By Anne Fraser and Barbara Zuchegna
With assistance from Sharon Pickrel and Jean Lamb
Copyright 1999

Chapter Sixteen

Neither Jake Fowler nor Ed Perry had come back to Ardeshir's house during the night. Now, as the sun rose, there was still no sign of them. Will Scrope, who had been resting his wounded shoulder for most of the night, rose just after sunup to find his king sitting outside, on the ground, his back against the wall of the house, drinking coffee. Richard was wearing only one of the long white silk robes they had brought with them, and the fresh coolness of his skin indicated that he had found the time and the means to bathe.

Out in the square, the village women streamed, lines of them, to the ancient well, lowering the big bucket, one by one, pouring the icy water into their household containers...pails, pans, earthen pots. Their colorful skirts swirled around their bare feet; gold glittered at their necks and wrists ... and even on their toes. They walked with a lovely, confident dignity, hips swaying provocatively even at so prosaic a task.

There were no men in evidence anywhere.

A woman came quietly out of the house to bow and look at Will enquiringly. "She wants to know," Richard said, "if you would like coffee."

Will smiled at her, nodding. What he wanted most, if at all possible, was to find out where and how Richard had taken a bath.

"Sit down," Richard said, indicating the ground beside him, and Will did. For a moment, Richard said nothing more, sipping carefully at his coffee. It was very hot; steam drifted, curling, into the still morning air. Then, Richard said, "Will, Adrian and I ... and the others ... will be going out tonight, to investigate a place where the lady T'beth was seen. You will remain here."

Will didn't say anything. Everything in him was screaming that he could not allow this to happen.

The woman brought his coffee, and he smiled his thanks. It was sweet, and very dark, and it tasted wonderful in the chill morning air.

"I am quite well, Your Grace," Will said, finally.

Richard was in no mood to argue. "You will remain here," he repeated. "And it is only because you will that I can ask something else of you." His eyes turned to Will now. "I must rest today, Will. And no one can disturb me. Can you keep watch?"

Nothing that Will said would change Richard's mind. Nothing he had ever said had ever done so. He nodded his great head, his eyes unhappy. "I can, my lord."

"Thank you." Richard's head dropped back against the wall and he smiled. "But before you do, our friends here will provide a bath for you. You would have me dreaming that I was herding cattle."

Will hurried. He was aware, more aware than anyone else could have been, of how close to the edge of total exhaustion his king had pushed himself. If he could do nothing else, he could give Richard this entire day to restore himself.

It had been three days. Three days when he had not slept or, sleeping because of what the woman Alexis had done to him, he had not dreamed. Three days, each longer than the last, since he had dreamed of her.

Liliana.

Richard did not even try to deceive himself. Blessedly alone, in the dim room with the shutters drawn, with the pattern of narrow bars of sunlight that came through the slats to lie across the foot of the bed, he gave himself over to sleep at last ... and waited for her.

It was her voice that came to him first.

"Richard." The softest breath, in his ear, feathering his hair. "Richard, my love..." Her fragrance surrounded him.

He had slept for many hours; he knew it at once from the way his muscles responded as he turned over and pulled her in against him. Her lips moved in the hollow of his throat, saying the same words, over and over.

The relief he felt was almost uncontrollable. He hadn't been certain that she would come, that he could draw her back into his dreams. All through every day he damned himself that he could not stop thinking of her, and yet each time he closed his eyes he was afraid he would not find her again.

He pushed her back, his eyes drifting open. Bent over him, she had let her hair hang free all around her face, heavy waves of all the shades of gold. She was wearing a nightdress, a flimsy slip of a thing in satin of a deep rose ... the exact color of her lips, of the tips of her breasts. God, he loved the colors of her ... all the soft golds and pinks he could not see when she came to him in the caves. There was no single inch of her body that did not taste of those colors ... the warmth of the golds, the sweetness of the pinks and roses...

His hands slid up over her back, and all around her, luxuriating in the slippery feel of the fabric over the warmth of her skin. Her eyes, the warm golden brown already shading toward silver, smiled down at him, locked on his.

"You're thinner," he said. It wasn't what he wanted to say to her; she didn't want to hear what he wanted to say to her.

Her smile widened. "So are you," she said, and bent to kiss him. Her hands moved over his chest, his shoulders, down over the muscles of his upper arms. She brought every part of him she touched to eager, quivering life.

He rolled her down against the bed, and pushed himself up over her, gathering her in against him. He wanted to make love to her, and would, but even more he wanted just to hold her, to feel the soft warmth of her all along the length of his body, within the circle of his arms.

She would to have to hear him. Even if she left him again, she would have to hear him, because he needed to tell her. "Liliana," he whispered against her hair, "I love you. Sweetheart ... I love you..."

She had called them stupid words, and they were. They couldn't tell her how he ached at this moment, wanting her to know and unable to find words that would tell her. They couldn't tell her that she was as necessary to his existence as the water from the well was to the life of this village. They couldn't tell her that no thirst, in the driest desert, could ever make him long for that water as he had longed for her. They couldn't tell her that she had given him back his life, and then taken it from him again, that, without her, he could not bear to live. He tried to show her, with his kiss, with his hands on her body. He pulled at the satin, frustrated, and she made a small, laughing sound and it vanished, giving up her flesh to his seeking hands. He brought her to orgasm, watching her, loving the way her eyes hazed, the way her mouth loosened, the way her sharp, indrawn breath lifted her breasts to him. And all the while, he whispered, "I love you ... Liliana, I love you..." The stupid words.

And when her body had stilled, when her breath had quieted, he moved over her, thrust slowly, slowly, into her, and lay there for a long moment, so overwhelmingly grateful for her, for what he felt, that he hardly dared to breathe. He felt her mind touch his, and then open fully to him, and he was lost in the enormity of the love she gave to him, the aching sadness deep inside her, the hopelessness she could not hide from him.

She was weeping. He kissed her eyes, her mouth, whispering, "Don't, sweetheart ... Liliana, don't..."

He would have withdrawn from her body, content to hold her, to try to find some way to comfort her, but she tightened her arms on his back, and the fierce, sudden thought that went through her mind went through his as well: "If this is all I can have..."

He knew he was only dreaming, that again, he was putting his own words in her mouth, his own longing in her mind, but he didn't care. In this moment, dream or not, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He could give to her everything she wanted of him, take all he wanted from her, all the desperate intensity of the physical pleasure, and all the joy of the love behind it.

He loved her ... this small, beautiful woman, so perfectly made that she could stop his breath in his throat a thousand times a day with each movement, with each difference in the way the light lay on her, with each wisp of expression that drifted over her delicately sculpted face. She had come to him when everything in his life lay in waste and ruin, and she had taught him that all of it had value because it had shaped the man he was, and it was the man he was that she loved. She had taught him more ... that the body he had come to hate because it had drawn Gabriel Tallant to him was beautiful in her eyes, and he exulted in every pleasure she took from looking at him, touching him, making love to him.

Every hour of weapons practice, every hour of hard riding over the domains that had been given into his care, he treasured for the hardness of muscle it had left him with, for the delight she found in that spare hardness now as her eyes and her hands explored him with the same eagerness he gave to exploring all the softness and smoothness of her.

He loved her, this one woman, in a way he had never known existed before she came to him. He was not her champion, or her master, or her idealized fantasy. He was her lover ... the one man in all the world whose mind and body meshed so perfectly with hers that neither of them would ever again be complete without the other.

He looked down at her in his dream, watching her eyes as he began to move inside her, feeling with her through the bond the first, exquisite stab of pleasure, along with the incredible intensity of his own exultation in the fierce, velvet heat that tried to hold him, and then to pull him deeper...

And from his mind, into hers, the stupid words poured, over and over again, endlessly, like a mantra, keeping time with the measured cadences of their bodies: "I love you ... I love you ... Liliana, I love you..."

Jake snuggled up to the girl at his side as the night fled before the approaching dawn. Finally, he thought sleepily and happily, it had been his turn to get a little action -- well, his and the entire village's, from the looks of the festival last night. Even Ed Perry had gotten himself a girl. Jake couldn't help a grin at that thought--did Ed even know what to do with a girl? He wondered muzzily what had happened to Alexis, but sleep was tugging at him...

Sleep vanished as his body was racked with reawakening lust. Goddamn it, he had to stop channeling thoughts, who the hell was he picking up now? Ed? He shook his head as Lafeeta stirred, staring at him in some concern.

"Ja'ake?" she yawned, all courtesy titles having been abandoned somewhere in the night's activities.

Oh, god, Adrian ... Jake was picking up on Adrian and apparently the vampire had found himself a girl. While Jake was glad on one level that at least it wasn't a guy this time, on another level he cursed the actor's timing. It was sleepy-bye time, not making whoopee time ... well...

Lafeeta nestled up to him, hands going to his unexpected erection. She didn't look exactly upset that he was apparently thinking of something besides sleep.

Jake wasn't stupid. At least this time he had somebody with him, somebody willing, pretty, and ... willing. It didn't take him very long to take advantage of the situation. Lafeeta giggled and hoped that this strong young man would give her a nice, pretty pale boy baby to increase her status in the village. She didn't express this wish to Jake, foreign men got so upset about that kind of thing...

She didn't know, of course, that the reason Jake would go ballistic at the thought of making Lafeeta pregnant was the child she would bear would be a dhampir. Which goes to prove that our favorite anthropologist wasn't thinking all that clearly, or he would have insisted on some kind of protection against babies...

Later again, when true morning cast its merciless glare upon the village of Sa'idi, Jake and Lafeeta slept, his head pillowed on her round little tummy. He had a smile on his face for nearly the first time since the whole damned adventure had begun. They slept like this for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon.

Then Liliana came to invade Richard's dreams ... and Jake's. He woke up sweating and cursing, rampant in all parts and horny as hell despite the release he'd already had. Poor Lafeeta was probably going to run in fear of this insatiable Canadian ... except that she wasn't exactly running. She was staring at him, but not in fear -- in awe.

"Again, Ja'ake?" she asked breathlessly.

He turned red. All over. He tried to reach for his clothes, picturing the ice-cold spring in his mind ... maybe he could pour some of that water over himself ... but his companion was putting her lips on him ... oh, my, where did she learn to do that?

Jake set some kind of personal record within a few hours. It was indeed a festival.

When the morning deepened, Adrian could no longer resist the need to sleep. But he felt safe with Hanan; she had soothed his pain and fear. After they had both spent their energy in coupling, they had lain together and she had woven him stories. Not complicated, singsong origin stories, but simple stories of life in her village. She was, she had told him, the daughter of an American engineer who had worked on the electricity in Saravan, but who had been thrown out of the country with all the other foreign engineers when the religious fanatics had taken over and sent Iran back into medieval times. Hanan hadn't really known her father, so she didn't miss him; children of mixed heritage were desired in the village and Hanan's mother had also borne a boy to the American engineer --something that had won her great honor. The daughters of Hanan's mother's actual marriage to a Baluchi, though, would be the ones to inherit.

She asked Adrian about his mother. He turned to the wall. "I did not know her," he said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. He was fighting tears again, damning his weakness, his loneliness. Hanan put her arms around him, stroking his forehead. "Sleep, vaje-ye," she said. "Sleep safe in my arms, and believe that all will be well."

He slept.

Lafeeta didn't want him to leave, but Jake didn't think he could bear having Richard be courteous to him. So he left his new friend, feeling a bit guilty about how many times they'd had sex, and somehow managed to more or less hobble his way back to the headman's house. Adrian was waiting for him outside, holding a ... crossbow?

"Have fun?" he asked, falling in step with Jake.

"Wow."

The actor smirked. "Have you seen Alexis?" he asked around a yawn.

"No," Jake said, "but I haven't exactly been looking for her. Look, there's Will. He sure doesn't look happy; guess he didn't get a girl last night."

They drew up with Sir William, who indeed didn't look happy. But, as they shortly discovered, Will's discontent was at being left behind while Richard went to Saravan. The king was lurking around the stable, waiting for his chance to look at the ATV again. Richard looked fine. Damn, Jake thought.

'An ATV?' he asked Adrian. 'What the hell is an ATV doing here?'

Adrian explained about the cave full of drugged vampires, the palace of the local Big Bad Guy (though he forgot to mention Zanjani's name), and the general situation they now found themselves in. Jake looked a little surprised at Adrian's resolve to rescue not only T'Beth but the local 'Exalted Ones' (and damn Adrian, he wasn't going to forget that title in a hurry), but at least it explained the crossbow. And the ATV ... he hoped like hell that Richard wasn't going to drive.

Speaking of the former king of England and Ireland...

‘How the hell had Richard managed to get a bath?’ he thought in the next minute as their fearless leader joined them. But while Jake only noticed that Richard was clean, Adrian noticed a couple of other things. Despite the bath, Richard once more reeked of perfume, the same perfume Adrian had smelled on him twice before. And ... were those ... hickeys? By all the gods, so they were; on Richard's neck and throat. Love bites.

That was one hell of a dream girl.

Richard said, "Are you gentlemen ready to travel?"

"Where are we going?" Jake asked. Though Adrian had told him, he wanted to hear it from Richard. That made it official, or something.

"To Saravan, to investigate the palace of the Ayatollah Zanjani."

"Who the hell is the Ayatollah Sen-sen?" Jake asked.

"Zanjani." Adrian said. "He's the local religious leader, and in control of the area. The Big Bad Guy. I couldn't remember how to pronounce his name."

"I will tell you what you need to know when Alexis and Ed rejoin us," Richard said.

Jake hadn't noticed that Ed was still MIA. He grinned. Even ex-CIA spooks could get lucky, apparently. If they were going to Saravan, then he was lucky that Lafeeta had brought him dinner. Breakfast? Whatever.

'And is breakfast all she served you?'

Jake didn't bother to turn. He knew what the expression on Adrian's face would be. 'You're a fine one to talk,' he said. 'I think Will's the only one who didn't get a girl last night ... unless we count Alexis.'

Adrian's eyes flicked to Richard. 'He was with his dream girl today,' the vampire said via mental telegraph.

'Yeah, I know,' Jake replied wryly, thinking of his own bedroom Olympics.

'And she was with him,' Adrian said. 'Check out his throat, and I smell the perfume on him.'

'You smell like perfume yourself,' Jake grunted. 'I wish I could stop channeling you when you're making out.'

'I needed the company, Jake,' Adrian said.

"Ah, hell," Jake said out loud. Then, "Speaking of Alexis, as I was awhile ago..."

"Yes, Jake, dear?" The ghost of Alexis Colby materialized in their midst, causing Richard to frown and Jake to grin. She was wearing something filmy and frivolous, and carrying packages.

"Where were you?" Jake asked.

"Paris," she trilled. "There wasn't anything interesting to stay here for once the dancing stopped and everyone went off to make out, so I flitted over to Paris. I had the most luxurious bubble bath in the hotel..." she batted her eyelashes. "Ed still isn't amongst the living, I see," she smiled. "Just as well. I'll tell him I just spent the day in a different house so that you could all have your fun without me hampering you. But before he joins us, I have souvenirs of Paris for you."

"You did not have to buy us gifts, lady," said Richard stiffly.

"No," she agreed, handing him a package, "but I did, anyway. Not too imaginative; I bought ties for everyone, but I didn't have much time after my bath and otherwise pampering myself. Open them up," she said, distributing the packages all around. "For the king," she breathed at Richard, "of course, I had to crown him." Her glare conveyed double meaning as he took out a red silk tie decorated with gold crowns. "For the faithful chevalier," she said to Will as he investigated his present, "a destrier to suit him." Will's forest green tie had red horses on it. "For the anthropologist," she smiled at Jake, "I thought something primitive." Jake's tan-colored tie had primitive dancers across it. "And you were the hardest, dear," she said to Adrian, handing him his package last. "Did I buy for the actor, or the vampire, or the professor? I decided on the actor."

Adrian opened his package, and showed the others his tie -- navy blue with the masks of comedy and tragedy in copper red.

"Thank you, Alexis," he kissed her cheek.

"Yeah, thanks," Jake said. "You didn't need to do this, but it's cool."

"Thank you, my lady," Will said with a stiff bow. "I will wear it with honor."

Richard nodded his head. "I thank you for it in the same spirit in which it was given," he said.

She glared at him, then spotted someone coming. "Here comes Ed," she warned. "I didn't get him a tie because it would be too hard to explain to him."

They took the hint and there was no sign of their gifts by the time Ed Perry joined their group. Ed was smiling.

"Everyone enjoy the festival?" he asked, too innocently.

Richard, of course, ignored Ed's question. But at least he wasn't courteous about it. He said, "We are going to the town of Saravan, Ed, to the place where T'beth was last seen. Vaje Ardeshir has been generous enough to allow us to use his vehicle and to provide a driver." His eyes swept over them all now, and the unmistakable tone of command came into his voice. "While we are in Saravan, it is absolutely essential that each of you obey without question any instruction given you by Adrian or myself. If you feel you cannot do this, tell me so now and stay behind with Will."

Jake wasn't happy about that instant obedience stuff, but he didn't want to be left behind. "Then let's go," the anthropologist said, with more enthusiasm than he'd displayed before. Richard wasn't driving!

They rooted out the driver and sorted themselves into seats. Alexis managed to outmaneuver Richard for the front seat, and Jake and Adrian started taking bets as to how courteous Richard was going to get over that one. Apparently, though, he decided it wasn't worth being courteous about and he joined them in the back.

They were on their way to Saravan.

"Why doesn't he use the damned lights?" Jake Fowler asked of no one in particular, after being bounced onto Ed Perry's lap for the tenth time.

The driver, whose name was Kamal, spoke elementary English, but not when he was concentrating on guiding the speeding ATV over the desert with no better light than faint starshine. Richard, sounding patient, said, "Because there is no road, Jake, and lights can be seen from too far away. A vehicle out here would attract too much attention."

Oh. Jake settled back, trying to get as much of himself as possible off of Ed, who bore the invasion with stoic silence. Why in the hell was it that every time he asked a question and Richard answered it, he was left feeling it was stupid to have asked? It wasn't stupid. How was he supposed to know they had to worry about being seen out here in the middle of nowhere?

But it felt stupid anyway, dammit.

'Stop it, Jake.' He felt Adrian's weary reprimand in his mind.

'Stop what?' he thought back.

'You're working yourself up to be pissed off at Richard, no matter what he says or does,' Adrian said with patience every bit as irritating as Richard's. 'We're not just tooling around for the fun of it tonight, Jake. This can be dangerous.'

'Dammit, Talbot, I know that!'

'Then behave like an adult, and if you must be angry with Richard, do it when we're safely back in Sa'idi,' Adrian's mental voice said, quite reasonably.

Shit. Jake made a point of looking away from Adrian and past him to the serenity of the desert night.

They were travelling down the length of the valley below Sa'idi. There was a range of low mountains between Sa'idi and Saravan, and it was necessary to go around these, to the far end of the valley. With no road, it was a rough trip, and Kamal was making no allowances for the inadequate number of seat belts in the back seat.

But eventually they reached the place where the valley opened up onto a larger, fairly flat plain and they turned south. Far off in the distance, through the clear desert air, there was a dim glow on the horizon that might be Saravan.

It was. The ATV ate up the distance quickly, zigzagging now across a low grassland and eventually onto a narrow dirt road, a sort of ranch road, Jake supposed. They passed flocks of sheep and goats occasionally, and saw a rare farmstead, mostly very small and impoverished looking, and they were clearly nearing the town. Before long, Kamal let the ATV's speed drop drastically, along with the engine's noise, and they were within the scattered outlying buildings of Saravan.

Jake had already learned that this was a town of about 20,000 people, a sort of county seat ... what they called here a shahrestan ... of what was mostly an area of small sheep ranches. If there was some other industry here, Jake saw no signs of it. Up ahead, he could see the reflected glow of streetlights, but in the outskirts, although there were old-fashioned pole lights lining the streets, none were lit and most had been shattered. There were no lights visible in any of the buildings they passed, either, and it was pretty clear that this area no longer had electricity. Jake remembered what he had heard about foreign engineers being driven out after the revolution, and this was probably the result of that. Everything they could see looked rundown, almost with the air of a ghost town ... dark, shabby, and abandoned.

Things improved as they neared the center of town, and Kamal drove even slower now, barely creeping through the dark streets. Still two or three blocks from the lighted area, he pulled the ATV into a very dark area between two buildings that looked something like warehouses, and killed the engine. He turned in the seat and spoke to Richard. "Vaje-ye, not safe to go close."

Richard reached up and clapped an understanding hand on Kamal's shoulder, and immediately climbed over the side of the vehicle and down to the ground. He opened the door and reached up, with one hand, to Alexis. "Lady, may I help you?"

Alexis took his hand willingly enough, and stepped out onto the running board, but hesitated there. It was a long step down ... and she wasn't really dressed for this. Richard didn't wait. He put his hands on her waist, lifted her away from the vehicle, and set her down on the ground at his side. Everyone else came tumbling after.

Richard, of course, knew exactly where he was going. Adrian remembered all the questions he had asked of Ardeshir, while Adrian himself was lost in his memories and his fear for T'beth. Richard had picked Ardeshir's brain of exactly what he needed to know and he set off now without hesitation, leaving everyone else to trail along behind him.

He did not head immediately for the lighted area, but paralleled it, walking swiftly but silently for about three blocks. This was an area of small shops and apartment housing, and in some windows, candles and oil lamps were visible. It was late, but there were still some people awake in Saravan and Richard was being careful to make no noise. The deeply incised composition soles on the expensive boots he had provided for everyone made this fairly easy; you would have had to be pretty clumsy to make enough noise to attract attention to yourself.

Jake had no sooner had that last thought than his foot hit a discarded tin can that went flying off into the darkness to bang against the side of a building with what seemed a godawful amount of noise. Damn!

Richard had faded in against the nearest wall, in deepest shadow, and everyone else had sense enough to do the same. Somewhere above, a window opened and a voice called out something. From nearby, another voice called back, and there was a momentary conversation. Then silence once more.

Hardly breathing, Jake felt something move against his leg and stifled the urge to yell. He looked down and saw a large cat winding its way around his leg, looking just as happy as all hell until it saw Adrian beside him. The cat froze, fur rising in a rigid line down its back, and growled low in its throat. Adrian sighed mournfully and the cat squalled and went running off into the darkness.

'You can't blame that one on me, Talbot,' Jake thought. Adrian didn't answer. Richard was moving again, and Adrian was concentrating on the business at hand. Jake followed, watching the pavement more carefully.

Richard stopped, finally, at a corner where, across the street, a large open area appeared to be a public park. Trees and meandering walkways survived from better times, but what had once been flowerbeds were knee-high with weeds. Richard motioned his little group together. "We will cross to the park, one at a time," he said in a low voice. "The large building at the far end of the park is the Ayatollah's palace, and there is a rear entrance on this side."

"You're not thinking of going in there!" Ed Perry hissed. "Richard..."

"Ed." Richard's concentration centered entirely on Perry, and Jake was reasonably sure Perry wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "I will remind you ... once ... that you understood before you joined us tonight that you will do what I tell you to do, or what Adrian tells you to do. It is not our intention to be discovered, or to place any of you at unnecessary risk. Accept that, or find your way back to the ATV and wait for us."

Perry had nothing else to say, and Richard returned his attention to the group as a whole. "When you get into the park, stay in the tree shadow. Wait until we have all assembled there before moving any closer to the palace. Adrian will go first."

Adrian did. If anyone noticed that not even they quite saw him as he darted across the street and into the shadows under the trees, no one said anything. Ed Perry went next, then Jake. Alexis was smiling at Richard. "Should I try to run in these?" she asked, indicating the delicate, high-heeled sandals she wore. "Or should I give Ed something else to think about?"

"My dear lady," Richard said patiently, "the choice, of course, is yours." It didn't matter; before Ed Perry was sent back to what his life had been before this, Adrian would give him whatever memories of this entire journey he and Richard decided that Perry should have.

Alexis took him at his word. Without a sound, she faded to transparency and then was gone. Richard quickly followed the others across the street and into the deep shadow under the trees; if Ed Perry had seen anything of Alexis's peculiar reappearance among the group, he didn't mention it. With Richard and Adrian in the lead, and sticking close to the impenetrable darkness under the trees, they worked their way down the length of the park toward the rear of the palace.

They could see it clearly now, an enormous building...only two stories high, but hugely sprawling. It fronted on the lighted square barely visible as each of them had darted across the street and looked down that way, but the area it enclosed would have covered at least a couple of good-sized city blocks. Windowless at street level, the outer walls were covered with an incredibly intricate pattern of repeated pointed arches, inlaid with colored tiles and swirls of metallic Farsi and Arabic lettering that probably weren’t gold but surely glittered like it in the brilliant spotlights that were trained on the walls on all sides. Above, on the second floor, the pointed arches were repeated, but filled with narrow, deep-set windows, evenly spaced and almost entirely darkened now. The place was a sprawling fortress, and virtually invulnerable.

Richard had questioned Ardeshir closely about what was known of the building. A number of people from Sa'idi had worked here at one time or another, and they had described a complex layout of courts and gardens, colonnades and fountained pools ... and an interior carefully separated into segregated areas for public rooms where the business of the shahrestan was conducted, for private apartments for the Ayatollah and a number of his highest officers, for the women ... an extensive harem area, and for quarters for the guards who patrolled the roof and all around the interior of the building. There were only two ways in or out. One was on the main square, at the front of the building ... a large ceremonial entrance beneath a wide balcony where the Ayatollah led the five-times-a-day prayers to Mecca, and this much smaller entrance at the rear where deliveries were made and from which, all too often, the dead were removed.

This rear entrance had captured Richard's interest immediately, and he had asked Ardeshir to describe it in detail. Two guards flanked the entrance, and behind them was an open passage. Stairs led from this to the upper floor and to a basement storage area. Straight ahead were the kitchens. Within the passage, another pair of guards watched over the kitchen entrance. As far as Ardeshir knew, this was not locked; Zanjani depended on his guards for protection. There was a door that was always locked where the stairs rose to the second floor, but the door into the basement was not locked, ever, and from the basement, there were other stairways that rose into the building in several places. One of these places, Ardeshir said, was in the harem area itself. The woman from Sa'idi who had been killed for helping T'beth had told of this, and of how often she had descended those stairs to bring supplies up for the harem women. The door there, she said, was at the bottom of the stairs and was always locked. A guard kept watch at the top of the stairs.

Standing in the darkness of the park, invisible under the thick, unpruned trees, Richard repeated all this to Adrian Talbot. If they were to learn anything tonight, there was only one way it could be done.

"Can you do this, Adrian?" Richard asked. There was no trace in his voice of how very much he hated to ask of Adrian what he could not do himself. Or that he had realized, with surprising intensity, how very great a personal loss it would be if anything were to happen to Adrian. There had always been empathy between them; now there was something much more.

Adrian Talbot had become his friend.

Adrian nodded once. "As long as there aren't any..." he looked at Ed, "unforeseen problems," he temporized, knowing that Richard, Jake and Alexis would understand, "I can remain undetected." He meant that he had to take the risk of running into other vampires. That there were others around, they knew. It was a necessary risk.

"Be careful." Richard gripped Adrian's arm briefly.

"How's he going to tell us what he finds out?" Perry asked. "It's too risky to use any kind of electronic communicator."

"There is another way, Ed," Adrian said. "But it's top secret." He enjoyed that.

Ed rolled his eyes. "Spit it out, Pretty Boy," he snorted. "At this point, nothing will surprise me."

"Jake, here, and I have a way of reading each other's minds," Adrian explained. "I will mentally send him my findings, and he will report to you. I don't care if you don't believe me."

"ESP?" Ed shrugged. "It's no crazier than anything else on this trip." Privately, he thought that explained some of the crazy things on this trip -- he'd often seen Adrian and Jake looking like they were engaged in a conversation without any spoken words.

Jake frowned. "Wait a minute," he said. They all looked at him. "You mean, that's why you brought me along? To be some kind of psychic walkie-talkie?"

"You are the only one who can communicate with Adrian in this way, Jake," Richard said.

"Is that the only reason?" Jake pushed.

"Yes," Richard answered, perhaps less than tactfully.

The rebellion that had been stewing inside Jake since this whole bloody farce had begun sprang up. He crossed his arms and glared at Richard. "Let me get this straight," Jake said, words steaming as they came out of his mouth. "You brought me along just so that you could use me as your little Adrian-thought-interpreter?"

Adrian hissed at him, 'Stop it, Jake.'

Jake ignored him. He continued to glare at Richard. The king's admonition to them back in Sa'idi that he was to be instantly obeyed on this junket had been forgotten or ignored. Jake was sick of being ordered around.

"That is correct, Jake," Richard said, on the verge of becoming courteous.

"Jake, dear..." Alexis began, then decided to butt out. She went over and put a gentling hand on Adrian's shoulder. "I think they need to work this out between them," she told the actor.

"Well," Jake said, aware that he was starting to sound like he was about five years old, "what if I don't wanna do it?" The trouble was that this ploy hadn't even worked when he'd been five. It had usually earned him a fast trip to his room with a tingling backside. Here it was probably going to earn him a long session of Richard being very courteous. But he was sick of being pushed around, ordered around, and used.

Richard studied him for a solemn moment. Then he reached out with one hand and gripped Jake's shoulder ... a comradely grip, not the bone-crushing grip he had used before. He said, very soberly, "Jake, this is absolutely necessary if we are to find out what has happened to your friend. And no one but you can do it."

Jake deflated like a Macy's balloon hit with a missile. "Ah, shit," he sighed. "Okay." He turned to Adrian. "Don't get yourself killed or anything." He knew -- he'd taken a psych course -- that he'd been very neatly manipulated, but he couldn't really be mad about it because what Richard had said was true. Dammit.

Richard gave him an approving slap on the shoulder and turned his attention back to Adrian. "Don't risk yourself, Adrian. You are needed too greatly. At the slightest danger, return at once and we will find another way to do this."

Adrian nodded. Foolish heroics wouldn't rescue T'beth; she wasn't in the palace. He would have sensed her from here. He was keeping all his extra senses peeled in case of other, hostile vampires. He didn't sense any at the moment. That didn't mean there weren't any in the palace. He'd have to walk softly ... and wished he were also carrying a big stick. With a point at one end.

He had already carefully assessed the security. Fortunately, although the palace had electricity and running water, the Ayatollah depended on humans for his security. There were no cameras or electric beams. Humans could be fooled. Machines couldn't. The guards at the door were bored, passing a cigarette back and forth, staring off into the dark recesses behind the palace. Turning their minds was easy. Adrian sauntered past them as if waltzing into a gentlemen's club in London, and they paid absolutely no attention to him. They simply didn't see him.

It wasn't invisibility. Adrian was solid, corporeal; he couldn't turn into a mist or a bat; nor could he vanish. Had any of the guards touched him, had he made a noise or otherwise drawn attention to himself, then the game would have been up right then. What he did was more difficult than mere invisibility. He clouded their minds. Their eyes slid away from him as their brains convinced themselves that there was nothing there to see. The vampire's keen mind was projecting a strong mental command of "I'm not here, you don't see me, keep on with your duties and everything will be fine. There's nobody here." This caused the guards to look everywhere but directly at Adrian, because there was nothing there for them to look directly at. They would undoubtedly get headaches.

He was past them and at the stairs. The door to the second floor was locked, but the door to the basement wasn't. Adrian could easily break a lock, but he didn't want to call attention to his presence in the palace. The guards were too close, and breaking the lock would make noise. He went down, cat silent, to the basement.

The basement storage room looked exactly like a basement storage room. Adrian swore that some of the boxes down here were exactly the same ones lurking in the basement of the English department at U of T. Before he could work out a complicated theory of interconnected basement space, however, he cut that train of thought and concentrated on his choices. Lots of doors, and the chances of there being a trip to Hawaii behind any of them were pretty dim.

Just as well, he really wasn't wearing a silly enough costume to get on Let's Make A Deal, anyway...

He still couldn't sense vampires. Maybe Zanjani had sent them all out to terrorize the neighborhood tonight. Maybe Santa would bring him a new pony, too ... he could not get complacent about the risk of other vampires in the palace!

He chose a door at random, not the guarded one that led up to the harem. He would definitely investigate the harem -- T'beth had been in it, there might be women there who remembered her -- but not just yet. He wanted to get an idea of the layout of the palace first. His door led him up some stairs into a colonnaded passageway not entirely unlike a couple at some U of T colleges. But those had Gothic arches, where these were more Middle Eastern-looking, with colorful lapis and malachite columns that supported the same groined and pointed arches that decorated the exterior of the building. Walls were adorned with complicated patterns of inlaid tiles and geometric mosaics, and metallic script, probably quoting the Koran or some damned thing, made colorful borders.

Nobody was around. The openings on the other side of the columns revealed night-hushed gardens, the fountains merrily tinkling, the swans swimming in sheltered ponds; the place was probably beautiful by daylight. Except for the guards. Zanjani was apparently paranoid to the extreme; there were patrols every couple of minutes. Adrian was exercising his mental powers to the max.

Adrian turned right and followed the passage, avoiding the many guards patrolling, peeking into the rooms he could find, coming across more gardens, more courtyards, more fountains. Apparently Zanjani still had engineers. Probably roasting on a spit (not an entirely unattractive picture, given most engineers). The rooms varied from large to small, from functional to decorative. Adrian found the kitchen and spirited away an orange just for the hell of it. He was projecting his findings to Jake, who in turn was duly reporting them to Richard, Ed and Alexis, but so far he'd found nothing really worth talking about. Still, if he didn't tell them what he was finding, they'd probably worry and possibly come in after him.

Guards passed, down the passageway. Adrian melted into the shadow of a column, and their glances slid away from him. They were talking, but in Farsi, which Adrian didn't understand. A quick mind probe told him only that the guards weren't on the alert for trouble; they seemed amused by something.

He was deeper into the palace now; luckily it wasn't quite large enough to take him out of range for projecting to Jake. Damn close, though. This was where the harem was, according to reports, and sure enough; there was the guard. A double mind whammy left the guard blank-eyed; if anyone saw him like that, the poor bastard would probably be shot. But Adrian couldn't risk being found in the harem. On the alert and on the prowl, he entered the harem, breaking the lock on the door. Quietly. He did not need screaming women.

He entered a world of silk and perfume, of flowers and steam, of scented baths, choice viands, and daily massages. He entered the ultimate gilded cage.

There were women here of every hue and shade; blondes, brunettes, redheads, white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, and a couple he couldn't identify. One Canadian accent nearly made him speak in return, but he kept up his mental command of invisibility. He had to move like a snake to avoid being bumped into by any of these women.

The perfume masked fear, the silk masked iron chains. These women led a pampered existence, yes. But they were prisoners, at the mercy of the Ayatollah and his vampire enforcers. They knew that once Zanjani tired of them, they would be given to the vampires. Zanjani's attentions were unwelcome, but he was better than his enforcers.

'Adrian?' Jake's thoughts came, not too clearly, 'Everything okay? You haven't reported in.'

'I'm in the harem,' Adrian replied. 'My, my, my, Jake, you really ought to see this for yourself ... talk about smorgasbord...'

Those watching outside the palace, waiting for Jake to convey Adrian's report, wondered why the young man suddenly turned bright red.

'Never mind what they look like, Talbot!' Jake snapped. 'Do they know where T'beth is?'

'Jacob, have you any idea of the chaos that would ensue if I stepped forward and spoke to any of these women? They don't know I'm here, you pillock!'

'Well, haven't they mentioned her?'

'Not so far. But I have an idea. I'll tell you when I get back. I've got to get out of here. There's too big a risk I'll be discovered.'

He made his way back out of the harem, and past the slack-jawed guard. He sighed -- he couldn't leave the man like that -- and worked a little extra mindpower to bring the man back to his senses. But by the time the guard blinked and looked around, there was nobody to be seen. The guard straightened up and thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't been discovered sleeping on the job.

That accounted for the main floor. Adrian found a staircase and went up to the second floor. On this level, not surprisingly, were sleeping quarters, access to the balcony where the prayer was called, and a couple of meeting rooms and the like. More colonnades, too, though of course there wasn't any access to the gardens unless you cared to vault over the railing and jump down.

More guards passed. Adrian watched them go by, then continued his explorations. There seemed to be some activity down this end of the passage, and he made his way towards it.

He'd found the mother lode. The bedroom of the Ayatollah himself. Guards went by, but failed to see the vampire slide through into a small anteroom and peer through the slightly open door of their master's bedroom.

Zanjani, apparently, didn't like to close his bedroom door when he was playing. Probably so that he could call his guards, or invite them to join him, or whatever. Adrian didn't have any trouble spotting the Big Bad Guy; he was the luxuriantly facial-haired one busily carving his initials -- or something -- into a naked Chinese girl. The girl was gagged, but her eyes were bright, she was conscious. There was a lot of blood, and Adrian fought for control. Then the girl, bound and gagged though she was, half-dead, another hunk of her being lovingly carved by the monster beside her, focussed her eyes on the doorway. They widened. Adrian melted back into shadow.

She had seen him! Her mind was far too focused on her pain for him to distract her. But she was gagged, helpless ... she could not betray his presence. He risked another peek into the room.

Zanjani had summoned his guards, who walked past Adrian as if he didn’t exist. Zanjani wiped his bloody hands on his bedspread and indicated the girl. He said something; they picked her up and carried her from the room. Adrian followed, half-thinking of rescuing the poor wench, despite Richard's orders against foolish heroics. Controlling the guards' minds so that they didn't exactly see him was one thing; snatching a girl out of their hands was another. But he had conveyed his thought to Jake, and Jake had faithfully conveyed it to Richard, and a second later there came back a reply.

'Adrian, do not,' Jake's voice said. 'Richard says no.'

'Fuck Richard,' Adrian growled.

'Do you want to have to go wait in the ATV?' Jake thought at him. 'No heroics. Look, we all feel sick about that girl, but if we want to stop this shit, we have to do it right. We can't do that if you go get yourself staked.'

Adrian's shoulders sagged, and he stood with clenched fists as the guards slit the girl's throat and took her body to the back door for disposal. Like an empty bottle of milk. No vampire treated humans like that, at least no sensible vampire ... it took humans to come up with some truly disgusting ways to treat humans. Sometimes Adrian was glad he wasn't one anymore.

One last thing to check out -- the roof. It was well patrolled against any sort of invasion there; a dozen or so guards walked the roof. Adrian watched them for some time, noting the patterns of their movements, any weak spots in the defense, any neglected corners. Finally satisfied that he had learned all he could, he made his way back to his companions.