacts as the bullets
pierced his body and flattened themselves on the concrete beneath him.
He hadn't been shot in years. It was surprisingly painful. That
settled it. The moment for diplomacy was over; it was definitely time
to go.

Nick leaped from the ground and rushed the gunbearer. Or he tried.
Somehow his legs didn't respond to command. He looked over his
shoulder in surprise, and saw blood seeping from several wounds across
his back. More than one bullet must have penetrated the spine. He was
paralyzed from the waist down until it healed. Probably only moments,
but still too long. The situation was spiralling out of control, and
he was out of ideas. He pushed himself over to one side with his arm
and looked up at the two men at the jeep. What were they going to do?

The leader had located the phone. As Nick watched he thumbed the power
button. Nick's vampire hearing picked up Dr. Enkin's voice. "Nick? I
found it! " The youth grunted noncommittally and she went on,
obviously assuming she was speaking to Nick. "I must have set the file
aside with the Freetown batch. The name is Clarence Perkins. We saw
him three years ago. He was staying at ... " he could hear her sorting
through papers as she spoke - "here it is. He was at his uncle Basil
Perkins' farm about fifteen miles out of Masiaka just off the
Magburaka road. You can pay him a visit on your way."

Nick heard a strangled moan and realised it was his own voice, saying
"no, stop ..." before she said anything incriminating. But it was
clearly too late, to judge by the look on the leader's face. He knew
Clarence Perkins. He even knew the farm. He switched off the phone
without answering her, his eyes on Nick.

"You're a f***ing journalist, aren't you. A spy."

"No! I'm a para-" ... but the other man pulled his revolver from his
waistband and impassively shot him through the heart. The shock and
pain of the impact stunned Nick. He fell back and lay momentarily
incapacitated, staring up at the night sky. He just needed a few
moments and he could heal enough to move away ... to do something ...
but through the pounding surf in his ears he heard the other say,

"Go ahead, make sure he's dead. You've wasted half a clip already."
And the gunbearer giggled and stood over him, and emptied the rest of
the clip into his helpless body at point blank range. He heard a stray
round ricochet from the ground to the church wall and back the
watermelon-rind crunch as it entered the back of his skull.

Thick black fog reached tendrils around Nick and welcomed him,
embraced him, drew him in. And he fell, gratefully, wanting only to
rest and forget. With his last moment of consciousness he heard "pick
up the empty, a****le, we can refill it," and wondered what it meant.
Then the world went dark.

***

He was standing on Nat's balcony looking in. Nat was in her apartment.
The new one, in Vancouver. He didn't recognize much of the furniture.
She must have left a lot behind in Toronto when she moved. She saw him
and said something, looking at him earnestly. He couldn't hear her
through the glass. She repeated it, her lips enunciating carefully,
exaggerating. "I-forgive-you", he understood at last. "I-forgive-you",
her lips said. She looked to see that he had understood and he nodded.
She smiled at him, satisfied, and turned away.

He knew he should be happy but he felt bereft. If she forgave him,
wouldn't she forget him too? If she let go of her anger, wouldn't she
let go of him? He didn't want her to let him go. He wanted to keep
making it up to her forever. He stood on the balcony and watched her
move around her apartment. He wanted to stay. If she would let him
keep making it up to her, he would have an excuse to stay.

***

When he awoke didn't immediately remember where he was. He was lying
on his back on wet pavement, under a stained-glass window. A church,
it must be. He tried to sit up, but his body didn't respond, and he
realised that he couldn't feel his legs. He looked down at himself and
saw a body riddled with bulletholes, tatters of clothing plastered to
the wounds with drying blood. A crater was gouged out across his
abdomen and another through his ribcage over the heart, and splinters
of white bone poked out of the hole. His spine must have been more
than severed; pulverized, he suspected. He instinctively tried to
raise his hand to cover the wounds, but his arm didn't respond either.
He craned his neck to look around him. Much of the dampness of the
pavement, he saw, was from the pool of blood in which he lay. His left
arm had been entirely severed at the bicep by the same hail of
bullets. The rest of it lay a little way from his body.

It was disturbing that he felt no pain. Even for a vampire, this level
of injury should have caused him some discomfort. But he felt nothing
at all below his shoulder blades.

He closed his eyes and laid his head back. His mind was foggy and he
felt dizzy, perhaps from the loss of blood. He lay quietly for some
time, unable to summon the energy to do anything else, drifting in and
out of a light doze. Memory gradually returned in his more lucid
moments. A face, grinning down at him. A young man, smiling as he
emptied the clip of an AK47 into his defenseless torso. A phone
ringing. A youth wearing his coat. His clothes, scattered in the mud.
By the time the eastern sky had begun to lighten, the whole meeting by
the jeep was clear in his mind again, unrolling with hideous
inexorable clarity to the climactic moment, the grinning youth
standing over him with the gun.

Once he had remembered it he could not keep himself from replaying the
scene, going over and over it with useless second thoughts, as if he
could edit the story, revise it so that it came out a different way. I
should have flown straight to the jeep, I would have seen them first.
I should have been listening. I should have jumped the guard when he
looked away. When there were only two of them left. When the phone
rang. There must have been something I could do. Anything.

Whatever it was, he hadn't done it.

He lay on the bloodstained pavement, staring up at the African stars,
and felt, more than anything, like a fool. I thought I was invincible,
he thought savagely. I thought I could play the hero. I could make the
dramatic gesture, fly into Freetown, rescue Nat's doctor with one hand
tied and hand him over with a ribbon around his neck. I could tell
myself I hadn't ruined her life after all, I'd repaid my debt. They
were all right. Janette, LaCroix, Nat. I wanted to make amends. I
don't often get the chance. It was an opportunity I couldn't resist. I
really didn't think it would be that difficult. And now here I am. A
moment's caution is all I needed. And instead I'm going to die.

When the predawn bird chorus began to sing, he let go of his thoughts,
with an effort. There was no time left for regrets. He rolled his head
to the side and looked down towards the puddle of blood under him. It
was a little smaller that it had been when he first awoke; his body
was reabsorbing it, trying to heal itself, but so slowly. Too slowly.

He closed his eyes wearily. It took too much energy to keep them open.
Natalie, my dear, he thought. I'm sorry I couldn't find your doctor
for you. I meant to do something good for you. It means so much to me
to see you smile. Wherever he is, I hope he survives and comes home.
Since I know it matters to you.

Since it doesn't look like I'm going to make it myself.

He felt himself falling again into a light doze, and jerked awake.
There was something he had to do. Lord, he thought. I'm sorry. You
know that. I've tried to make amends. Please forgive me. Please accept
my soul. Please take care of Natalie and her baby.

He tried to lift his intact arm to cross himself, but it still would
not respond. He could twitch two of his fingers a bit now, with
concentration, and he used the index finger to laboriously trace a
small cross on the pavement beside him. It made his hand feel warm. It
was the best he could do.

He felt more peaceful after his prayer, and began to drift off again.
It was probably an hour until dawn. He wondered if he would wake up
before the sun struck him. Or when it did. He was wearing sunscreen
and the UV protection clothing. Would that protect him at all, or only
prolong the agony? He'd know soon enough. He was too tired to think.

When he woke again it was just before dawn. The band of light around
the horizon in the east was bright, and the clouds scudding across the
sky were glowing brightly orange and salmon-pink above him. It was
beautiful. He felt privileged to be able to watch it, and oddly
serene. Some sensation had returned to his toes; pins and needles. If
he had lived he would have been in a surprising amount of pain soon,
while he healed. That at least he didn't have to worry about. He
watched the eastern horizon in calm anticipation. He was about to see
his first sunrise in nearly eight centuries.

A pebble scraped on the pavement behind him.

***