Bloodliner Read Free Page B

death on the street below. Indeed, I have seen a man do that exact thing once, long ago, in the days before my change.
    But if I have proved one thing throughout the years, it is that I am not such a man.
    Just then, James tapped him on the arm. "Here they come," he whispered. "Our new allies."
    "Of convenience, perhaps," said the hooded man. "And for the moment. Even so, you'd do well to remember that they shall ever be our enemies most foul."
    The hooded man turned to look where his charge was pointing. He saw the wicked man glide toward them, all red feathers and razor-sharp talons silhouetted against the full moon.
    He would pluck it from me if I asked, and gulp it down and belch out a gobbet of fur and claws.
    He may yet pluck it from me if I don't ask.
    "You know him, don't you?" James was still whispering.
    "I have met him." The hooded man nodded. "But knowing him is quite another story."
    How many other vampires were able to take the form of something other than a wolf or batlike creature? How many others soared through night skies in the guise of a blood-red hawk?
    Genghis Khan alone. The one and only scourge of the Asian steppes, now scourge of the 21 st century night. Endowed with vampiric immortality and no less a terror for all his antiquity.
    Here then was the face of the enemy, the leader of the other side that the hooded man's faction had long fought. Destiny's darkest suitor, wound from endless skeins of coal-black thread, inflicting disaster with naught but his passing shadow.
    The power of a vampire fused with the ferocity of the infamous Mongol warlord he once was.
    And now he is my ally. The truce has made it so.
    As Genghis circled overhead, the hooded man turned to his apprentice. "Trust nothing he says. Look always for the dirk concealed in his sleeve and the poison on his lip."
    "Master," said James. "What's a dirk?"
    "Later." The hooded man shushed him and watched the blood-red hawk settle onto the rooftop. "Say nothing now, hear? No good can come of pressing out an ill-considered word."
    James nodded.
    The giant hawk shuddered and screeched, fixing the hooded man in the alien gaze of its fathomless eye. The hooded man subdued a shiver and refused to look away.
    This memory is baked deep in the bread of us. The raptor's eye peering through primeval mists, unblinking.
    Diamond-sharp beaks the size and shape of hatchets, swinging. Streaked with blood.
    The hawk ruffled its wings and folded them close around its body. As the hooded man and James looked on, the great bird began to change.
    Feathers melted into flesh as russet brown as the last good potato before famine. The scarlet hood, a deeper red than all the rest, became the gleaming black of char flaking from a burned body and twisting away on the breeze.
    The down-curved beak flowed into rows of teeth, bone-white as the stranger's smile rising over your shoulder in the bedroom mirror.
    Leave the door open at midnight and this is what wanders in. Set a trap with corpse-meat and he shall lick it clean, then dig you out between your ribs.
    And when he has finished, not even a spot of grease shall stain your bedclothes. You never existed.
    "To the truce." Genghis raised his empty hand in a mock toast. "Without it, I would have killed and devoured you already."
    "As always, you excel at setting the tone," said the hooded man. "At least our alliance has not dimmed your gift for uplifting all around you."
    "Just my luck." Genghis beamed at James. "I don't suppose he's a peace offering?"
    "Look elsewhere for your food," said the hooded man.
    Genghis snorted. "Soon enough, I'll have who and what I want, and when I want it."
    At least we'll leave no room for misunderstanding. Our feelings and intentions are clear.
    We hate each other no less, and we shall show each other not one drop more of mercy when this ends.
    With a laugh, Genghis strode between them. Naked, he leaned over the rooftop ledge and gazed down into the alley.
    "You have a good reason, I