The Adventure of the Christmas Vampires

want this time?"

  He took one last pull then recapped the bottle. "Most of it's routine, but I have a couple of new requests. First, I want to replace Lucy." He turned and went back to his desk to set the bottle down.

  "Isn't she working out?"

  Her snarky barb stung, but he ignored it. "She expects me to permanently resurrect her." He turned around.

  "What ever gave her that idea?"

  "I told her I knew how to do it, to get her to do what I wanted."

  She scowled. "That was stupid. All you had to do was threaten to torture her, though you would have to do it at least once to make it credible."

  "I'll keep that in mind. So, can it be done?"

  "No."

  "That's plain enough. So I'll need someone new for tomorrow. Who would you recommend?"

  She smirked. "As I remember, you prefer them sweet, adorable, and naïve, true?"

  He licked his lips. "Most definitely."

  "Then I suggest Helen; front row, third from the middle."

  He looked over to his left. That entire wall was covered by a bookcase. In its center was a display cubicle with a glass front. Inside were three rows of ceramic jars, similar to Lily's, but only a third the size.

  He glanced back at her. "Stacked?"

  Lily favored him with a grinning leer. "Most definitely."

  He went over and opened the front. "From the name, I assume she's a blonde."

  "That she is."

  He reached in and picked up the jar in question. "Why can't they be permanently resurrected?"

  "The reconstituted body is held together by the salt matrix. The salts are vulnerable to oxidation, so the integrity of the matrix only lasts about a day. Once the body starts to break apart, it crumbles very easily. If you could seal her in an airtight vessel filled with helium, she would stay intact indefinitely; she doesn't need to breath. But that wouldn't do you any good. Of course, the more powder you use, the longer she would remain reconstituted, but the fewer times you could resurrect her."

  He examined the jar as he returned to his desk. "I've always wondered why your jar is so much bigger than these others."

  "That's because living tissue condenses that much smaller. Your grand-uncle poisoned me first; I still don't know how."

  He snapped his head around and stared at her, his gut crawling. "They were alive when you...?"

  "Of course. You need special procedures to process a dead body. Your uncle didn't know that and he almost botched my processing. I survived only because I hadn't been dead long enough to matter. It also helps if the subject is aware."

  He felt the blood drain out of his face. "They're awake when you...process them?"

  "At least for as long as it takes the chemicals to begin decomposing their bodies."

  He glanced back at the jar in his hand. "Is it painful?"

  "Excruciating. And they remember every moment."

  He grunted as he placed the jar on his desk. "You sound like you enjoy their suffering."

  She turned and walked over to the "casting" coach against the right wall. He had put it in against the day when he would have flesh and blood female clients; for the time being, it served as the platform for his daily antics with Lucy. She laid down, facing him, her head and shoulders propped up on the padded arm and one arm draped over the back.

  "They're my servants; they're only purpose is to serve my needs; all my needs." She snapped her fingers and a cigar appeared in her mouth.

  "Your slaves, you mean."

  "I prefer to think of them as pets. In any event, I fail to see a distinction." She snapped her fingers again and the exposed end lit up.

  "You don't believe they have any rights?"

  She snapped her fingers a third time and a glass of liquor appeared in one hand. "Technically, they're dead. What rights does a dead man have?" She drained the glass, but as soon as she held it level, it refilled.

  From "The Lions of Inganok"

  Their break came after seven weeks, on the afternoon when half a dozen Men of Leng entered the inn.

  Before then, each day Teehar toured the city, discretely eavesdropping on any conversation that piqued his curiosity, and it wasn't long before he became a familiar sight flitting about on the balconies and through the garden plots of the dwellings. Each evening, upon his return he reported the rumors and gossip he overheard to Medb. Based on his intelligence, she determined which sections of the city needed closer investigation, and each morning she and Conaed and Creme went exploring to see what they could discover for themselves. They returned at noon to eat and spent the afternoon in the common room, listening to and engaging in conversation as she probed for any information on the idol. After supper she played and sang for a few hours, pausing only when the temple bell rang, announcing the daily evening service. She had grown used to it after the first few days, and even emulated the people in their obeisance so as not to incur their enmity. Sometime before midnight she and Creme then went back out into the city, to reinvestigate locations they had visited in the morning that had sparked her interest, but under the cloak of darkness for added security. They returned by midnight, and she and her companions retired to their room, where she and Conaed cataloged and analyzed the information they had gathered, to try to sift out nuggets of information. Afterwards, she spent the night with any of the other patrons willing to share their beds, but she always returned to her room before morning.

  Unfortunately, after forty-eight days they had come no closer to finding the idol than when they first arrived, and Medb grew more frustrated, and despondent, with each new dawn.

  At first she took little interest in the Leng Men. She had encountered them before, mostly in Dylath-Leen, the one port in the central Dreamlands that always welcomed the arrival of their black galleys without hesitation or restriction, and she had heard the many stories concerning their habits. She had even seen a group of them at one of the taverns in the northern part of the city that were frequented by onyx quarrymen. Even so, despite the close proximity of Inganok to the Plateau, she had learned that the Leng Men rarely came to the city, and those few who did traveled overland with their trains of yaks to trade their unusual silk and blood-red rubies for onyx. That day, however, a black galley had come into port in early afternoon; news of its arrival flew up the city faster than people could deliver it. The captain and his mates entered the inn soon after the news had reached the common room, and took a table along one wall. One of the mates removed a thin leather case and a bottle that appeared to be carved from a large example of their trade rubies from a canvas satchel he carried. He passed the bottle to the other mates and the case to the captain, who opened it and began setting up a backgammon board. Finally the captain placed a full purse the size of an apple on the table beside the board, and looked out over the common room with a toothy grin on his wide frog-like mouth in his round apish face. Though his apparel appeared more luxurious than that of his mates, they were all dressed the same: tunic and trousers secured with a sash, under an open robe, with curious-shaped boots and bulbous turbans. However, she understood that the attire was a disguise, to hide the fact that they were not human, but more akin to the satyr of Greek mythology, complete with cloven-hoofed feet and goat horns and ears.

  "Ach, what do make of that?" she asked her companions.

  Conaed wriggled his nose tendrils. "It would appear that hopes to fleece a few suckers. That is the right word, is it not?"

  She flashed a smirk. "No, I meant why do you suppose they came to this inn?"

  Creme flicked his ears. "If the Leng Men were involved in taking the idol, they could be here to stop you."

  "How would they know we are trying to find it?"

  He looked up at her with a half-lidded expression. "Anyone watching us will have noted that we have been here a fairly long time, yet you have not engaged in any business other than sightseeing and enjoying yourself. They may not be able to discount the possibility you are simply on vacation, but neither can they take t
he chance you are not."

  "His reasoning is sound, Lady," Conaed said.

  She nodded. "I agree. Even so, there is only one way to find out. If you are correct, they will wait for an opportunity to abduct me. So, I shall give them one. Teehar."

  The bird eyed her in an eager fashion. By mutual agreement, he did not speak in the common room, so as not to give anyone the suspicion that he was intelligent.

  "If they take the chance I offer, I will not resist, but let them take me out. You follow, and find out where they take me, then return and inform Runt and Creme. Understand?"

  He flicked his crest to indicate that he did.

  "Good. Now, let us see what develops."

  She watched as over the following three hours the captain defeated six opponents and claimed their stakes for his winnings. At first she wondered if Conaed might have been right after all, and he had no nefarious motive beyond relieving overconfident seamen of their hard-earned pay, but by the end she realized that he was cheating, and she discerned how he accomplished it.

  When after the sixth player no one else seemed willing to challenge the captain, and he made to close the board and put it away, she stood up and approached their table, removing her purse from her belt. One of the mates elbowed him in the ribs and he looked up at her.

  "Care to try your luck, my bountiful slut?"

  With her free hand she whipped out her dirk and slammed the point of the long, thick,