Kiss of the Black Angel Page 2

PROLOGUE

  "Have you come to a decision in this matter, Stefan?" he inquired in a voice so flawless and clear it could have been the song of some mythical siren.

  Dimitri was asking me to choose between life and death, yet all I could do was sit there listening to the clink of glasses and the din of meaningless conversation all around us. At a nearby table, Batman and Robin shared an order of french fries, thick red catsup bleeding toward the center of the plate in an erotic slow dance. In the buffet line, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock chatted about the "prejudicially Terran cuisine here at Starbase One" as the Vulcan popped a fat black grape in his mouth. Hotel employees strained to maintain polite expressions in the face of a 200 pound Catwoman and an overly talkative Jean-Luc Picard whose skullcap was peeling away to reveal scraggly locks of auburn.

  My head hurt from the wine. I was drunk on illusion. I was sick on grief.

  And the creature sitting across the table just looked at me and smiled, revealing straight white teeth whose only peculiarity was the two small fangs where incisors should have been. It was no Hollywood make-up job, nor had this blond waif undergone dental alterations in order to personify some macabre fantasy.

  No, this illusion was real.

  Looking at the vampyre now, it was as if I'd known him always, though we'd met less than 24 hours before...