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That s crazy!
Is it? What about his secrets, Selena?
She didn t say anything. Danny took her wrist. Get your coat, he said.
What for?
We re going downtown to talk to Sergeant Willson.
Her eyes grew hard, and she tried to pull away but that only made him angrier. He wanted to strangle her
now for what she had done to those poor people, and what she had tried to do to him.
Let & go!
What s going on here? Theo Rostek said, frowning as he came in from the hall.
Nothing, Theo, Selena said. We re just having a & disagreement.
Take your hands off her, Constantine, Theo said, pulling a gun.
Gradually, and reluctantly, Danny let go.
Do you want me to take care of this, Selena? Rostek said.
No, she said. He ll leave. Won t you, Danny?
Ask her what we were talking about, Theo.
You ve talked enough, Rostek said, jamming the pistol barrel into Danny s back. Move. He pushed
Danny down the stairs and all the way around the corner to his car.
She s a killer, Danny said. Three in the last month. Kills them and steals their blood.
Shut up.
You don t know what she is!
You got no idea what you re fucking with. Scribbling stories for that white-ass newspaper. Murders.
There s way more to it than that, brother. Way more. But that ain t none of your business. You
understand? This ain t your town anymore. It s mine! And I take care of my own. I don t let nobody
make trouble for my friends. Got that?
You re no different than those bastards at the GNDC.
Oh, I m different. They don t even know how different I am. In two years, I m still gonna be alive.
Where are they gonna be?
You can t sit by and let people get murdered.
We ain t talking about that, Rostek said with a hard smile. We re talking about you messing with a
friend of mine. Let me lay it out for you. You go near her again, I ll kill you. Got that?
I m not going to stop what I m doing, Danny said.
Then you re a dead man. Simple as that.
Danny cranked the Ford to life and hopped in.
Simple as that, Theo repeated, watching him drive away.
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Chapter
27
Danny drove home and went
upstairs. He looked in on Lou
first, but Lou wasn t home, so he
went into Kal s room instead.
Kal was snoring heavily. Danny
went up to him and shook his
shoulder.
It s better if I sleep in my own room, Lucille, Kal said.
It s not Lucille, Danny said. Kal opened his eyes.
Oh, oh, he said, rubbing his face.
Never mind that. We ve got to bring Shirley home.
Shirley? he said, and then remembered where Shirley was. Are you out of your mind? It s the middle
of the night, Dan!
Kal, I m not kidding. I m going to the institute to get Shirley and bring her home where she belongs.
The poor girl s sick, Kal said, sitting up.
She s had transfusions. She ll be all right for a few days. That ll give us time to make other
arrangements. Please, Kal. You know I m not crazy, not when it comes to Shirley. We ve got to get her
out of there.
Kal snapped on his bedside lamp. The power was very low now, and the light was a muddy yellow.
Looking up at Danny, Kal thought he did look crazy. But he also knew how much Danny loved Shirley.
All right, he said, getting out of bed.
In the car on the way to the institute, Danny told Kal everything he knew about Gray, and what he
suspected about Selena Crockett.
I think Gray s perfected a kind of operation that lets somebody take blood directly from someone else
without having to arrange a transfusion. He turns them into a kind of mechanical vampire. They drink the
blood, but it goes into their bloodstream and not their stomachs. I took a piece of equipment from Gray s
desk the day I was down there. Percy Satin said it looked like some kind of valve or pumping system,
designed to be sewn inside someone s chest. And Gray s a thoracic surgeon.
What s that?
Someone who specializes in surgery inside the wall of the chest. I think those bodies I saw in the morgue
were failed operations, or experiments at perfecting his technique. I think he s offering the operation to
anyone who can afford it. That s where he gets the money to finance the institute.
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