They left. Without anyone saying a word, they left, Felix by then standing in the center of the room glaring ferociously at them as they went.
Save for their limo, the street was all but deserted. Jack tapped lightly on the glass and the dozing driver scrambled out to open doors. But for a moment no one moved to get in. They just stood there looking at the night.
"Well," offered Carl at last, "he was pretty weird for us anyway."
Jack looked at him and laughed. "Are you kidding, Joplin?" He laughed again. "The man is ours!"
All eyed him warily.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, O Great Leader," said Carl. "But wasn't that a 'no' he gave us?"
"I'll correct you," added Cat. He turned to Jack. "It was, in fact, about the firmest goddamn 'no' I've ever heard."
The other three, Annabelle, Davette, Adam, nodded without speaking.
Jack laughed again.
"He's ours, I tell you. You know what he'll do? Next time I see him - "
"You're going to see him again?" asked Annabelle.
"You think that's wise?" added Davette.
Jack grinned. "Got to. He doesn't know how to reach us. Anyway, next time I put it to him he'll demand something outrageous. Money, probably. A hundred grand or the like." He nodded to the driver who walked around and got behind the wheel. He waved the others into the car. "I'll agree, we'll shake hands, and then he's in. C'mon."
They obeyed. Reluctantly, suspiciously. When they had all gotten situated, Cat finally spoke up for the rest.
"Bwana? Are you sure we're all talking about the same dude?"
Everyone smiled.
"How," Annabelle wanted to know, "can you be so sure, dear? I mean about the money and the rest. Why didn't he just ask for it tonight?"
He smiled warmly at her. "He was bluffing tonight. Hoping we'd all go away. When it doesn't work - which he knows damn well it won't - he'll just make it tougher on me out of spite. He needs the money as an excuse to give in to himself."
Everybody thought about that for a second.
Finally, Cat asked, "Are you sure we're talking about the same dude?"
"Let me tell you something, old buddy," replied Jack before anyone else could speak. "More than you, more than me, that man was made to do this job."
He paused, sighed. "Poor bastard." He looked at the driver. "Hit it."
If anyone noticed Davette's furious blushing or triphammer heartbeat they didn't say anything. Thank God! she thought. Because she couldn't explain it either. But Lord, what a tug...
Thirty minutes later Felix still stood as he had when they had gone, stiff and silent in the middle of the room.
Why can't I cry? he thought. And then he thought: I should be allowed to cry.
It isn't fair.
He had doubted not one word Jack Crow had told him.
That a world existed where vampires really lived was no surprise at all. A world of evil incarnate gnawing men only made sense.
What surprised him was how long it had taken for that world to finally find him and drag him inside.
It's not fair, he thought. I wanted to do something real.
Lord; but she was beautiful.
Jack Crow, lying sleepy-drunk in the huge bed of the suite's master bedroom, felt oddly content.
He felt for Felix. He really did. But no more than he did for himself or for Cat. And besides, he'd really meant it when he'd said Felix was made for the job.
Funny, he'd thought of Felix a lot in the years since Mexico but almost never in terms of the killing. It was as if that part of Felix, that killing part, had been kept under the surface. Or in his dreams. Or something.
He rolled over on his side and scrunched his pillow better. He loved these pillows. Not the usual hard-as-a-rock hotel pillows. Made to last a lifetime and probably float until help came. "Ladies and gentlemen, should we experience turbulence and the hotel begin to sink, your flotation device is found under your bedspread..."
Ha. Yep, Felix was the right move. Silver bullets was the right move. And for the first time he was able to think back to the night of the massacre with something less than bone-grinding anguish, something more than impotent horror. Now it was something like: Gotcha, bastards. Gotcha! Right where I - And then he remembered for the first time... No, not the first time. He'd always remembered that. But he'd never thought of it, never really seen it, but it had happened, not once