Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life by Whitley Strieber Page B

being who’d been “blooded,” that is to say, had vampire blood infused into her veins by a real vampire. A creature that called itself Miriam Blaylock had done it to her, then died in a hail of bullets a few weeks later. After that, Leo had disappeared into the world, another trashy bit of flotsam on the nightclub and cruise ship circuit, singing tired old ballads for tired old people. She’d appeared to sink without a trace.
    But then, to his growing amazement and horror, Paul had watched her resurfacing. When he actually saw her again, a couple of years after Miriam’s death, she looked eighteen but sounded—well, she sounded like an ancient child, wise and knowing and infinitely wounded. Her voice broke your heart, just shattered you.
    And then her albums began appearing on charts. And then people started talking about her. Her concerts became large, then huge. Her fame exploded like some kind of out-of-control tumor.
    A year ago, the first Leo Patterson poster had appeared in Ian’s room.
    Long before that, Paul had begun fighting the CIA bureaucracy to get some of his old team reactivated and assigned to her surveillance. CIA didn’t like him, and they feared that his work, if it was ever revealed, would lead to all kinds of unwanted repercussions. He’d killed hundreds of highly intelligent beings, who’d had names and a language and writing. It would be easy to see this as a gross violation of the prohibition against assassination that the agency had been working under at the time. Worse, they were genetically similar to man, so much so that their blood could damn well run in our veins. So CIA kept him under deep, deep cover, and wished that all of his work and his tremendous accomplishment of freeing mankind from a great curse would just disappear.
    In the end, he’d been given one guy. They’d had Joe Leong doing close-range intercepts in China—setting devices that were designed to pick up conversations in private apartments and offices. Joe was good at tunnels and basements. He was good in the dark.
    Thumbs dug into Paul’s neck. He leaned back into Becky’s eyes. “You’re acting weak,” she said, “and that makes me mad, because I know you’re strong.”
    “I’m down here working.”
    “You’re down here obsessing. Paul, you go up and be with him.”
    “Leo fed.”
    The hands disappeared. He could feel a change in Becky as she stood behind him. The careful professional replaced the worried mother. “You have evidence?”
    “Joe followed her to Sutton Place. She went in with a victim, came out alone. During this time, the furnace was fired.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s all.”
    “Any missing persons report fit? Did Joe get a look at the guy?”
    “Mid forties, stocky, not real pretty. Short brown hair, carried a briefcase. Came out of a bar on Third Avenue. Went into the roach motel with America’s Sweetie, did not return.”
    Becky dropped down into her own chair. “You want to go in and see Jack Binion?”
    He thought about that. The chief of detectives was fairly cooperative, but real careful around a Central Intelligence Agency official with a secret brief. Had he known just how much of an outsider within the company Paul actually was, he wouldn’t have given him any time at all. But he didn’t know that, so fifteen minutes in the man’s office might be productive.
    Paul picked up the phone, dialed.
    “Chief Binion’s office.”
    “This is Paul Ward. I’d like to meet with the chief today. Tell him it’ll take about fifteen minutes, and I can do it anytime from ten on.”
    There was a short silence. “You want me to tell him, like, right now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Call him at home and wake him up?”
    Paul muttered that he’d call back, and hung up the phone. “I get up too early,” he said.
    “And you go to bed too late. When you do sleep, you look like somebody waiting to be executed. You have nightmares that you never remember, like last night.”
    “I had