“Take this vase, Erato. Take Maureen for me. Take her home with you, and put her on a windowsill that has a pretty view. Where she’ll get lots of sun and be warm all the time. That would mean a helluva lot to me.”

“Jules, I–I mean, I said I’d do anything I can, but… but that’s not forme to do. She belongs withyou.”

“She belongs with someone who can take care of her. Someone who’s gonna be around for a while. And I don’t think that someone is me.”

“What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Erato’s eyes blazed. “Awwfuck!” He slammed his palm down on the table. “What the hellis this? You yank me in here, stir me up like a hamster in a Mixmaster, and then you won’t tell meshit! What’s with all this bullshit, man?”

Jules took another check out of his pocket and pushed it across the table. “Here. Maybe this’ll make the bullshit go down easier.”

Erato took a few seconds to read the check. “Twelve thousand dollars. Made out to me. ‘To send Lacrecia to LSU.’ ” He pushed the check back across the table. “You are justfull of surprises tonight, aren’t you? Where’d you get this kinda money?”

Jules pushed the check back toward Erato. “Take it. I want you to have it. It’d make me real happy, knowin‘ that I helped send her to college in Baton Rouge. Since I know that’s what you really want for her.”

Erato didn’t touch the check. “I ask youagain. Where’d you get this kinda money?”

Jules sighed. Withholding information from his best friend was one thing. Telling him an out-and-out lie was another. “It’s part of the insurance payout from my house.”

“So what are you givin‘ it tome for? Don’t you need a place to live?”

Jules stared down at the table. Without his wanting it to, his gaze drifted to the green glass vase and the white dust inside. “That’s what I was hinting around at before, see. I won’t be needing no place to live. I won’t need a car or a record player or a set of dishes or nothin‘. After tomorrow night… well, lemme put it this way. We won’t be drinkin’ coffee together in here no more, pal.”

Erato grabbed his arm. “You aren’t-you aren’t plannin‘ on killing yo’self, are you?”

Jules smiled ruefully. “Naww. Nothin‘ like that. I figure another guy’ll do it for me. But not before I get in some licks of my own.”

“If you’re in bad trouble… let me help.”

“Forget it. These guys I’m tusslin‘ with, they’re way outta your league. They’re outta the cops’ league. I’ve gotta handle this in my own way, on my own.”

“Oh? And what sorta league areyou in? That’sbullshit, man. If you’re in the kinda trouble you think you won’t walk away from, you needhelp. And who’s gonna help you if your friends don’t?”

Jules stood up. He squared his shoulders and stared Erato down, using a tone of voice he’d never thought he’d ever use with his friend. “Now you listen up. You arenot gettin‘ tangled up inmy business. Ever since this whole mess got started, I’ve been scramblin’ for ways to get other people to do my dirty work for me. All that ducking and running, you know what that’s ended up gettin‘ for me? Two of my best friends killed. That’s what. And here you are, volunteerin’ to become the third. Jeezus, Erato, do you realize what you’vegot? You’ve got all the good stuff in your life that I’llnever have. A wife. A family. Things you done for other people that you can be proud of. Now listen. You go back to your house tonight, and you crawl in bed next to your wife, and tomorrow morning you deposit that check in your bank account. You hear me?”

The black cabdriver didn’t say a word in response. He picked up the check from the table, folded it in half, and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

Jules watched him and smiled with satisfaction. “Thanks for being my friend, Erato,” he said. And then he walked out the door of the Trolley Stop Cafй, for what he figured would be the last time.

The Lincoln was parked out back, on the shadowy fringes of the Central City neighborhood where Jules last encountered Malice X. Jules felt a spear of anguish in his chest when he thought back to that night. If he hadn’t been so squeamish about killing a fellow vampire… if he’d fired his wooden darts through Malice X’s heart when he’d had the chance… both Maureen and Doc Landrieu would still be among the living.

Jules heard footsteps behind him. Numerous footsteps, none heavy enough to be a man’s. He whirled around to face them, enraged that anything would intrude on his mournful thoughts.

Dogs. Or wolves; he couldn’t tell. Five of them, standing at the edge of the parking lot, all staring up at him.

Jules realized he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t even particularly surprised. “Couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow night, huh?” he scowled. “I thought Malice wanted to polish me off all by himself. Doesn’t matter.” He picked up a broken piece of plywood from near his feet. “Come on, then! Let’s get this goddamn business over with!”

But the wolf-dogs didn’t come any closer. Not one of them growled. Their muscles weren’t tensed; they were clearly interested in him, but they weren’t angry or fearful. The beasts’ tails moved slowly from side to side. It might’ve been a trick of the light, but Jules thought he could almost see friendliness in their eyes. And their scent-heknew that scent from somewhere. The sense memory was as strong as his recollection of Maureen’s perfume, even if he couldn’t for the life of him place it.

The largest of the pack, the leader, separated itself from the others and slowly ambled toward Jules. Wondering whether he’d end up with five fewer fingers, Jules nervously extended his hand for the animal to sniff. But it didn’t pause at the preliminaries-it immediately licked his fingers, as enthusiastically as a boyhood pet. The lead wolf-dog rested its muzzle on his hand, staring up at Jules with big blue-gray eyes, eyes that were both weirdly intelligent and piercingly familiar, as mysteriously known to him as the other wolf-dogs’ scents had been. It pressed its cold, damp nose against his hand for several seconds, as if maybe trying to comfort him somehow, trying to tell him that in this big harsh universe perhaps Jules wasn’t as alone as he thought. Then the big wolf-dog licked him a second time, wagged its tail, and returned to its fellow pack members.

Jules cautiously unlocked his car, still grasping the plywood fragment. He started the engine and backed out of the lot. The wolf-dogs continued watching him as he drove past. He tried looking at them a final time in his rearview mirror, but they were already gone.

Jules awoke the next night at eight forty-three. He felt surprisingly well rested.So now I know the trick to a good day’s sleep, he told himself.Help your pals, and have your mind made up. Easy. Shame I learned that lesson with only one day’s sleep left to me.

He opened the cottage’s refrigerator and removed two of the three remaining pints of California blood that Doodlebug had left behind. Jules downed them both, straight out of the plastic bottles. It was a definite bummer that his last blood meal was this weak, watery, almost tasteless plasma. But it was also good, in a way. Drinking California blood was like downing a vitamin shake; New Orleans blood was like a Christmas ham feast, the kind of repast that makes you dopey and sleepy enough to enjoy the Vienna Boys Choir on TV. He would need his strength tonight, so skipping a meal wasn’t an option, but he couldn’t afford to be weighed down.

He wrote two checks for the remainder of the money in his checking account, one to Billy Mac for what Jules still owed on the Lincoln, the other to Tiny Idaho for the weapons he’d made. Jules recounted that when his father had passed on, he’d also passed on a bunch of bad debts to Jules’s mother. The memory left a bad taste in his mouth, bad as spoiled blood. If Jules was to leave this earth, he’d do so debt-free.