LITMIR.BIZ

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      In loving memory of my dear friend, loyal companion and soul mate. I will never forget you. Brownie 1993-2007

      “Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.”

      —Richard von Weizsaecker

      Acknowledgement:

      Special thanks to Jakob Whitfield for his generous help with 1920s aircraft and to Sun Ray Verstraete for providing Spanish words and phrases.

       PROLOGUE

      HIS HANDS WERE stained with blood.

      Dorian ran blindly through the woods, the inside of his head roaring with emptiness. Branches tore at his clothing and scraped at his skin. Bloody scratches streaked his flesh, closing before he could run another hundred paces. He felt no pain. He felt nothing except the disintegration of his mind.

      Raoul was dead.

      The gun had become part of Dorian’s hand, metal seared into his palm like a brand.

      Raoul was dead, and there was no undoing it.

      He didn’t know how far he traveled before he came to himself again. He stopped at the edge of a small human town, somnolent in the warm summer sun. People stared as he walked down the main street, a man bundled up in ragged clothing and mudstained shoes. One good Samaritan, a middle-aged man with deep laugh lines around his eyes and work-roughened hands, called to Dorian as he passed by.

      “Are you all right, mister?” he asked. “Need some help?”

      Dorian turned to look at the human, hardly comprehending the offer. No one had ever asked such a question of him before. But when he met the man’s gaze, the human flinched, backed away and quickly left Dorian to himself.

      So it had always been. They were always afraid.

      With that grim knowledge, Dorian’s sense returned. He found a twenty-dollar bill in his wallet and walked to the town’s tiny bus terminal. No one on the bus would meet his eyes. He sat quietly in his seat until the bus arrived in Manhattan. He got off and began to walk again, letting his feet carry him where they chose.

      He could not go home. There was no home with Raoul dead and the clan in shambles.

      How he came to the East River, he never did remember. The waterfront was raucous with human activity, heavy with the smells of oil and sweat and stagnant water. Dorian drifted alongside the river, looking down at the greasy black surface.

      It was hard to kill a vampire. It was even harder for a vampire to kill himself. But Dorian had never lacked will.

      He stood on the edge of the pier, the toes of his shoes hanging over the edge. One more step was all it would take.

      “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

      The old man came up behind Dorian, favoring a gimpy leg and squinting through a nest of wrinkles. He was lean as an old hound, dressed in a motley collection of rags.

      And he wasn’t afraid.

      “It can’t be as bad as all that,” the man said, offering a smile that was missing several teeth. “Never is.” He shoved his hands in his torn pockets. “Everyone’s down on their luck now and then. That’s why folks like us got to stick together.”

      Dorian stared at the man. The man stared back.

      “Name’s Walter. Walter Brenner.” He thrust out his hand. Dorian hesitated. No human had ever done that before, either.

      “I ain’t got no diseases, if that’s what you’re scared of,” Brenner said. “But I do have a little food, if you’re hungry. And a place to sleep, at least for tonight. Then you can decide what’s best to do. Things always look better in the morning.”

      Slowly Dorian took the gnarled and knotted hand. “Dorian,” he said. “Dorian Black.”

      “Well, Dorian Black, you’d better come along with me. That’s a good lad. Ol’ Walter will take care of you.”

      Dorian went. There was nothing else to do.

      He was free, but his life was over.

       CHAPTER ONE

       October 1926, New York City

      THE BLACK SUCKING water closed over her head. She flailed blindly, her arms and legs as heavy and inert as logs. Red light flashed violently behind her eyes; she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but cling to the instinct that kept her from opening her mouth and swallowing the vile brew that swirled around her.

       Is this what it’s like to die?

      The thought came and went in a moment of lucidity that vanished before she could grasp it. She sank, her muscles no longer obeying the weak commands of her brain. A fish, goggle-eyed, paused to examine her in astonishment and then disappeared into the sable depths. Her lungs began to burn.

       Breathe. Breathe. Breathe…

      A stream of bubbles spilled from her lips. All at once she remembered. She looked up at the distant, pale blur of reflected moonlight shining on the river’s surface. It was a million miles away.

       Swim. Swim, damn you.

      But the air was gone, salvation beyond her reach. She stretched her arms, clutching at a substance that literally slipped through her fingers. An inky curtain fell over her eyes. She made one great effort, propelling her aching body a few feet closer to heaven.

      Something gripped her hand, seizing her like the jaws of a killer shark. Her cry emptied her lungs. The last thing she saw was a face…a face that might have belonged to an angel or the most enchanting devil hell ever imagined.

      “BREATHE!”

      The voice was both harsh and beautiful, like music from another world. It came from very far away, a place out of space and time, and yet it pulled her from the seductive darkness with all the tenderness of a mob enforcer working over some poor schmuck in an alley.

      Rough hands turned her over and pummeled her back. A rush of liquid surged into her throat and pushed out of her mouth. She coughed violently, jagged sparks zigzagging through her brain.

      “Breathe!”

      She gasped. Blessed air flooded her chest. The hands that had shaken and bullied her softened on her arms and lifted her against a warm, firm surface. She heard a heartbeat, slow and steady, felt ridges of muscle under a once-fine broadcloth shirt, smelled a slightly pungent but not unpleasant scent, as if the one who held her had been living in the same clothes for a week.

      Still dazed, shivering

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