Insatiable

for the very same reason: to make sure no more young girls had their life’s blood sucked out of

them.

The file containing all their photos had been waiting for Alaric when he’d checked in.

What that file contained had horrified him.

And it took a lot to horrify Alaric, who was convinced he’d seen everything in his twenty

years with the Palatine.

There were no names attached to the victims’ photos. The coroner’s office suspected—

due to the girls’ dental work—that they were of Eastern European or even Russian birth and in

the country illegally…which would explain why not a single person had come forward to

identify them.

Alaric had given them American names to go with the American dreams with which he

felt sure each of them had traveled to this country:

First was long-haired Aimee, found early one morning just ten days ago in the Ramble at

Central Park.

Then red-haired Jennifer, found a few days later by a park employee in Bryant Park.

The final victim he called Hayley. Her photo was perhaps most disturbing of all to

Alaric, because she bore more than a passing resemblance to Martin’s daughter, Simone. Both

were dark skinned, with black hair that spiraled around their faces in similar tight corkscrew

curls.

She had been found just last weekend in Central Park, like Aimee…. Alaric, studying the

photos in his hotel room, had seen what the general public—and few members of law

enforcement, beyond the coroner’s office—had not. There was no question of cause of death

and no question, once the photos had been e-mailed to the Vatican, who—or rather what —was

responsible for those deaths.

The only question was, would the Palatine be able to exterminate him—or them, because

Alaric, upon seeing the photos, became convinced there’d been more than just one attacker—

before the prince could?

It still seemed mind-boggling to Alaric that a vampire could actually be in New York on

a mission similar to his own. Not just any vampire, but the prince of darkness.

But, Alaric supposed, the prince didn’t care about the dead girls. To him, the murders of

those three girls only meant possible exposure to the public of his kind. Discovery by the rest

of humankind that vampires were not some invention of Bram Stoker’s feverish imagination—

something that, if Alaric was honest, he had to admit the Vatican was at just as great pains to

prevent as the vamps. They didn’t need another panic like the one that spread through Eastern

Europe during the 1700s, when ignorant villagers, goaded by charlatan “vampire

exterminators,” were led to believe their own family members were actually undead and, after

being coerced into buying expensive “vampire weapons,” dug them up from their resting

places and decapitated them.

It made a certain kind of sense, Alaric supposed, that the prince would be there, trying to

stop the killer—or killers—same as the Palatine. He had to be as worried as the Vatican that

word could get out about the truth of his species’ existence.

Still. It made Alaric feel livid, the fact that he might have the same goal as the prince.

Of course, Alaric had another goal, in addition to finding, and stopping, whoever or

whatever was doing this: he intended to destroy the prince, as well. Whether his bosses at the

Palatine approved or not.

He’d spent a lot of time working out his frustrations over his assignment in the hotel

pool but had followed it with an excellent lunch at Per Se.

So while he wasn’t happy with his current circumstances, he was at least eating well.

And he certainly wouldn’t starve to death while he stood around staring at the entrance

to 910 Park Avenue, waiting to see if the prince actually showed up.

He was even beginning to think he might—grudgingly, of course—approve of the people

he’d assigned himself to watch. The Antonescus were rich—stinking, filthy rich. Like him,

they seemed to find no shame in enjoying the finer things in life. They had the summer place

in Romania—not too shabby, judging by the photos—and appeared to enjoy going to upscale

restaurants. Last night they’d dined at the Four Seasons.

Well, “dined” was a relative term. Of course they hadn’t eaten much, being the foul

breathless beasts of Satan that they were.

The wife was the head of 910 Park Avenue’s cooperative—some kind of board that

chose who would be allowed to live in the building—undoubtedly so that she could keep out

the “riffraff” (people like himself, Alaric supposed).

Still, no one to whom Alaric had spoken had anything negative to say about her…and

none whatsoever picked up on his hints that she might possibly be a member of the undead.

(Not that she’d have needed to sleep in her own coffin or have the earth from her grave near

her. These were other old myths Stoker had gotten wrong in his book.) Either she wasn’t a

vampire, or she and her husband had assimilated better than any demons he’d ever seen. She

even served on several charitable boards, one that helped pay for children with cancer to go to

summer camp in the countryside.

Children with cancer. Nice cover, for a bloodsucker.

The husband owned and managed numerous real estate holdings throughout the city and

often escorted the wife to benefits, like ones for the cancer camp.

Vampires who attended benefits to raise money for summer camps for children…with

cancer! Hilarious. Even more hilarious than Betty and Veronica .

Now, he’d told Martin, he’d seen everything.

Simone had grabbed the phone while Alaric had still been chuckling with her father over

the benefit-attending vampires and said, “Uncle Alaric?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Are you going to get the people who ate my daddy’s face?”

“Yes,” he’d said, sobering instantly. “Yes, I am.”

Just like he was going to get whatever had killed Aimee, Jennifer, and Hayley…or

whatever the victims’ real names were.

Because that was what it was all about. If these Antonescus really were related to this

Lucien Antonescu, and he really was the prince of darkness, Alaric was going to destroy them.

All of them. He didn’t care what his superiors at the Vatican wanted or how much money the

Antonescus had donated so that children with cancer could go to camp. They were still

parasites—like ticks—that had to be exterminated for what they’d done to Martin. To that girl,

Sarah, from the Chattanooga Walmart. To those unidentified dead women, lying in the

morgue.

And to countless others like them whom Alaric had seen abused and victimized over his

years with the Palatine. They had to be destroyed like the vermin that they were. Because they

would only create more creatures like themselves, who would in turn victimize more people

like Martin and Sarah and those girls.

Vampires were filth. And they spread their filth—and disease—to everything and

everyone they touched.

They all had to be eradicated.

There wasn’t much more to it than that.

In the meantime, Alaric would stand there outside of 910 Park Avenue and wait. He

didn’t care how many little old ladies walked by him and asked what he thought he was doing.

He’d show them the pictures of Aimee, Jennifer, and Hayley if he had to.

And maybe, while he was at it, a photo of where Martin’s face used to be.

That would shut them up.

Chapter Twenty-five

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