The black vampire had certainly invested his wages of sin impressively. In the center of the tunnel was a Greek Revival mansion that wouldn’t have appeared out of place on St. Charles Avenue. A glassed-in garden and courtyard, a third as big as a football field, filled the space between the mansion’s two rear wings. A small fleet of tricked-out luxury cars and sport-utility vehicles was parked next to a gated access tunnel at the cavern’s far end. Most unusual of all, however, was what covered the cavern’s ceiling-a canopy of glittering stars and bright planets. Jules hadn’t seen such a glorious night sky within the city limits since before the widespread adoption of electric lights.

Jules stared upward, slack-jawed, as a meteor shower highlighted the faux sky. “Impressed?” Malice X’s wry, scornful voice boomed from hidden loudspeakers. “It’s a shame you won’t be around to see our beautiful sunrise,” the electronic voice continued while Jules searched futilely for its owner. “But it’s the sunsets, man-that’s when my light dude really earns his keep.”

“I didn’t come for no IMAX show,” Jules grumbled in the direction of the house. “You gonna show your face, mother-killer, or do I have to tear your place apart lookin‘ for you?”

“ ‘Muthah-killer’? For a sec there, I thought you might shock me and cuss me somethin‘ more colorful. You sound like a man in a hurry. Relax. I’ll make things as simple as possible. To find me, just follow yo’ heart’s desire.”

A series of pencil-thin beams of light illuminated dozens of beignets lying on the cobblestones. The sugar-laden squares of fried dough formed a winding pathway that led around the side of the mansion. He’d better enjoy his little jokes about my weight, Jules thought.Bastard won’t be making them much longer. As he followed the path of beignets, the spotlights stayed a few yards ahead of him. The path ended at the doorway to the glassed-in courtyard.

Jules opened the door, made of crimson stained glass, and stepped into the spacious garden. They were all there, standing behind the flowers and neatly trimmed hedges that enclosed a central square of immaculate lawn. He recognized about half the dark gray faces that stared him down. The toughs who’d surrounded him and Doodlebug in the alley outside Club Hit ‘N’ Run, who’d nearly killed him outside Maureen’s house. Cowboy Hat was there, still sporting his distinctive western wear and the chip on his shoulder. Even Malice X’s sister was there, glaring at Jules evilly. She spat sharply into a hedge as he closed the door behind him.

Jules didn’t look at her for long. He quickly locked eyes with the man he’d come to close accounts with. Malice X sat in an ornate wicker porch swing, squeezed comfortably between a pair of adoring, buxom women vampires. In contrast to the rest of Malice’s entourage, they paid Jules no attention at all, contenting themselves with running their long-nailed fingers across their master’s broad biceps and nearly bare chest.

“Welcome to my ‘humble abode,’ Jules,” Malice X said, smiling a Cheshire cat grin. “Welcome to Palace X.” He kept his arms snugly around his companions, leaving himself insouciantly vulnerable to any sort of projectile weapon Jules might’ve sneaked in under his coat. “All those priests at Jesuit High, man, they kept tellin‘ me I hadda go to college to make somethin’ of myself, tobe somebody. What thefuck did they know, huh? You know where all this comes from? Smarts, man. I came up with a good product, I marketed it right, and then I stashed my profits away in tech stocks. The joint upstairs? It wouldn’texist without me. Those yo-yos who wanted to build the world’s biggest casino, they couldn’t get their ducks in a row. Couldn’t line up the financing, didn’t have the pull with the local politicos. I could, and I did. I was their-what’d they call it? Oh, yeah. Their ‘white knight.’Heh.

“And you know what? I accomplished all this in less than a decade as a vampire. Less thanten years. How long’ve you been a bloodsuckah, Jules? Eighty years? A hundred? And what’s been the peak of your success? Tempting fat-ass old bag ladies into a cab even more broken down than they were?”

“You done bragging?” Jules asked flatly.

“No.” Malice X smiled again. “I’m not. Had yourself a good time with that chippie from the Strategic Helium Reserve?”

Jules was careful not to let any emotion play across his face. “So you were behind that, too. You ain’t tellin‘ me anything I haven’t already figured.”

“But yougotta admit it was slick-one vampire siccin‘ the vampire hunters on another. You know why I did it? Not because I thought I couldn’t do the job on you myself. I pulled the feds’ strings because I could. Because it waseasy. I had all these bigwigs at City Hall eatin’ outta my hand, beggin‘ me for their next dose of Horse-X. They had connections, and their connections had connections. I wanted to see what the feds had. What kinda antivampire doohickies they could come up with. And if I could find that out and make your life miserable at the same time-hey, Inever pass up a two-fer.”

“Yeah? Well here’s a two-fer for you. I left your fed dame lookin‘ like a sap, and I’ll do the same to you.”

Malice X laughed. “Hey, I got nodoubt you left her lookin‘ like a sap. You walk around lookin’ like a sapall the time.” He laughed again, and then his smile faded. “But you ain’t gonna be walkin‘ outtahere, sappy lookin’ or not.”

Jules had no more patience for banter. It was time to call his rival out. “You gonna back those words up? Or are you just gonna sit there and threaten me to death?”

Malice X pushed his lady companions aside and rose from the swing. His silver Lycra athletic pants glistened like polished chrome, and his ribbed undershirt did little to conceal his chiseled abdomen and oiled, bulging pectorals.

“Preston, fetch us the stakes,” he said.

Cowboy Hat picked up what looked like an antique rifle case and laid it at Malice X’s feet. The lieutenant unlatched the case and opened it. Inside were two identical shafts of maple wood, about four feet long, each with both ends sharpened to a deadly point.

“This is an idea I copped from a bossTomb of Dracula comic,” Malice X said proudly. “In this one issue, see, ol‘ Drac was challenged by this other bloodsuckah as to who should be king of all the vampires. So Drac proposed a ’Duel by Stake‘-two vampires, two stakes, and only one vampire walks away. Wicked, huh?”

Jules eyed the twin stakes warily. The introduction of such weapons didn’t come as a complete surprise to him. Before the days of gentlemen’s agreements and arbitration in the vampire world, duels like this had been distressingly common. Anyway, if he played his cards right, he could twist the introduction of stakes to his own advantage. “Okay. I’ll accept your terms. On one condition,” he added.

Malice X raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything ‘bout any ’conditions‘?”

“Idid,” Jules said. “I’m on your turf, ain’t I? Surrounded by your friends and flunkies? If you’re so cocksure you’re better than me, and you’ve got home-field advantage on top of that, what’s the harm in throwin‘ me one little bone?”

“That tub-a-lard ain’t got no right to demandnothin‘!” Malice X’s sister shrieked, her face contorted with contempt. But many other onlookers murmured that they wanted to hear Jules’s demand. The murmurs were subdued and nearly anonymous, but they were insistent.

Jules watched Malice X’s face carefully. Clearly, the black vampire agreed wholeheartedly with his sister’s admonition; but just as clearly, he couldn’t risk losing even a fraction of the respect granted him by his underlings. Jules enjoyed seeing flickers of indecision play across his rival’s mouth. “All right… name it, fat man. One condition.”

“I win this duel, I get your coffin. You burned up mine when you torched my house. I need a new one.”