John Carthage

John Carthage and the Miami Vampires

First published by Pen Name Publishing LLC 2024

Copyright © 2024 by John Carthage

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction written by a human being. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is completely coincidental.

John Carthage and Pen Name Publishing, LLC assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

This novel is a parody and a work of satirical fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Zombies and vampires are probably not real, but let’s not take any chances.

Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com

First edition

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To my darling wife, whose patience with chaos and my relentless pursuit of success is the backbone of this operation. You are the calm in the storm, the sharpest mind I know, and the reason I believe in something greater than power, money, and ultra-yachts.

To my family, who taught me that blood runs thicker than profit, and to my friends, whose tolerance for my rambling never ceases to amaze.

Contents

Foreword

1. Business Development

2. The Client Interview

3. Sign Me Up

4. The Mandate

5. Opening Move

6. Hungo

7. The Plot Thickens

8. Kitten

9. Cobra and the Mongoose

10. Room Service

11. A Wealth of Clues

12. Lifeline

13. The Prince of Princeton

14. Peak Jersey

15. Divide and Conquer

16. Clothes Horse

17. Gift Horse

18. What’s in a Name

19. Lunch with the Girls

20. Zoe

21. Honey Trap

22. Biohazard

23. Compulsion

24. The Council of Carthage

25. Bat Poop Crazy

26. Saucepans

27. Bondage

28. Lucian

29. Inside Information

30. PMS

31. Tingle, Tingle Little Star

32. After Midnight

33. Repeat Business

34. Top of the Pyramid

35. Jamaican Customs

36. GoldenEye

37. Organic Farming

38. Pizza to Go

39. The Light Bulb Flickers On

40. Sharks

41. The Intervention

42. Clubbing

43. Shocker

44. Batter Up

45. God Save the Queen

46. Party Planner

47. Red Carpet

48. Double Cross

49. Fourth Estate

50. The Frame

51. Regroup

52. The Best Revenge

53. The Battle of Pandora

54. Cleanup on Aisle 3

55. The Diamond Bullet

56. Albina

57. A Cancer on the Fed

58. Canine

59. Sail Ho

60. Fuse

61. Waterworks

62. Flex

63. Sun-Kissed Skin

64. Intelligence

65. Finance

66. Fast Fashion and Father Time

67. Reunions and Raiders

68. Sticky Wicket

69. The Board Is Set

70. Conclave

71. Conspiracy

72. Set Up

73. Sweeter

74. Servant of the People

75. Consequences

About the Author

Also by John Carthage

Foreword

Life is funny. Sometimes a war breaks out when you least expect it. Same thing with love. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

-John Carthage, Republic of Miami

One

Business Development

MY BOUTIQUE investment firm had been open for a full year when the zombie apocalypse came roaring back into my life. Not in the form of zombies, of course. The Manhattan Quarantine Zone was keeping that particular threat well-contained.

Instead, the elegant shadow of my executive assistant, Sylvia Sakura, darkened the doorway of my penthouse office early one warm Florida evening. She cleared her throat, and I glanced up from the pile of paper on my custom-built acacia wood desk. Sylvia looked nervous, smoothing her black satin Chanel mini-dress over those slender hips and clutching her signature four-strand pearl choker.

“Psst… John, there’s a woman here to see you about opening a new account,” she whispered.

“So what?” I shrugged. “We’ve got tons of new clients. What’s so special about this one?”

“She claims to know who’s behind the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, and…” Sylvia’s whisper trailed off, and she looked over her shoulder in obvious concern.

“And what?” I growled. “There’s plenty of zombie conspiracy theorists running around. They’re constantly on the cable news, TikTok, Twitch, and everywhere else. It’s a fucking growth industry. There’s a small army of them camped outside my mansion, begging me to bless their insanity. I even had a crackpot break into my bedroom, raving about the Illuminati and the George Washington Masonic Temple. It’s that fucking Tabloid Express interview I did with Anjali. Why didn’t you stop me? It brought the nuts out of the woodwork. They’re all crazy, and they’re all wrong.”

“Sure, but…uh, John,” she stammered, “I think you REALLY need to meet this one. Seriously.”

My patience wore thin. Sylvia was going to make me late for dinner with a well-toned Swedish bikini model I met during Tahiti Fashion Week. She stopped in Miami on her way to a photo shoot in Barbados and practically begged for a second date. The same bikini and a new bottle of coconut oil would be involved.

I shook my head to refocus.

“You handle it. Isn’t that what I pay you for?” I snapped.

“This girl is a little too far above my pay grade, John.” Sylvia glanced over her shoulder again and whispered, “She’s smoking hot, she’s wearing Balenciaga, and…uh, she’s a vampire.”

I froze for a moment, and then pushed a red button under the desk. My Mokuba wrecking bar popped out from a secret compartment.

“Okay,” I said. “Send her in.”

Two

The Client Interview

THE BEST THING about a successful business is the glorious freedom to pick your own customers. When you don’t have cash flow problems, there’s no need to work with losers.

My post-zombie investment firm thrived on that principle. I opened an office in Miami and built a client base of the world’s hottest supermodels, the top ten NFL quarterbacks, and the ten richest private equity barons you’ve never heard of. We were printing money hand over fist. No losers allowed.

In fact, I had so much new business that Sylvia Sakura put her foot down. She threatened to leave, if I kept growing the portfolio so fast.

“John, I didn’t survive the Manhattan zombie apocalypse so you could work me to death in a Miami skyscraper. Dial it back, or I’m walking away for good.”

I knew she wasn’t kidding. We made so much money front-running the Nintendo-Boeing deal that neither of us needed a paycheck. But creating massive wealth is part of my caveman nature. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, I gotta grift. It’s a cosmic truth.

Greed and arrogance told me to replace Sylvia with a younger model. Literally. But a feeble self-awareness neuron buried deep in my brain insisted she was indispensable. I couldn’t live without her.

We negotiated an equitable compromise. Sylvia would regulate our growth to accommodate her vacation schedule, while I continued to benefit from her trouble-avoidance radar.

That’s why her whispered pronouncement on that fine summer evening caught my attention. I knew she had already done her due diligence. If Sylvia said the hot visitor was a vampire, I didn’t need to see the receipts. After all, the world has zombies, so why not gorgeous vampires in Balenciaga?

She returned to the lobby, and I reluctantly set aside my pile of ultra-yacht sales brochures. Vague tactical memories nudged my brain, drawn from the headmaster’s regular bedtime stories in the orphanage. Freddy Kreuger. Hannibal Lecter. Count Dracula. There was no wooden stake in my office, but I ate several garlic naan with lunch. Maybe that would give me a tactical advantage. I girded my loins and gripped the Mokuba tightly, concealing it behind my leg, ready for instant deployment.

I expected Nosferatu in drag, but Sylvia brought me an haute couture goddess who absolutely took my breath away. Tall. Sleek. Platinum hair in an angled bob cut. Brilliant diamond necklace and cocktail ring by Casa Damiani. Ice-blue eyes that sparkled as she shook my hand. Absolutely stunning.

Sylvia was right about the Balenciaga; a low-cut little black dress that our visitor filled out beautifully, paired with Jimmy Choo stilettos from the spring collection. Her well-toned legs reached all the way up. She wore a fragrance I didn’t recognize, a subtle, musky scent that suppressed my ability to form coherent thoughts. A strong tingle seized my spine. The Mokuba slipped from my fingers and landed on the lush carpeting with a soft thud.

I shook my head to refocus, but it didn’t work. My brain was frozen. Sylvia looked flustered, so the woman shook my hand and introduced herself in a low, smoky voice.

“Albina Aldana. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Carthage. I’m a huge fan. Your photoshoot in Vogue amazed me.”

My jaw opened and closed soundlessly. Her touch was unusually warm, almost hot, sending another powerful tingle shooting up my spine and releasing a flood of testosterone.

Sylvia’s nervousness vanished when she saw Albina’s impact on me. She rolled her eyes and snorted.

“He’ll be alright, Miss Aldana. Have a seat. I’ll bring some coffee.”

Sylvia took my arm and guided me to an overstuffed chair. The visitor settled onto my big leather couch. Another wave of scent washed over me, and I drifted into an actual trance. She seemed to find this unsurprising and waited politely until Sylvia reappeared with two cortados and a double espresso.

“Miss Aldana, I’m going to join the meeting and take notes, if you don’t mind. John is having a little trouble focusing tonight.”

“Please, call me Albina. Your input is welcome. I know how important you are to Mr. Carthage and the great success of his firm.”

Sylvia smirked at me and snuggled into the other end of the couch, flashing her own well-toned legs in the process. It was almost more than I could bear. Two beautiful women. Balenciaga and Chanel. Diamonds and pearls. Alone in my luxurious Miami office. After hours. The combinations were endless.

I downed the espresso in a single gulp. The fog lifted.

“What can we do for you, Albina?” I wiped a little drool from my chin, trying to sound casual and in control.

“First, let me thank you for taking the meeting. Not everyone wants to spend time with a vampire.” She flashed her perfect white teeth in a dazzling smile, as if to put me at ease.

Her canines were a touch longer than normal. I glanced at the Mokuba wrecking bar, resting comfortably on the carpet.

Albina laughed, a musical sound that I ached to hear again.

“You won’t need that, I promise. Besides, it wouldn’t work on me.”

She held my gaze for an instant, and with a sound like gentle rain, her body dissolved into soft, white mist. Little black dress and all.

The mist floated over to the Mokuba. Albina’s perfect figure rematerialized. She retrieved the wrecking bar, placed it on the arm of my chair, and settled into the couch again.

I blinked and looked at Sylvia for confirmation. She shrugged.

“Life is a Bram Stoker novel, and we’re all just living in it.”

Albina laughed again. I felt like Odysseus, but had no wax to stop my ears nor a crew to bind me to the mast.

“That was a docudrama, not a novel. Dracula was real. In fact, his death marks a major turning point in vampire history. The old ways would not work anymore, so we orchestrated a fast pivot, similar to your evolution from hunting to agriculture. But we made our move in a few decades, not thousands of years.”

At that point, she launched into a lengthy discourse on the sociology of vampires. She was a liberal arts version of Dr. John Bardeen, my former colleague at DCH. Better looking, but just as long-winded.

My eyes glazed over, and I slumped in the chair. Her siren’s voice transported me into an adults-only fantasy world full of hot, blond vampires in little black Balenciaga cocktail dresses.

Someone snapped their fingers, and I realized Albina had stopped speaking. Sylvia glared at me.

I sat up straight and croaked, “So, what’s the bottom line?”

Sylvia checked her notes. “Albina has a problem. Well, her tribe has a problem. A rival tribe is making a power play for dominance in their world. They released the zombie virus in Manhattan, into our world. But Albina and her people don’t know who.”

I thought about the zombie conspiracy theorists camped outside my estate. The podcasters. The tabloids. The congressional hearings. None of them ever mentioned vampires.

“Why do they think it’s vampires? It could be anyone: the CIA, the Pentagon, the Federalist Society. All we know for sure is that the virus spread through those $2 hot dogs and the food cart vendors.”

Albina sighed, as if she addressed that question in her lecture.

“John, our human lab techs analyzed blood samples from more than a hundred zombies we captured in Manhattan. They all had one thing in common: AB-negative blood.”

“How does that connect vampires to the Manhattan zombie apocalypse?” I asked.

Sylvia was annoyed.

“Pay attention. She covered this. AB-negative is the only blood vampires can drink, and it’s the rarest type by far. This can’t be a coincidence. No fucking way.”

Albina nodded.

“John, vampires don’t hunt anymore. Not since the death of Lord Dracula. It’s too risky. Fingerprints. Computer databases. Artificial intelligence. DNA testing. Your police are lazy when it comes to financial crimes, but unwavering in pursuit of serial killers.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. Her comment about monetary misconduct hit close to home, and she was right about catching serial killers. Relentless detectives and cold case reality shows have dominated the streaming services for more than a century.

“Why did you call him Lord Dracula? I thought he was a count.”

Sylvia shook her head and muttered, “Squirrel.”

Albina displayed more patience.

“Great question, John. He posed as a mid-level count in the human world. In our world, he was a senior vampire lord, the head of an important tribe. We recognized that if humans could track and kill such a senior vampire so easily, then our whole way of life was at risk. Change became imperative.”

“If you couldn’t hunt anymore, what did you do?” I was almost afraid to ask. Albina was hot, but scary.

“You’re an investment banker, John. What solves all your problems?”

Finally. An easy question.

“Money. Lots of money.”

“That’s right. We decided not to hunt for AB-negative blood anymore. Instead, we would simply buy it. After two decades of careful work, we established a non-profit entity to purchase AB-negative blood from willing donors and resell it through a secret portal on the CME.”

This made perfect sense. I’ve always known the Chicago commodity markets are full of blood suckers. But her story still didn’t explain what happened in Manhattan.

“Very interesting, but I don’t see a link to the zombie apocalypse. Spell it out for me. Use very small words.”

“AB-negative donors are very rare. Keeping healthy donors on retainer is incredibly expensive. The refrigerated supply chain adds another layer of expense. Our non-profit entity must innovate constantly to cut logistical costs. Some of their best ideas underpin new vampire businesses. DoorDash. Instacart. Amazon Drone.”

I nodded my approval. Excellent business models, but the connection between all this and the zombie apocalypse was not apparent. Fortunately, Sylvia stepped up and did the math for me.

“It’s supply and demand, right? The supply is limited, and the demand is inelastic, so the price is high. There’s only one way to attack that situation; find a cheaper substitute.”

“That’s right, Sylvia. We believe a renegade tribe is trying to expand supply by converting ordinary blood donors into AB-negative donors. Red Cross scientists experimented with that idea long ago, using an antigen to cut enzymes from blood cells. It didn’t work. The non-profit entity funded a similar effort when CRISPR gene editing was perfected. Another failure.”

She was describing a garden-variety corporate R&D program. Throw money at research, develop a cheaper product, bankrupt the monopoly, and corner the market for yourself. My old investment bank tried the exact same play using lab-grown diamonds. Unfortunately, the DeBeers diamond cartel outspent us. Bonuses were tiny at DCH that year. We almost had to eat our seed corn.

Albina hesitated, then continued in an apologetic tone.

“If their experiment succeeded, they would have ruined a supply and distribution system that has operated peacefully since 1901. But something went wrong. Very wrong.”

Sylvia and I looked at each other. Even I could do the math on this one. Without conscious effort, my hand moved to the Mokuba wrecking bar. Yeah, something went wrong.

“You created a fucking army of zombies.”

Three

Sign Me Up

ALBINA’S EYES FLASHED RED for a nanosecond. My harsh accusation was right on target. She was not accustomed to hearing trash talk from a dinner entrée, but she swallowed her pride and tackled my criticism head on.

“Of course, John, you’re right. I concede the point. Vampires unleashed the zombie apocalypse. It’s true. That’s the only logical explanation. But you mustn’t blame all vampires for this tragedy. It was one tribe. One tribe out of thirty-seven. As a species, we value the symbiotic relationship between humans and vampires.”

Sylvia snorted. “Let me get this straight. You can’t live, if living is without us. Is that what you’re saying?”

Albina’s eyes flashed red again.

“Precisely. Endangering the human race is a risk we can’t take. If you die, we die. Zombies are an existential threat for everyone. That’s why we launched our own investigation. We extracted a random middle-class zombie from Central Park for extensive testing. Our scientists were shocked when the blood panel showed AB-negative. They tested another. And another. And another. We tested a hundred zombies of every size, shape, and net worth. All of them were AB-negative. Every single one. There is no doubt. Vampires did this. The only question is, which tribe?”

We sat in silence as I processed her revelations. The surprise of learning that vampires walk among us had already faded. Successful investment bankers deal with the world as it is, not as they want it to be. But how would vampires benefit from unleashing zombies in Manhattan? The AB-negative R&D project made sense; build a cheaper product and corner the market. But if that didn’t work, why destroy Manhattan? Was it an accident?

“That’s not the ‘only’ question, Albina. But let’s start with the most obvious. Why the fuck are you here? Why are you telling me all of this? Why should I care?”

“That’s three questions, John,” Sylvia muttered.

Albina ignored Sylvia’s quibble.

“John, the vampire tribes are rich and powerful. Your species survived by transitioning to agriculture; my species transitioned to high finance. Money is power. Power is safety. We live long lives, and we love our creature comforts.”

She brushed an invisible speck of dust from the hem of her little black dress and idly twisted the glittering cocktail ring on her elegant, perfectly manicured finger.

I was annoyed.

“Okay, I get it. You’re part of the 0.1 percent. So am I. Answer the question. Why are you here?”

“It’s complicated. Our world is carefully balanced among the thirty-seven tribes. We take great care not to upset that balance. If my tribe investigates this, it will be an accusation against the others. An insult to their sense of honor. They’ll line up against us, and our world will plunge into chaos. Your world will be dragged down too. It happened before, in 1914 and 1939. Except this time, the problem will go nuclear and bring an end to all of us. Nobody is radiation-proof.”

I looked at my watch. Albina was smoking hot, but she talked more than John Bardeen on a coke bender. My hot Swedish bikini model was at grave risk of cooling off.

“Albina, this is all very interesting, but I have a previous engagement, so if you can’t get to the point…”

“John, we need your help to figure out who did this. We can’t investigate without arousing suspicion and animosity. Most of the work will be done in daytime, in the human world. We have natural limitations in that realm.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not hire a detective agency? Or those guys from Supernatural?”

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “That was urban fantasy, not a documentary.”

Albina sat forward on the couch, leaning in and holding my gaze with her firm ice-blue stare, as if to say, “My eyes are up here.” Her scent embraced me. The plunging Balenciaga neckline called to me, but I didn’t dare look down.

“At the end of the day, this is a financial crime. That’s something you know all about. You have a golden taste for plunder. It gives you an edge. We want to hire you. We’ll pay top dollar.”

I was pleased by the compliment and the prospect of a big score. I risked a downward peek. Another tingle froze my spine.

I shook my head to refocus.

“Mmm…why not hire a forensic accounting firm? Sylvia can give you a referral. Use one of my regulars.”

“We want John Carthage, not a bunch of bean counters. You have strength. Daring. Courage. Style.”

Albina caressed my cheek and rested her diamond-encrusted hand on my knee. Another wave of irresistible scent washed over me, and my spine tingled again. She looked deep into my eyes.

“Please, John. You escaped Manhattan and saved two hundred people from the zombie apocalypse.”

She held my hands. Her touch was warm, almost hot.

“Now we’re asking you to save the world.”

Four

The Mandate

ALBINA’S SHAMELESS FLATTERY overcame my reluctance to cooperate. Her promise of a cash retainer sealed the deal. After that, she relaxed, and a bold, flirtatious persona emerged. I could tell she was genuinely interested in me. They all are.

My tingling spine rose to the challenge, but our time was cut short for my well-toned Swedish dinner date. Envy flashed in Albina’s ice-blue eyes. The women in my life are insanely jealous. I wondered if Albina might qualify as homicidally jealous.

Sylvia met me for brunch the next morning at our favorite café in Little Havana. She was irritated that I smelled of fresh coconut oil, but she was obviously energized by our new project. Printing easy money never gets old for me, but Sylvia craved more variety in her work life. Were we becoming an old office couple? I shrugged away that grim thought and focused on her briefing.

“John, this woman is dangerous. She may be a vampire, but she’s no fool. We’ll have to be careful. I don’t want you alone in a room with her. I’ve never seen you lose your cool like that. It was weird.”

“Maybe, but right now I’m more concerned about the other guys, the tribe that’s two steps ahead of her.”

Sylvia nodded. “Let’s keep an eye on both. But for now, take a look at the mandate letter I got her to sign.”

She handed me a two-page document with Albina’s signature. It was our standard boilerplate, with an extra paragraph about compensation. My jaw dropped at the number.

“An initial payment of $250 million up front and a $250 million success fee? How did you get her agreement on that? Was she drunk?”

“Maybe a little,” Sylvia admitted. “I broke out the Cuervo when you left. She’s a good dancer, by the way. We had a great time.”

A fuzzy image of Sylvia slow dancing with a hot vampire chick popped into my brain. My spine tingled.

I shook my head to refocus.

“Let’s talk about that later. Are you sure she’s good for the money?”

“Of course. She transferred the first $250 million from a crypto account in the Seychelles last night. It hit our main Cayman Islands account within minutes. I immediately rinsed it through three other offshore jurisdictions and into our personal Swiss bank accounts.”

“Like it never happened,” I smiled.

Sylvia smiled back. “That’s why you pay me the big bucks, John.”

“Now all we have to do is deliver the info and collect the next $250 million. I analyzed the problem last night, after my date passed out from exhaustion. Our first step should be checking the $2 hot dog company, the one that sold contaminated product to all those the food cart vendors in Manhattan.”

Sylvia pulled out her iPad and made a list of action items as I fired off instructions. Not even a late night of tequila shots and sapphic dancing could slow her down.

“We’re gonna need help on this one. Reach out to people we can trust. Real douchebags. Tell them I’m getting the band back together.

Sylvia smiled at the nickname for our old colleagues at Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, universally known as DCH or “the Douche.”

“Last, but not least, alert Anabella Busto to meet me at the jet this afternoon. Pack for two nights. Tell her I’m expecting an excess of deceit and skulduggery. She’ll know what that means.”

Sylvia nodded and closed the iPad.

“You need a deal lawyer.”

Five

Opening Move

ANABELLA BUSTO AND HER INTERNS were waiting when I buzzed onto the tarmac at Opa Locka Executive Airport outside Miami. The pimply teenage valet slid behind the wheel of my Lamborghini Terzo, smiling like a kid at Christmas.

“Not a scratch, sir,” he promised.

Anabella was a stacked twenty-something Cuban smoke show I poached from a Venezuelan drug cartel. Despite the sultry heat of a Miami summer afternoon, she looked casual and cool in a belted linen romper from Bimbo y Lola, classic alligator flats by Manolo Blahnik, and the latest Ray-Ban aviators.

I thought she should dress more formally for a business trip with her biggest client, but what the hell. She was young and sizzling hot. I gave her a free pass.

My personal Dassault Falcon 3000 ElectroJet was fully charged and ready to fly. We boarded immediately, stowed the roller bags, and went airborne within ten minutes. The well-trained cabin crew brought a Woodford Manhattan for me, a dirty martini for Anabella, and a round of lemonade for the interns. Everyone got a personal 8-oz. can of Blue Diamond salted almonds. The interns pulled out their iPhones and did what interns do. Anabella pulled out a yellow legal pad and a disconcertingly cheap plastic BIC pen.

“Cut to the chase, John. What’s up? Sylvia Sakura was damn mysterious when she called me. What the hell is the Hungo Hot Dog Company? Are we cornering the market for pig guts and chicken lips? Why does it have to be in New Jersey?”

I replayed the previous evening’s events for her, leaving out the coconut oil and Swedish bikini model. Triggering Anabella’s famous temper was never a good idea.

She accepted all of it without batting an eye. As a former cartel lawyer in Miami, Anabella had seen and done horrific things I couldn’t imagine. That’s why I kept her on a permanent retainer. And, of course, once you accept the existence of zombies, it’s a small leap to believe in vampires as well.

“Hungo Hot Dogs was the epicenter of the Manhattan zombie apocalypse,” I said. “The owner offered a special price, supposedly to help the $2 hot dog carts capture market share from the $2 taco guys. Street vendors are extremely price-sensitive. They jumped at the opportunity to save a few pennies per hot dog, but they accidentally destroyed Manhattan. Oops.”

Anabella nibbled on a salty almond and sipped her martini as she digested my information.

“Why are we visiting the factory? My interns did a quick dive into Hungo’s finances and tax returns. It’s not listed on the stock exchange, so there’s not much detail. It’s a small family-owned company. The owner disappeared, probably eaten by zombies.”

“Those hot dogs didn’t spontaneously mutate into virus vectors. Vampires made that happen. We need to find out which tribe, and this is the best place to look. Hell, it’s the only place.”

Anabella frowned. “The feds already searched the factory, but didn’t find anything worth mentioning.”

“Sure,” I replied. “But they didn’t know what to look for. We have an actual clue. Besides, the average fed couldn’t find his own ass with two hands and a flashlight.”

Anabella kicked off her alligator flats and settled into the plush full-grain leather seat, looking pensive and expensive as she twirled a strand of her lustrous black hair. She finished her dirty martini in a gulp and waved for a refill.

I sat back to enjoy my first-class stewardesses and six-star service. Every trip on the private jet brings back memories of my personal journey. I left the orphanage with five dollars, a worn backpack, and the headmaster’s curses ringing in my ears. Look at me now.

Anabella nursed her second martini and thumbed through the GradeSaver abridged version of Bram Stoker’s most famous novel, making an occasional note on her yellow legal pad. After an hour, she looked up and flashed her deep brown eyes at me.

“John, I’m gonna have to double my hourly rate on this one.”

Six

Hungo

WE TOUCHED DOWN IN TETERBORO two hours later, well-lubricated and ready for action. Sylvia Sakura hired a top New Jersey security firm for the short drive to Hungo Hot Dogs. They sent ten shooters and four armored Range Rovers with an edgy corporate logo stenciled on the doors: Brick City Bodyguards, LLC.

The owner was a young brunette in a black tactical cat suit who gave new meaning to the word “abbondante.” I couldn’t quite place the style, until Anabella muttered something under her breath.

“Look, it’s Emma fucking Peel.”

In any case, the owner exhibited an infectious can-do attitude and carried a flashy MAC-17 with custom ivory grips. I made a mental note for Sylvia to include her in my personal protection detail for our next Vegas trip.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Carthage. I’m Beverly Bellaseno. Call me Bevy. I’m in charge while you’re in the Garden State.”

The equipment on her tactical rig rattled as she shook hands all around: combat knife, pepper spray, brass knuckles, flashbangs, and an encrypted radio. Her team dressed in combat fatigues and balaclavas. They carried Heckler & Koch battle rifles and were fully accessorized with all the best close-combat gear.

“Thanks, it’s good to have you here. If we run into any zombies, you’ll certainly be well prepared.” I gestured at the arsenal and her fleet of armored cars.

Bevy laughed. “Your first visit to Jersey? We need all this for the fucking drive to the factory. C’mon, let’s mount up before somebody tries to snatch one of your children.”

She looked at the interns, absorbed in their phones and oblivious to their imminent peril.

Anabella and I strapped into the second SUV with Bevy. Luggage and interns were distributed among the others. Bevy’s team checked their comms and racked their weapons. The lead SUV roared out of the airport with the rest of us close behind.

We blasted through heavy traffic at flank speed, ignoring lights, lanes, traffic signs, and other vehicles. Bevy trained her drivers at a top evasive-driving school. Or they grew up in Newark.

Anabella gripped the overhead handle for dear life and grumbled something about the traffic laws. Bevy was relaxed and chatting comfortably. She distributed plastic shoe covers, latex gloves, goggles, and small respirators.

“Can’t be too careful. You’re probably not gonna run into any zombies around here, but you do know this hot dog factory was built on an old Passaic River EPA Superfund site, right? Ever heard of the Diamond Alkali Company?”

There are only two things that last forever; the love of a good woman and an EPA Superfund site. The Diamond Alkali plant shut down in the early 1970s when its main product, Agent Orange, turned out to be carcinogenic. Authorities insisted it was properly cleaned up, but nobody believed them. Perfect place for a hot dog factory.

I gave Bevy a complete briefing during the hair-raising ride. Zombies. Vampires. Tribes. Albina Aldana. She deserved to know what the truth. Nothing fazed her. Jersey girls are tough.

Our convoy screeched to a halt at the visitor gate. Bevy and her team deployed and formed a wide perimeter. We dismounted warily.

Two of her shooters provided close escort with breaching tools, semi-automatic Beretta shotguns, and bandoliers of double-ought buck. The interns clustered around Anabella, fussing with their protective gear and complaining they couldn’t use their phones because the latex gloves were non-conductive.

I pulled the Mokuba wrecking bar out of my roller bag and took a few practice swings.

Bevy laughed again.

“You won’t need it. This area has been scrubbed clean by the New Jersey National Guard and the 173rd Airborne Brigade out of Vicenza. We have plenty of firepower to handle zombie stragglers. No need to worry about making noise.”

I climbed on the hood of an armored Range Rover to get a better view. The property was a rambling wreck. Sagging chain-link fence, weeds growing through cracks in the parking lot, broken windows, and bullet-pocked concrete walls. Someone had blasted through the front doors and set the place on fire. A whole corner of the building collapsed from the ferocious heat. The entire place fluttered with great swaths of crime scene tape from every federal law enforcement agency in America.

“Jesus, what happened here?” asked Anabella.

Bevy shrugged.

“It’s Jersey. When people learned about Hungo Hot Dogs and the zombie virus, the crowd wanted payback. Didn’t find anybody alive, so they tore out the copper pipes and wiring, stole all the cars, and tried to burn it down. The feds showed up later and went over the rubble with a fine-tooth comb. Mobile command trailers, hazmat suits, the whole nine yards.”

Anabella checked her yellow legal pad. “They never found the owner. Do you know what happened to him.”

“Old widower. A regular at the Irish bars. He disappeared. The feds gave up, but we’re still looking. The Hackensack wise guys are hunting him in the Caribbean. He’s gotta pay for what he did.”

One of the bodyguards nodded and cracked his knuckles.

“La familia has a long memory,” Anabella muttered.

“Thanks, Bevy,” I said. “Good stuff. I appreciate the local intel. Now let’s do what we came to do.”

The factory fence stretched three hundred yards along the main road. There were two big truck gates marked “Receiving” and “Shipping” at either end. The small visitor gate was tied shut with yellow tape. We cut the tape and climbed through the rubble to get inside the building.

The factory looked like World War 4 and smelled far worse. The stench of rotting hot dogs was impressive; even the rats were wearing respirators. A couple of the interns barfed in their masks and retreated to the armored SUVs.

“Okay,” I said. “Stay together. This place has a jump-scare vibe that can’t be ignored.”

The bodyguards racked their shotguns. Bevy cocked her MAC-17. Anabella tripled her fee.

We started in the staff breakroom where the outside wall had collapsed. Nothing of interest: a kitchenette, an old battered lunch table, a toaster oven, and a colorful glass-front refrigerator painted with the Hungo Hot Dog logo. The interns took a few selfies and photographed everything.

The bulletin board was covered with OHSA safety notices, fliers for babysitter co-ops, ads for used cars, and invitations to Amway meetings. A big sign on the refrigerator read, “Hungo Employees Eat Free!” It was stocked with moldy hot dogs, buns, ketchup, yellow mustard, and pickle relish. Management must have figured a few free hot dogs would make the staff forget they had no health care or PTO.

Our next stop was the admin office. The place had been thoroughly trashed before the fire, and the feds carted off any files or computers that were not reduced to ashes. We searched it anyway, but found nothing. The interns took a few selfies and photographed everything.

The executive office was relatively untouched. Locals took the valuables. Feds took the documents and electronic devices, leaving only paper clips, pens, and pencils. The interns took a few selfies and photographed everything.

We worked our way around the plant, digging through piles of charred debris on the factory floor, sloshing through puddles, and climbing over the rusting hot dog machinery. The big shipping dock were not visible from the street.

The truck bays were open. A Hungo Hot Dog delivery van was parked beside one of them. A destroyed 18-wheeler was backed up to another. No documents left in the cab. The driver’s badly-eaten body was in the trailer with a couple of dead zombies. They were decapitated and burned to a crisp. After a year of watching zombie videos on YouTube, the interns were thrilled to see the real thing. They took a few selfies and photographed everything.

The far end of the plant contained an industrial walk-in meat freezer and a storage room full of chemical preservatives, artificial flavors, and kosher salt. Everything had been torched.

The smell in that part of the factory was not so bad. The chemical-fed fire burned through the freezer walls and cooked all the meat. My mouth watered, and my $2 hot dog addiction reared its ugly head. Anabella tried to read the chemical names, but the drums were scorched beyond recognition.

There was one more room, a rough plywood shed labeled “Tasting and Testing,” untouched by the flames. I caught a faint whiff of cinnamon, almost unnoticeable, and stopped Anabella before she could open the door.

“Let the boys go first,” I said. “You’re not dressed for this.”

The bodyguards popped the door with a Black Hawk Dynamic Entry Ram and charged through. They cleared the room and waved us in. We found a big laboratory refrigerator, a pile of shattered lab glassware, broken microscopes, hot dog wrappers, a toaster oven, and three dead zombies.

One zombie was wearing khakis and a white Hungo Hot Dog golf shirt drenched in blood. The second zombie was wearing Hungo Hot Dog utility overalls, also drenched in blood. Their names were embroidered over the shirt pockets. Darrell and Kevin.

The third zombie had a Euro-trash haircut and a $195,000 Armani two-button suit from last year’s spring collection, paired with high-polish chukkas by Salvatore Lucchese.

His canines were a touch longer than normal.

Seven

The Plot Thickens

I STARED AT THE BODIES, trying to wrap my head around the gruesome scene. Any lingering doubts about a vampire nexus with the Manhattan zombie apocalypse finally evaporated. This was not a coincidence. I drifted into one of my famous genius-level trances, trying to piece it all together.

“Such a sharp-dressed man,” Anabella muttered. “What the hell was he doing in this shitty junk food factory?”

We searched the room and viewed the bodies from every possible angle. Their pockets were empty. No wallets, IDs, phones, or smart watches. Kevin and Darrell died from comprehensive head trauma. A small, blood-smeared fire extinguisher sat nearby. The Armani-loving vampire sprawled between the Hungo Hot Dog zombies in a pool of his own dried blood. The interns took a few selfies and photographed everything.

Anabella was stumped.

“I represented Miami drug lords for years. I know how to read a murder scene. This one makes no sense.”

“Here’s a clue you might have missed.” I knelt beside the vampire’s corpse and gingerly pried his jaws open to display a perfect set of pearly white teeth.

“Hmm,” Anabella mused. “Those canines are a touch longer than normal, aren’t they? He was a vampire, right? But if that’s true, how did the zombies take him out? According to Bram Stoker, vampires have the strength of twenty men. He should have killed them easily, as soon as he saw the threat.”

I nodded. “Or he could have used Albina’s white mist trick and escaped without a fight. The room is plywood and 2x4s, not an airtight laboratory environment. Lots of cracks and crevices.”

Anabella agreed. “Sure, but why the hell would he enter such a small room with a pair of zombies in the first place? Nobody’s that stupid. It doesn’t make sense.”

I was stumped. “Very true. Unarmed and trapped in a small space is not a recipe for financial success. Anybody with a brain knows that.”

Lawyers love logic, and Anabella was one of the best lovers in Miami. On the other hand, logic has never been my strongest suit. That’s why I brought Anabella. She crossed her well-toned arms and stared at the grisly crime scene.

After a long moment of careful thought, she shrugged.

“There’s only one explanation. Those two weren’t zombies when they entered the room, otherwise Mr. Fancy Pants wouldn’t come in here with them. And Mr. Fancy Pants wasn’t a vampire, or he could have escaped when they displayed their zombie charms.”

I didn’t like referring to a $195,000 two-button Armani as “Fancy Pants.” The same model was hanging in my custom mahogany California walk-in closet.

“Okay, counselor, riddle me this. They shipped the contaminated hot dogs on Saturday afternoon. There weren’t any zombies to bite anyone yet, so how did they become zombies?”

“That’s easy. Remember the free hot dog sign in the break room? These Hungo boys must have dined on the promotional hot dogs before Mr. Fancy Pants arrived. There was no reason for them to know the dogs were loaded with a zombie virus. They were low-level employees. Mushrooms. They didn’t know what they were eating. It’s the simplest explanation.”

I winced at the reference to Fancy Pants, but her analysis made sense. The promotional hot dogs for the food cart vendors would have shipped on Saturday morning. The production workers finished loading the delivery vans and went home before lunch. Their supervisors handled the client meeting. The first reports of Manhattan zombie incidents dropped on Saturday evening. The virus was out of control by Sunday afternoon, when the governor made his speech and blocked the bridges.

“So, Darrell and Kevin decided to munch free hot dogs before the client arrived. The virus hit them later on, and they attacked him in this shed. I agree the client wasn’t a vampire when he came in. Otherwise, his vampire strength would handle them easily, or he could simply escape as a white mist. The meeting turned into a cage fight. The Hungo zombies tore him up. He landed head-shots on both of them with the fire extinguisher, then he bled out and died. But how is he not a vampire? He’s got the same expensive taste as Albina Aldana and uses the same dentist.”

Anabella nodded agreement.

“Okay, that makes sense. But why didn’t Mr. Fancy Pants reanimate? Why didn’t he become a zombie? Was he chewed up too badly? Snapchat says if zombies eat too much, the victims can’t come back to life. Or back to death. Whatever.”

I shook my head. “This guy is a mess, but there’s still plenty of meat on the bone. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of zombies. He should have reanimated, for sure.”

My frustration grew. Anabella’s scenario was correct. No other rational explanation fit the facts. But her explanation was not a usable clue we could follow. Our little Zombies v. Vampires game had been fun, but the Hungo Hot Dog factory was a dead end.

A dead end, until one of Anabella’s interns stuck her head in the doorway, gasping with excitement.

“Hey, Miss Busto, come quick. You gotta see this.”

There was nothing more to learn in the plywood shed, so we followed the intern to the break room. Everyone was gathered around a lunch table littered with old hot dog wrappers, soda cans, empty ketchup bottles, and moldy relish jars.

“Look! We were editing our selfies for the corporate SnapChat account, and Frankie spotted something in the background.”

They pointed at the kitchen sink. It was heaped with crusty plates and a mountain of dirty coffee mugs and water bottles. Cheap corporate giveaways from hot dog industry suppliers. Sargon Nitrates. Acme Meat Scraps. Food Grade Fillers, LLC.

“So what?” I said. “Nobody washes dishes in a shared break room.”

Anabella walked over and poked at the mess with her disconcertingly cheap plastic BIC pen. Her deep brown eyes suddenly widened.

“No, John. Look at this.”

She grabbed one of the coffee mugs and brought it over to me. Italian porcelain. Not cheap.

“Thanks, Anabella, but I already have a free coffee cup. From my very own company.”

She sighed. “No, John, look at the fucking label.”

I turned the mug to check the corporate logo. It didn’t come from a ketchup vendor or a chicken lip dealer or anybody remotely connected to the $2 hot dog industry.

It was from a company called PMS.

Phage Molecular Sciences.

Eight

Kitten

BEVY BELLASENO’S TACTICAL RADIO crackled a sudden warning, and I dropped our only clue. How do I hate jump-scares? Let me count the ways.

Bevy’s lighting-fast reflexes saved me, snatching the coffee mug from mid-air before it shattered on the floor. She tossed it to Anabella Busto for safekeeping and listened intently to the radio. Her team leader delivered a perimeter sit-rep. Bevy grimaced.

“Not good. The locals are coming to play. We have to leave. Now.”

She signaled to the escort team, and they herded the interns through the collapsed break room wall.

“Why should we leave?” Anabella protested. “We found something useful. Maybe there’s more. Tell them to wait until we’re done.”

Bevy laughed. “Your first visit to Jersey? The locals want our stuff. A million dollars worth of armored cars and enough weapons for an SAS strike team.”

To underline her point, a bodyguard on the perimeter fired half a dozen quick rounds and shouted, “Fuck off, assholes!”

The response was a ragged fusillade of gunshots.

I looked at Anabella.

“Counselor, I think it’s time to adjourn for the evening.”

She gripped the coffee mug and nodded. “We have a lot to talk about. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We piled into the SUVs under sniper fire and roared off, blasting through a hasty roadblock scratched together from leaky chemical drums. Anabella flinched and huddled against me when a heavily tattooed local boy frosted her bulletproof window with a spatter of rounds. Bevy flipped open a gun port and fired a full magazine in return. The local boy disappeared in a red mist.

Twenty minutes later, Anabella and I were surrounded by elegant calm in the lobby of the Four Seasons, always an oasis of luxury. Bevy said she would drop the interns at a nearby Motel 6 and return.

“We have dinner reservations at 8:00 p.m. I’ll collect you after a shower. I clean up real good, you’ll see.”

She winked and squeezed my well-toned booty. Not surprising. As a long-time Manhattan resident, I’m well acquainted with Jersey girls. They’re not shy about what they want.

Anabella frowned and linked her arm with mine, steering me away from Bevy and toward the front desk.

Sylvia Sakura booked adjoining executive suites for us, so there was plenty of space and two full bars in case we got thirsty. I unpacked and took a long, hot bubble bath, trying to mellow out and replay the day’s events. Albina Aldana’s story of tribal vampire competition did not add up. The more I thought about Albina, the more my spine tingled, making it difficult to think of anything else.

I dried off with an extra-plush Four Seasons towel, shaved, and then moisturized with half a jar of African shea nut body butter recommended by my dermatologist. Dinner at the Four Seasons demands a suit, even in New Jersey, so I donned a steel-gray Fendi three-piece with a crisp white shirt, gold doubloon cuff links, and a pair of black Santoni oxfords. The full-length mirror applauded.

Anabella had already unlocked the door between our ultra-modern suites. She was draped languorously on the couch, barely wrapped in a short, loosely-belted silk bathrobe. Her tousled black hair was damp from the shower. As she tapped her iPad, every tiny move threatened a wardrobe malfunction. My spine tingled.

I shook my head to refocus.

“John, I haven’t been able to find anything about Phage Molecular Sciences. It’s not on any of the stock exchanges. It’s not listed with any of the state corporation commission databases. It’s not on social media. Nobody on LinkedIn has ever worked there.”

“Did you try googling it?” I asked.

Anabella muttered something foul and kept tapping on the iPad.

Everyone has a different skill set, but computers are not part of mine. I felt the urge to contribute, or Anabella might think I was slacking off. After a moment of deep thought, I suddenly remembered how any half-naked woman could benefit from my special skills.

“Martini?”

She pushed her hair back and absently waved a hand.

“Sure. Make it a double. Two olives.”

Anabella kept tapping and swiping while I cracked a bottle of Nolet’s Reserve Gin for a martini and a bottle of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked for a Manhattan. Two olives. Two maraschino cherries.

I handed the martini to Anabella. We clinked glasses and sipped. Liquid perfection. Our eyes met over the drinks and locked. Awkward. It was like I could read her mind. We reached an unspoken agreement.

Unfortunately, the door bell bonged softly, and Bevy strolled in. She was wearing a tiny red skater dress with a deep neckline and flirty little skirt. I didn’t recognize the designer, but it looked expensive. A definite upgrade over the tactical cat suit.

“So, waddya think? Don’t I clean up nice?” She twirled around in an arched-back pirouette, and the skirt flew high in a perfect circle.

I shook my head to refocus.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” she said. “Now, why don’t you get me a fancy cocktail? Make it a Cosmo. Double sugar on the rim.”

Anabella seemed a little annoyed by how quickly I jumped at Bevy’s command. She tightened the silk robe with a fierce yank and stomped off to her suite.

Bevy set her Chanel handbag on the bar and perched on a padded bar stool to watch me work. When I finished, she licked the sugared rim with a very pink tongue and sampled the drink. Her full lips matched the pink tongue. Our eyes met over the glass and locked. Awkward. It was like she could read my mind.

A loud crash from Anabella’s suite interrupted us, followed instantly by a shriek and a volley of machine-gun Spanish.

Before we could react, Anabella and her short silk robe appeared in the doorway, suspended in mid-air, kicking and screaming. A large man in a Valentino suit and a 5-carat diamond stud dangled her by the neck with one hand, as if she were a kitten.

He threw her halfway across the room.

Nine

Cobra and the Mongoose

ANABELLA BOUNCED off the couch and landed hard on the plush carpeting. The large man in the Valentino suit bounded across the room in one leap and grabbed me by the throat. He growled, displaying canines that were quite a bit longer than normal.

With no apparent effort, he lifted my two hundred pounds of rock-hard muscle and dragged me across the bar. I clawed at his hand, trying to leverage his pinky finger and snap it off like the drill instructors taught me in CQC training. It didn’t work. His pinky had the strength of twenty men.

Our eyes met and locked. Awkward. I could read his mind.

His ice-blue eyes reminded me of Albina Aldana and her little black Balenciaga dress. I tried to shake my head and refocus, but his grip was too tight. The diamond stud winked at me. My world went dark.

A deafening explosion and blinding flash of light revived me. The large man in the Valentino suit released my throat. I staggered, gasping for breath. He glared at me. Part of his head was missing. His Euro-trash haircut was lopsided.

I grabbed the heavy bottle of Woodford Reserve and smashed it against his face, slashing repeatedly at those ice-blue eyes as fast as I could, hoping to blind him with blood.

He recoiled and turned toward Bevy, who was pointing her Chanel bag at him. The bottom of the bag had a smoking hole. She fired five more times. Five more holes. Five more hits. Point blank. Center mass. Tight group.

Bevy pulled a speed loader and a custom Colt Cobra .357 from the ruined bag. She inserted six shiny new rounds faster than a meth-crazed mongoose can blink.

But the large man in the Valentino suit was quicker. He dissolved into a white mist and swirled through the door into Anabella’s suite. The splatters of blood and brains on my Fendi suit, the floor, and the walls evaporated, trailing after him.

Bevy ran to the door and disappeared. I wobbled over to Anabella and gently lifted her onto the couch. An ugly bruise the size of a large hand formed across the back of her neck.

Anabella was dazed, but still breathing.

“Go,” she choked. “Help Bevy.”

I kissed her forehead and ran into the next suite. It was nicer than mine. Opulent. A message from Sylvia?

Bevy stood outside the guest bathroom.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Bastard swirled out through the ceiling fan. Probably vents to the roof. He’ll be long gone before we can get up there. Dammit.”

Bevy was ready to chase down wounded lions for me.

Good to know.

Ten

Room Service

SOUND-PROOF ROOMS are one of the best things about a modern luxury hotel. Our ears were ringing from Bevy’s custom Colt Cobra, but the other guests didn’t hear a thing. Even if they did, wealthy people don’t want to get involved.

Anabella moved quickly through the three Kübler-Ross stages of grief, from shock to anger to revenge. Her Miami career prepared her well for the rough and tumble world of investment banking.

“I’m gonna get that hijoputa,” she growled. “The last thing he’ll see in this world will be me pounding a fucking tent peg straight through his black fucking heart.”

Bevy helped her walk into the other suite and dress for dinner. I called the front desk and asked for a housekeeper. Like any modern luxury hotel, no other explanation required.

The maid appeared in less than five minutes. She was a stout sixty-five, with a heavy Slavic accent and nicotine-stained fingers. She pulled latex gloves from her service cart and got to work. This wasn’t her first busted bottle of premium bourbon.

By some miracle, my Woodford Manhattan survived our vampire death match. I sank into a plush chair, sipping and brooding. My banker instincts told me Albina was withholding crucial information. A failed termite inspection. Mold behind the drywall. A meth lab in the basement. I couldn’t figure it out, but a crouching tiger, hidden zombie agenda underpinned everything she said.

Twenty minutes later, the maid coughed politely.

“Sir? I’ve finished. What should I do with these?

She held out her gloved hand. Six misshapen .357 slugs and a dazzling 5-carat diamond stud.

“Mmm…oh, thanks. I’ve been looking for those. You can leave them right there on the bar.”

She said goodnight and turned to go.

“Wait,” I said, and opened my roller bag. I pulled out a $50,000 brick of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

“Thanks for your help,” I winked at her.

Her smile lit up the room.

“You’re welcome, sir. Anytime.”

Eleven

A Wealth of Clues

DINNER AT THE FOUR SEASONS is always a treat. It’s not the Inn at Little Washington, but it’s a luxurious environment where the food is good and expensive enough to drive away the middle-class tourists. No screaming children.

Anabella Busto recovered quickly from her vampire manhandling. It takes more than a supernatural assassin to stop a Miami deal lawyer.

She slipped into a well-fitted Carolina Herrera tuxedo dress with a high collar to cover her bruised neck. The tiny skirt showed off her well-toned legs. Bevy Bellaseno fussed and hovered protectively. Anabella waved her away, but I think she appreciated the extra attention. Girls stick together.

We ordered an appetizer round of French 75s and Oysters Rockefeller. Bevy winked and suggested I probably didn’t need to eat the oysters. It was true, but the #MeToo comment was wildly inappropriate and annoyed the hell out of Anabella, which I suspect was exactly what Bevy intended.

Jersey girl.

The women selected trout almondine and salad entrées topped with braised tofu. I ordered a 24-oz. ribeye and a fully-loaded baked potato. The food arrived quickly, and we plunged into some serious executive brainstorming.

Everyone agreed the Hungo factory visit had been productive. The PMS coffee mug served as a good lead, even though it wasn’t exactly a smoking gun. On the other hand, our visit had not gone unnoticed; the vampire attack was not a coincidence. Somebody knew we were in that factory and reacted quickly to find us.

“Our gunfight with those local boys,” Bevy said through a mouthful of crunchy romaine lettuce. “The police must have heard about it. An occasional gunshot or three is routine around here. This is Passaic, after all. But the local roadblock and our sharp little firefight were way over the line. Somebody called the cops. Fucking snitches.”

Anabella nodded. “That means the vampires have sources in the police department to alert them about activity near the Hungo plant.”

Bribing local police would be an easy day’s work for a global cabal of bloodthirsty investment bankers. I had no doubt the vampires could handle it too.

“There’s a lesson here,” I said. “We can’t trust anybody. That vampire assassin attacked us after the sun went down, a couple of hours after we left the factory. Whoever sent him probably used traffic cams and tracked our convoy from Hungo Hot Dogs to the Four Seasons.”

“Mmm…about that,” Anabella mused. “Was he sent to kill us? He grabbed me from behind when I was getting dressed. I like it rough, but I’ve never felt that kind of strength before.”

I shook my head to refocus.

Bevy was intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it. He could have snapped my neck like a breadstick. Instead, he took me into the other suite and tossed me aside like a rag doll when he attacked John.”

“That’s true,” Bevy said. “The bastard could have killed John, not just choke him out. Why would he do that?”

“He wanted prisoners for interrogation,” I said. “Intel stuff. Who sent us? How much do we know?”

“Maybe we should tell the client,” said Anabella. “Seems like a pretty important development to me.”

“Not yet. Something doesn’t add up here. I don’t think Albina Aldana gave us the full story. We have to watch our backs. If we tell her the other tribe has noticed our investigation, she might send her own people to kill us, so nothing will link to her side.”

I explained Albina’s concern that connecting the investigation to her tribe would offend the larger world of vampires and trigger an extinction-level war.

Bevy and Anabella processed my information in silence. They didn’t like it. We were stuck in the middle, between warring vampire tribes who didn’t know who they were fighting. That made us the only viable target in sight.

Anabella changed the subject. “Enough speculation. Let’s have a look at the physical evidence.”

I took a plastic baggy out of my suit pocket and clinked the contents onto an unused bread plate. The slugs were warped little mushrooms. That’s what happens when a lead bullet runs into something hard. The 5-carat diamond stud was a beauty. It glimmered at us in the soft restaurant lighting. The girls were hypnotized.

Bevy shook her head to refocus.

“I’ve never seen one that big before. Size really does matter.”

She winked at me, and Anabella frowned again.

I ignored both of them.

“We might be able to trace the diamond. I’ll drone it to Sylvia Sakura tomorrow and see what she says. That woman knows a thing or two about expensive jewelry.”

“No need,” said Bevy. “I have a diamond guy. Cousin Vinnie. He ran a big store in Manhattan before the apocalypse. Heart of the Diamond District. My aunt in West Orange invited him for dinner on zombie outbreak weekend, so he was out of town when the governor imposed the quarantine. Lucky guy. I’ll meet him later tonight. If there’s anything to know about this diamond, he’ll have it for us first thing in the morning.”

She wrapped the diamond stud in a tissue and added it to her bulging handbag, a very large retro Prada. I saw the custom MAC-17 peeking out before she snapped it shut.

Anabella picked up the slugs and looked at them carefully.

“This isn’t right. None of these bullets ended up in a wall or bounced off anything. They should have gone right through him. A 9mm round would have rattled around his ribcage. An elephant gun like yours? No way. What happened?”

Bevy sighed. “I hit him in the head with the first round and busted his skull open. I expected an exit wound the size of a pomegranate, but it stayed inside. He turned toward me, so I put the next five into his heart. Every round stayed inside his chest. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

She had a talent for understatement. Five rounds in a tight group from a .357 should leave a hole you could see through.

“I guess you can’t kill a vampire with a gun, but you sure fucked him up. John blinded him with that broken whiskey bottle. That’s why he vaporized and bugged out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Bevy turned the tables. For all he knew, our next move involved a wooden stake and sudden cardiac arrest. The weirdest thing was that Bevy’s bullets didn’t vaporize along with him. They fell out as he dissolved, and when he left the room, all the blood and gore followed. I thought my Fendi three-piece was ruined, but it’s like nothing happened. Clean as a whistle.”

I brushed an imaginary speck of vampire brain off my sleeve.

Anabella looked pensive. “What about the diamond? Why didn’t that go with him?”

“Because John’s broken bottle shredded his ear,” Bevy said. “I saw the back of the stud fly off, and the diamond bounced to the ground. It wasn’t touching him when he dissolved.”

At that point, Anabella and Bevy jumped down a rabbit hole, speculating about vampire dematerialization and the position of lead on the periodic table of elements. I ordered another Manhattan and let the girls chase Alice for a moment. None of this was bringing us any closer to answering our $250 million question: Who unleashed the Manhattan zombie apocalypse?

When my drink arrived, I took a refreshing sip and snapped the girls back on task with one of my famously probing questions.

“What about the coffee cup?”

Anabella pulled the mug out of her bag and set it on the table. Heavy white Italian porcelain. Phage Molecular Sciences. Blue logo on a white background. Absolutely no connection to the hot dog business.

Anabella was frustrated. “I’ve tried everything, John. Checked every database. The company doesn’t exist.”

“The mug exists, and somebody paid money to put a logo on it. Who did that? How did the coffee mug wind up at Hungo Hot Dogs? There are no coincidences.”

Bevy picked up the mug and examined it carefully. She scratched delicately at the logo with a well-manicured fingernail.

“This is hand-painted custom work, not a mass production run. There’s even an artist’s signature.”

Anabella looked closely and agreed with Bevy’s assessment.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Still, where did it come from? There are millions of unemployed artists in this country. We’re not all smart enough to be STEM majors.”

Bevy laughed. “This particular artist has a paying gig, and there’s only one place to find a working artist in America. I bet she’s on Etsy, the same place I buy my dresses.”

I was stunned. Bevy’s dress looked like something you’d find at Paris Fashion Week, not on a handicraft website for kitsch and tchotchkes.

“No way,” I said. “Your dress is exquisite, a work of art. I’ve never seen anything like it. Tell me the truth. Who are you wearing? Christian Dior? Dolce & Gabbana?”

Bevy loved it.

“John, the only difference between my dressmaker and Christian Dior is a billion-dollar advertising budget. There are tons of people out there with talent and skill. Not everyone gets discovered by the mainstream. You should open your mind. The world doesn’t begin and end with Fendi’s marketing department.”

Blasphemy. I looked to Anabella for doctrinal support against Bevy’s heresy. She shrugged.

“I’ve heard crazier ideas. Let’s check it out.”

Bevy borrowed Anabella’s iPad while the waiter brought dessert and coffee. I was outraged by her casual dismissal of haute couture as “the mainstream” and by her vicious slap at my Fendi collection. Maybe I wouldn’t add her to my personal protection detail after all.

I brooded for a hot minute and reached a reluctant conclusion. She looked damn hot in that Etsy skater dress. Maybe she had a point.

“Got it!” she exclaimed, tapping on the iPad. “The artist has an Etsy store for her oil paintings and custom corporate swag. Mainly t-shirts, coffee mugs, stuff like that. Look at her signature.”

Bevy used two fingers to enlarge a product photo and held up the iPad so we could see the scribble.

It was a perfect match.

Twelve

Lifeline

I MOVED INTO ANABELLA’S SUITE that night, surrounded by Bevy’s security team for better protection. Her bedroom featured a California King bed and mirrored ceiling, which made me think about my old DCH colleague, Peggy Martin, a hot blonde Minnesota softball mom. She would have approved.

Anabella took the bedroom. I passed a restless night on the couch. Albina Aldana dominated my dreams, modeling a series of increasingly provocative Etsy cocktail dresses. The tingling in my spine was so intense it woke me up several times. Bevy’s security guys were jumpy and kept racking their shotguns like a movie SWAT team. I half expected a return visit from the vampire or his buddies, but the night passed without incident, and the day dawned bright and clear.

We ordered a hearty room service breakfast for the whole team, so we didn’t have to leave the room. True to her word, Bevy brought me a comprehensive report from her cousin, the former Manhattan diamond merchant. She sent the security team into the other room while we talked. Strictly a need-to-know basis.

Bevy was running on two hours of sleep and looked bleary. A double espresso and a Belgian waffle loaded with syrup and strawberries revived her. Somewhere in the night, she ditched the skater dress and wiggled into another black tactical cat suit. Anabella was soft and sexy in her loosely belted silk robe, and I was resplendent in my paisley-print Derek Rose silk pajamas. We made quite a threesome, but there’s never a Vogue photographer when you need one.

Bevy’s cousin came through for us.

“Big rocks are tracked tighter than a fresh kidney,” Bevy said. “They’re inscribed with microscopic numbers and listed in an unhackable global diamond registry. This one started life in Kansas, at the DeBeers Deep Diamond Mine near Topeka. It was cut and inscribed by a Manhattan contract gem cutter, then bought and sold by a series of dealers. A retailer called Miami Beach Bling, LLC, purchased it two years ago. The last buyer was a boutique Miami real estate firm, Bloodline Realty Group, LLC.

“This is fantastic,” I said. “Tell your cousin I owe him one.”

Bevy laughed. “Damn right you do. Don’t forget it. Someday, and that day may never come, he’ll call upon you to do a service for him. Until then, accept his information as a gift. Also, I told Sylvia Sakura to wire him $50,000.”

I nodded my approval. Investment bankers pay for information all the time. It usually comes from senators and Supreme Court justices. A humble diamond merchant would look like a real bargain on my company expense account.

“So what’s next?” asked Anabella. “Should we call the Etsy store?”

“Yeah. Handle that with Bevy. Find out who commissioned those coffee cups. I’m gonna think about our next move.”

The women retired to the bedroom while I drifted into a genius-level trance, alone in the suite’s living room. The problem of the Armani-loving vampire who became a human but didn’t become a zombie gnawed at my subconscious. The science defied me. There was only one thing to do. Call a consultant.

I deployed my neon-pink iPhone 35 and punched a number in my Favorites list. A young woman answered.

“Princeton University Physics Department. Go Tigers! How may I direct your call?”

“Connect me with John Bardeen.”

Thirteen

The Prince of Princeton

DR. JOHN BARDEEN WORKED at my old investment firm before the apocalypse. He played a big role in our survival and rescue of two hundred souls. But that’s another story.

Bardeen left Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe at the same time I did. He formed a team with other survivors, and they parlayed their experience into a hit television show. Everyone made a fortune. The money didn’t change Bardeen at all. He was still a bit of a slob and had that irregular European relationship with soap and water.

The television show catapulted John to fame. Princeton University hired him as a celebrity adjunct professor in the physics department. Bardeen shared his brilliance in exchange for a small stipend and unfettered access to their advanced laboratory equipment. His global reputation earned him office space in Jadwin Hall, the nondescript physics building near Princeton’s football stadium. It was a sweet deal. Most adjuncts don’t even get free parking.

Our black Uber Exec SUV brought us to Jadwin after a comfortable drive from Passaic. I figured the Four Seasons might be under surveillance, so we swapped clothes with Bevy Bellaseno’s security team before leaving the hotel. The team piled into the armored Range Rovers and escorted Anabella’s interns to the airport. My private jet was fully charged and ready to roll. They were buckled up and airborne in less than ten minutes.

Anabella Busto, Bevy, and I hid in the luxury spa, drank mimosas for an hour, and then reserved the Uber for a short ride to the nearby Trailways bus station. Our Uber driver met us in the hotel parking garage. No surveillance cameras.

When we reached the bus station, I offered her a $50,000 brick of crisp hundreds for an off-book trip to Princeton. As a single mom with two kids, she was happy to oblige. We stopped at The Gap for clothes to help us blend in. Ripped denim and plaid grunge. I didn’t want to walk around campus in combat fatigues and a tactical backpack, no matter how manly I looked.

Bardeen was overjoyed to see me and delighted to meet Bevy and Anabella. He put on the kettle and fussed around his office, setting little paper plates and sugar cookies on the table, chatting about our old colleagues, and bringing me up to date on the second season of their television show.

“Andrea Aiuto always speaks fondly of you,” he winked. “Too fondly. I think she still has a crush.”

“Wait. What? A crush? I never knew.”

A missed opportunity. Andrea was a busty Italian firecracker with a fondness for low-cut Nicole Valenti dresses. She was a hero of our apocalyptic struggle in DCH Tower. But that’s another story.

John babbled for an hour, until we finished the cookies and he ran out of tall tales about my genius and courage. Then, with typical investment banker abruptness, he turned to the main topic.

“John, what brings you to the wilderness of academia? Need my help with your multiplication tables?”

Bevy and Anabella giggled. They enjoyed Bardeen’s stories and learned far too much about my mathematical abilities.

“No. Not this time. We have a science problem.”

I described our current situation, trying not to leave anything out. Bardeen was a vacuum cleaner for details. He sucked it all in. Nothing was too small. Facts, hypotheses, speculations, wild-ass guesses. Everything was important. Bevy and Anabella tossed in their own observations to complete the picture. Bardeen drummed his fingers on the table as he processed our data dump.

When we finished, he sat back and whistled softly.

“That’s quite a story. I’ve long known there is more to the natural world than we understand. I assumed it was fairies and leprechauns, but vampires? Sure, why not?”

“We’re pulling on a couple of different threads here,” I said. “We’ve got the ordinary thread about two groups in a death struggle. Power. Money. Assassins. It’s another routine day in the banking industry.”

Bardeen nodded. “My favorite part of the business.”

“The other thread is a mashup of science and the supernatural. That’s where we need your help. How did the zombie virus work? What turned that Armani-loving vampire into a human? Why didn’t that Armani-loving human turn into a zombie after he got bit? Anything you can tell us could be important.”

“Let me see your physical evidence.”

I placed the coffee mug, diamond stud, and .357 slugs on the table.

Bardeen was nonplussed.

“That’s all you have? The blood and tissue vaporized when the vampire disappeared, right? So for our purposes, these things are essentially sterile. I’m a scientist, not a magician. What didn’t you take blood and tissue samples in the hot dog factory?”

Anabella and I shifted uncomfortably in our chairs. Bardeen scolded us like a couple of third-graders eating library paste.

“Not my fault,” I whined. “We were interrupted when Anabella’s interns found the mug, and then the local yokels attacked Bevy’s security team. We left in a hurry.”

Bardeen glared at me. Teaching had evidently exhausted his patience. No, you can’t have an extension, and I don’t believe the dog ate your homework.

“Ahem,” Bevy coughed delicately. “I might be able to help on that one. I took fingerprints off the Armani-loving vampire, er…human, and gave them to one of my nephews in the state police. He also got a partial print off the diamond stud. Results should be available this afternoon. I don’t think I’ll need these anymore.

Bevy rummaged to the bottom of her very large retro Prada and pulled out a two-gallon Ziploc bag. She dumped it on the table.

A pair of human hands.

With ink-stained fingers.

Fourteen

Peak Jersey

I STARED AT THE HANDS in horror. Anabella pushed away from the table and wrinkled her cute little nose. Bardeen donned surgical gloves and picked them up. He was a happy kid with the perfect Christmas present.

“Wonderful! I can do wonders with this sample. Plenty of organic material. Well done!”

Bevy beamed at his praise.

“The perfect manicure is from the vampire, uh…former vampire. The hand with bad cuticles is from Darrell, probably the plant manager. He was wearing a golf shirt.”

“Excellent! From what you’ve told me, the plant manager was infected by a Hungo hot dog and then killed within a few minutes of the transformation. That’s perfect timing. His blood should be loaded with first-generation virus. No mutation or degradation. The vampire tissue sample will make an excellent comparative specimen. All I need to proceed is a clean, uninfected sample of human flesh to use as an experimental control group.”

Bardeen and the girls looked at me expectantly. I sat on my hands and tried to look casual.

Everyone burst out laughing.

“No, John, you can keep your hands,” Bardeen chuckled. “I have plenty of grad students. It’s Princeton. They’ll do anything for a little extra credit or an extension on a paper.”

I rested my hands on the table and said, “I knew that.”

Anabella defended Miami cartel cases for years, so she had an experienced practitioner’s curiosity about the hands. She asked the obvious next question.

“How did you get them, Bevy? Those are nice clean cuts. Almost surgical. Very professional.”

“Well, you guys ran off with the intern, leaving me in the laboratory shack. Since the vampire, um…I mean, the non-zombie human, didn’t have any ID on him, you’d want fingerprints, right?”

We nodded in unison.

“I’ve been in dynamic situations before. Shit happens. You can’t always retrace your steps. I knew we might not return to that room. There was no ink pad, no way to print him there. My Brick City forced-entry package includes a 30-inch Knipex bolt cutter. There was half a box of Ziploc bags on the lab table and…”

“Thanks, Bevy. We can guess the rest.”

I threw up a little in my mouth and sipped my tea for cover.

Anabella’s curiosity wasn’t satisfied.

“So, Bevy, why did you take the whole hand? Running their prints only required one finger from each guy.”

Bevy shrugged.

“It’s Jersey.”

Fifteen

Divide and Conquer

BARDEEN SUMMONED three of his best doctoral candidates to the office. He instructed them to prep a BSL-4 lab and get ready for an all-nighter. The students were worn and weary, attired in a dumpy assortment of old Costco jeans and rumpled anime t-shirts. Unkempt hair, dark circles, heavy fatigue lines across their faces. They blinked when he handed over the bag of severed hands.

“Dr. Bardeen, what about our research projects? Teaching your undergraduate classes for you? Painting your house? Writing our dissertations? You know, the whole reason we’re at Princeton?”

Their protests fell on deaf ears. They shuffled off to open a new salt mine, moving like zombies. I got the impression Bardeen drove his PhD candidates harder than investment banking interns, but without the prospect of a big payday. Did he learn that from me?

Bardeen was eager to work on his new project, but he cast one more pearl before kicking us out.

“You must meet my good friend, Dr. Olivia Stonjohn. She chairs the University of Virginia anthropology department, and she’s the world’s foremost authority on Eastern European magic, myths, and legends. I’ll tell her you’re coming.”

He hustled after his downtrodden serfs, whistling an aria from Lucia Di Lammermoor and leaving us to find our own way out.

Bardeen’s mansplaining sessions are always stressful for me. I deserved a reward for my pain, so we wandered across campus looking for a good café. I thought our Gap denim grunge would be déclassé at Princeton, but we were the best-dressed people in sight. Apparently, the Princeton admissions committee selects for legacy and wealth, not fashion sense.

I managed to grab a table at Rojo’s Roastery and ordered a round of double-shot vanilla lattes. The results of our mission to Jersey were encouraging. I landed at Teterboro with nothing but a lawyer and the name of a defunct hot dog company. Now I had five solid leads: the Miami diamond merchant, the Miami real estate company, the Etsy artist, actual vampire fingerprints, and a literal pound of flesh. My team added a world-class scientist and a hot babe in a tactical cat suit. Not bad for twenty-four hours of work.

“Okay, what’s next?” I challenged.

It’s an old supervisor’s trick; ask the staff what they should do next, and then hand out the work assignments.

Anabella had a plan. “We have a lot of ground to cover and only three of us to cover it. Divide and conquer.”

Bevy agreed.

“The Etsy artist is a one-woman LLC who lives in San Francisco. We called her this morning and asked who commissioned the coffee mug. She said all her work is limited edition. Probably no more than five or ten in each production run. When we asked for the customer’s name, she refused. It’s against Etsy policy. Customer confidentiality or some such nonsense. Anabella checked the Terms and Conditions on Etsy’s website and confirmed it.”

“Yeah, ironclad contract,” Anabella said. “The artists have no power, and if they violate the T&Cs, Etsy will kick them off the site. They’ll be replaced by AI artists in China.”

“I’m pretty sure this woman works from home,” Bevy said. “Her kids were playing in the background when we called. According to her Facebook page, she’s a single mom, and this is her only source of income. She won’t risk losing it.”

“What about Miami Beach Bling and Bloodline Realty?”

Anabella shrugged. “Sylvia Sakura checked Dun & Bradstreet and local commercial banks. The diamond firm seems legit. Sylvia shops there, and she vouches for the quality of their merchandise. There’s almost nothing available on Bloodline Realty, only a shitty lawyer with a Miami address for process servers. Gator Gomez.”

“And the anthropology lady? Bardeen’s referral?” I asked.

“I’ve already googled her,” said Bevy. “Distinguished academic, supernatural lore, several published books. She rose through the ranks to become department chair after her predecessors died in a series of mysterious fatal accidents.”

“Accidents?”

Bevy checked her iPad. “Yeah, ten years ago, a fully-loaded bookshelf collapsed in Shannon Library and buried the elderly department chair. A year later, his young successor died of alcohol poisoning at a Rugby Road frat party. It was Easters weekend, so nobody blinked an eye.”

Easters weekend at UVA is a national party legend. Rugby Road frat parties and alcohol poisoning go hand in hand.

“The next chair scratched herself with a poisoned South American blow dart. She was a specialist in tribal artifacts, cataloging new exhibits. Police looked at everything and returned a finding of accidental death. Dr. Stonjohn became department chair and, by all accounts, has done a fabulous job.”

I was impressed. “Academia works exactly like investment banking. Who woulda guessed? That must be why tenured professors look scared all the time.”

Anabella laughed. “That’s par for the course in a big law firm, too. Have you ever noticed how many senior partners die of ‘natural causes?’ I left my old firm, Bendit, Twistit & Kash P.C., to increase my life expectancy. The other associates put a target on my back when I made partner. BTK was fun, but launching my own solo practice was safer in the long run.”

I drifted into a genius-level trance and processed the variables. The anthropology professor seemed to be as dangerous as the vampires, but thanks to Bardeen’s referral, Bevy’s meeting with her would be safe. Bloodline Realty was certainly a vampire-owned, a source of mortal danger. Miami Beach Bling might produce more leads like Bloodline Realty. Albina Aldana might also turn out to be a Bling customer. I thought about the diamond necklace by Casa Damiani, sparkling above her generous decolletage and framed by the plunging neckline on her little black Balenciaga dress. The new season Jimmy Choo stilettos. Her scent. A tingle seized my spine.

Anabella snapped her fingers in my face. “Hey, wake up.”

I shook my head to refocus.

They were staring at me.

“Ahem,” I coughed. “Sorry, I was considering all this new information. Lots to think about.”

Anabella rolled her eyes.

“Sure, John. You were thinking about the mission. That explains the moaning noise.”

Bevy choked, sending vanilla latte squirting through her nose.

“Wow. Sylvia Sakura warned me about you. She nailed it.”

I was peeved.

“Okay, stay on topic. We’re gonna split up, but I don’t want anybody going near Bloodline Realty until we have better info on them. So, for now, Anabella and I will go to San Francisco and meet the Etsy artist. Bevy, I want you to interview Dr. Stonjohn in Charlottesville and see what you can learn. Bardeen wouldn’t make the recommendation unless she could help. Afterwards, take Sylvia and the diamond stud to Miami Beach Bling. See what you can learn. Stick to Sylvia like glue, in case your visit triggers another vampire problem, like our trip to Hungo Hot Dogs.”

We drained the vanilla lattes and booked an Uber Exec to meet us at the Rockefeller building on campus. John D. is one of my personal heroes, a robber baron among robber barons. Princeton University was his favorite soap to wash the dirt from his hands. I couldn’t leave without paying my respects.

After that, an Uber Exec took us to the Trailways station. It was the same SUV that brought us from Passaic. The driver guessed we might need another ride, so she hung around. Smart woman. When the trip ended, I paid her another brick of crisp hundreds for an off-book run to nearby Trenton International Airport. She cried.

On the way, I called Sylvia. She chartered private jets to San Francisco and Charlottesville for us, using a Panamanian shell company. Untraceable.

The black Uber Exec rolled through security and straight to the private jet flight line. The charters were waiting; a Gulfstream G-10 for me and Anabella, a sleek Mitsubishi A6M for Bevy.

Before we boarded, I took Bevy aside and told her to be extra careful.

“We’ve covered our tracks pretty well, but we know these vampires have tremendous resources. I have to assume they’ll find us. Take good care of yourself and Sylvia.”

Bevy patted the very large retro Prada bag holding her MAC-17.

“I got it covered, boss.”

Sixteen

Clothes Horse

WE LANDED IN SAN FRANCISCO around midnight. Tired single moms don’t want gentleman callers at that hour, so we checked into the Fairmont, where Sylvia booked adjoining suites for us.

Anabella opened the connecting door, and we ordered a late dinner from room service. Alaska lobster tails. Beluga caviar. California champagne. Fat strawberries dipped in molten chocolate. Health food for investment bankers.

We laughed and talked about nothing for a couple of hours, until Anabella yawned and said goodnight. She lingered at the connecting door for a moment and gave me that doe-eyed glance I’ve seen many times from beautiful women around the world.

She left the connecting door open.

Tempted as I was, sleep played a melody that could not be ignored. My head hit the feather pillow, and I went out like a light.

Eight hours later, a graphic dream about hot coffee, bacon, and Albina Aldana in a sexy waitress costume was interrupted by a sharp poke in the ribs. It was Anabella, fresh and fragrant from the shower, leaning over me in a loose terrycloth bathrobe. Did the woman not know how to use a belt?

“Rise and shine, mi angelito. The world won’t wait. I’ve already ordered room service for us.”

She watched me get dressed, applauding softly as I wriggled into my Mack Weldon boxer briefs. I ignored her. It’s best not to encourage that kind of behavior.

We sat down for breakfast and a splendid view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Scrambled eggs with pepper jack cheese, sourdough biscuits, sliced fruit, and sizzling thick-cut bacon. New energy surged through my veins. I checked my phone. Three calls from Albina Aldana. My spine tingled. No time for that now.

“We need to go clothes shopping,” I mumbled through a mouthful of bacon. “Tons of rich investors in San Francisco. Can’t afford to be caught in this grunge outfit. Gotta protect my reputation.”

Anabella agreed. She looked good in the grunge, but even lawyers have standards. Fortunately, our current measurements were on file with the top ateliers in town. We set a rendezvous time at the Fairmont and called separate Ubers.

My tailor’s sewing assistants took one look at my Gap outfit and refused to open the studio door. I called their boss, and he quickly sorted everything out. The girls used latex gloves, scissors, and tongs to strip off my clothes. They tossed the scraps into a compostable garbage bag and sealed it with a hazmat sticker.

Once he had a clean slate to work with, the tailor assembled a few dashing ensembles for me. A Fendi pinstripe. A smoking jacket by Stefano Ricci. Sharkskin trousers. A Burberry navy blazer with gray tropical wool slacks, in case I had to attend a political event.

The tailor added two pairs of Ferragamo loafers, a handful of silk shirts in different colors, and a set of black pearl cuff links. He said California goes commando now, even the governor, but I insisted on donning gray boxer briefs that his staff fetched from a nearby Neiman Marcus department store.

I didn’t want to overwhelm our poverty-stricken Etsy lady with my haute couture wardrobe, so the tailor added three Egyptian cotton resort shirts, simple white linen slacks, and a pair of Christian Louboutin boat shoes. No socks.

Loaded with store bags and riding a dopamine rush triggered by clothes shopping with no budget, I returned to the Fairmont, eager to tackle our next task.

Anabella wait for me in my suite, surrounded by a mountain of bags and shoe boxes. She opted for the sexy lawyer look: a severe dark-blue jacket and pencil skirt with a sheer pink silk camisole, a chunky Bulgari gold necklace, and a sensible pair of Tom Ford padlock stilettos in gold lamé. The hotel room was cold and, evidently, she had adopted the latest San Francisco fashion trend in undergarments. A new Berluti briefcase completed the look.

I added my loot to the pile and summoned an Uber Exec. The driver took us to the tourist drop at Fisherman’s Wharf. I offered her a $50,000 brick of crisp hundreds for an off-book ride to the Etsy artist’s home. She accepted without batting an eye. The tech industry on the West Coast has spoiled the market for irrational largess.

As it turned out, the home wasn’t in San Francisco at all. It was across the bridge in a run-down Oakland suburb. An Etsy drone carrying a small package lifted off from the backyard as we pulled up. The neighborhood was sketchy, and the Uber Exec driver promised to keep the motor running for a quick getaway.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

Anabella nodded.

“We’re not leaving without that name.”

Seventeen

Gift Horse

ANABELLA AND I WALKED SLOWLY to the front porch of an old, run-down bungalow. It had peeling paint, a jungle in the front yard, and a 35-year-old electric car in the driveway, charging on an orange extension cord that ran through the living room window.

The Ring camera was broken, so I knocked firmly on the front door. I saw movement behind the peephole, and a pleasant voice called a friendly regional greeting.

“Fuck off. I don’t need new windows, and I don’t want tree work.”

Anabella laughed.

“Ms. Goldhart, I’m Anabella Busto, the lawyer from Miami. We spoke on the phone, remember?”

There was a pause, and the pleasant voice replied, “Sure, but you can still fuck off. I’m not gonna give you the name of my client.”

“That’s not why we’re here, Ms. Goldhart. I represent a large Miami investment firm. We have a business proposition for you.”

Another pause, and the door opened a crack. A trim, tired, brunette in her thirties, wearing paint-splattered jeans, looked at us suspiciously. There was flour on her nose, and her long hair was pulled into a simple ponytail. The aroma of just-baked snickerdoodles washed over me, amplifying an already intense hot mom vibe.

I shook my head to refocus. Anabella looked at me strangely.

“Oh yeah? What proposition?”

That was my cue.

“Ms. Goldhart, my name is Carthage. John Carthage. I’m the large Miami investment firm. We’ve seen your work, and I’m interested in making a purchase.”

She opened the door and looked me up and down. Our eyes met and locked. Awkward. It was like I could read her mind. Single moms have needs too.

“Miami investment firm? You look like a Miami coke dealer to me. Where are your fucking socks?”

Anabella cracked up. “That’s what I told him, but he insists it’s a retro fashion trend.”

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about reading her mind.

Ms. Goldhart smiled and relaxed a little. Some sort of female bonding hormone at work, no doubt.

“Never look a gift horse and all that. Alright, come in. I’ll show you what I’ve got on hand. I don’t stock much. My work usually gets shipped out as soon as it’s dry.”

We followed her to the back of the house, threading our way through baskets of laundry and piles of toys and schoolbooks. A large garden shed served as her studio, jammed with half-finished canvases bearing the same signature as the PMS coffee mug. A second large shed held stacks of custom corporate swag. A smaller shed held the packaging and shipping department. An old patio table in the middle of the yard served as a drone landing pad.

We surveyed her projects and a sample of the promotional items. Ms. Goldhart had talent, that was clear, but her home and business were a race between foreclosure and bankruptcy. No telling which might come first. Then, Bevy’s comment about the Fendi marketing department popped into my brain.

I had an epiphany.

The walls of the shed were covered with children’s photos. Babies in diapers. Toddlers in onesies. Kids of all ages, from pre-K to a few high school graduates posing proudly with their diplomas and a beaming Ms. Goldhart.

“You have a lot of beautiful children, Ms. Goldhart,” I said.

“Thanks. I’m proud of them all.” She touched the corner of her eye and heaved a deep sigh.

A lonely empathy neuron signaled deep in my brain. This woman needed help. A knight in shining armor.

“Ms. Goldhart,” I said cautiously. “I grew up with a lot of children. Unwanted children. In an orphanage.”

She looked at me sharply.

“You’re doing something special here,” I said. “There’s not many people who could foster so many kids.”

Anabella looked at her in amazement.

“Is that true, Ms. Goldhart, are you a foster mom?”

Ms. Goldhart smiled, and you could see the happiness in her eyes.

“That’s right. I lost my husband after the birth of our son. We dreamed of a large family, and now I have one. In his memory.”

We followed her into the house for warm snickerdoodles around the kitchen table. She fired up an antique Nespresso Pixie and made perfect double espressos for us. The kitchen was cluttered, but clean, with a random assortment of appliances that belonged in the Museum of Domestic Arts. The cupboards were almost bare.

Ms. Goldhart poured herself a cup of hot fennel tea and sat down between us. Her skepticism hung in the air like a wet blanket.

“So, Mr. Carthage, did you see anything you like?”

I looked at Anabella and nodded. She pulled out her iPad.

“Yes, several items,” I said. “In fact, I’d like to make an offer.”

“Sure. Which one?”

“Not just one. All of them.”

“I suppose you want the wholesale price?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“No. That would devalue the work. You know how the art world operates. The price always goes up, never down.”

“Make your offer,” she challenged. “The kids get home from school soon, and this conversation will come to a crashing halt.”

“I saw ten pieces in the studio. Let’s say $50,000 each. How much is that, Anabella?”

Math is not my strong suit, and I didn’t want to take off my shoes.

“That’s $500,000,” Anabella replied, doing the math in her head.

“Showoff,” I muttered.

“Sure, $500,000. Right. Let’s go with that. You look like a big spender. Show me the money.”

“Excellent,” I said, and Anabella pulled a $50,000 brick of crisp hundreds from her leather briefcase.

Ms. Goldhart’s jaw dropped open.

“That’s the down payment. Anabella is transferring the remaining $450,000 to your Etsy account right now.”

Anabella nodded and tapped the iPad.

“Please check your account, Ms. Goldhart, if you don’t mind.”

Ms. Goldhart stared at the brick, her eyes wide open. She fumbled a cracked Samsung Galaxy S23 from her back pocket. The password screen required three attempts because her hands were trembling. She stared at her Etsy account balance in disbelief and turned the phone around to show us. Exactly $450,019.37.

Her face reflected the struggle in her heart. Food and mortgage versus honor and principle.

“This is amazing, but I still can’t give you my client’s info.”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Anabella analyzed the T&Cs. Customer privacy is an important requirement for every seller on the Etsy site. You can’t release personal info outside of your company. I’m buying your work because I’ll make money with it. A lot of money. Speaking of which, we’d also like to make an investment in your LLC.”

“What? Why?” Ms. Goldhart was confused.

Anabella saw my play immediately.

“We run a boutique investment firm. This is what we do,” Anabella explained. “With the right management team in place, we think you have unique potential. Focus on your art and your children. Let us handle the business side.”

Ms. Goldhart sat in silence. Time to close the deal.

“My firm will give you $10 million for a forty-nine percent stake in your LLC,” I said. “We’ll be a silent, minority partner. You’ll retain full control over all artistic and business decisions. Anabella will be your corporate attorney. You’ll get an experienced Chief Operating Officer to manage everything. Anabella will poach someone from Sotheby’s or the Wentworth for you.”

“But…” she stammered. “That’s ridiculous. My paintings sell for $500 each on a good day. I’m not worth $10 million.”

“Ms. Goldhart,” I said softly, “you have talent. The only difference between you and Claude Monet is a billion-dollar marketing machine. I can give you that machine. We’ll buy all your existing work and schedule exhibitions through the best galleries in California. My offshore alternative asset fund will pay top dollar for the first several pieces to spark collector interest. The sales will be daisy-chained. Just like the oil industry, right? Once your name has buzz, the market will take off on its own. I’ll make a fortune, and so will you. Did you see the most recent auction price for a Monet?”

She nodded and looked around her home. Clean. Cute. Worn. Her eyes were veiled with tears.

“You’re that guy, aren’t you? The one from Manhattan who saved those kids in the daycare. I saw your picture in Vogue. You looked good without a shirt.”

Anabella groaned, “Don’t go there.”

“Yes, Ms. Goldhart, that was me.”

She took a deep breath.

“Call me Sarah.”

Eighteen

What’s in a Name

SARAH FINALIZED THE TRANSACTION with Anabella, while I entertained the kids. They were polite, smart, and friendly. We played Settlers of Catan, a training game for investment bankers. They had all the killer instincts needed to succeed in the industry. Sarah was a talented artist and a fine mother.

Anabella didn’t want Sarah to struggle with the transition from at-home mom to powerhouse artist, so she added a few C-suite necessities to sweeten our deal. I approved everything: a $20 million beachfront home in a good school district, a new Lego electric minivan, and a blonde Swedish au pair named Thor, who would double as a personal trainer.

Sarah protested that it was all too much, but Anabella quickly waved aside her objections.

“We want you to succeed, Sarah. These are indispensable tools for the rich and famous, which you are about to become.”

After we finished, Sarah gave us big hugs and a brown paper lunch bag full of snickerdoodles.

“I don’t know what to say. You’ve changed our lives and many lives to come. Thank you so very much.”

“I’m only in it for the money, Sarah. Nothing else matters.”

Sarah and Anabella looked at each other and burst out laughing.

I wanted to linger and play more Catan with the kids, but Anabella dragged me into our Uber Exec so we could pack for the return flight. Sarah waved goodbye as Thor pulled up with the new minivan.

Sarah froze when he emerged from the car. Thor looked like a Norse god. He swaggered to the porch with the rolling stride of a Calvin Klein underwear model. She stared in awe. Even from the street, I could read her lips: “OMFG.”

It was a tender moment.

Sarah shook her head to refocus, broke into a big smile, and flashed a thumbs-up to Anabella.

Our Uber Exec roared away to the Fairmont.

“That was fun,” Anabella said.

“Did you get the name?”

“Yep.”

Nineteen

Lunch with the Girls

I CALLED THE TEAM TOGETHER for a brainstorming brunch immediately after landing at Miami International. My deep paranoia insisted the office might not be secure, so I selected a random restaurant from the Michelin Guide to confuse any potential surveillance.

The dart landed on Los Félix in Coconut Grove, one of Anabella’s favorite one-stars. Sylvia Sakura arrived a few minutes early and arranged a full spread of egg tostadas, chilaquiles, pork cheek carnitas, spicy black bean tamales, and chilled tropical fruit. Bevy Bellaseno arrived a few minutes late and threw her arms around my neck for a kiss, standing on her tiptoes and doing that girly leg-kick thing. My spine tingled. I shook my head to refocus.

Anabella frowned. Sylvia rolled her eyes.

The girls ordered Bellinis. I ordered a Bloody Mary and tapped my spoon on the glass for attention as we dug into the hot food.

“Let’s talk while we eat,” I said through a mouthful of carnitas. “There’s a lot to cover this morning. Bevy, where are we with Bardeen’s science stuff? Your nephew’s report on the fingerprints?”

“Bardeen is analyzing the tissue samples. He said it’s not like baking a cake, and we should be patient. The prints on Darrell, the Hungo factory manager, already came back from my nephew. No criminal record. Nothing unusual in his bank account. We got nothing on prints from the Armani-loving former vampire. Same for the partial from your diamond. We’re running all the pictures through Interpol.”

I sighed. Patience is not my strong suit.

“Okay, what did you learn from the anthropology lady in Charlottesville? Was she helpful?”

“Absolutely. The university describes her as an expert on Eastern European folklore, but Dr. Stonjohn is actually a world authority on vampire myth and legend. She was generous with her time. We spent about six hours together in Brooks Hall. It’s loaded with vampire stuff. I can still smell the garlic in my hair.”

“So can we,” muttered Anabella.

I ignored her. It’s best to stay out of these things.

“What’s my bottom line? What are we dealing with here?”

“It’s complicated,” replied Bevy, spearing a piece of papaya from Anabella’s plate. “In the interest of time, I’ll skip the history lesson. Your bottom line is that vampires are rich, powerful, and deeply infiltrated into the business world.”

“We already know that, Bevy,” grumbled Anabella.

Bevy blew her a small raspberry and pulled a thick document from her very large retro Prada bag. It was dog-eared, stained with gun oil, and festooned with colorful sticky notes.

“This is Dr. Stonjohn’s unpublished doctoral dissertation from the University of Michigan. Her research was ground-breaking, controversial, and dangerous. The Board of Visitors refused to release it. Dr. Stonjohn tried to self-publish in the supernatural non-fiction category on Amazon, but the government blocked her. They’re afraid the public will panic if they learn vampires are real.”

Bevy pulled a set of two-page memos from her bag and handed them out. Mine was in extra large print.

“Dissertations are dense and packed with academic jargon. Sylvia’s interns created executive briefing notes for us. No words longer than two syllables, so John should be able to handle it. The research confirms everything in Bram Stoker’s novel. The white mist. The strength of twenty men. Turning into a bat or a wolf. Hypnotic control of humans. But there’s also a lot of stuff Stoker didn’t cover.”

Sylvia interrupted. “What about the AB-negative thing? Is that true? Do vampires only drink AB-negative blood?”

Bevy nodded. “Yeah, Dr. Stonjohn says it’s true. Bram Stoker didn’t know about that one because he published his novel in 1897, and blood types weren’t discovered until 1901.”

We interrogated Bevy for another hour. Bardeen did not steer me wrong. Dr. Stonjohn was a gold mine of information. She confirmed everything Albina Aldana told us. The thirty-seven tribes. The shift from hunting to high finance. A non-profit entity for handling the AB-negative blood.

But there were some big holes in Albina’s story. Her description of the vampire transition to “high” finance was not entirely accurate. Not every vampire has enough raw sociopathy to run an elite hedge fund. Plenty of them survive on sketchy businesses or create entirely new grifts. Florida time shares. TV shopping channels. Online sports gambling. Student loan consolidation.

Most importantly, Bevy reported that Dr. Stonjohn dismissed Albina’s claim she was trying to protect the non-profit entity.

“Olivia told me Albina’s tribe is probably pissed about the AB-negative R&D project, but only because someone beat them to it. They must be scrambling to determine how the mystery tribe profited from the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, and what might be their next move. That’s probably why Albina paid you a visit.”

“Do all the thirty-seven tribes compete like this, even though they have equal access to blood from the non-profit entity?” Sylvia asked.

Bevy nodded. “Yes, that’s right. It’s a vicious, centuries-old war of all against all. But the non-profit entity enforces détente.”

“That’s straight out of Hobbes. The non-profit entity is their Leviathan,” mused Anabella.

I was puzzled. “Are you sure? Calvin and Hobbes has been out of print for almost a century.”

The girls burst into laughter, and Anabella patted my arm in a condescending manner. I didn’t know what was so funny. Nobody ever explained it to me. Calvin and Hobbes was my favorite classic comic strip while growing up in the orphanage. Everybody loves a little boy with a stuffed tiger.

“Alright, that’s enough schoolwork for now. Sylvia, what did you learn about Miami Beach Bling and the diamond stud?”

“Bevy and I paid them a visit yesterday afternoon. She pretended to be the ex-wife of a Washington Commanders star quarterback, looking to blow through a fat divorce settlement.”

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Wait a minute. The Washington Commanders haven’t had a star quarterback since Billy Kilmer.”

Sylvia shrugged. “The sales girl was a 20-year-old bimbo working on commission. We could be Martians, and she wouldn’t know the difference. Miami Beach Bling hires for boobs, not brains. Anyway, I told her the stud was mine and that Bevy wanted the same thing. A little bauble to celebrate us becoming BFFs.”

Bevy vamped and blew her a kiss. Sylvia vamped and tossed her hair. My spine tingled.

“The girl checked her computer and found the sale; five studs purchased in a bundle as New Year’s Eve party favors for the five corporate officers of Bloodline Realty. She wouldn’t share the details. Bevy distracted her, and I stuck my phone over the counter for a picture of her screen. We got the names, but no addresses.”

“We didn’t buy another stud,” Bevy said. “We told her it wasn’t special enough, so we bought matching diamond bracelets. Sylvia charged everything to one of your shell companies and even got a discount for you: $5 million for the pair. A real bargain.”

Bevy and Sylvia held up their hands and displayed diamond tennis bracelets, probably 50 carats worth of glittering stones in each one.

Anabella shook her head to refocus.

“Good thinking,” I said. “Can’t be too careful. What else did the screenshot tell you?”

Sylvia showed me the picture on her phone. A computer invoice for five diamond studs purchased by Bloodline Realty using a Jamaican bank account. Individually gift-wrapped.

I mused, “We got the name of the woman who ordered the corporate swag from Sarah Goldhart in San Francisco. Gina Prensa. She works for a Miami-based biotech private equity fund called SciCo. Is there a way to link them to Bloodline?”

“Maybe,” said Anabella. “Gina Prensa didn’t use PayPal; she paid from a corporate account in Switzerland. Definitely a shell company. I called my interns last night, and they’re trying to trace the firm. It’s a slow process. These vampires are a fucking master class in moving money and hiding assets.”

The waitress brought double espressos for us, and a busboy cleared the table. The girls talked about ways to charge more jewelry to my account, and I drifted into a genius-level trance trying to calculate our next move. We were getting closer, and I felt danger growing with every passing hour. Time for some executive action.

“Bevy, I want you to find a couple of safe houses for us. Buckle them down tighter than the queen’s chastity belt. We can’t risk using the office or our homes anymore. Hunker down at sunset. Stay inside. No exceptions. We can move around in the daytime, but let’s assume Pandora is having us followed. Fortunately, any daytime surveillance will be carried out by mere humans, not vampires, so we should be able to shake them.”

Bevy nodded. “Piece of cake.”

“Anabella, I want you to call Douglas Blick, President of the American Bankers Association. He’s a charming scoundrel, so be careful. Use the secret code, ‘Venable Tripod,’ and he’ll do anything you want. Ask him to connect the Swiss shell company with Bloodline’s bank in Jamaica. He knows every financier on the planet, and he’ll solve this equation a lot faster than the interns. Put them to work mapping Bloodline’s real estate holdings.”

Anabella nodded. “Venable Tripod. Blick. Got it.”

Sylvia jotted notes on her iPad, keeping track of the work assignments and due dates.

“What about me?” she asked.

“Find Zoe Rogue. We need to talk about what comes next.”

She nodded.

“You need some wet work.”

Twenty

Zoe

ZOE ROGUE WAS CAPTAIN of the Johns Hopkins lacrosse team when the CIA came calling. Her patrician beauty and ruthless brutality matched Agency needs perfectly. They moved her to The Farm two days after she graduated. Within ten years, she became Chief of Station in a nasty little Central Asian country, running one of the CIA’s nasty little wars.

We met in a honky-tonk near the embassy. I was a young grunt operator barely out of basic training. Raw clay in the hands of an older woman. She heaved me right across her shoulder and took me upstairs for a ride. Sweet.

Zoe broke the rule against dating subordinates, but as a rising star with private dossiers on the Agency’s senior managers, she couldn’t be touched. She made me the manly man I am today. Women around the world owe her a debt of gratitude.

Sylvia arranged an afternoon table at the Rusty Pelican, where the busy tourist trade could provide counter-surveillance cover. I sat in the back wearing mirrored aviators and a loud beach shirt. Four fingers of Gran Patron, a double cheeseburger, and a plate of fried calamari helped me blend in.

Despite the hustle and bustle, Zoe’s arrival did not go unnoticed. In a world of t-shirts and dumpy cargo shorts, she wore a tight silver-lamé pencil skirt by Sachin & Babi and a loose silk blouse from Rene Ruiz with half the buttons undone. Her silken salon-fresh black hair may have been heavily streaked with silver, but Zoe was still a well-stacked Johns Hopkins attacker with superior stick skills.

Every man in the place gawked as she strutted to my table and sat down. Those long, elegant legs and Santoni stiletto sandals seemed to stretch halfway across the restaurant. A long-suffering wife from Iowa threw a drink in her pudgy husband’s leering face and walked out, muttering, “That’s it. I’m done.”

I’m not sure the counter-surveillance cover was working.

“Hello, John,” Zoe smiled. “It’s great to see you again. Everybody says you’re doing well.”

“Of course,” I grinned. “I had the best teacher.”

We talked and laughed for an hour, reminiscing about our past operations and legendary exploits. Zoe retired from the Agency with an ambassador’s pension and a Rolodex full of kings, presidents, and CEOs. She converted the pension into a trust fund for the families of dead agents, and turned the Rolodex into a global security firm specializing in awkward situations.

I ordered classic Caesar salads while she thumbed through a copy of Dr. Stonjohn’s dissertation. After she finished, I recapped recent developments, from the Manhattan zombie apocalypse to the diamond-studded vampire assassin in New Jersey.

“So far, all your evidence points to Miami,” she mused. “Your assassin wears diamonds from a Miami jewelry company. The woman who ordered the corporate swag for Phage Molecular Sciences lives in Miami. Bloodline Realty uses a Miami-based lawyer for business registration and process servers. According to Dr. Stonjohn, the tribes are regionally-based. Isn’t that enough for your client to figure out who’s behind all this?”

“Probably. But what about the dead Armani-loving former vampire at the Hungo factory? Where exactly is Phage Molecular Sciences? Even if we don’t know why they unleashed the zombie apocalypse, we can’t ignore the possibility they’re planning to do it again.”

“Hmm. Albina Aldana hired you to find the outlaw tribe, not to stop another apocalypse. Dr. Stonjohn’s research suggests her tribe would probably try to benefit from a second outbreak.”

“Yeah. That wasn’t included in the client mandate letter, but these vampire fuckers have almost killed me twice, and I don’t wanna give them another chance. Somebody will pay for what they did to me, my friends, and Manhattan. We should go on offense, even if Albina’s tribe is simply tailing the renegades like a lazy fund manager tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. I want to know who did this, why they did it, and how we stop them.”

“Makes sense. What do you need from me?”

“Gina Prensa and Gator Gomez. The SciCo lady and the Miami attorney. My team is good, but they don’t have the right kind of experience to extract information from…uh, uncooperative targets.”

Zoe considered this while I chomped my Caesar salad. Information is the secret sauce of every intel officer and investment banker. Finding the sauce can be a messy process. I watched Zoe work, back in the day. She was the best. Sometimes, the sources would beg to tell her everything. Stop the pain. Please.

“John, this tips your hand. Sure, we can make the bodies disappear after I finish. That doesn’t mean someone won’t miss them. The vampires will know you’re close.”

I didn’t reply. She was right, but what else could we do? Killing people in cold blood is tough for me, even with a deal on the line. But we were on the vampire radar because of the visit to Hungo Hot Dogs. If we extracted useful information from the SciCo bitch and the Bloodline lawyer, two or three days might pass before their disappearance was noticed. The risk-reward ratio tilted in our favor.

Taking action was far better than sitting on our thumbs waiting for another zombie apocalypse. Or another vampire assassin. My mind replayed an image of Anabella Busto tumbling half-naked across the hotel room and bouncing off the couch. The vampire’s diamond stud winked at me. My inner caveman growled.

Killing people in cold blood is tough for me, but not impossible. My inner caveman smiled.

Zoe watched the emotions play across my face and couldn’t restrain herself. She burst into laughter.

“My darling, you haven’t changed a bit. Such a blunt instrument. I’m teasing you, for heaven’s sake. We aren’t in Bumfuckistan anymore. This is Miami. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Sometimes you don’t even need a knife.”

I raised a quizzical eyebrow. Zoe calling me a “blunt instrument” was one of those pot-and-kettle situations.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

“Something sweet, my love.”

Twenty One

Honey Trap

GATOR GOMEZ EARNED HIS LAW DEGREE from Miami-Dade Community College and spent forty years as a court-appointed attorney. Not because he believed poor people deserve legal representation, but because nobody else would hire him. He was sleazy, slippery, and surviving on scraps. A perfect hamster running in a wheel for Bloodline Realty Group, LLC.

Gator lived in Miami’s crumbling Wynwood district, where the average home was two-hundred years old and not worth saving from the unstoppable rise in sea level. Sylvia’s interns found his name on dozens of Miami-based companies listed in Florida’s business database. He held a 0.001 percent ownership position in each. The remaining 99.999 percent belonged to shell companies, mostly in offshore tax havens. A tangled web.

I borrowed a local plumber’s rusty Tesla cybervan for our stakeout of Gator’s bungalow. A brick of crisp hundreds sealed the deal.

Zoe wanted a standard seven-day stakeout, so she could identify patterns and maybe spot one of his vampire masters. I vetoed that idea. Not enough time to follow Agency SOP. We agreed on twenty-four hours and settled down to watch. Zoe attached a WiFi suction microphone to one of Gator’s windows, and we endured a long night of loud, harsh snoring.

Gator was a portly, middle-aged man with curly hair and no shame. He punched the clock on his busy day at 11:00 a.m., when he carried a recycling bin full of empty beer cans and whiskey bottles to the curb. The ratty pajamas and worn bedroom slippers established a sartorial standard that was hard to bear.

He reappeared at noon, wearing a rumpled white shirt, dirty khakis, and a striped tie with soup stains visible from fifty yards. A Lyft driver brought him to a local blue-light diner, where he ate chicken-fried steak and drank a pitcher of margaritas. Breakfast of champions.

All the waitresses seemed to know him and stayed well out of potential grab-ass range.

Zoe waited until Gator was halfway done, then sashayed into the diner and took a table right in front of him. I slipped into a nearby booth and watched the other patrons, in case Gator was being followed by someone else.

Gator noticed Zoe instantly. She had ditched the chic Sachin & Babi wardrobe, opting for the uniform of Miami’s upper-crust shopaholics: heavy gold jewelry, white yoga pants, and a pink satin tank top worn California-commando style. The luminous satin struggled to contain her curves, and the diner was heavily air-conditioned. Gator drooled into his margarita.

Zoe ordered a spinach salad, preceded by a double Smirnoff on the rocks, which she downed in a single gulp. She signaled for a second vodka, donned her ear buds, and launched a loud, girlfriend phone conversation while she ate. The call centered on her ex-husband, who was a major-league asshole, and her fruitless struggle to replace him with a new man. She was willing to lower her standards.

“I don’t care what the next one looks like,” Zoe complained. “Todd’s cute, but he’s dumber than a bag of hammers. This time, I want someone smart, someone professional. Maybe a lawyer or a sexy adjunct professor. No doctors though. I don’t need any money, and they all cheat with their nurses anyway.”

At one point, Zoe made accidental eye contact with Gator, catching him in mid-eavesdrop. She blushed, smiled shyly, and looked away. Her complaints about Todd continued in a lower voice, and she stole little glances at Gator, who never stopped drooling. She arched her back and tossed that long, silver-streaked black hair in a classic, seductive gesture of availability.

Gator froze like a deer in the headlights.

After her third double Smirnoff, Zoe paid the bill, weaving slightly as she walked out and flashing Gator a radiant smile. He finished his lunch and staggered away a few minutes later.

I pulled his waitress aside and charmed her into surrendering a copy of his credit card receipt. As usual, my animal magnetism was irresistible. I gave her a $50,000 tip and exited through a different door, crossing the street twice and circling the block three times in the opposite direction. Zoe waited for me in the rusty Tesla cybervan.

“You haven’t lost a step,” I said. “In fact, you’re more dangerous than ever. How do you stay so hot?”

Zoe brushed off my compliment. “Piece of cake. I had that guy’s nuts in my pocket the moment I sat down. Men are all the same. Flash a little leg, and they fall right in line.”

We followed Gator to his bungalow and resumed our surveillance. After a noisy toilet visit, he spent the day scrolling YouTube Shorts and taking occasional phone calls from his doomed clients in the Miami-Dade County Jail. I sent a picture of the credit card receipt to Anabella Busto. Her interns cracked the account in less than ten minutes and provided three years of monthly statements.

“This guy leads a life of quiet desperation,” I scoffed. “He eats lunch at the same place every day, followed by a DoorDash dinner and a nightcap at the Daiquiri Deck.”

“That’s where I’ll nail him,” said Zoe. “Daiquiri Deck serves as a meat market for cheesy losers. The place swarms with beta males looking for hookups. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

I squirmed. Daiquiri Deck was a Sarasota phenomenon that exploded nationwide. Thousands of locations across the country. Several of them dedicated a barstool in my name. Little brass plaques.

We watched Gator’s bungalow for the rest of the day. He never moved. I played tic-tac-toe on my neon-pink iPhone 35 and won almost two games. Zoe read Dr. Stonjohn’s entire dissertation and took copious notes.

When DoorDash delivered off Gator’s dinner, I returned the plumber’s rusty Tesla cybervan with an extra brick of crisp hundreds to buy a new set of tools. Zoe picked up Anabella to serve as her wingwoman for the evening.

According to the credit card accounts, Gator ordered his first daiquiri every day at 6:30 p.m. and his last one at 11:00 p.m. Today proved to be no exception.

I arrived early and blended with the bar crowd, unrecognizable in a loud Tommy Bahama resort shirt. A couple of local beach bunnies completed my disguise, one on each arm.

Zoe and Anabella appeared promptly at 7:00 p.m., falling over each other in drunken laughter. Zoe wore a short, breezy Ramy Brook summer dress with a plunging neckline. Anabella smoldered in another Bimbo y Lola belted romper, a bright floral print that made Lilly Pulitzer seem dull and lifeless. Their glossy, salon-fresh dark hair, long golden legs, and strappy stilettos completed a dazzling picture of beauty and raw sexual energy.

I shook my head to refocus.

Gator recognized Zoe at once. His bloodshot eyes opened wide, and he almost fell off the barstool. The girls sat close enough for him to smell their French perfume.

They vamped, tossed their luxurious manes, and whispered breathless secrets. The waitress served their daiquiris from a fire hose, and the conversation grew louder and more explicit. Zoe was rich and available. Zoe wanted a new boyfriend. Zoe had unmet needs. Wealth was not an issue. Size didn’t matter.

Zoe seemed to notice Gator for the first time at 10:30 p.m. sharp.

She nudged Anabella and pointed subtly in his direction. Anabella took a quick glance and slid her hand along Zoe’s perfectly tanned upper thigh. They giggled.

Gator squirmed on his bar stool. Zoe leaned forward and murmured breathlessly in Anabella’s ear. She giggled again and looked directly at Gator.

I thought Gator might have a heart attack, but he managed to chug his daiquiri and order another one. Half an hour early. He was far off his schedule.

Zoe and Anabella went into a huddle, occasionally peering at Gator like frisky meerkats. They reached an agreement. Anabella finished her daiquiri with a quick gulp and stood to leave. Zoe gave her a hip-grinding goodbye hug and promised to call in the morning. Anabella rubbed against Gator’s back as she passed, even though the bar wasn’t very crowded, and whispered, “Lucky guy.”

Gator choked on his daiquiri.

Ten minutes later, Zoe was draped around Gator’s neck like a Hermès scarf. Ten minutes after that, they boarded an Uber bound for Gator’s bungalow.

Something sweet, indeed.

Twenty Two

Biohazard

ZOE OPENED GATOR’S BACK DOOR about an hour later. Anabella and I slipped into the bungalow and found him sprawled on a ratty brown Barcalounger. An 80-inch Costco television streamed CNBC. He was wearing a stained wife-beater, a nasty pair of yellowish tighty-whiteys, and threadbare black socks. His raucous snore rattled the room. Zoe distributed surgical gloves, hair nets, and shoe covers.

Anabella went into Gator’s office, rifling through file cabinets, the desk, and anything else that might prove useful. I stared at Gator, assessing his altered state of consciousness and calculating how much information we might extract.

“What did you use? A roofie?” I asked.

“Hell no. I need him pliable, not comatose. The CIA brews a magical formula, part sedative and part hallucinogen. I dosed his Manhattan. Angostura covers the taste. He was a lamb to the slaughter.”

“Have you learned anything?”

“Not yet. Poke around while I work my magic. He’s not going anywhere for a couple of hours.”

She pulled up a small chair and whispered in Gator’s ear, stroking his cheek and forehead with her gloved hand. He moaned occasionally, and she gently squeezed his arm, never stopping the soft whisper.

Some guys like to watch. Not me. I checked the rest of the house. It was a small, two-bedroom model from a century when children were expected to share a room and not kill each other. Anabella was busy in the office, so I ventured into Gator’s room.

The smell almost knocked me out. Mildewed clothes, rancid body odor, accumulated flatulence. The filthy sheets hadn’t been changed in three months. The pillows were patterned with dried sweat. The carpet was a jigsaw puzzle of vomit and urine stains. Everything was covered with dust. The ensuite bathroom was black with mold. The mildewed shower curtain lunged at me when I stepped through the door. The sink was crusted with toothpaste and whiskers. The toilet was a porcelain hellmouth.

“He lives like a college student,” I muttered.

Nothing in the closet or under the bed. The dresser was empty. The floor served as his dirty clothes hamper. I thought about checking under the mattress, but not even Albina’s $250 million could tempt me to face that potential horror.

The rest of the bungalow was so clean that it began to bother me. Gator’s filthy bedroom suggested he did not have a cleaning lady. But the kitchen was spotless, gleaming with stainless steel appliances and blue pearl granite countertops. The pristine white IKEA cabinets held porcelain Mikasa dinnerware and Julia Child cookware. The living room was staged for a real estate open house. Bright flowers in vases, perfectly matched lamps and lighting options, a polished mahogany credenza loaded with table linens and silver serving utensils. Only the ratty brown Barcalounger seemed out of place.

I stuck my head into the office where Anabella disappeared. There was a small desk, a late-model iMac, a bookshelf lined with three-ring binders, and half a dozen black filing cabinets. Everything looked clean and neat. I opened a random drawer. The files were color-coded, labeled with a Dymo label maker, and perfectly aligned. Not a millimeter out of place.

“Howzit goin’?” I asked.

“Great. This guy is incredibly well-organized. His files are a gold mine. I’m downloading a copy of his hard drive. It’s huge, but completely indexed.”

“How did you get into the computer? Wasn’t there a password?”

Anabella shrugged. “He’s a man, right? I found a sticky note stuck under the keyboard.”

I wandered into the living room, deep in a genius-level trance, and dragged a chair beside Gator’s doughy body. Zoe stroked his cheek and whispered in his ear. He whispered a reply. This lasted for another hour, until Anabella entered the room and stood behind Zoe.

“I’m all done,” she announced with grin. “We hit the jackpot.”

Gator craned his head toward the noise, looking for Anabella through his glazed, half-closed eyes. There was something remarkable on his neck. I leaned in for a closer look.

Two faded red marks.

Twenty Three

Compulsion

GATOR WAS A SHORT GUY, but weighed well over two hundred pounds. Zoe and I dragged him into his squalid bedroom and onto his disgusting mattress. A Mona Lisa smile played across his face between snores. He looked happy.

“What happens when he wakes up?” I asked, trying not to breathe. “Will he remember this?”

“Nope. He’s a serious alcoholic. No way he’ll be able to distinguish reality from drunken stupor. We haven’t taken anything, and we covered our tracks. The Daiquiri Deck crowd was too drunk for anybody to remember us. The only deviation from his normal routine will be a slightly early daiquiri order on his credit card bill.”

“About that,” I frowned. “Let’s talk to Anabella.”

Anabella confirmed her glowing assessment of Gator’s organizational skills. I described the stark difference between his bedroom and rest of the house. Anabella agreed it was a striking dichotomy but figured maybe he was an ordinary slob with a clean streak when it came to his profession.

“Mad scientist,” she said. “Doesn’t bathe, but his lab displays the best aseptic technique. Like your friend, John Bardeen.”

I pushed back.

“The house is spotless, except for the Barcalounger and his bedroom. Look at that credit card. Every day, the exact same thing at the same time. For years. You can set your watch by him. This goes far beyond bad personal hygiene or good office management skills.”

Zoe and Anabella were unconvinced, until I played my trump card: the small red marks on Gator’s neck. That ended the argument.

“Remember the vampire briefing from Dr. Stonjohn? Gator must be AB-negative, and that makes him a food source under hypnotic control, doing exactly what they say.”

Zoe nodded. “Her dissertation included a whole chapter about compulsion. It goes way beyond hypnosis. I’ll bet a vampire ordered him to keep the business well-organized, but the instructions didn’t include personal hygiene. The bedroom is his subconscious response. Nature seeks balance. Clean and hyper-organized work life. Filthy and chaotic personal life.”

Anabella frowned. “Now I understand why the paper trail is such a sophisticated nightmare. His obsession makes him a perfect money launderer. It’ll take time to sort out.”

“Zoe, did you get anything useful from him?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she smiled. “One name kept popping up.”

“Who?” demanded Anabella.

“Blackwood. Pandora Blackwood.”

“Yes!” Anabella clenched her fist.

“Bloodline Realty?” I asked.

“No. But Gator’s files are covered with her name. She owns a firm that owns an offshore bank that owns the shell company that owns Bloodline Realty. The trail continues from there, but it’s not contained in Gator’s files.”

My head was spinning. Unraveling the vampire web was beginning to feel like playing a multi-variable calculus game on my cell phone. I’ll stick to tic-tac-toe.

“What did you mean when you said ‘we hit the jackpot?’ How is this different from the information you’re getting from my old buddy, ABA President Doug Blick?”

Anabella pulled a ratty magazine from her purse. It was the Miami Tatler, a local subsidiary of the Tatler publishing empire, focusing on fashion, high society, and European royalty. Required reading for every investment banker.

She turned to an article about a midnight Miami soirée honoring the King of Lichtenstein. It was accompanied by paparazzi pics of the King and his rich, beautiful guests. In one photo, the King posed with a woman who looked like Morgan Le Fey. Her name was circled in red. Pandora Blackwood.

A large handsome man with a Euro-trash haircut and a Valentino suit posed next to her.

Our vampire assassin.

Twenty Four

The Council of Carthage

SUNSHINE CAME SOFTLY through my window and interrupted a dream about my high school chemistry final. I was naked, unprepared, and terrified. Gator Gomez was my teacher. His canines were a touch longer than normal. He reached for my throat.

I woke up with a moan, soaked in cold sweat. A gentle hand stroked my forehead and a low, smoky voice soothed my panic.

It was Anjali Khan, sitting on my bed in a bare-shoulder white silk summer dress by Pierre Balmain and a heavy gold necklace that put the Ambanis to shame. A dozen gold bangles jingled on her Pilates-toned arms. She tossed her long dark hair, and the captivating fragrance of ginger-orange body lotion swept over me.

The tingling roared up my spine.

Anjali worked at my old investment firm before the zombie apocalypse. She played a big role in our survival. The CEO promoted her to Head of M&A after I was forced to resign for being an irresistible, manly man. But that’s another story.

“Good morning, John. Were you having a bad dream?”

I shook my head to refocus.

“No, not a bad dream. I was hiking in the desert and…uh, it was hot. When did you get here?”

“Sylvia Sakura called and said you were in trouble again. I hijacked our company jet and came as soon as I could. She met me at the airport with a security team.”

Anjali looked around the luxurious bedroom and nodded approvingly. She had an eye for style.

“Nice safe house. If you go to the mattresses, do it in style.”

“Who else did Sylvia call?”

“Ronnie Numero is here, and Jane Austen, too. Peggy Martin is having another baby, so she couldn’t make it. Sylvia, Anabella, and Zoe are bringing everyone up to speed.”

She pointed at my tented sheet.

“Take a cold shower and get dressed. We want to know about your visit to the lawyer. Gator what’s-his-name. Brief us during breakfast.”

I thought Anjali would stay and watch my morning routine, but she walked away without a second glance. Incredible willpower.

The horrific memory of Gator’s chemistry test faded under the calming influence of the cold water and a fashionable ensemble from my San Francisco tailor. Another Egyptian cotton resort shirt, linen slacks, and the Louboutin boat shoes. No socks. I thought about Anjali’s silk summer dress and decided to go California commando with an extra splash of Old Spice.

Bevy Bellaseno’s principal safe house was a five-bedroom luxury condo atop a skyscraper overlooking Miami Beach. Everyone was sitting around a large dining table in front of sliding glass doors leading to a spacious veranda. The doors were open, and the ocean breeze was invigorating.

It was good to see the team again. Ronnie Numero and Jane Austen worked for me at my old investment firm. After the apocalypse, they joined Veronica Scarlett’s new company and moved to Milan with her. Ronnie was the best accountant I’ve ever met. Jane excelled as a media analyst and doubled as an imaginative zombie combat tactician. Both of them played a big role in our survival.

Italian life treated them well. Ronnie was still a pudgy CPA in khakis and a blue Oxford button-down, but Jane was hotter than ever in a midriff-baring Marco Rambaldi vest and miniskirt. A nice change from her Lagerfeld sequins.

Breakfast was simple, yet luxurious. Mushroom quiche, crispy-thin bacon, side salads, and endless mimosas. Ronnie cooked the meal for us after a quick supply run to Wegmans, my favorite grocery store. None of the girls could even find the kitchen, and Bevy wouldn’t allow anybody to order take-out or call for Instacart.

“You’re in a safe house. The fewer people coming here, the better.”

Ronnie made perfect lattes and cortados after the meal. Bevy had managed to find the only safe house in the world with a 3-group Nuova Simonelli espresso machine. Once we were properly caffeinated, I plunged right in.

“We’ve assembled a big part of the puzzle, based on a few hard facts and a lot of conjecture. The outlaw vampire tribe is based in Miami. Pandora Blackwood is at the top of the organization, maybe the very top. Our vampire assassin in the Valentino suit is part of her team. Bloodline Realty is under their control. SciCo is under their control. Phage Molecular Sciences is either under their control or working for them on contract. We haven’t finished connecting all the financial dots, but there are no coincidences in this life.”

I was becoming a philosopher.

“We’re still missing a lot of pieces. Who was the dead, non-zombie, Armani-loving human at the Hungo Hot Dog factory? Why didn’t he turn into a zombie, and why wasn’t he a vampire anymore? Who, what, and where is Phage Molecular Sciences? Why did the outlaw tribe unleash the zombie apocalypse in Manhattan? How did they benefit? Are they planning to do it again?”

The team launched into a lively discussion of the knowns and unknowns. The name of Donald Rumsfeld, an ancient transcendentalist, was taken in vain several times. I tilted my head to one side and listened, letting their ideas flow in one ear and out the other. It’s a management technique I perfected at Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.

After an hour of spirited discourse, they exhausted all the reasonable possibilities and most of the unreasonable ones. They fell silent and looked at me, obviously expecting one of my brilliant insights. Nothing came immediately to mind, and I stalled.

“Here’s the thing. We’ve identified the outlaw tribe behind the zombie apocalypse. I could call Albina Aldana tonight and collect $250 million. But these people are vicious, bloodsucking freaks with a thousand-year history of murder and mayhem.”

“More like three thousand years,” muttered Sylvia.

“Albina’s tribe will probably kill us after they get what they want. After all, nobody likes loose ends. I need to find leverage on them. Until then, we’re living on borrowed time.”

Everyone sat quietly. They already knew this intuitively, but my bluntness was a shock. Even Zoe, who had been bathing in blood since she joined the Agency, was silent. Morale was crashing in real time. I needed to give them hope.

“We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now. Bardeen is studying the hell out of the tissue samples we gave him. Anabella is working with the ABA to connect the Swiss shell company to Bloodline, and her interns are mapping Bloodline’s business empire.”

“Ronnie and I will help the interns with that,” said Anjali. “I have my own connections, and nobody can unravel a shell company faster than a couple of devious douchebags like us.”

Sylvia jotted notes in her iPad as I handed out more assignments. Busy people don’t brood about the end of the world.

“Bevy, I want you to huddle with Jane Austen. Tell her about our near-death experience with the vampire assassin. Incorporate whatever you can glean from Dr. Stonjohn’s dissertation, and come up with a way to fight these bastards. We got lucky once, but that won’t happen again.”

Bevy and Jane looked at each other.

“Way ahead of you, John. We’re already working on that,” said Jane.

I felt our odds were about to improve.

“We can’t afford to slack off and wait for information to trickle down. There are other threads to pull. Sylvia, I want your interns to find Lucian Bloodbane and Pandora Blackwood. Check every old issue of the Tatler, not only the Miami edition. Go global. Send them to the Miami-Dade Public Library.”

“We have the internet, John, and facial recognition programs,” Sylvia muttered. “This is America.”

I ignored her quibble.

“While they’re at it, search the Tatler for Albina Aldana. Pull a screen grab from my office security cams so they know what she looks like. I want a full profile on her, too.”

“Do vampires show up on video?” asked Bevy.

I shrugged. “They show up for the tabloid paparazzi, so they’ll show up on my CCTV.”

Zoe looked thoughtful. “There’s a guy at the Agency who can check the DHS classified image database for me. It stores surveillance footage from every camera in the country.”

“That’s risky. Surveillance imagery is tightly restricted. Are you sure he’ll cooperate?”

She dismissed my concerns. “No problem. I caught him using the image database to stalk cute girls he found on Instagram and Facebook. His balls are in my pocket.”

“Okay, give them a hard squeeze. Later tonight, I want to visit the SciCo bitch who ordered those Phage Molecular Science coffee mugs. She has some explaining to do.”

Zoe smiled.

“I’ll bring my magical formula.”

Twenty Five

Bat Poop Crazy

WE SPENT THE AFTERNOON reviewing an avalanche of new information from Sylvia’s interns. The gossip magazines opened a tabloid window into the world of vampires. An amazing resource.

Once we knew what to look for, it was almost too easy. The vampires were hiding in plain sight. Pandora Blackwood attended years of Miami high-society soirées. She was a paparazzi favorite.

We found her in dozens of group shots that led to scores of new targets. The interns checked everyone against the Tatler’s back issues. Anybody who hadn’t aged in the past ten years became an instant suspect. There’s only so much you can do with Botox and a scalpel. After that, it’s vampire genetics.

The interns even created an AI widget to scan for abnormally long canines. Most vampires have perfect teeth, and they love to show off their big smiles, so the widget kept us busy. Arrogance is a weakness that can be exploited.

The most recent edition included a picture of Albina Aldana posing with Pandora. Albina was ravishing in a racy Balenciaga evening gown with a hip-high side slit that showcased her perfectly toned legs. A thousand volts ran up my spine. I shook my head many times before I could refocus.

We sat around the dining table and buried it with laptops, D&B reports, and vampire photos. Ronnie Numero and Anjali Khan fed us a continual stream of Sarbanes-Oxley disclosures and SEC filings related to possible vampire-owned companies. We compared vampire names from the Tatler against that data set and built a sprawling organizational diagram of Pandora’s tribal holdings. The chaotic scene reminded me of the old days, when I ran a string of boiler rooms targeting politically active rubes with pump-and-dump SPAC companies. Good times.

We paused when the sun went down, and Ronnie served a gourmet dinner on the veranda. The food was delicious. The ocean air was invigorating. The view was spectacular. Bevy and Anabella vied openly for my favors. Blame it on the glittering Miami skyline, one of the world’s most romantic vistas.

Our rapid progress excited the team, and we dived into the work again as soon as dinner ended. I supervised the process while savoring a classic Woodford Manhattan in preparation for our visit to the SciCo bitch. Midnight seemed the optimal time, when she would likely be asleep and vulnerable. I rested my eyes and slipped into a genius-level trance as my mind raced through the contingencies.

Loud laughter snapped me back to the world. A pair of small bats had fluttered through the veranda. The girls giggled and squealed warnings about rabies. Ronnie ran around the big living room, trying to shoo them out by frantically waving a thick corporate report.

I got a bad feeling.

The bats stopped abruptly and hooked themselves onto the living room chandelier. Ronnie skidded to a halt and flailed at them. The bats unhooked from the chandelier and dive-bombed the floor.

As they fell, their little bodies morphed into something large, dark, and fuzzy. The large, dark, and fuzzy morphed into a pair of large, sharp-dressed men in Armani suits and high-polish chukkas by Salvatore Lucchese. Their canines were a touch longer than normal. Their haircuts were Euro-trash.

The laughter turned to screams. The girls scattered. Ronnie stepped up and uncorked a major league swing with the corporate report. His target shoved him away like a footnote. Ronnie crashed against an ornate Chinese teak cabinet and fell to the ground. He crawled away, stunned and bleeding.

Sylvia Sakura flung her iPad like a frisbee and caught the vampire square in his grinning mouth. Didn’t even chip a tooth. Zoe Rogue ducked through the kitchen and disappeared. Anabella Busto and Jane Austen opened fire with every piece of home decor they could reach. The vampires ducked under a hail of lamps, Blenko vases, and the small bronze head of an Indian temple goddess.

I added my heavy mahogany dining chair to the aerial barrage, but to no avail. The vampires moved toward me with gleaming red eyes and wicked thoughts. Zoe reappeared, carrying my Mokuba wrecking bar and a Wastelander 10 ga. kinetic breaching shotgun. She tossed the Mokuba to me and pointed her shotgun at the nearest vampire.

Before Zoe could pull the trigger, Bevy Bellaseno dug a small garage remote from her yoga pants. She whispered something in Latin and pushed the top button. The ceiling-mounted fire sprinklers hissed to life and rained on the vampire parade.

The girls shrieked, covered their salon-fresh hair, and ran for the veranda. The vampires danced. They wailed. They clawed their faces. They ripped off their sodden clothes in agony. They fell to the floor. They wriggled like worms on a hot summer sidewalk.

Exposed skin boiled. Blisters swelled and burst across smoking torsos. Flesh peeled away like slices of Prosciutto di Parma.

I jumped forward and brought the Mokuba into action, unleashing mighty head shots one after another. The vampires screamed and writhed in agony as the deluge penetrated deep into their shattered skulls. Crunch. Crack. Sizzle.

Ronnie exploded into the room, waving a 30-inch Milanese gladius with a gold-veined blade. He skidded to a halt on his knees beside the vampires, like a soccer player celebrating a winning goal. The razor-sharp sword arced through the air, slicing downward with brutal precision. Swish. Chop. Swish. Chop.

Jane Austen jumped forward, armed with a needle-sharp no. 2 cedar pencil in each fist. She landed between the naked, headless torsos and hammered her pencils five inches deep between the third and fourth ribs on the left of the sternum.

Instant silence. Except for the gentle patter of rain.

Bevy pushed the garage door button again. The rain stopped. I heard a faint sizzling sound. The vampires disintegrated into gray mud, starting at the neck and moving slowly down to their Salvatore Lucchese-encased feet. The heads dissolved last, perhaps because they were no longer connected to the bodies.

Zoe sighed and clicked the safety on her Wastelander 10 ga. breaching shotgun. Missing another chance to make noise frustrated her to no end.

Ronnie wobbled to his feet and raised a hand to his battered face. Sylvia and Jane helped him to a chair and fussed over his wounds.

“Better than I expected,” Bevy muttered, looking at the garage remote. She slipped it back in her yoga pants and smiled.

“What the exact hell was that?” Anjali asked.

“A little present from Pastor Steve Wheat, the world famous televangelist. We chatted after my interview with Dr. Stonjohn at UVA. He shipped me a 55-gallon drum of Pastor Steve Wheat’s Best Sparkling Holy Water from his Harrisonburg megachurch. Sylvia’s handyman connected the whole drum to the condo’s fire sprinklers and added a remote activation switch.”

I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Water melts vampires? I thought that only worked with the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Zoe sighed.

“Read the fucking memo, John.”

Twenty Six

Saucepans

OUR FIGHT WITH THE VAMPIRE ASSASSINS left Bevy’s luxury safe house in a soggy mess. Ronnie Numero and Anabella Busto gathered the laptops and their corporate research. Jane Austen packed three black duffle bags with vampire-fighting equipment. Sylvia booked emergency suites at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Mid-Beach. She included a full spa day for the girls. Everyone wanted a shampoo and blowout after the holy water shower, and Anjali Khan chipped a nail. Bevy Bellaseno called for stretch limousines to transport us to our new temporary refuge.

Meanwhile, Zoe Rogue and I changed clothes for the next mission. She insisted on swinging by her beachfront mansion and grabbing her own car for our midnight raid on the SciCo bitch.

“The vampires obviously know who we are, so it doesn’t matter if I bring a nice car,” she insisted.

Gina Prensa owned a modest 6-bedroom Mediterranean Revival home in the best part of Coral Gables. Walled compound, swimming pool, tennis court, circular driveway, opulent landscape lighting.

Anabella’s interns provided a satellite map and a thick binder on Gina’s finances, work history, and social media presence. She was a cheerleader at the University of Miami, graduated with a communications degree, and held a series of corporate relations jobs with increasing responsibilities. The photos showed a smoldering, well-toned brunette who grew up and became a beautiful, accomplished corporate executive. Her life seemed normal, except for a nasty divorce. She got the house and minivan. He got the kids.

“That’s weird,” Zoe said. “Nobody in their right mind trusts men to raise children. The husband must have bribed the judge.”

“That doesn’t make sense either,” I replied. “No man wants to raise children. Too much pressure.”

I kept the night-vision goggles trained on a silver Maserati MC80 parked in Gina’s driveway. We texted the license plate to Bevy and settled down to watch, waiting for the visitor to leave.

Zoe was equipped with her standard urban combat gear: black silk harem pants, a skimpy gray fighting bra, and Filipa Julio ballet flats. I was anonymous in faded dad jeans and a dark-green plaid shirt from Duluth Trading Company. Zoe gagged a little when she saw me.

Her cherry-red eVette was almost invisible in the moonless night, tucked behind a black Chevy Tahoe. Palm trees and posh mansions lined the street. Deep quiet ruled the neighborhood, except for an occasional ripe coconut bouncing off the sidewalk.

A large man in a three-piece Valentino suit left the house around 2:00 a.m. and walked briskly to the Maserati. We couldn’t see his face, but he had a Euro-trash haircut.

The Maserati roared to life and was gone in sixty seconds. Zoe wanted to follow, but I held her back.

“No way we can tail that rocket. Let’s stick to the plan.”

We grabbed our packs and slipped through the automatic gate before it closed, zigzagging across the shadowed lawn to the back door. Zoe deployed her Tractor Supply lock-picking kit. We entered quickly and quietly.

The place was brightly lit and well-furnished in an edgy Miami art deco style, including spectacular paintings by Diego Rivera. A credenza displayed happy family photos of Gina, her husband, and their beautiful young children.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Zoe held a finger to my lips and shushed me. A rapid, scraping sound, almost like a muted high-hat cymbal, came from a dining room door leading to the kitchen.

Zoe pulled a matched pair of Ruger .380s from her waistband, and I deployed my Mokuba wrecking bar. Vampires might have the strength of twenty men, but I had already proven their skulls are no thicker than mine.

I kicked the door, and Zoe charged, guns at the ready. She stopped so abruptly that I skidded into her, dropping the Mokuba with a clang.

“What the fuck, Zoe?” I growled.

Gina Prensa stood by the farmhouse sink, barefoot and clad in black lace La Perla underwear, frantically scrubbing a bright copper saucepan. She was pale as a ghost, except for two distinct red marks on her slender neck.

Zoe gently disengaged her from the pan. I swept her up like a toddler and carried her into the living room. Her eyes were unfocused, and she resisted my strong arms. Zoe soothed her with a whisper.

“It’s perfect. No spots. You did a fine job. Stop now. Let’s rest.”

I left them on the couch and ran upstairs to grab her clothes from the master bedroom. Gina might be a corporate flack in thrall to vampires, but she was still a hot babe. I couldn’t risk getting distracted in the middle of a B&E.

“Men,” muttered Zoe. “It’s all about the underwear.”

I found a silk kimono robe hanging in the bathroom. Everything was spotless and well-organized. The cosmetics on the marble vanity top were perfectly arranged by schedule: night creams, afternoon revitalizers, morning brighteners. The lavish marble shower contained one bottle of body wash, one bottle of shampoo, and one bottle of conditioner. Nothing else. Not even a loofah.

Creepy. No normal woman lives like that.

I checked the bedroom. Elegant and spotless. King bed. Side tables and lamps. Large dresser with jewelry box. A framed glamour shot of Gina and her ex-husband.

Her customized walk-in closet was an advertisement for MandiCasa, and she adored Dolce & Gabbana. Large collection of designer clothes, shoes, and accessories. All perfectly pressed and arranged. No clutter anywhere.

Even the dirty clothes in the hamper were folded neatly.

Zoe continued to comfort Gina on the couch, so I left the silk robe and resumed my exploration. The mansion was pristine. Nothing out of place except a crumpled outfit near the front door: a torn linen shirt dress by Justine Tabak and a pair of wedge sandals. Sultry office wear for sultry Miami.

Gina’s home office was clean and neat. No sticky note with her computer password, so I tried my birthday. No luck. Then I tried various arrangements of the children’s names. All caps. No caps. Underscore. No underscore. Nothing worked until I added her ex-husband’s name at the end.

Bingo.

Sylvia included an orange 100 TB LaCie drive in my pack. I’m not sure exactly what a backup drive does, but I followed her complex written instructions. Plug in. Click the “copy everything” button. Wait patiently for results.

The computer whirred and beeped. Gina’s executive desk chair showed me the world from her perspective. Nice view into the swimming pool and spa garden. Photos of her children and ex-husband carefully arranged on the glass-topped desk. No smudges or fingerprints on the glass. Not a single one.

Why would a woman surround herself with pictures of her ex-husband after such a bitter divorce? Or use his name for her computer password? I tried to put the puzzle together.

Gina joined SciCo three years before the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Her husband filed for divorce six months after that, citing irreconcilable differences over Gina’s growing obsession with cleanliness and organization. They fought for months, but when Gina tried to clean the judge’s ears with cotton swabs during a sidebar, His Honor banged the gavel and dissolved the marriage. Hubbie took the kids to California and found a new wife.

The computer beeped one final beep. I unplugged the drive and logged out. Zoe waited on the couch. Gina snuggled close, glazed eyes distant, with well-toned arms folded tightly across her chest.

“John, allow me to introduce Gina. She’s having a rough time, aren’t you dear? But you’re safe now, don’t worry.”

Zoe gave her a little hug and stroked her hair. Gina wept.

Nothing breaks my heart faster than a woman in tears. It’s a miracle that I’ve managed to ditch so many of them over the years.

“Did you use the magical formula? What did she tell you?”

“No, she’s still recovering from her…uh, evening visitor. She’s lost a lot of blood, and his feeding triggered weird side effects. I’m afraid a dose of the Agency formula might cause permanent damage. But we’ve had a nice chat, haven’t we, Gina?”

Another hug, and Gina cuddled up to her like a small child seeking warmth and motherly comfort.

“She answers my questions but shuts down if I talk about the you-know-whats.”

“Huh? What ‘whats’?” I asked.

“Vampires,” whispered Zoe.

Gina flinched and snuggled deeper.

“I can still extract information from her, as long as I tip-toe around that particular subject. She’s already told me where to find Phage Molecular Sciences. There’s an industrial park west of the airport off Okeechobee Road.”

“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here. I’m not sure we’ll find anything else. I’ve already copied her computer. There are no paper files. The place is cleaner than Gator’s. Even the bedroom is spotless.”

“The compulsion must cover both her professional and personal life, not like the one they used on Gator. A tighter weave.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. She joined SciCo, and her husband divorced her almost immediately. I guess he couldn’t handle life with a neat-freak, or he got worried she might hurt the children.”

“Yeah, children are messy. They don’t pair well with women who clean saucepans after midnight. From what I’ve heard, it’s amazing that more mothers don’t murder their kids.”

“What about that balance of nature stuff you mentioned? Gator is a pig, a slob, and a drunk. Gina dresses for success, and judging by her well-toned figure, she goes to Pilates class at least three times a week. Where is her particular ‘balance’ showing up?”

Zoe looked at Gina and frowned.

“Sweetheart, how do you spend your time when you’re not working or cleaning house?”

Gina wriggled deeper into Zoe’s arms.

“Shopping. I go shopping.”

“John, check the computer again. I’ll pack her things and get ready to leave. She’ll have to come with us. We can stash her with Sylvia in the second safe house.”

I logged into Gina’s computer and searched her personal accounts. She screamed shopaholic with a taste for expensive, sexy shoes. All the merch shipped to her home address, except for three orders.

The Hungo Hot Dog coffee mugs were purchased a month before the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, over a year ago. The other two orders were recent, only two weeks old. An order for promotional t-shirts shipped to Fibonacci’s Pizza in downtown San Francisco. An order for mouse pads went to Florida Pizza Sauce, LLC, a bespoke manufacturer in Immokalee, the old heart of Florida’s tomato belt. I took a screenshot with my phone and logged out.

Zoe called me into the master bedroom. Gina lay sprawled unconscious on the bed, neatly dressed in jeans, white tank top, and white Converse sneakers. An overnight bag sat beside her. Zoe had a small scratch on her arm.

“She was fine until I finished packing the bag and told her we had to leave. That conflicted with her compulsion. Apparently she has a tight schedule of corporate flackery tomorrow and can’t handle change. She threw a tantrum.”

“Did you use the magical formula?”

“Nah, a little chloral hydrate. But we may need to keep her sedated for a long time. Her whole world is about to explode.”

I took Gina’s car keys and phone from a ceramic bowl near the front door, along with the torn Justine Tabak linen shirt dress on the floor. The soft, crumpled fabric triggered a sudden epiphany. Our thirsty vampire in the Valentino suit must have bull-rushed her when she opened the door.

The linen dress got in his way.

In that split second of profound insight, Gina morphed from evil accomplice to helpless victim. My lonely empathy neuron went into overdrive, screaming about a beautiful damsel in need of rescue.

The minivan was parked in the garage. We laid Gina across the middle seats so Zoe could drop her at the second safe house. She planned to ditch the minivan near a bus station and leave the keys.

I called Sylvia.

“I need you for a little babysitting.”

“No problem. I was about to call you. Bevy’s cop friends got a hit on the license plate for that Maserati. Belongs to Lucian Bloodbane. It matches one of the names we got from Miami Beach Bling, LLC. I’m texting you the address. An exclusive luxury condominium.”

Lucian Bloodbane.

My lonely empathy neuron screamed. My inner caveman woke up.

“Change of plans. Bring Anabella, Bevy, and Jane with you to the second safe house.”

“Sure, John. Anything else?

“Yeah. Tell them to strap up.”

Twenty Seven

Bondage

BEVY BELLASENO’S SECOND SAFE HOUSE was a swank corporate apartment in the Brickell district, Miami’s financial hub. We stashed Gina Prensa in the master bedroom under heavy sedation. The chloral hydrate wore off as we moved in, and she struggled to escape. Zoe knocked her down with a big dose of Midazolam. It was ugly, but totally necessary. Sylvia Sakura deployed an intriguing set of shibari skills and left the bedroom door ajar in case Gina woke up and tried to escape.

I wanted a gentle word with Lucian Bloodbane, so we gathered our gear and made plans for an afternoon visit. Bevy Bellaseno and Jane Austen concocted a set of tactical surprises that would probably give us the upper hand. Probably.

Lucian’s condo was only two blocks away, beside Sexy Fish Miami, my favorite Asian seafood restaurant. It was at the top of a 45-story condo tower, one of the new designs on immense pilings. Every architect in Miami knew Waterworld was coming. Only the local politicians were in denial.

Bevy handed out khaki overalls and baseball caps from a big janitorial service operating in the downtown area. The girls tied their hair with cheap ponytail scrunchies and donned latex gloves.

The khaki overalls were too tight across my large shoulders. Hiding my Herculean build requires custom tailoring. Bevy told me to wear my hat low and carry the heavy equipment.

“For God’s sake, don’t flex or you’ll split those overalls. I might lose control. Nothing sexier than a blue collar man.”

She vamped at me, fluttering her long dark eyelashes.

Anabella, Sylvia, and Zoe groaned in unison.

We waited until 5:00 p.m, rehearsing contingency plans and drinking double espressos. Bevy met us in the loading dock with a dirty white panel van borrowed from one of Anabella Busto’s old cartel clients. Guaranteed untraceable. The drive to Lucian’s went quickly, despite the typical Miami heavy traffic. The atmosphere was tense and edgy, like a high school parent-teacher conference.

When we arrived, Bevy opened the driver’s window and leaned out. An elderly guard waved us into the parking garage when he saw the cleaning service logo on her baseball cap. Bevy’s partially unzipped overalls helped distract him, no doubt.

We stayed in the van while Bevy and Zoe walked to the guard booth. Zoe returned with a master key card. She cloned it with a small electronic device borrowed from Langley and dashed back to the booth. Bevy squeezed the guard’s biceps and giggled. Zoe slipped the key card onto his belt. On cue, Anabella hollered at them to quit fooling around. They left the guard with their telephone numbers.

“Men are so stupid,” Jane Austen said as we unloaded our equipment into a couple of big janitor carts. The girls nodded in unison.

I had to agree. The elderly guard was delusional to think hot young babes like Bevy and Zoe could possibly be interested in an old man with a serious case of dad-bod. Still, hope springs eternal, I suppose.

The service elevator took us to Lucian’s floor. It was time for a shift change, when daytime service workers across Miami are replaced by the night shift. Nobody noticed us. There’s always someone serving, taking care of tasks the one-percenters won’t touch, but can’t live without. Cooking. Cleaning. Arranging the truffle tray. Polishing the family diamonds.

We gathered around the condo door. I waved the cloned key card at a little red light on the handle. It turned green. The lock beeped and clicked. The door opened silently. Bevy led the way with her custom MAC-17, locked and loaded.

The condo was enormous and elegantly appointed with mahogany furniture and old masterpieces. I recognized a Titian, a Caravaggio, and a Bush that went missing decades ago. I shook my head to refocus.

We checked the place quickly. It was immaculate. Nothing in the refrigerator except a pint of blood. Jane Doe. AB-negative. An imposing Kaba-Mas X100 crypto lock secured the solid steel door on the master bedroom.

Zoe grinned. “I trained on these at The Farm. Give me a minute.”

She attached another borrowed electronic device and punch a few buttons. Colorful lights blinked in random sequences. The lock buzzed, and the door clicked open.

I led the way, my trusty Mokuba wrecking bar in one hand and a gleaming Bowie knife in the other. A gift from Anabella. She must have read the book.

The room felt dark, cool, and musty. The unmistakable scent of Hai Karate aftershave lingered in the air. Heavy curtains blocked the blinding Miami afternoon sunshine. Bevy clicked a switch on the wall. The darkness yielded to a soft glow from artfully concealed LED lighting fixtures.

Lucian slept soundly in a small, canopied four-poster bed dating from the 1600s. Black silk sheets and red pillowcases. He didn’t wake up, despite our shuffling and nervous whispering.

The setting and Lucian’s repose reminded me of an open-coffin funeral: eyes shut, feet together, hands across his chest. Creepy. Instead of a dark, three-piece Valentino suit, he was wearing silk Derek Rose pajamas. Same paisley print as mine. His left earlobe was pierced. No diamond stud.

I stepped beside the bed and placed the tip of my Bowie knife over his heart. Zoe pulled out a razor-sharp Nepalese kukri and laid the edge across his neck. She must have read the book.

Lucian didn’t stir.

“Okay,” I growled, “let’s do this.”

Zoe and I kept our knives positioned for a quick kill. Anabella and Bevy wrapped his body in the finest Tractor Supply duct tape. They started with his toes and finished with his neck. Over and over again. They must have used forty rolls. Then we wound two 500-foot reels of cat 5 shielded computer cable around the duct tape. After that, we carried him into the living room and strapped his body to a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair with 1/2-inch Acco G4 hot-dip galvanized anchor chain. Breaking strength: 27,600 lb.

“Are you sure this will work?” I asked Jane.

“Absolutely. Ronnie did the math.”

An hour remained before sunset. The girls searched Lucian’s condo with a fine-tooth comb. Other than some antique torture devices, there wasn’t much to find. He loved haute couture, and his well-stocked bar featured top shelf liquor. Woodford. Glenfiddich. Zelko.

Anabella located his cell, a neon-pink iPhone 35 like mine. His face unlocked it, and she removed his password.

At 8:00 p.m. sharp, I called the others to the living room.

“Okay, let’s get ready. The sun will set in fifteen minutes.”

The girls dragged the janitor carts behind Lucian’s chair and seated themselves outside his field of vision. I pulled the blackout curtains wide open and sat directly opposite Lucian in a comfortable leather dining chair by Arditi Design.

The sun touched the horizon, bathing us in blood.

“That’s too creepy,” Bevy muttered, and ran around the room turning on lights. The red glow disappeared. She returned to her chair, behind Lucian and to his left.

When the sun disappeared, Lucian’s nose twitched. He sniffed the air, and opened his ice-blue eyes. Like Albina Aldana. Her image fired a strong tingle down my spine.

I shook my head to refocus.

He stared at me and smiled.

“How thoughtful of you.”

I gripped my Mokuba wrecking bar.

“How so?”

Lucian sniffed the air again.

“You brought breakfast.”

Twenty Eight

Lucian

LUCIAN YAWNED AND STRETCHED inside his duct tape and cat 5 swaddling. The anchor chain tinkled. He seemed sleepy and amused. Insufferably arrogant.

“Very clever, John Carthage. Smarter than I thought. Clever. You have some imagination.”

A faint accent. French, perhaps. Or Swiss.

“And you’re one taco short of a combo platter,” I replied. “Easy to find, easy to catch. After I’m done, your supervisors will put you on another Performance Improvement Plan. I’m surprised you managed to complete the first one. They set a low bar for you. Are you some kind of legacy hire?”

Lucian’s eyes flashed red for a moment. I hit a nerve. The guy was thin-skinned and easily triggered.

“I don’t have a supervisor. That’s for bloodbags.”

“Really? I doubt it. Peasants always have a boss. All of you entry-level vampire assholes owe fealty to bigger vampire assholes. The non-profit entity rules your entire world.”

Lucian’s eyes flashed and stayed red. He tested his bindings with a subtle flex. The duct tape groaned, and the anchor chain clinked.

“You ignorant slut. My world is beyond your comprehension.”

“So explain it to me. If you don’t have a boss, then who sent you to grab me in New Jersey? You’re not smart enough to figure that out on your own. Sorry about all the bullet holes in your nice suit. Looked expensive. By the way, thanks for the diamond stud. I’m gonna use it as a fishing weight.”

He pushed harder against the duct tape and cat 5. His agitation was growing. I needled him again.

“Who sent you? Was it Pandora Blackwood? Is she your master? Or perhaps I should say mistress. Do you get wood when she ties you up and spanks you like a sniveling little boy?”

Lucian snarled. “Pandora is nobody. A trollop. She belongs to me, not the other way around.”

“What’s the non-profit going to do when they learn you and Pandora tried to make AB-negative bloodbags? They won’t appreciate your effort to break the monopoly.”

“The entity’s relevance ends when we finish our project, and my tribe takes over. Trust me, it won’t operate as a non-profit any more. The current Chairman will be lucky to find work at a car wash. We won’t run the business as a charity. No more stupid mandates to maximize employment and stabilize prices.”

Stabilize prices? Where did I hear that before? My hair stylist?

I stuck another pin in him. “Talk is cheap. Your R&D department failed miserably. Your formula was a disaster.”

“Not exactly,” he smiled. “It’s been profitable. We made a fortune last year, thanks to our first batch. True, the product didn’t work exactly as planned, yet we quintupled our net worth. Manhattan succeeded beyond our expectations, and there’s more in the pipeline. My condolences for your friends.”

I thought about the thousands of investment bankers who died screaming on Wall Street, and the millions of innocents who died in their seedy, rent-controlled apartments. Images of Archie Briggs and Henry Hunnicutt jumped into my mind; DCH colleagues who died fighting zombies in our accounting department. Then there was Lizzie, my favorite little red-haired girl, who almost died in daycare. I touched the corner of my eye.

Lucian sensed that he scored a point. He sniffed the air again and smiled. His canines had grown quite a bit longer than normal in the past few minutes.

“I’m getting hungry. Which one of you bloodbags goes first? The woman? Don’t look surprised. I can smell her. Perhaps I’ll kill you last, so you can watch.”

Big mistake. Never poke the caveman when you’re tied to a chair.

Without warning, I whipped the Mokuba wrecking bar across his smarmy face like a riding crop. Swish. Crunch.

The carbon steel opened an eight-inch gash from temple to nose. His orbital bones cracked loudly.

Anabella and Bevy gasped at the unexpected brutality, a feature of my character that stays hidden. Mostly.

Zoe smiled. Back in the day, grand surprise was my signature interrogation technique. Polite conversation, followed by shock and awe. My own recipe.

Lucian straightened his head and licked at dark blood dripping from the ghastly wound. His eyes flickered from red to black.

“You’ll pay for that,” he said. “So will your friends.”

I delivered another tremendous blow. Swish. Clang. Splat.

The gore was impressive. Zoe smiled again.

Lucian growled and strained against his bonds. The strength of twenty men is a finite parameter. With enough duct tape, even an elephant will stay where you put him. The bonds held. Physics.

I raised the wrecking bar and brought it straight down on his forehead with all my considerable strength. Swish. Clang.

He shook it off and glared at me through the blood.

“That’s enough,” he growled. “You’re dead.”

Lucian’s shattered head and pajama-clad body dissolved. A river of white mist flowed through the open neck of his body wrap, leaving a vampire-shaped sarcophagus on the Eames chair and ottoman.

Zoe and Anabella responded instantly. A pair of 24v Ryobi handheld vacuum cleaners roared into life, sucking the white mist into oversized HEPA filter bags. Lucian swirled around the girls like an Arizona dust devil, but they stood their ground and waved their vacuums in the thickest part of the cloud. The HEPA bags swelled to the size of balloons in a Moulin Rouge burlesque.

Suddenly, the mist snapped away, and Lucian reappeared. Large chunks of his limbs and torso were missing. The HEPA bags ripped open and dumped a gory, liquid mess on the rug. He staggered toward me on one leg and a bloody stump, reaching for my throat with his oozing, fingerless hands.

I ducked and shattered his knee with a sweep of my wrecking bar. Swish. Crunch Thump.

He face-planted with a groan and rolled onto his back.

Anabella charged past me and straddled Lucian like a schoolyard bully. She poked a sharp wooden tent peg against his chest and leaned forward until their noses almost touched.

“Remember me, asshole?”

Lucian blinked once for yes.

Anabella shoved the wooden stake into his heart with a fierce two-handed thrust, fueled by 120 lb. of feminine fury.

Lucian’s body crackled into gray dust around the stake, slowly radiating outward. He shrieked like a little girl until his vocal cords disintegrated. Then the room fell deathly quiet, except for a faint sizzling noise as the remainder of his corpse turned to dust. The aroma of freshly buttered popcorn filled the air.

It looked painful.

Zoe smiled.

We stared in silence. Anabella stood up, brushing the dust from her khaki overalls and muttering under her breath.

“Saluda a Drácula por mí, cabrón.”

Twenty Nine

Inside Information

WE SPENT TWO HOURS cleaning up the mess. Lucian was a big boy, and he left 220 lb. of fine gray dust when he died. The laws about conservation of mass still apply, even in the supernatural world. Somewhere, Lavoisier smiled.

Fortunately, our equipment package included a gleaming Nikro Professional dual-motor shop vac. It roared like a new Chrysler Hemi V-8, quickly cleaning the rug and sucking Lucian directly into a 30-gallon plastic drum.

Anabella snapped the lid with a satisfied click.

“I’ll spread this at the local dog park. Organic matter builds the soil, and my dogs will piss on him every day.”

Cuban girl.

We searched the condo again and removed any trace of our visit. I made the four-poster bed so tight you could bounce a quarter on it, something I learned during my short and not entirely successful tour of duty in the army. The keys to Lucian’s silver Maserati disappeared into Anabella’s pocket.

Andrea Aiuto, my ever-delightful former DCH colleague, waited for us at the second safe house. She threw her arms around my neck, did that girly leg-kick thing, and gave me a wet, grinding kiss. A tingle shot up my spine.

Bevy and Anabella frowned.

“Hi John, it’s nice to see you again. Did you miss me?”

Andrea was a lot more…uh, affectionate, now that I wasn’t her boss anymore. I wondered if Bardeen was right about that crush on me. Low-cut Nicole Valenti dresses are one of my favorite things. The tingle grew stronger, almost fierce. Unrelenting.

Sylvia snapped her fingers, and I shook my head to refocus.

“She’s here to work, John,” Sylvia said. “You two can catch up later. Right now there’s someone you need to meet.”

Sylvia led us into the bedroom, where Gina Prensa was propped against a mountain of pillows on a king-sized bed. Her hair was wet from the shower, and she was wrapped in a white terrycloth bathrobe. Tired, but alert. Sipping a cup of fennel tea.

“John, this is the actual Gina Prensa, the real person underneath all the vampire voodoo. She woke up about three hours ago, despite the Midazolam. We were prepping to hit her with another dose, but something was different. The compulsion vanished. She’s free now, and we’re talking about lots of interesting things.”

“Three hours,” mused Zoe. “That’s right about when Lucian finished his close-up with Anabella.”

She provided a quick recap of the evening’s adventure, including the timing and circumstances of Lucian’s death.

Sylvia nodded. “That’s what we figured. Lucian controlled her, and his death freed her. Like in the novel.”

“Docudrama,” I corrected. “Dracula was real.”

Gina eagerly offered to help us. Apparently, the victim of a vampire compulsion remains aware of their surroundings, much like a coma patient with a functioning brain, but has no way to communicate. Gina’s long national nightmare was over. She needed to vent.

This was exciting. A real break. Nothing moves dirty deals like insider information. That’s why investment bankers maintain satellite offices near Capitol Hill.

“We want to know everything,” I urged her. “No matter how small.”

Gina frowned, as if in pain, but took a deep breath and opened up. It got easier as she went along.

“I couldn’t tell anybody. When I tried, my brain would skip tracks, like an ancient DVD player. I barely managed to order those coffee mugs from Etsy, and only because that fit my job description. Corporate merch. It was my message in a bottle.”

“Clever girl,” I said. “We found one at Hungo Hot Dogs, and it led us to you. But why did you order merch for a San Francisco pizza joint and the Immokalee tomato sauce company?”

“Because they’re going to do it again. The next zombie apocalypse will be in San Francisco. I couldn’t stop them the first time. But you can do something now, right?”

The room went quiet. Gina cried.

My lonely empathy neuron fired another salvo. My heart melted. I sat beside Gina and wrapped my powerful arms around her. She trembled at my touch. They all do.

“Don’t worry. We’ll stop it. They’ll pay. Every single one.”

I looked around the roomful of sour faces. They nodded agreement.

Gina was a gold mine. She talked nonstop for almost two hours. The vampires discussed their evil fucking scheme right in front of her without a second thought. A weak human female poses no threat.

Arrogance is a weakness that can be exploited.

Lucian and another vampire fed regularly on Gina as soon as she joined SciCo. We showed her a picture of the dead Armani-loving vampire in the Hungo Hot Dog factory. Instant recognition.

“That’s him,” she shuddered. “Sven Blodtörst. But I haven’t seen him in almost two years. Maybe he found another free-range bloodbag.”

“Free-range? What’s that?”

“Bloodbags who aren’t part of the non-profit distribution network. Vampires say the free-range flavor is better, and predators love to hunt. That’s how I got trapped. I answered a LinkedIn notice for the SciCo corporate relations position.”

The girls shuddered. Sylvia pulled out a phone and canceled her LinkedIn Premium subscription.

I ignored them and told Gina our theory about Sven’s demise in the Hungo Hot Dog factory.

“Sven wasn’t a vampire anymore. Not only was he moving around in the daytime, but he should have been able to crush two measly zombies or escape by turning into a white mist or a bat. We don’t understand how the zombies took him down.”

Gina wrinkled her forehead and nibbled on her lip.

“Before Sven disappeared, he was excited about the ‘research project’ to create AB-negatives from scratch. He talked about it with Lucian when they showed up for a midnight snack at the same time. The double blood loss almost knocked me out, but I could still hear their laughter. Sven bragged that Phage Molecular selected him as a taste tester because of his highly refined palate. Apparently, he was the vampire equivalent of a gourmet foodie.”

“Swell,” I muttered. “A vampire food Nazi.”

Andrea hushed me, and Gina continued her horrific story.

“The tests were scheduled on the following day. He never came back to feed on me again. I overheard Lucian on a phone call the next week. He said the effects were fast. Sven changed in a few hours.”

Zoe whistled softly. “Wow. The project created AB-negative blood, but it turned him into a human. Not the kind of side effect they expected. Their scientists screwed the pooch.”

“What do you know about Pandora Blackwood? Did she work for Lucian? Was she a close advisor?”

Gina shook her head. “No, it was the other way around. They feared her. She sat at the top of their pyramid, a CEO vampire. The big boss. Chief bloodsucker.”

I smiled. Thanks to Gina, we had vaulted up the food chain, from sardines to a killer whale.

The team argued about what to do next. The bedroom suddenly became very noisy, and Gina slumped deeper into her mountain of pillows. Andrea Aiuto took charge and waved us out.

“Okay, that’s enough for now. Gina needs some rest. She’ll be stronger in the morning. Take this discussion elsewhere and for heaven’s sake keep it down.”

We reconvened in the living room. Sylvia pulled out her iPad. Anabella, Bevy, and Zoe talked in whispers while I stared at the wall and processed everything. Gina Prensa was a godsend, but too many pieces were still missing.

I knew who created the virus: Pandora Blackwood.

I knew where they made it: Phage Molecular Sciences in Miami.

I knew how they unleashed it: virus-loaded $2 hot dogs from Hungo Hot Dogs in New Jersey.

I knew how and where they would strike next: virus-loaded pizza in downtown San Francisco.

I knew a way into their corporate structure: Bloodline Realty Group, LLC and a mysterious Swiss shell company.

I knew the vampires were not infallible: the collapse of their flawed virus scheme proved that.

I knew the vampires were not invulnerable: killing Lucian Bloodbane proved that beyond a doubt.

But I still didn’t know why Pandora Blackwood unleashed the zombie apocalypse. What did she gain by destroying Manhattan? What would she gain by destroying San Francisco? When would she strike? How could I stop her?

Sylvia interrupted my genius-level trance. Her voice trembled, and she clutched her signature four-strand pearl choker.

“John,” she said. “I figured out something about San Francisco.”

I love San Francisco. After leaving the orphanage, I lived with a bouquet of flower children in a seedy Haight-Ashbury flat. My personal LLC bought the entire block after I hit my first big score as an investment banker. We converted it to Airbnb and made a small fortune renting to nostalgic hippies. The good old days.

I shook my head to refocus.

“What is it, Sylvia?

She showed me a website on her iPad.

“San Francisco’s annual Walking Dead convention is coming up.”

“So what?” I snapped. “There’s no time for you to take another vacation. We’re too busy. And, honestly, I’ll never understand why you’re still into zombie cosplay. After Manhattan got wiped off the face of the Earth, it’s not cool anymore.”

Sylvia face-palmed.

“That’s not the point, John. Did you already forget? The annual Walking Dead convention provided cover for the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. The cops were too busy directing traffic and chasing drunken cosplayers. By the time they recognized the problem, it was too late, and they couldn’t stop the slaughter.”

I processed her reminder in silence. She was right, of course.

“When will the San Francisco convention kick off?”

“Five days.”

The room became deathly still, but my mind roared from information overload. Five days. Five days.

Back to basics. The secret to managing chaos is knowing your top priority. It’s one of my superpowers.

It was 3:00 a.m. We didn’t have much time.

“Anabella. Zoe. Call your friends. Cartel. Ex-CIA. Whatever.”

They raised a pair of quizzical eyebrows at me.

“We’re going on offense.”

Thirty

PMS

MIAMI IS HOME to the big cartels and hundreds of retired CIA contractors. The cartels hide behind tiny front companies in a dozen industry sectors, including pest control, landscaping, and Cuban coffee. The ex-contractors hide in the busy tourist sector, funding their golden years with cruise ship scams. The Miami cops are so busy arresting renegade librarians, they can’t find time to investigate.

Legislative priorities.

Zoe Rogue’s firm maintained a deep bench of ex-contractors, capable of handling anything from an unfaithful husband to a Caribbean coup d’état. She made one phone call. An EW specialist and a six-man fire team arrived an hour later, ready to rock and roll.

Not to be outdone, Anabella Busto called her favorite drug lord for a favor. He provided a U-Haul full of meth lab equipment, a pair of battered pest control vans, and six heavily tattooed sicarios dressed as termite technicians.

Thanks to Gina Prensa, we drive directly to Phage Molecular Sciences. It occupied a shitty low-rise building near Miami International Airport, on the other side of Hialeah Rail Yard in an industrial blight zone. Our grimy little convoy blended well with the big rigs and box trucks racing to serve America’s manufacturing and urgent logistical needs.

I jammed into a battered pest control van with the ex-contractors. Zoe rode with the termite technicians. Bevy and the EW specialist followed in the U-Haul. We zigzagged through nightmare traffic on West Okeechobee Road in a tight tactical formation. An ex-contractor played Ride of the Valkyries on his kazoo. It was like old times.

Combat always reminds me of a blind date: full of tension, adrenaline, and prayers to survive with your man-parts intact.

We paused in the Starbucks parking lot near Jackson West Medical Center, a few blocks from our target. Bevy conducted radio checks. I bought double espressos for both teams. Our EW specialist reconned the building using a DJI Dragonfly. His report encouraged me. Plenty of surveillance cameras, but no fence or guard house. He spotted multiple entrances, ample parking around the perimeter, and a fifty-yard setback to adjacent buildings.

Zoe and I hatched a dynamic entry plan. The team gathered in the parking lot for a final briefing. I gave them the full monty. Zombies. Vampires. Millions of dead in Manhattan. Hungo Hot Dogs. Phage Molecular Sciences. Live zombie virus.

Scary shit. I waited for the inevitable drop outs. Nobody moved. Cartel loyalty or the urge to augment a meager government pension guaranteed their commitment.

Time to close the deal.

“We’re searching for the next virus shipment,” I said. “We don’t know what that looks like or how it’s being stored. Our insider information says the company operates with a small cadre of scientists and lab techs. Based on the number of muscle cars and pickup trucks parked outside, we estimate ten contract security personnel on duty. Remember. These are evil fucking people. Worse than DEA. Worse than shortsellers. Worse than HR.”

We checked our weapons one last time and rolled onto the property. Bevy stayed behind in the U-Haul to monitor police bands and any sort of QRF movement. The EW specialist activated a Lockheed SkyScrambler 3000 anti-drone system that disrupted every surveillance and delivery drone in a one-mile radius. Sincerest apologies to Amazon’s local customers.

Our battered pest control vans parked close to the building. We laid low while the drivers stepped out, a slender ex-contractor in khaki overalls and a burly sicario in a pest control uniform. They deployed five-gallon PetraTools spray tanks and treated the foundation around the rear entrance.

Five minutes later, the door opened. A fat thug appeared, wearing a cheap polyester guard uniform with a cheap 9mm handgun on his belt. He watched them spray poison for a moment, then shouted over the noise of an Air Caraïbes 797 landing at Miami International.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”

A real genius.

The drivers looked at each other and shrugged. The tattooed termite technician shouted, “Termitas, señor.”

The fat thug waved them over.

“Show me your work order.”

The slender ex-contractor handed him a take-out menu from Altiplano Eats, a popular chain of Bolivian restaurants. The fat thug looked at the menu in confusion.

The ex-contractor shot him in the head with a silenced .22 caliber Margolin sport pistol. Our team exploded from the vans and piled into the building before the fat thug finished collapsing.

Zoe and I dragged his body inside and shut the door. We could already hear the flashbangs and a full-automatic shootout. I gripped my Mokuba wrecking bar and headed toward the loudest screams. Zoe followed, carrying a new Milkor six-shot 40mm grenade launcher and a bandoleer of extra rounds. The girl loved her toys.

Our team was easy to find. We simply followed the bloody trail of bullet-riddled bodies. The heart of the facility was stocked with advanced laboratory equipment and surrounded by thick glass walls. The airlock doors were open. Four sicarios carrying Chinese MP-10 knockoffs guarded a trio of pudgy, balding scientists in white lab coats. The prisoners trembled, and their eyes darted frantically between the MP-10 knockoffs and their two dead colleagues on the floor.

The sounds of battle faded and were replaced by crashing doors and shouts of “Clear” as our team maneuvered through the facility.

Zoe pointed at one the prisoners. A sicario dragged him from the lab into a small room nearby. Zoe winked at me and followed them, closing the door behind her.

I selected my own scientist and invaded his personal space, leaning into him until we were practically dating.

“Where is it?” I growled.

He puffed up his chest and tried to look tough.

“Where’s what?” he squeaked.

Without warning, I hit him in the solar plexus with my Mokuba wrecking bar. Hard. The air exploded from his lungs, and he collapsed into a tight fetal position, gasping for oxygen.

I turned on his colleague and growled again.

“Where is it?”

He flinched and pointed at a huge Labtron 5100 liquid nitrogen cryogenic freezer tank.

“Good boy. Open it.”

I kicked his fallen colleague in the face for emphasis. The sicarios grinned and nodded approvingly. Someone in the room with Zoe screamed like a tortured animal.

My new best friend scrambled for a set of insulated safety gloves and lab goggles. He opened the freezer hatch. A fog bank of white mist boiled out and rolled across the floor. I levitated straight up a full twelve inches. The sicarios flinched and cycled the bolts on their Chinese MP-10 knockoffs.

“It’s just liquid nitrogen,” my new friend exclaimed. “Not…uh, the other thing. You know, vampires.”

I returned to earth as the white mist disappeared. The sicarios remained alert. The scientist removed a pair of 4 qt. stainless steel thermo-flasks, dripping with liquid nitrogen that instantly turned into more white mist.

“Is that all of it?”

I smacked the Mokuba against my palm for emphasis.

“That’s all! We finished yesterday. It’s all here!”

“Have you shipped any of it yet?”

I kicked his fallen colleague in the face for emphasis. The sicarios grinned and nodded approvingly.

“No!” he shrieked. “It’s all here. Every drop. I swear!”

Satisfied for the moment, I ordered the sicarios to hogtie both scientists and watch them carefully.

I radioed Bevy and asked if it was safe to bring up the U-Haul. She confirmed and added that the police bands were all quiet.

“Normal afternoon police business. Four shootings and an armed robbery. SWAT is busy arresting a 75-year-old librarian with a copy of Orwell’s 1984. We’re all good, for now.”

Three of Zoe’s ex-contractors appeared, leading a badly bruised young man in a blue lab coat.

“This guy is a repairman,” said one of the ex-contractors. “Found him hiding in a big room labeled ‘Production.’ He claims the PMS scientists developed the zombie bacteria, not him. All he did was service the bacteriophage propagation line, whatever the hell that is.”

“A phage is not a bacterium,” muttered the young man.

The ex-contractor smacked his head and told him to shut up.

The lab tech joined his hog-tied colleagues. The sicarios added a few more prisoners captured in other departments. The ex-contractors collected computer drives and documents. Bevy and the EW specialist backed the U-Haul up to the door. The team unpacked the meth lab and installed it beside the bacteriophage propagation line, whatever the hell that was. The EW specialist destroyed the CCTV security equipment, took the video files, and erased all the cloud backups.

Zoe emerged from her private consultation, dragging the third scientist by his remaining ear. He looked a little worse for wear, but at least he still had all his fingers and most of his toes.

“What did he give you, other than body parts?” I asked.

“He said the virus is stored in a laboratory freezer. Nothing’s been shipped yet. Two big bottles. Almost 8 liters.”

“How much is that in American?”

Zoe sighed. “Two gallons. That’s two big thermos bottles.”

“Yeah, that’s what my guy said. We found it. So, I think we’re done here. Let’s get ready to roll.”

We made a final sweep of the facility, looking for clues we might have missed. I took a Phage Molecular Science coffee mug as a souvenir. Spoils of war.

The sicarios crammed their prisoners into the U-Haul, except for two of them. Zoe wanted a couple of spares for additional interrogation. The rest of them enjoyed a tour of Everglades National Park and its endless population of hungry alligators.

The ex-contractors pulled four jerrycans from the pest control trucks and drenched the building with 20 gallons of gasoline. Zoe wanted to light it up with her new toy, the Milkor grenade launcher. I canceled that plan in favor of a time-delay fuse that would let us get far away before things heated up.

“I know you love a big bang, but that’s not appropriate here.”

“Party pooper,” she muttered.

I ignored her complaint and rigged a couple of lilac-scented aromatherapy candles and gasoline-filled latex gloves. One in the lab and one in the production room.

I was the last man to leave the battlefield. Before we rolled out, a sicario tagged the door with a strange icon in red spray paint.

“El escudo familiar,” he smiled.

I looked at Zoe. She shrugged.

“The family coat of arms.”

We piled into the vans and drove away, carefully obeying the speed limit until we were on West Okeechobee Road, where nobody pays attention to any traffic laws at all. Half an hour later, the sicarios left us on West Flagler, near the Miami River. I shook hands all around and promised to send Christmas cards.

We found a nice table at a little outdoor café and waited for Sylvia. The adrenaline was still pumping, so I opened my FanDuel account and relaxed with a few fat bets on heavy MLB favorites. It’s a gambling strategy that never lets me down.

Zoe interrupted.

“Hey. Look at that.”

She pointed behind me.

I turned around and looked toward the blood-red sunset.

There was a mile-high column of black smoke.

Thirty One

Tingle, Tingle Little Star

SYLVIA DROVE US straight to our emergency quarters at the Fontainebleau Hotel. My executive suite was delightful. Modern and spacious with a hint of French provincial. I’m a simple man. Sylvia knows what I like.

Anabella Busto and Bevy Bellaseno took adjoining suites and left the connecting doors open. Ronnie Numero, Jane Austen, and Anjali Khan shared a five-bedroom beach house at the other end of the property. Ronnie and Jane hadn’t seen Anjali in almost a year. Much tea would be spilled.

The girls descended on the hotel’s beauty parlor late in the afternoon and restored their salon-fresh looks. We gathered in the hotel’s rooftop restaurant for a sunset dinner. It was another beautiful Miami evening with a crisp ocean breeze that quickly dispelled the late afternoon heat. The stimulating company of four ravishing women in scanty sun dresses made me forget all my problems, except one.

The problem I couldn’t forget was the constant tingle in my spine. The past week with the curvaceous duo of Bevy and Anabella had been challenging. Anjali’s arrival sent me into overdrive. Her ginger-orange body lotion, flashing dark eyes, and Pilates-toned legs broke the tingle meter. I shook my head to refocus, over and over again. To this day, I don’t remember what we talked about.

After dinner, a well-built waitress in a black lace bustier brought us a complimentary round of Peinado brandy and a box of Cohibas. The girls wrinkled their perfect noses when we lit the cigars. They marched off to invade the little Chanel store in the hotel lobby, leaving me alone with Ronnie. The tingling in my spine lingered long after Anjali disappeared from view.

Ronnie watched as I struggled to regain my composure, puffing on a cigar and brooding over the brandy.

“Are you alright, John?” he asked. “Your head shook so much at dinner I thought you were having a convulsion.”

Ronnie knew me well enough to unravel any lie I might spin. That’s what happens when manly men survive an apocalypse together. Market meltdowns. Zombie hordes. The Dan Snyder years. Adversity builds a transcendental bond. So I told him the truth.

“I don’t know. Something’s wrong, and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“You got another brain worm?”

“No, that’s been fixed. This is different. There’s a tingling. It’s like…well, it’s like having a grade school crush on a pretty girl, but multiplied by ten thousand. It’s not one beautiful woman, it’s all of them. I’m struggling to contain myself.”

“Maybe you’re having a rebound moment after getting dumped by Susie Golden when she got that big promotion.”

“Could be,” I admitted. “Susie did have the same tingling effect on me. My shrink says the life-and-death struggle with the zombie apocalypse unleashed a serious latent desire to connect with her. After we broke up, I worked through my abandonment issues with a licensed in-person sex therapist.”

Ronnie sipped his brandy and looked pensive.

“Hmm…well, let’s count the vampire armageddon as a life-and-death struggle. Maybe the stress unleashed a latent desire to connect with other beautiful woman.”

“But that’s the fundamental latent desire of any manly man: to connect with every hot babe he sees. My problem is on a different level. Our brains evolved for the survival of the species. Women know this, and they leverage our hardwiring to keep mankind in check. You know I’m right. I saw you checking out Bevy Bellaseno.”

Ronnie shifted in his seat.

“Let’s not make everything about me, John. You’ve always been distracted by hot women. I get it. What’s different this time?”

“Because it’s happening constantly, and the tingling is too strong. I can’t refocus. Tonight, for example, sitting next to Anjali. It felt like sitting on a taser, but in a good way.”

“So that’s why you were shaking your head so much? To refocus?”

I nodded.

“With all the others, too?”

“Yes, especially Albina Aldana. She’s the worst. I couldn’t function during our introductory client meeting until Sylvia fed me a double espresso. The mere mention of Albina’s name turns my tingle meter all the way up to eleven.”

I adjusted my white linen slacks and shook my head to refocus.

“That’s when it first hit you?”

“Yeah, the night I met Albina Aldana. The tingling exploded when she walked into the room, and it never stopped.”

“I suppose that might be a coincidence, but let’s assume there’s a correlation. If so, the next question is whether the phenomenon was triggered by the stress of the vampire armageddon or by Albina Aldana herself. If the latter, then we might logically expect Sylvia to be affected as well, since she was in the same meeting. If the former…”

At that point, Ronnie dove down a rabbit hole of fallacies and syllogisms as he worked the problem. He sketched flowcharts and Venn diagrams on a napkin. My eyes glazed over.

The well-built cocktail waitress reappeared. A powerful tingle seized my spine when she leaned over Ronnie’s shoulder to refill his brandy glass. The plunging black lace bustier grabbed my brain like a terrier with a rat.

I adjusted my white linen slacks and shook my head to refocus.

Ronnie stared at me in disbelief.

“Houston, we have a problem,” he muttered.

Thirty Two

After Midnight

THE GIRLS LOOTED the Chanel store and retired to the five-bedroom beach house with armloads of merchandise for an impromptu fashion show. Ronnie figured a late-evening filled with French swimwear would involve too much tingling for me, so we graciously declined an invitation to join them.

Ronnie and I talked on the rooftop for another hour, but came no closer to solving my problem. When the last customer departed, the restaurant staff cleaned up, and we retired to my executive suite for a nightcap. Ronnie ordered me into a cold shower while he whipped up a couple of classic Manhattans for us.

The full-body spray jets were sharp, icy cold, and thoroughly enjoyable. Totally out of character for me. My hatred for a cold shower burns with the fire of a thousand suns, probably because the orphanage was too cheap to buy a water heater.

I toweled dry, slipped into a fluffy white terrycloth robe, and joined Ronnie in the living room. He was flaked on the couch with his Manhattan and a can of Blue Diamond salted almonds. CNN Breaking News streamed on a 99-inch Samsung Quantum OLED television. The young reporter was happier than a Labrador with a new green tennis ball.

“Police and fire units responded to a five-alarm blaze in Miami and were shocked to discover a massive meth lab disguised as a local biotech company. Investigators found evidence suggesting the operation belonged to one of Miami’s most dangerous drug cartels. A forensic investigation will determine if the fire was accidental or started by a rival drug gang. Miami-Dade EMTs pulled ten bullet-riddled bodies from the smoking ruins, so this ace reporter is betting it was no accident. Back to you, Anderson.”

Ronnie nodded approvingly. “That was the extra equipment in the U-Haul, right? The stuff you left behind?”

“Yeah, Zoe’s friends sold her a surplus meth cooker, and we installed it next to the bacteriophage system. You know, the stuff for growing the zombie bacteria.”

“A phage is not a bacterium,” muttered Ronnie.

The doorbell bonged softly as Ronnie made a second round of classic Manhattans.

“I’ll get it,” he winked. “That’s probably Bevy and Anabella, looking for you. The competition is fierce with these two.”

The thought of Bevy and Anabella on a late-night Doublemint booty call ignited the tingle again. I finished my drink and shook my head to refocus. It didn’t work.

Ronnie came back. He was not alone.

“John? There’s someone here to see you.”

A subtle, musky scent washed over me and suppressed my ability to form coherent thoughts. My spine tingled. The empty cocktail glass slipped from my nerveless fingers and landed on the lush carpeting with a soft thud. I turned my head toward the door.

It was Albina Aldana.

Thirty Three

Repeat Business

ALBINA WAS WRAPPED in another stunning Balenciaga creation, a daring red-sequined evening gown that highlighted all the right stuff and left little to the imagination. My white terrycloth robe twitched to the edge of a manly wardrobe malfunction.

She perched beside me on the couch and crossed her well-toned legs, revealing an explosive pair of black La Perla fishnets and the latest Jimmy Choo stilettos. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled, and her ruby-red lips smiled at my weakened condition.

“Mr. Numero, could you bring John an espresso, please? He needs a clear head for this conversation. Bombay Sapphire on the rocks for me, please. With a double twist.”

She tucked an errant strand of platinum hair behind one ear with a gesture that weakened my knees.

“I’ll make his a triple,” Ronnie said.

Albina sat so close that I could feel her body heat radiating through the sequins. She smiled and flirted with me until Ronnie returned, carrying the largest espresso I’ve ever seen.

The coffee worked its magic, although my white terrycloth robe remained in a precarious state. I placed a large throw pillow on my lap. Albina giggled. She was damn near irresistible.

“John, you’re a hard man to find. I left messages everywhere. Why didn’t you return my calls?” she pouted.

“Because there was nothing to say. You’re paying for results, not updates or progress reports.”

“Did it ever occur to you I might talk about something else? Anyway, you surely have something for me by now. It’s been a full week.”

“Hey, this hasn’t been easy. I’m an investment banker, not a detective. I told you that at the beginning.”

Albina dismissed my objections with a wave of her elegantly manicured hand. A fresh wave of scent washed over me.

“You’re the perfect man for this job. So, what do you have? Give me the executive summary. I’m hosting a charity gala this evening.”

She adjusted her plunging neckline and sparkling Casa Damiani diamond necklace. Tendrils of her subtle, musky scent coiled around me like a steel vise.

I gulped the rest of the espresso and shook my head to refocus.

““Here’s the bottom line.” I croaked. “Pandora Blackwood is responsible for the Manhattan zombie apocalypse.”

Albina was surprised. Shocked, even.

“Pandora? How can that be? She’s a friend of mine. Well, a casual acquaintance on the cocktail circuit at least. She’s based in Miami and governs one of the minor tribes. What makes you think Pandora was somehow involved?”

I summarized the key evidence. Hungo Hot Dogs. SciCo. Gator Gomez. The pillage of Phage Molecular Sciences. Albina listened intently, her astonishment and distress growing with every revelation.

“Pandora would never do this. She knows her place in the hierarchy. You must be wrong. It can’t be her.”

“I asked Lucian Bloodbane. He confirmed it.”

“Ridiculous. Lucian Bloodbane is Pandora’s right-hand man. He would never do such a thing. I will speak with him tonight at the gala. I’m sure he can explain.”

I shrugged.

“Then you’ll need to bring a psychic. He’s dead.”

Albina’s ice-blue eyes opened wide.

“Dead? Impossible. You must be mistaken.”

“He attacked me in New Jersey after my visit to Hungo Hot Dogs. Attempted murder or kidnapping, I’m not sure which. I escaped, found him in Miami, and killed him last night. His buddy, Sven Blodtörst, is also dead, but that’s not my fault.”

Albina was speechless.

“There’s more,” I said. “Two vampires attacked me. I think Lucian sent them. Tall. Handsome. Armani suits. Euro-trash haircuts.”

“Euro-trash haircuts? Those are Lucian’s business partners. I’ll speak with them tonight at the gala.”

“Mmm…no. Not tonight. Not any night, in fact. They’re dead. I killed them both.”

Albina sat back in astonishment. Ronnie brought another Bombay Sapphire on the rocks, with a twist. She recovered her composure, and I pressed her to accept the truth of everything she had learned.

“You can’t fight the Fed. The evidence points straight at Pandora and her Miami vampires. There’s no reason for me to lie about Lucian or his dead thugs. You could check that information too easily. In any case, we have physical evidence that confirms it.”

Ronnie produced Lucian’s diamond stud and Maserati keys.

Albina frowned.

“Lucian and his partners bought those studs last year. So tacky. Typical sort of thing the minor tribes do. Pierced ears. Tattoos. And, of course, Euro-trash haircuts.”

After that, Albina pressed me like a suspicious second wife until she ruled out every other possible explanation for the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Ronnie kept feeding me double espressos, and I stuck to my guns. Once satisfied, her next line of questioning shifted to Pandora’s mysterious motive.

“I understand her effort to overthrow the non-profit entity. This is not the first attempted coup by a minor tribe. They lack the money and power of the major tribes, so the entity’s restrictions are irksome, especially when it comes to…uh, hunting. But when her AB-negative product failed, why did she unleash it on Manhattan? Why would they want to attack San Francisco? After a certain point, they’ll shrink the blood supply, and their efforts become counter-productive.”

Albina probed me cautiously, hiding her concern that Pandora’s tribe might reap a profit that Albina’s tribe would not share. Millions of dead Manhattanites were not the issue. She was subtle, but thanks to Dr. Stonjohn’s dissertation, I read her like an open book. It was time for a new chapter.

“Not part of our deal, Albina. You hired me to discover who unleashed the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. It was Pandora Blackwood. If you want to know how she profited, and how she might gain from wiping out San Francisco, that’s a different engagement.”

Albina smiled, fluttered her long blonde eyelashes, and gently stroked my cheek with a perfect red fingernail. My spine erupted, and Ronnie handed me another double espresso.

“You’re right, John. My confidence in your abilities has been rewarded. I owe you that $250 million success fee. Let’s continue the investigation and learn how Pandora profited from this….uh, tragedy. Shall we say the same terms: $250 million upfront now and $250 million upon successful completion?”

“No,” I said firmly. “It’s not about money anymore. Pandora killed my friends, along with a lot of other people. Granted, many of them were Wall Street bankers, so maybe that’s not a big loss, but ordinary folks suffered too. She has to pay.”

Much to my surprise, Albina didn’t protest.

“Perfectly understandable. My world has a long history of blood feuds. I will help you destroy Pandora. She’s a hard woman, but I have a feeling you’re a harder man.”

Ronnie snickered at the transparent flattery.

“No,” I said again. “Not only Pandora. I want the whole tribe. They’re too dangerous for my world and, if you’re being honest with yourself, they’re too dangerous for you, too. I killed three of Pandora’s top lieutenants and annihilated her R&D department. Once they discover who hired me, they’ll launch a vendetta against your people. Vampires. Tribe. Whatever. You need me, and I need you.”

Albina sipped her drink. My proposal presented serious challenges. Destroying an entire tribe would not be easy and could trigger competing tribes to unite against her. A war of all against all. The non-profit entity might join them. That Leviathan thing.

On the other hand, if the attack developed as human revenge for the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, the other tribes might accept the event as a normal consequence. A blood debt to be repaid. My global fame as the Hero of Manhattan would make me the natural leader of such a righteous effort.

“I’ve never liked Pandora,” she mused. “Nobody does. A golden opportunity, perhaps.”

“So, do we have a deal?”

“Yes. I’m in. Now tell me your plan.”

I picked up the latest Miami Tatler and opened the calendar page. One date was circled in red.

Miami Fashion Week.

Thirty Four

Top of the Pyramid

ALBINA WIRED my $250 million success fee and rushed off to her charity gala. The joy in my soul departed with her. The tingling subsided, and I slumped on the couch.

“Wow!” said Ronnie. “She’s a real piece of work. Dangerous.”

“I think we’re one step ahead at this point. She’s focused on the opportunity to crush Pandora Blackwood. We’ll be safe, as long as we’re still valuable.”

Ronnie retired for the night, but the tanker truck of double espressos kept me awake. I shuffled aimlessly through the stacks of corporate documents accumulated by the interns. Anjali Khan and Ronnie organized everything into a reasonably understandable configuration of shell companies and offshore accounts, but they still lacked the master key to unlock the puzzle box.

I lost track of time, and the sun was peeking over the horizon when I heard a noise from the adjacent suite. Anabella Busto walked through the connecting door. She was wearing white Lululemon booty shorts and a tight black tank top.

I gritted my teeth and tried to suppress the tingling.

“Good morning, John,” she chirped. “I was on my way downstairs for a hot yoga class when I got a call from Doug Blick at the American Bankers Association. He’s a real charmer.”

“Yeah, and more importantly, he knows the global financial industry inside and out. What did he tell you?”

“The Swiss shell company and Bloodline’s bank in Jamaica are connected. He clawed through ten layers to find the link. It’s another Jamaican LLC, operating under the name Dark Harbor Bank.”

“Does Dark Harbor own the firm that owns the offshore bank that owns the shell company that owns Bloodline Realty? The corporate trail you found in Gator’s files?”

“Yes, but only after you penetrate Blick’s other ten layers. Dark Harbor Bank sits at the top of the pyramid, or close to it.”

“Did he discover anything else about it?”

“Almost nothing. Pandora Blackwood owns the vast majority of the Dark Harbor shares. Two other guys own tiny fractional shares. One of them is our compulsive little Miami drunk, Gator Gomez. The other is a Jamaican lawyer, probably required to meet a local ownership mandate for service of process, sort of like Gator does. His name is Solomon Akoni.”

My heart jumped. Solomon Akoni was the criminal lawyer who helped me escape a homicide beef in Jamaica, long ago but never forgotten. A lowlife drug dealer killed my business partner in Montego Bay. Police found the dealer floating face down in the Alligator River. They made me the prime suspect, but Solomon got me out of jail and out of the country.

“Solomon was my friend. I think he came to see me in Manhattan on the first day of the apocalypse. He died at DCH Tower, our corporate headquarters. He hated New York, so I can’t imagine any other reason he would have been there.”

I didn’t tell Anabella how Solomon died, zombified and at the business end of my Callaway 9-iron in a musty underground parking garage. Another piece of Pandora’s blood debt to be paid.

Anabella gave me a hug.

“So sorry to hear that, John. I know that was a terrible time for you. Do you think Solomon came to Manhattan because of Dark Harbor Bank? You know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“There’s only one way to find out. I’m going to Jamaica.”

“Should I tell Sylvia to warm up your ElectroJet? Do you want me to come along and help?”

“No private jets this time. I can’t risk the possibility that Pandora and her vampire assassins are still on our trail. They almost killed us at Bevy’s first safe house, and I’m not sure they haven’t tracked us here to the Fontainebleau Hotel. Albina Aldana sure as hell found us easily enough. That’s a little scary.”

I gave Anabella a quick recap of Albina’s midnight visit.

“Wow,” she said. “Never thought I’d say this, but that’s one executive meeting I regret missing. If you don’t want to risk using the jet, how will you reach Jamaica?”

I grinned.

“Pirates, of course.”

Thirty Five

Jamaican Customs

CAPTAIN RENN MCDORMACK and the famous two-masted pirate schooner Mistress anchored a mile offshore from the Fontainebleau Hotel. After nightfall, I slipped downstairs, ran across the private beach, and dog-paddled out to meet them.

The Mistress was one of my favorite business trips when I worked at Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. Captain McDormack and his curvaceous all-girl crew sailed between the best Caribbean tax havens on a regular basis, carrying compromised passengers and dirty cash. DCH was a regular customer. A single phone call confirmed the Mistress would be available for charter after the stealthy delivery of a Nigerian banker with business in Miami but SEC warrants at the airport. No questions asked.

The Captain welcomed me aboard with a big towel and a bottle of Guinness, then barked orders at the curvaceous crew to set sail. On a normal trip, I would have remained on deck to watch them hoist the anchor in their French bikinis, but this time I hustled below to the luxurious guest cabin.

The Captain joined me an hour later with another Guinness. Contrary to my usual custom, I insisted on giving him a complete briefing. He risked his ship and crew to rescue a survivor from the Staten Island Ferry when it was overrun by Manhattan zombies and obliterated by an anti-ship missile. He deserved the whole truth about my dangerous mission.

McDormack didn’t bat an eye. He was the last true pirate, a role model for investment bankers everywhere. After sailing the Seven Seas a hundred times over, nothing frightened him anymore. Mermaids. Sirens. Zombies. He vanquished all. Arghh, me hearties.

Thanks to a fair wind and a fast ship, we made landfall in four days. The Mistress traveled under strict radio and cell phone silence, so there wasn’t much for me to do except lounge decorously on the poop deck in my black Speedo, breathing the salt air and soaking up the Caribbean sunshine. The combination proved to be effective therapy for my mysterious tingling affliction; by the third morning I could flirt with the entire bikini-clad crew, nary a tingle in sight.

As we approached Jamaica’s territorial waters, the crew cleared the smuggler’s hold behind a false panel in the galley. The Mistress maintained good relations with the Jamaican Coast Guard, but the Captain didn’t stay out of prison by taking foolish chances.

When we reached the 12-mile limit, the crow’s nest reported a Vindicator-class patrol boat on an intercept course. The Captain gave orders to strike the sails. The bodacious first mate locked me into the hold with a warning to stay quiet, no matter what. The Mistress slowed to a halt. Big-diesel engine throb penetrated the hull as the patrol boat drew alongside.

The Jamaican skipper’s bullhorn was loud and clear. Prepare to be boarded. Captain McDormack replied with his own bullhorn, telling the skipper where to stick his boarding party. This triggered raucous laughter and a lively exchange of Jamaican vulgarities.

I heard movement and peeked through a small crack in the false panel. A curvaceous crew member opened a cabinet and extracted a heavy black duffle bag, which she rushed up the companionway. This was followed by shouts of wonderment and gratitude from the Jamaicans. The Captain was apparently extra generous on this trip.

The diesels roared and soon faded in the distance. The Mistress set sail, and half an hour later, I was sunbathing on the poop deck with a Mai Tai. A buxom boatswain in a tiny Sézane bikini rubbed coconut oil on my fully ripped torso.

So far, so good.

Thirty Six

GoldenEye

THE MISTRESS DROPPED ANCHOR at sundown, half a mile off the private beaches of the GoldenEye Hotel & Resort. Captain McDormack sent me ashore in a Zodiac inflatable with a pair of gorgeous deckhands and a black duffle stuffed with cash. He said I could borrow the cash, but not the deckhands.

GoldenEye has always been my favorite Jamaican hotel, in part because it’s the most luxurious resort on the island, but mostly because Ian Fleming wrote fourteen James Bond novels there. I’m a big fan of the pre-AI classics. Ian Fleming. Elmore Leonard. Dashiell Hammett. Those guys wrote with soul, not silicon.

The desk clerk recognized me immediately. He didn’t blink at my borrowed cargo shorts, garish vacation shirt, and ill-fitting Jesus sandals. He gave me a private cottage hidden in the beachfront coconut grove. I paid for three nights, adding a $50,000 tip for the short notice. He promised to send the old lady tailor right away.

I called room service for a late dinner of jerk chicken, coleslaw, and an ice-cold Red Stripe. The old lady tailor arrived soon afterward to update my measurements and discuss wardrobe options for my visit. As she was leaving, I gave her two bricks of crisp hundreds and asked for her daughter to meet me in the morning.

The cool white sheets, king-size bed, and warm Jamaican night were a wonderful tonic for two weeks of extreme tension. Investment banking is a stressful occupation, and we do need our downtime. That’s why Sylvia was encouraging me to acquire an ultra-yacht. I could work and unwind at the same time, while claiming everything as a business deduction. Gotta love the tax code. It’s made for you and me. Well, mostly me. And my friends, of course.

A brown paper package, tied with blue ribbon, arrived early in the morning. Loose linen slacks, colorful Egyptian cotton beach shirt, and a pair of canvas shoes with rope soles. Jamaica shared the California commando trend, and I decided to blend with the local culture. The morning air felt unusually free and easy.

Aaliyah parked outside my cottage in a rusty black Toyota RAV-4. She was the old lady tailor’s youngest child, an island beauty with four strapping brothers. Her casual denim shorts, sexy white crop top, and come-hither smile would disarm any rude boy in a heartbeat. If that didn’t work, she carried pepper spray on her belt and a fully-licensed Walther PPK in her pocket. My favorite island tour guide.

The drive to Kingston took almost two hours. Aaliyah’s musical voice kept me entertained with tales of rich American tourists who discovered that Jamaica is not the island paradise portrayed in travel brochures. Her stories were hilarious, but I knew she was also warning me about our destination. Crime-ridden Tivoli Gardens is not for the fainthearted.

We crawled through the chaotic traffic to a large, well-kept bungalow that stood out amidst the squalor of Spanish Town Road. A matching pair of heavily-armed street toughs stood outside to deter beggars and provide advance warning of police raids. Aaliyah bounced the old RAV-4 onto the curb and jumped out, hands empty and palms up. The heat and stench of Kingston’s crushing poverty poured into the car.

She spoke to the street toughs for a few minutes, arguing and occasionally pointing at me. One of them knocked on the bungalow door and exchanged words with an elderly maid in a black and white uniform. She peered at me and stepped back inside.

A few minutes later, the aging butler emerged and waved to me. Aaliyah stayed with the car and the street toughs. They were already eating out of her hand.

Thick white masonry walls and a robust double-Roman red tile roof kept the bungalow dark and cool. Heavy construction moderates the fierce Caribbean sun and provides protection against RPGs, always desirable features in Kingston real estate.

The butler led me to the inner courtyard, a scented oasis of colorful tropical foliage with a fish pond and tinkling waterfall. A slender, elegant woman of a certain age waited for me at a small café table with two chairs. She spoke to the butler in a rich Jamaican patois and told him to bring coffee and small cakes.

It was Solomon’s widow, Mavis Akoni.

“Wah gwaan, John. Gud tuh si yu. Long time.”

“Thanks, I’m sorry that I haven’t been around.”

She waved away my apology.

“Not a problem, mahn. I know Jamaica be complicated for you. Murder warrants dey don’t expire here.”

We talked about the old days, sipping strong Blue Mountain coffee and nibbling the small cakes. Mavis knew about the murder rap Solomon handled for me, back in the day. I appreciated his sharp legal work and the generous hospitality Mavis extended until I could leave the country. Solomon struggled as a young lawyer, so they didn’t have much to share. I owed them a lot.

“You’re more than welcome, John. And mi tank di lord every day for di work you sent to Solomon after that. We built a nice business tanks to the cred he gained from representing a big American banksta. He reps all di rich boys now. Well, until he passed, that is.”

Mavis touched her eye and sniffled when she mentioned Solomon’s death. As a deeply religious woman, his fall in the godless zombie apocalypse weighed heavily on her heart. I consoled her as best I could, explaining how he died as a zombie at my hands while I fought to save the living.

“I’m glad it twas you, John. And I’m glad he’s good and truly gone, not stumbling around the city with di other devilish undead.” She shuddered at the thought.

“Mavis, what brought Solomon to Manhattan? Did he come to see me? He wasn’t on my calendar.”

“Yes, he was dere to see you, but he not tell me why. It was important. Him did very worry bout sup’m. Fearful, me say. There was a file he wanted to show you. He give me a copy.”

Mavis gestured to the aging butler, who nodded and glided away.

“A file? What was in it?”

“Nearly nuhting. A corporate registration paper. He handled dozens like dat. Hundreds. Mi don’t si nuhting special bout it.”

The butler returned and handed her a thin red folder. Mavis glanced inside and gave it to me.

The document bore an elaborate official seal from the Florida Division of Corporations, attesting to the creation of Pandora’s Box, LLC, a bank holding company entirely owned by Pandora Blackwood. The Law Office of Solomon Akoni was listed for service of process in Jamaica. Gator Gomez was listed for service in Florida. The company listed only one asset.

Dark Harbor Bank.

Thirty Seven

Organic Farming

THE CURVACEOUS CREW of the Mistress expressed deep disappointment when I canceled our return voyage, but the need for haste outweighed their desire to see my black Speedo again. I wasn’t worried. Captain McDormack suppressed more than one mutiny during his many years at sea.

Mavis Akoni arranged for a fancy new Cigarette 915 to pick me up from the GoldenEye and drop me at a private dock in Key Largo before sunrise. The voyage was a lot like me: fast and rough. Four in-board Mercury racing engines made it incredibly loud. Electric boats are fun, but when you absolutely have to get somewhere in a hurry, nothing beats 100-octane petrol.

I tried to give the pilot a brick of crisp hundreds when we arrived, but he graciously declined.

“Fi Miss Mavis, der is no charge, mahn.”

Zoe waited for me with Lucian Bloodbane’s Maserati MC80. She insisted on taking me to the bespoke pizza sauce manufacturer in Immokalee rather than returning to Miami.

“There’s something you’ve got to see with your own eyes.”

That’s all she would say.

We reached our destination an hour later and skidded to a dusty halt in the gravel parking lot of Florida Pizza Sauce, LLC. According to my executive FitBit, I was a few seconds younger, thanks to the time dilation effects of relativistic travel. The Maserati lived up to the manufacturer’s specifications.

A familiar U-Haul and a pair of armored Range Rovers sat near a small administration building. Bullet-riddled bodies decorated the front stoop. Spent shell casings twinkled everywhere.

One of Zoe’s ex-CIA contractors motioned to us. We followed him through the creep-show blood sunrise, past lush tomato fields and long factory sheds. Processing. Canning. Shipping.

He opened the big sliding door on an unmarked fourth shed. The front section contained a well-equipped laboratory and a pair of terrified scientists. The room buzzed with homicidal tension.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did you find another jug of the virus? I thought we got it all.”

“You did,” said a grim voice.

I turned with a smile. It was Dr. John Bardeen.

“What the hell are you doing here? You should be in the lab at Princeton torturing your grad students.”

“I finished my work. Sylvia asked me to come down and address an issue in Miami. Your delightful friend Zoe suggested I should see this. You have to see it too.”

Zoe gestured at a steel door leading to the back. I followed her into a large open area, subdivided into small cages built from yellow pine 2x4s and chain-link fencing, dimly illuminated by a string of 3-watt LEDs. It looked and smelled like a Fallout 4 raider camp.

The stench was overwhelming. A low, constant chittering sound made my hair stand up. Déjà vu all over again.

My eyes adjusted to the weak lighting. The cages were full of women. Zombies. They were chained to sturdy wooden chairs and had IV catheters in their arms.

“What the ever-loving fuck is this?” I muttered.

Zoe grunted. “Never seen a dairy farm?”

Her terse comment unlocked an epiphany that fried my brain.

When Pandora’s failed virus created AB-negative zombies instead of healthy human donors, she pivoted to zombie blood farming. When the zombie blood turned out to be dangerous for vampires, she pivoted again and used the virus to destroy Manhattan.

I was speechless.

Zoe looked at Bardeen. He shook his head in a sad, defeated gesture.

“There’s more. Follow me.”

Bardeen guided me through the shed, past scores of writhing zombies, to a cluttered tool bench and a large set of well-stocked shelving units at the far end.

“Most of this stuff is equipment for handling the zombies or tapping their blood. But we found something else.”

He kicked a plastic storage tub on the floor. An ex-contractor popped the lid. It was jammed full of wallets and purses. Zoe picked one up and handed it to me.

“According to our scientist friends, these people were snatched in Florida two years ago by vampires or the humans working for them.”

“Humans working for them? What the fuck? Under a compulsion?”

“No, not according to our scientist friends. Most of these human scumbags simply wanted the money.”

I turned the wallet in my hand, thinking of all the shattered lives in that plastic tub. Granted, they were Floridians, but still…

“John, there’s something worse.”

“What?” I snapped at her. “How could it get worse? This is Nazi-level depravity. Nobody voted for this.”

She looked at Bardeen. He shrugged.

Zoe sighed. “You’re not gonna like it. As best we can tell, every victim had one thing in common.”

“What? Spit it out.”

“They grabbed single moms. Everybody naturally assumed the moms got fed up with their kids and ran away. The cops are overwhelmed by the renegade librarian problem, so they rarely bother with missing persons anymore. Single moms fall through the cracks. Smart strategy. Sick, but smart.”

Words failed me.

I know the world teems with evil. Enemy combatants planting IEDs under the latrine. Realtors selling houses built on old uranium mines. Internet TV bundles. I get that.

But this went far beyond evil. It was wickedness incarnate. Pandora targeted single moms, the most precious part of our humanity ever since caveman times. In fact, marriage evolved from the one-night stand, so men would stick around and serve the moms while they raised the next generation. Even worse, Pandora’s depravity created a legion of new orphans. My brain boiled.

Zoe punched my arm.

“Stay frosty. We gotta deal with this. Let’s talk to our new friends.”

I picked up a framing hammer from the tool bench. My anger surged with each step through the milking barn. We reentered the laboratory. When the scientists saw the rage in my eyes and the hammer in my hand, they began whimpering. One of them lost control of his bladder, and a yellow stain appeared on his lab coat.

Zoe smiled. She was having fun.

“Introduce me,” I growled.

“Call them Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They’re in charge. Aren’t you, boys?”

The scientists protested immediately.

“No! We’re worker bees. Pandora Blackwood is in charge. It was her idea. She told us what to do. We followed orders, that’s all.”

John Bardeen laughed. “You chaps graduated from Harvard, right?”

The scientists looked puzzled.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Spotting a Harvard man is easy. Your strong moral compass always gives you away.”

Enough talking. I smashed a computer monitor with my framing hammer. The scientists levitated straight up a full twelve inches. I raised the hammer again and stepped forward to end my misery.

Zoe stopped me with a gentle hand on my brawny arm.

“We have a better idea. They can make amends for what they did. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, boys?”

“Yes! Anything!” The scientists nodded eagerly.

“Dr. Bardeen, the floor is yours.”

Bardeen shifted into tenured professor mode and launched a rambling discourse about the tissue samples from Hungo Hot Dogs in New Jersey. The scientists listened carefully as he walked through his research process, describing how the bacteriophages were genetically modified to attack the ABO gene on chromosome 9, which controls blood type. They were impressed.

Everything bounced off my brain and left no lasting mark. I nodded occasionally and concentrated on keeping my eyes from glazing over. It was the only way to stay awake until Bardeen reached his main point. Always voluble, he became even more long-winded during his year at Princeton, delivering three-hour lectures to captive classes of desperate grad students.

Ten minutes later, he stopped rambling. That was my cue.

“So, what’s the bottom line?”

“I’ve developed a prototype vaccine against the zombie virus. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee will make fine test subjects.”

The scientists shrieked in protest. Dangerous. Unfair. Testing on convicts should come first. Take him, not me.

The idea was intriguing, but I had questions.

“How could you develop a vaccine so fast? You’ve hardly had a full week to work on this.”

“Vaccine development is surprisingly quick and easy with the latest mRNA technology, viral vectors, and quantum cryo-electron microscopy. There’s a reason I chose Princeton over some Florida beach bunny college.”

It was hard to believe anyone would chose a well-equipped laboratory over a well-equipped Florida beach bunny, but Bardeen was British. All that tea does something to them.

“Most of the delay with new vaccines is the exhaustive human testing required by the FDA. It can take years to line up the first test subjects. My doctoral candidates would volunteer if I promised extra credit, but there’s no need to wait. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are available right now. For free.”

The scientists squawked again.

His idea was growing on me.

“What about your Hippocratic Oath? Didn’t you swear to do no harm? If you test an experimental drug on an unwilling subject, won’t the medical board take away your license?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” he said. “You can’t take away a someone’s PhD unless you prove ChatGPT wrote their dissertation.”

“How long will it take, and how long until you know it works?”

“Three days for full immunity. After that, I’ll expose them to the zombie virus and wait to see if they turn. Five days max.”

“Expose them to the zombie virus?”

Bardeen nodded toward the dairy farm.

The scientists wailed in despair.

Karma is a bitch.

Thirty Eight

Pizza to Go

EX-CONTRACTORS PACKED the U-Haul with screaming scientists, lab equipment, and a couple of the zombie moms. Zoe logged into the dark web and reserved a vacant CIA black site for Bardeen’s vaccine tests. Bardeen promised to keep me posted on his progress. That left me with one loose end.

“What about the rest of the moms? We can’t leave them here.”

“Not a problem,” said Zoe. “We can end their pain and cover our tracks at the same time.”

A single shot rang out from the milking barn. Then another. And another. Until they were done.

My heart broke.

“Bardeen, can’t you find a cure?”

“Sorry, John,” he sighed. “That only happens in bad zombie novels. Phage damage to the brain is harsh and permanent. There is no way to bring them back from that.”

His reply was not surprising, but no less devastating for that. My lonely empathy neuron suggested a way to channel my grief.

“Okay,” I said. “But we can at least take care of the orphans. Send the box of wallets to Anabella and tell her to trace the kids. Set up a trust fund. Those children will never lack for anything.”

Bardeen nodded in agreement. Zoe gave him a surprisingly warm goodbye hug, and he climbed into the front seat of the U-Haul. An ex-contractor took the wheel. They roared away in a cloud of dust.

Zoe turned back to me.

“We need a few hours to make arrangements here. What’s your next move? Shouldn’t you return to Miami? Sylvia and Ronnie have intel to share with you.”

I shook my head.

“No, I’m heading for San Francisco again. Considering what you found here, I want to check on the pizza joint right away. Did you find any documentation in the files to connect the two operations? Pizza and sauce?”

“Yeah, but nothing suspicious. A bunch of invoices for shipments going back many years. Routine orders by the look of it. Fibonacci’s Pizza was a regular customer.”

“The owner of Hungo Hot Dogs didn’t know about the virus. Maybe the owner of Fibonacci’s Pizza is equally clueless.”

Zoe gave me a clean burner phone, Lucian’s Maserati, and directions to a cartel landing strip at a nearby sugar cane plantation. I made the run in less than 12 parsecs and caught a space-available seat on the afternoon cocaine express. The cartel pilot was a gracious ex-Navy fighter jock who got bored of flying for American Airlines and decided to try his hand at smuggling. I gave the Maserati to his crew chief, and he promised to leave it with Sylvia.

The cartel pilot landed the jet on a nickel-sized runway in the El Dorado National Forest at dusk. Cartel interns jumped into action and replaced the load of coke with El Dorado weed, already packaged as blunts and gummies for the Florida market. The coke went into a dirty panel truck bound for San Francisco. I bummed a ride, and by midnight, I was standing outside Fibonacci’s Pizza on Beale Street. Wide awake and grinding my teeth.

The pizza joint was simple: a bright dining area with a take-out window and a dozen café tables on the sidewalk. Hot young waitresses. Nice beer selection. Walls covered with enlargements of nature’s Fibonacci sequences.

I ordered an ice-cold Czech pilsner with a bowl of spaghetti alle vongole. Most of the other customers were office workers taking a break from late-night labors. A steady stream of interns collected large orders from the take-out window, carrying stacks of four or five pizzas at a time.

By 2:00 a.m., I had sampled half the beer menu and was running out of steam. The take-out window never slowed down. San Francisco is the other city that never sleeps.

I paid my tab with cash and walked three blocks to the Hyatt Regency. Lurid posters in the front lobby advertised San Francisco’s annual Walking Dead convention. The desk clerk was sullen and bored with his life.

A brick of crisp hundreds from Captain McDormack’s black duffle bag cheered him up and bought me the last available room, which was near the elevators and had a lumpy queen-sized bed.

Exhaustion arrived with a vengeance the moment my head hit the pillow. But despite my fatigue, sleep remained out of reach. My brain raced, trying to put the world together. When I finally managed to drift away, my dreams revolved around pizza, beer, and Albina Aldana dressed as a hot vampire waitress.

In the dream, I shook my head, but couldn’t refocus.

That made it a nightmare.

Thirty Nine

The Light Bulb Flickers On

MY NEW BURNER PHONE shattered the morning. I levitated straight up a full twelve inches. It was FaceTime with Sylvia Sakura, fresh and gorgeous in a sky-blue silk blouse with a distracting neckline. Her signature four-strand pearl choker had been replaced by a signature four-strand diamond necklace. Probably from Miami Beach Bling, LLC. Probably on my AmEx Centurion card.

“Rise and shine, princess. Time for work.”

I yawned and rubbed sleep from my eyes. Sylvia allowed me to scratch a two-day stubble and collect my wits before launching into her morning brief.

“We’re on track. Albina Aldana is meeting regularly with me about your ingenious plan to destroy Pandora Blackwood. She’s been cooperative and full of good ideas. I know she’s got a hidden vampire agenda, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.”

“What about Zoe Rogue? How’s she doing with John Bardeen?”

“They seem to have hit it off. Bardeen is working hard. The vaccine test is already under way, and the spare zombies are under tight restraint. Zoe locked them down at the vacant CIA black site. She hired a few extra contractors for added security. Ex-Marines. Big shoulders. Tight buns.”

I ignored Sylvia’s inappropriately sexist comments and tried to refocus her attention on the work at hand.

“What about Ronnie Numero and Anjali Khan? Anything new? Can they explain this San Francisco pizza joint?”

“Not yet. But thanks to ABA President Doug Blick and the widow Akoni, they confirmed Pandora’s Box, LLC is the global umbrella holding company for all the assets belonging to Pandora’s tribe. She owns one hundred percent of the equity. Tribal revenue flows upstream to Dark Harbor Bank in Jamaica, and then to Pandora’s Box in Miami. The corporate structure looks like a Mafia family or a multi-level marketing firm.”

I yawned. “That’s practically the same thing.”

Sylvia ignored my quibble.

“We’re not done yet, but so far, her tribe is entirely focused on downtown Miami real estate. There’s no diversification except for SciCo and Phage Molecular Sciences. Those companies were acquired specifically for the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. On the other hand, Fibonacci’s Pizza is an independent firm. Totally legit small business. It’s not even laundering money.

“Any visits from Pandora or her thugs?”

“Nope. We relocated again. Bevy Bellaseno’s counter-surveillance team spotted Pandora’s spies outside the Fontainebleau. Now she makes us sleep in a different place every night. Jane Austen cooked up a batch of new vampire defenses, in case Pandora does manage to find us. I think we’ll be fine, as long as VRBO doesn’t run out of luxury condo rentals.”

Sylvia covered a few minor administrative items and signed off. I took a long, hot shower, slipped into my day-old Jamaican beachwear, and headed for the nearest Bonobos. A new pair of linen slacks and a pink golf shirt improved my mood. I kept the rope-soled canvas shoes and continued testing the California commando trend.

Two hours later, I stood in front of Fibonacci’s Pizza again. An early lunch crowd packed the dining area, but a hot young waitress cleared an outside café table for me. I slipped her a crisp hundred-dollar bill and asked to see the manager.

The manager turned out to be the actual owner, Fred Fibonacci. He was a little cautious at first, but quickly warmed up when he recognized me from too many CNBC interviews.

“You’re the big douchebag, right? From Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe? You rescued all those children, and your Heckler & Koch deal was incredible. Talk about good timing. Wow!”

The waitress brought a pair of cold Peronis to lubricate our chat. I was surprised that a pizza shop owner knew anything about our friendly H&K buyout. The transaction closed as the Manhattan zombie apocalypse erupted. Gun sales spiked around the world, and we made a massive fortune. Good times.

Fred confessed to a previous incarnation with the First International Bank of Amazon. He abandoned the corporate rat race and used his final bonus to open a pizzeria. Superior executive skills enabled him to grow the business and prosper, even against the global pizza oligopoly. He wasn’t ultra-rich like me, but he was happy and still followed the financial news for fun.

No evidence of vampire compulsion emerged, and he talked freely about any subject I cared to raise. He seemed worthy of trust, as much as you can trust any investment banker, retired or not. I took a deep breath and plunged right in.

My tale of zombies and vampires didn’t faze him. The existence of zombies could not be disputed, so vampires were not a stretch for his imagination. He sympathized with the owner of Hungo Hot Dogs, a fellow small business owner who was deceived by the vampires and became the most hated man on Earth. But he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that vampires chose Fibonacci’s Pizza as the unwitting vector for a San Francisco zombie apocalypse.

“What the hell, man? Why me? I make pizza. Great pizza. Sure, I raised prices after Manhattan died. A stack of New York banks moved here, and the commercial real estate market exploded. My fucking rent quintupled.”

Quintupled? Something tickled my brain. Didn’t Lucian say that?

“Where do most of your customers come from?” I asked.

Fred pointed at the skyscrapers towering over Beale Street. Every building carried the neon-bright name of a major financial company. Wells Fargo. Venmo Global. Bank of Mars. He waved his hand at the full tables and busy take-out window. Crisply tailored executives wolfed down slices while closing deals on their rose-gold iPhones. Khaki-clad interns lugged stacks of pizza to their offices.

Bankers in the wild. Tonight on Animal Planet.

“It’s the financial district,” Fred said. “That’s why I chose this location. Bankers work long hours, and they fuel their serfs with non-stop pizza until early morning. My recipes are the best. Fibonacci’s Pizza is wildly popular, practically the official pizza of San Francisco finance. I’m making money hand over fist.”

“Like $2 hot dogs in Manhattan,” I said. “A big hit with the money crowd and available all night long.”

“Sure. But how could someone profit from wiping out San Francisco’s financial district?”

“By owning the Miami financial district.”

Forty

Sharks

FRED FIBONACCI WAS GRATEFUL that I stopped Pandora Blackwood from turning him into the next Typhoid Mary. But he was not happy that we put his favorite sauce supplier out of business. Broken supply chains are a bitch.

“It’s a small price to pay,” I said. “New vendors are easy to find, but if you triggered a zombie apocalypse in San Francisco, your life would never be the same.”

“Shit,” he mused. “You’re right. I’d have to become an investment banker again. That would suck.”

I left Fred in good spirits and retrieved Captain McDormack’s black duffle bag at the Hyatt Regency. A brick of crisp hundreds took me to San Francisco Airport, where I bumped into my favorite supermodel, Glamora Stiletto. She was traveling to Miami Fashion Week and offered me a seat on her private LearJet in exchange for an introduction to the Mile-High Club.

Before the flight ended, I signed her as a new client for my boutique investment firm with a $100 million initial stake.

We arrived at Opa Locka Executive Airport around 10:00 p.m. I hid in the lavatory until Glamora departed in her Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, trailed by a flock of paparazzi on e-bikes. When the tarmac cleared, Sylvia Sakura collected me in Lucian’s Maserati for a fast ride to Bevy Bellaseno’s newest safe house. It was the best one yet: a spacious ten-bedroom luxury condo in the last remaining part of South Beach still above water.

The condo bustled with activity. Anjali Khan and Ronnie Numero had disassembled Bloodline Realty’s nesting doll of real estate holdings and were eager to share their results with me. Anabella Busto’s interns collected a lot of raw data, and the sharp eyes of my experienced grifters provided the key to unlock everything.

“It’s incredible,” said Anjali. “Bloodline Realty owns every fucking skyscraper in the Miami financial district, including all the office and residential towers. That’s about two hundred Class-A properties. It’s the holding company for a sprawling organization controlled by Pandora Blackwood and her vampire tribe, far from the simple niche operation we first assumed.”

I’m a visual learner, so Anabella’s interns procured a 10-ft. whiteboard and covered it with an intricate corporate wiring diagram. Each Miami property was a separate LLC. When you added all the shell companies, umbrella corporations, captive law firms, and banks, Pandora’s empire encompassed more than three hundred corporations in fifty different jurisdictions: Florida, Jamaica, Switzerland, the Floating Republic of the Seychelles. All the best tax havens.

Sylvia’s intern researchers used the Tatler to identify more than a dozen vampires connected to Pandora’s corporate structure. Their pictures adorned the wiring diagram in a maze of interlocking boards and cross-ownership.

Bottom line: Pandora’s Box, LLC owned every piece of property in Miami that mattered. Pandora Blackwood owned one-hundred percent of Pandora’s Box, LLC and held all the shares in her personal Schwab One account. All the money, power, and tribal loyalty flowed upstream to her.

“Fabulous work,” I said. “Now we can tell Albina Aldana exactly how Pandora’s tribe made money from the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Almost down to the dime.”

Sensing confusion, I replayed my visit to San Francisco, leaving out the Mile-High Club.

“Fred Fibonacci provided the final piece. After Pandora’s zombies destroyed Manhattan, the New York banking industry scattered to financial districts across the country, including Miami and San Francisco. The increased demand for Class-A office space and luxury condos drove local real estate prices through the roof. Fred’s rent quintupled, and so did the value of Pandora’s Miami holdings. Lucian told us before he died, remember?”

Bevy was incredulous.

“So Pandora’s pivot from AB-negative blood farming was a real estate scam? Fuck. That’s some wicked shit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You gotta admire the grift. It was simple in concept, but audacious in execution.”

“Miami has always been a second-class financial center,” Anabella said. “Sure, it’s the hub for Caribbean and South American banking, but we never came close to Manhattan’s mass and muscle. The arrival of all those New York firms put Miami finance on the map.”

“But Pandora wants more,” I said. “So she decided to run the same play again. Wipe out San Francisco’s financial district and drive a new wave of banks into her Miami web. By targeting Fibonacci’s Pizza, her virus would hit the financial district with much more precision than the $2 hot dog vector she used on Manhattan.”

“I think her plan is bigger than that,” said Anjali. “One of her holding companies recently bought a pirogi supplier in Chicago, a taco truck in Austin, and The Avocado Toast Café in Los Angeles. All three businesses operate in the financial districts. We couldn’t figure out why she bought such random companies, until now.”

“Wow, said Bevy. “That’s downright demonic.”

Anjali nodded. “It gets worse. Bloodline Realty placed orders last month with four major Korean shipbuilders for floating commercial office buildings. They’ll be towed from dry dock in Geoje and anchored off Miami Beach. Pandora will have an infinite supply of luxury office space. She can accommodate any number of investment bankers escaping the zombies, no matter how high the water gets.”

Ronnie did the math for us.

“John, if you hadn’t destroyed her virus lab, she would have eventually turned Miami into the largest financial center in the solar system. Bigger than London or Tokyo. Pandora Blackwood would become landlord to half the global banking industry.”

We sat in stunned silence, absorbing the implications of Pandora’s villainous scheme and wondering if we had truly managed to stop it. Real estate sharks are a resilient bunch.

Jane Austen laughed and broke the spell.

“Cheer up. The bitch may be good, but she forgot the Golden Rule.”

“What’s that?” Bevy asked.

“Diversify or die.”

Forty One

The Intervention

THE FOLLOWING WEEK was busy and stressful. Sylvia Sakura called Albina Aldana and gave her the short version of Pandora Blackwood’s evil scheme to manipulate the real estate market. I told her to schedule nightly meetings with Albina and accelerate our own coup de main against Pandora.

She came back every morning with Albina’s subtle, musky scent on her clothes. That intensified the tingling problem and disrupted my focus. My personal productivity plummeted.

In desperation, I ordered her to shower and change clothes after each meeting with Albina. Sylvia was annoyed, so she decided to take revenge and buy a new Felipe Varela outfit every day, charging it to my AmEx Centurion card.

Varela is known for elegant designs and exquisite craftsmanship. His racy summer collection and Sylvia’s slender figure made an eye-popping combination. As a result, the Sylvia-related tingling aggravated my Albina-related tingling. My productivity reached new lows, and my personal morale disintegrated.

On the eighth day, Zoe picked me up in Lucian’s Maserati MC80 for a three-hour ride to her vacant CIA black site. She wore tan Cavalleria riding breeches, black equestrian boots with gold-tipped spurs, and an unbuttoned white silk poet shirt. Perfect dominatrix-inspired attire for chasing foxes across the English countryside. Since Burmese pythons devoured the last fox in Florida long ago, I couldn’t figure out what she was doing.

Despite the heat, I was cool and casual in linen slacks, a dark-blue Orvis summer shirt, and my rope-soled canvas shoes. The exhilarating ride cleared my head. By the time we arrived, I was in fighting trim. No tingling.

A rusting Quonset hut in an abandoned orange grove served as the black site. Fruit flies swarmed over piles of rotten citrus. Ancient window air conditioners fought a losing battle against Florida’s oppressive heat. A bank of portable toilets cried out for cleaning. Rusty vehicles moldered in the dank humidity. It looked and smelled like a CIA forward operating base in an undeclared war.

I felt right at home.

John Bardeen greeted me in a blood-stained white lab coat over a brightly flowered Tommy Bahama beach shirt and rumpled khakis. His irregular European relationship with soap and water hung, painfully evident, in the warm, muggy morning air. He beamed and flashed a big Liverpudlian smile.

“I’ve got good news and better news. Which do you want first?”

“Gimme the good news first.”

“Well, old boy, the vaccine trial was a complete success. Our volunteers tolerated the formula very well. No serious side effects. Come along. I’ll show you.”

Bardeen kept four captive scientists; two from our PMS laboratory raid and two from the Florida Pizza Sauce strike. The single-mom zombies chittered beside them. Zoe locked everyone in old cages made of yellow pine 2x4s and chain-link fencing, probably built by the last CIA team to use the site. The yellow pine cages followed the exact same design as the milking pens at Pandora Blackwell’s dairy farm. Simple. Sturdy. Cheap.

I made a mental note to check Pandora’s payroll for ex-CIA humans. There are no coincidences.

The scientists tried to hide under their wooden cots when I walked in. Zoe ordered them to step forward, slapping her equestrian boot with a riding crop for emphasis. The single-mom zombies growled with ravenous anticipation.

Both scientists showed signs of harsh treatment. Broken noses, black eyes, cut lips. Zoe and her ex-contractors did a lot of damage, but kept it superficial. For now.

Bardeen launched into a triumphant lecture about his new miracle vaccine. Phage reprogramming. Bioanalyzers. mRNA synthesis. Mutation control. Cas9 Protein.

My eyes glazed over, and I struggled to stay awake. The battered scientists rolled their eyes. They heard it all before. Several times.

Much to my surprise, Zoe slipped her arm around Bardeen’s ample waist and gazed at him like a love-struck teenager. Bardeen smiled and finished his soliloquy in record time.

“That’s how I did it. Any questions?”

“Yeah. Are you sure it works?”

Zoe released her grip on Bardeen and slapped the riding crop against her boot again. The scientists thrust out their left arms in unison, like a well-drilled team. Two of them displayed serious bite marks. The other two bore dirty IV injection ports in the median cubital vein. The ports were battered, as if they had been inserted with a ball peen hammer.

Zoe nodded approval of their well-drilled synchronicity and slid her arm around Bardeen again.

“I tested the vaccine against single-mom zombie bites and infusions of pure virus captured from the PMS laboratory. It’s been five days. No sign of infection. Blood work remains normal except for high levels of reprogrammed anti-zombie bacteriophages, as expected. I’ll monitor our volunteer test subjects for another day or two, but at this point, I can say with the utmost mathematical precision that my zombie vaccine is a smashing success.”

“How long to make more? We’re gonna need about a hundred doses right away. Can you do that?”

“Already done. It’s shelf-stable, but don’t store it in a hot car.”

We stepped outside and left the whimpering scientists to question their life choices. Bardeen was excited by his results. He chattered away like a crackhead on meth, describing the vaccine development process and how he made the first batch work properly.

“No trial and error there,” Zoe bragged for him. “He just thought it up and did it. What a man!”

She gave him a warm hug and wet congratulatory kiss. I blinked.

Totally out of character.

“Outstanding. This is definitely good news. What else you got? What’s the better news?”

“We should sit down for this one.”

He winked at Zoe and waved us toward a set of dirty white patio chairs stolen from a post-tornado Kansas trailer park.

The scene was surreal, a marriage of Luis Buñuel and John Waters. I can still see it. Lucian’s gleaming Maserati, ticking hot after the high-speed run from Miami. The crumbling Quonset hut. Zoe’s dominatrix-inspired English riding outfit. Pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Ex-contractors in khaki overalls and mirrored sunglasses. The sickly smell of rotting fruit. The clouds of gentle fruit flies.

“Please understand. It was a group effort. Your whole team worked hard on this,” Bardeen assured me.

I raised a quizzical eyebrow. That’s exactly what the crew of the Bounty said to Captain Bligh.

“Sylvia Sakura and Ronnie Numero were the first to voice their concerns. The others concurred and added their own observations.”

Zoe nodded agreement. I looked around, fully expecting to see Lt. Fletcher Christian sneaking up on me with a handful of zip ties.

“Bottom line, John, is that something’s wrong. Very wrong. Your brain no longer controls your manly instincts. It started the night you met Albina Aldana.”

The mention of Albina’s name unleashed a roaring tingle that seized control of my spine. Bardeen paused to let me refocus and adjust my tented linen slacks.

He made good sense. The modern male brain evolved specifically to control the inner caveman. My brain was not doing its job.

“Okay, go on. I’m listening.”

“We all know you’re distracted by beautiful women. But Sylvia says Albina’s impact went far beyond your norm. And it’s getting worse. Ronnie was shocked when you fell apart over a hot cocktail waitress at the Fontainebleau. A cocktail waitress, for heaven’s sake.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my grimy plastic seat.

“ Let’s be fair; she was wearing a fabulous bustier. But I’ll concede your point. I’ve hit rock bottom.”

“Fortunately, Ronnie observed you during Albina’s surprise visit. If he hadn’t pumped you full of double espressos, I can’t imagine what secrets you might have spilled.”

Another good point. Our hidden agenda was at risk whenever Albina entered a room with me. I had become the weakest link.

“Alright, I get the picture. So, why is this happening to me? Why wasn’t Ronnie affected? He joined that midnight meeting with Albina.”

“Simple. You’re AB-negative, and he’s not.”

I was perplexed.

“How the hell do you know my blood type?”

Bardeen sighed.

“When Sylvia called for help, I suspected immediately that your blood type might play a role. Zoe hacked your military records at the Pentagon to confirm it. You’re AB-negative.”

Zoe smiled and patted Bardeen’s knee. He winked at her.

“Bram Stoker knew that vampires wield hypnotic power over humans, but he didn’t know anything about blood types. Think about it. Vampires need a rare blood type for survival. It makes sense that their superpowers evolved to have an especially strong impact on AB-negative humans. So, there is no need for vampires to hypnotize entire nations and rule us like a herd of milk cows. That would be the plot of a bad direct-to-streaming movie.”

“Maybe, but there’s a big difference between hypnosis and what I’m experiencing now. How did you figure it out? Why does every beautiful woman have the same devastating effect on me? Are they all vampires too? Even the cocktail waitress?”

I didn’t mention Anjali.

“Again, it was simple. I reviewed the surveillance tapes of Albina’s first visit to your office. I saw a strong reaction once you were close enough to detect her scent. She held you in the palm of her hand from that moment on.”

“You’re saying her perfume does this to me?”

They looked at my tented linen slacks.

“No. Sylvia says Albina wasn’t wearing any fragrance at all. She didn’t smell anything.”

Now I was completely confounded.

“Albina’s perfume took over my brain, but she wasn’t wearing any perfume? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Not Albina’s perfume. Her pheromonal scent. Her natural perfume, if you will. We all have our own scent, although modern civilization prefers artificial perfumes and colognes. You wear Old Spice on every date, correct?”

“Damn right. It’s the manliest of the manly colognes. The girls love it. Never fails me.”

“You want your dates to wear Shalimar, right?”

“Sure, or Chanel No. 5. I love the classics.”

“Of course. It’s part of the mating ritual. Wild animals are attracted to spectacular plumage and arousing scents. For humans, it’s haute couture, expensive perfume, and ultra-yachts, for some reason.”

“If Sylvia didn’t smell anything, how the hell can you know Albina’s scent affected me?”

“No other explanation made sense, and confirmation was easy. After Sylvia described your problem, I asked Ronnie to hide a Parker-Hannifin MX3500 gas sampler in your office. We ran it whenever Sylvia and Albina met for an update. I processed all the atmospheric samples through a Teledyne Olympic quadropole mass spectrometer connected to the latest Mother Nature AI.”

My eyes glazed over. The hum of gentle fruit flies called me into a serene ASMR dream land.

“Hey. Stay with us.”

Zoe snapped her fingers under my nose. The fruit flies dispersed.

“What’s the bottom line?” I asked.

“After controlling for Sylvia’s own scent, I isolated Albina’s unique variations of estrateranol and androstenol, the pheromones women produce to attract men. I found hyper-potent variations. Albina’s scent attacks the ventral tegmental area of your brain, the VTA. Puts those brain cells into turbo mode, and they dominate everything else.”

“Albina turns me on? I could have told you that without the lecture.”

“It’s more than your normal adolescent arousal paradigm. Her pheromones are precisely tuned to your genetic code for AB-negative blood. They are infinitely stronger than normal female pheromones. When your VTA reaches turbo mode, Albina doesn’t need to hypnotize you. She already has you by the balls.”

The constant mention of Albina’s name put me on the edge of an eruption. I had to change the subject or change my linen slacks.

“Why doesn’t this stop when she’s not around? Why do other beautiful women have the same damn effect on me?”

“Again, it’s your genetic make-up. You have a unique gene sequence that we almost consider a mutation. Geneticists call it the Y-chromosome CharmoNucleotide, also known as the Adonis Syndrome. It’s part of the reason you’re such a handsome, cocky devil surrounded by gorgeous women eager to serve your every desire. At a genetic level, they can’t resist you. Even Albina Aldana is affected. Sylvia says she can’t stop asking about you.”

This was fascinating stuff. Ever since I hit puberty, beautiful women have been drawn to me like metal to a magnet. Bardeen figured out the science. But he still didn’t answer my question.

“You’ve explained my wildly successful love life, but how is this relevant to the fact I can’t control myself around beautiful girls anymore? And how the hell did you get a sample of my DNA?”

“Albina’s scent amplifies the Adonis effect, flips it around, and puts women in the driver’s seat. In effect, it turns your own genes against you. Hence, the hot cocktail waitress phenomenon. If Ronnie hadn’t pulled you away, you would have done anything she asked. As for the DNA sample, Sylvia gave us a blue dress she found in your office after last year’s Christmas party.”

“Do vampire men have the same effect on non-vampire women?”

“We assume so, but only in regard to stimulation of the ventral tegmental area. A male vampire’s scent can overwhelm a human female like Albina overwhelms you. But the male scent won’t trigger an indiscriminate lust like yours, of course.”

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

Bardeen sighed and muttered something about people who failed their fifth-grade biology class.

“For the obvious reason that women don’t have Y-chromosomes,” he explained. “It’s genetically impossible for them to suffer from the curse of the Adonis Syndrome.”

Considering my charmed life with the ladies, I wondered how Bardeen could ever imagine the Adonis Syndrome was a curse. Sometimes a curse is a blessing in disguise.

Bardeen was losing patience with my questions. Genius does not like to be cross-examined. He cut to the chase.

“John, this begs the real question about Albina. How can we protect you if she makes a play?”

Her name again. I shook my head to refocus. It didn’t work. Zoe came to my rescue when she noticed the endless talk about Albina was locking up my brain.

“Let me get you a cup of strong coffee, John. I’ll be right back.”

She sashayed off to the Quonset hut, trailing her fingers lecherously across Bardeen’s shoulders and blowing him a little kiss. Despite my Albina-induced fog, Zoe’s behavior struck me as highly unusual.

I shook my head and cleared a little space for questions.

“What can you do about this? Can I keep operating under these extreme conditions?”

“Of course not. That’s the issue. You’re at the mercy of an extremely attractive alpha vampire and highly vulnerable to beautiful women in general. It doesn’t matter that Albina and the women are attracted to you in turn. That’s irrelevant for now.”

I sighed and adjusted my linen slacks.

“But I will find a workaround,” Bardeen said. “I’ve dabbled with the molecular composition of Albina’s pheromones and discovered an aromatic neutralizer. I’m already running a blind test on an unsuspecting local subject. The side effects are amazing. Spectacular.”

Zoe rejoined us with a steaming mug of strong coffee and handed it to me. She nestled onto Bardeen’s lap with both arms around his neck and her tongue in his ear.

Bardeen giggled.

My jaw dropped.

Forty Two

Clubbing

TWO MORNINGS LATER, the orange Miami dawn found me outside a chic club called Eternal Night. Albina Aldana assured us that Eternal Night was the crown jewel and social epicenter of Pandora Blackwood’s Miami tribe.

The club was one of many smaller properties held by Pandora’s shell companies in the Miami financial district. Restaurants. Nail parlors. Hair salons. Dry cleaners. Pilates. Critical survival services for vampires and investment bankers alike. Pandora already owned all the major real estate, and she apparently did not like to leave money on the table, even the chump change.

I gotta admire that.

As I waited, Anabella Busto and Bevy Bellaseno negotiated a sweetheart deal with the morning-shift janitors. They came from the same cleaning service we impersonated during our successful trip to Lucian Bloodbane’s luxury condo. If the plan ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Anabella assured them our visit was not cartel-related, only a simple case of overdue child support. The janitors happily accepted individual bricks of crisp hundred dollar bills to let us join their good clean fun. All they had to do was ignore us. Since most of the workers were single moms earning less than minimum wage, I sweetened the deal with University of Miami STEM scholarships for their children. Full ride. Go Canes.

Our next problem presented a larger challenge. My 200 lb. rock-hard physique is tough to disguise in khaki overalls, especially considering my popular shirtless interview series with Vanity Fair. Bevy loaded a big utility cart with mops, brooms, and vacuum cleaners, then made me stand behind it for cover.

I helpfully pointed out that she and Anabella faced similar problems hiding their own generous endowments. Their khaki overalls stretched to the breaking point. They joined me behind the cart, in case somebody was monitoring the surveillance cameras at such an ungodly hour. Once inside, the crew tackled the trash and devastation from last night’s depravities, leaving us to find our way to the manager’s office.

Eternal Night rivaled the Roman coliseum. Three rings of luxurious VIP alcoves surrounded a dance floor the size of a football field. Crystal escalators provided stylish access to four separate terraces around the perimeter. According to Anabella, each terrace carried a successively higher price point; a $50 Woodford Manhattan at ground level was $250 on the elite top terrace. Not a different drink, simply a different price, proving you don’t have to be smart to be rich.

A private express elevator bypassed the terraces and carried us straight to the top. The manager’s office was large and well-furnished with black walnut paneling and an expansive executive desk made of endangered tropical hardwoods. A gigantic picture window provided a bird’s-eye view of the dance floor. Debauchery on display.

Bevy found a hidden room stuffed with CCTV surveillance equipment. She deployed a USB stick and installed a Canva program to remove our images from the video files and delete itself after we were gone. Like we were never there.

Anabella plopped down in the manager’s throne and logged into the computer. He stored the password on a yellow sticky note inside the top desk drawer. Didn’t even use two-factor authentication.

“Sylvia was right,” she muttered. “Senior executives are all the same.”

“Spare me the editorial comment. We’re here to identify the vampires in Pandora Blackwood’s tribe. That’s our target list for Miami Fashion Week. Make it quick. Nightclubs employ serious muscle for security. Ex-cops. Outlaw bikers. Old yoga instructors. Let’s not stick around and run into them.”

Anabella ignored me and assaulted the computer keyboard. I browsed the rest of the office, looking for useful information.

One wall displayed dozens of photos featuring Pandora Blackwood with America’s hottest VIPs and celebrities du jour. Much to my surprise, the late ex-vampire Sven Blodtörst appeared as club manager in a bunch of the pictures. He took the job about one year before the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Pandora must have hired him when her AB-negative zombie blood trial turned him into a human.

Whoops.

He didn’t look happy with his consolation prize. I wondered how he felt when she ordered him to manage the virus rollout at Hungo Hot Dogs, or when he got eaten by zombies. New Jersey zombies.

I smiled at the thought.

Politicians featured prominently in the photos. Eternal Night was more than a cash cow for Pandora’s operation. It was a perfect networking spot where she could wine and dine key influencers like mayors, senators, and Supreme Court justices. She posed with anybody who could solve problems in exchange for lap dances or luxury vacations in Bali. After all, not all corrupt officials take cash.

“Jackpot!” Anabella waved me over.

Her screen showed three pieces of valuable information: a list of Eternal Night loyalty program members, a three-year record of bar tabs, and passwords for Eternal Night’s vendor accounts at the major credit card companies.

The loyalty program had four levels. I told her to filter for members at the Platinum Elite level. The majority of clients at that stratospheric level were presumably vampires.

Next, she sifted the bar tabs for customers who regularly bought $250 cocktails on the top terrace. I told her to add anybody spending more than $5000 on a single bottle of domestic champagne or ordering a Bloody Mary after 10:00 p.m.

Cross-referencing the two lists produced a group of 250 names. Deleting the non-Miami addresses gave us 150 likely vampires to compare against the contact list in Lucian Bloodbane’s phone. Ronnie’s interns would hack the credit card accounts to find anyone who never made a purchase during daylight hours anywhere in the country. Not a perfect methodology, but close enough. Once you have 70 percent of the information, go with your gut.

“Okay, let’s wrap it up and get the hell out,” I said.

Anabella pulled a USB stick from her overalls and downloaded the information. Bevy called us to the CCTV monitoring room.

“Hey, come here. You gotta see this.”

We crammed ourselves into the room and looked over her shoulder at a giant monitor displaying feeds from scores of surveillance cameras. Janitors swarmed everywhere. Vacuuming the carpets. Polishing the glass. Removing a body from the third-floor men’s room. Bevy pulled up a video replay that filled the screen.

It was Albina Aldana, standing on the packed top terrace with Pandora Blackwood amid a crowd of drunken, well-dressed vampires.

Her beauty jumped off the screen in hi-res 6K video. My self-control was already stressed by Anabella and Bevy in their tight overalls. Watching Albina as we pressed together in the tiny room triggered a tingling in my spine that quickly reached eleven on a ten-point Richter scale.

Anabella sensed I was slipping away and shoved a Neurogum turbo-caffeine mint under my tongue. The mint dissolved, and the caffeine raced to my brain. The tingling subsided. I shook my head to refocus.

“How old is this footage?” Anabella asked.

“About a week,” said Bevy. “It was her only visit, as far as I can tell. She ordered a few drinks, danced with a nice piece of Miami beefcake and left early. Alone.”

“Did she talk with Pandora?”

“Briefly. It looked like one of those rich-bitch things. Here, watch.”

Bevy played a two-minute clip of Albina and Pandora meeting on the crowded upper terrace. She described it perfectly: two wealthy socialites swapping air-kisses and gushing over their expensive wardrobes. To a casual viewer, they looked like old friends. But the devil is in the details. I observed similar scenes during a thousand Manhattan cocktail parties. These two women despised each other.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“A glimpse of the parking valet fetching her car when she leaves. Nice set of wheels, by the way. Hydrogen-powered BMW with golden swangas. No sun roof.”

“Did you get a shot of the plate?”

“Yep. I already ran it for you. Expired New York license plates registered to a seriously expensive condominium overlooking Foley Square. The same building as your old penthouse. Did you know Albina was your neighbor in Manhattan before the zombie apocalypse?”

I tried to remember if our paths ever crossed in the elevator or at a condo board meeting. Nothing came to mind.

Mention of the old condo sparked nostalgia for my charmed life in Manhattan. I do love Miami, but there was something about a crisp autumn morning spent drinking coffee on Fifth Avenue that Miami will never replace. Probably the endless parade of hot New York babes wearing the latest haute couture. But, to be fair, the acres of well-tanned flesh and little French bikinis on Miami Beach carry their own special charm. Did I mention the coconut oil?

I popped another turbo-caffeine mint and shook my head to refocus.

“Alright, let’s get out of here. We need to clear the air with Albina. Let’s set up a meeting.”

Anabella and Bevy looked at each other and nodded in unison.

“We thought you’d never ask.”

Forty Three

Shocker

WE LEFT THE ETERNAL NIGHT and regrouped at Bevy’s latest VRBO safe house. The ten-bedroom cottage was on San Marino, a tiny man-made island in Biscayne Bay. Zillow listed it for $500 million, a price rising faster than global sea levels.

In retrospect, Miami real estate in those years was a game of musical chairs. Investors were betting the next sucker would appear before the ocean finally overwhelmed the riprap and sea walls, washing everything away except the debt load.

I cashed out at the top, selling my beachfront mansion for a healthy profit. The buyer was a conservative politician who didn’t believe in climate change. A year later, the Coast Guard pulled him from the ocean five miles off the coast during a Category 7 hurricane, clinging to a nasty porta-potty.

Ronnie Numero told us to clean up and meet on the veranda for lunch. I took a long, cold shower and reported for duty in chinos and a snug black Brooks Brothers polo shirt, perfectly showcasing my big guns. Anabella replaced her khaki overalls with a sleeveless white romper by Michael Costello that absolutely popped with her luxurious black hair and perfect tan. Bevy Bellaseno donned loose, high-waisted linen pants and a colorful bandeau top from Etsy. The bandeau had trouble restraining her curves, but I don’t think of that as an actual design flaw.

Sylvia Sakura and Jane Austen finished their morning swim and joined us for lunch wearing two of the tiniest monokinis allowed under Florida state law. Ronnie rearranged the seating, placing me at the far end of the table, away from the girls. He set a large bowl of turbo-caffeine mints in front of me and gave plush terrycloth swimsuit cover-ups to Sylvia and Jane.

“Put these on,” he told them. “Otherwise, John won’t be able to talk.”

We spent the next hour watching boats and barges on the Intracoastal Waterway while reviewing Sylvia’s preparations for our coup de main against Pandora Blackwood. My plan came together nicely. The hit list of probable vampires stolen from The Eternal Night added the final, critical piece. After all, how we could destroy Pandora’s tribe if we didn’t know they were?

“Sylvia, I want to meet with Albina tonight. We need feedback on the list, in case we’ve missed someone important. Have your interns run a cross-check against the Tatler. They’re the most powerful vampires in her tribe, so let’s make sure we get them all. Where’s Zoe? I want to know what she learned from the DHS classified image database.”

“She’s still at the vacant CIA black site with John Bardeen,” Bevy said. “I spoke to her this morning. There’s weirdness going on there, but I can’t figure out what.”

I shifted uneasily in my chair. Bardeen was an honorable man, and I knew he wouldn’t take advantage of Zoe. On the other hand, Zoe had no scruples whatsoever. If she decided to press the matter, Bardeen might not be able to resist her charms. Zoe could be extremely persuasive, as I knew all too well.

There was nothing more to do about that, so I pressed forward.

“We have a new development. Albina visited one of Pandora’s nightclubs last week, The Eternal Night. Bevy spotted her on a surveillance video. We don’t know why she was there, and she didn’t stay long. It’s a reminder that we still don’t know what Albina’s agenda might be. Finding the crouching tiger, hidden vampire becomes a priority at this point.”

“The bitch is up to something; that’s a given,” said Jane Austen. “I recognize her type from my days at Juilliard. She helps you prepare for an audition, and all the while she’s banging the director to make sure you don’t get the part.”

“That’s oddly specific,” Bevy muttered.

Jane glared at her. Fortunately, Anjali Khan joined us on the veranda and defused the moment. She was dressed for the office in a lightweight Thai silk blazer, tailored trousers, and a sheer black blouse that took my breath away. Anjali was built like a goddess from the Kama Sutra, and she wasn’t afraid to show off.

My spine tingled. I shoved a handful of turbo-caffeine mints into my mouth. Ronnie jumped to refill the bowl.

“I spent the morning at Scamwell Financial Group,” Anjali said. “Solid firm. We built several limited partnerships together before the apocalypse. Their Manhattan headquarters didn’t survive, of course. Luckily for them, the top executives were at a strategic planning retreat in Las Vegas when the zombies took over. They’re rebuilding the company here in Miami.”

“What did you want from them?” Ronnie asked.

“Insight on Albina Aldana’s tribe. Our digging failed to find much, even after I got involved with the interns. Her operations are far more opaque than Pandora’s. But I noticed they ran money through Scamwell Financial in the form of offshore trust companies. So, I had coffee with one of my old contacts there. He was a gold mine.”

Anjali’s report was shocking: Albina’s tribe was based in Manhattan. To make matters worse, they gathered at The Peninsula Hotel for an annual tribal conference that began on Sunday, the first night of the apocalypse. The governor’s quarantine order trapped everyone except Albina. She survived because her personal jet suffered engine trouble en route to Manhattan from Aruba. The pilot diverted to Miami for an emergency landing.

“Albina’s been trying to pick up the pieces all year, but it’s been hard. She was a junior member of the management team and, frankly, she’s out of her depth. Scamwell Financial is helping, but they don’t have much experience with restructurings.”

“So, she doesn’t actually have a hidden agenda,” Sylvia mused. “She wants revenge, plain and simple. I can respect that.”

“Does your Scamwell contacts know they’ve been working with vampires all this time?” I asked.

“No. Absolutely not. Their business revolved around late-night dinners at the best restaurants. Le Bernadin. Jeans-Georges. Gallaghers Steakhouse. A little odd, but the investment team got used to it. The client calls the shots, after all.”

“Any idea why Albina might visit Pandora at one of her nightclubs?”

I explained what Bevy found on the surveillance video.

“Not a clue,” Anjali said. “Do you think she’s setting you up for a double-cross? Vampires are devious people. Creatures. Whatever.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Forty Four

Batter Up

RONNIE CLEARED THE LUNCH TABLE while Sylvia convinced me that Payday Loan Stadium, home of the Miami Marlins, would be the safest place to confront Albina Aldana.

“She’s too dangerous for an enclosed office. The stadium’s tremendous size will dilute her scent, which means you’re less likely to get overwhelmed. Since Miami Marlins fans are the worst-dressed people in America, you won’t be distracted by hot chicks in the bleachers.”

I liked her idea and decided to bring along Ronnie Numero, Anabella Busto, and Bevy Bellaseno. Strong moral support and an endless supply of turbo-caffeine mints would be my keys to success.

First pitch was scheduled for 7:10 p.m. The sun would set at 8:18 p.m., giving Albina plenty of time to join us before another Miami loss went into the books. They had already tied the New York Mets all-time record of 31 losses in a row.

We donned Miami Marlins jerseys to blend with the crowd. The stadium was almost full, but not because anybody wanted to see the hapless Marlins. The Washington Nationals were in town, riding a 26-game winning streak. One more victory, and they’d break the all-time record set by the Houston Astros before they moved to Idaho. Everybody wanted to see history in the making.

Sylvia managed to reserve Section 520, far from home plate and near the retractable stadium roof. Baseball distracts me almost as much as hot babes, and Sylvia wanted to keep my full focus on Albina.

For additional insurance, she called the local bishop and reserved the section for an army of retired nuns from a nearby cloister. They were thrilled to get free tickets for an evening of fun. The section looked as if it had been hijacked by a flock of penguins. Several sisters eyed me with prurient interest, which proves my appeal is cross-generational. I bought them Miami Marlins jerseys and opened a beer tab for the whole gaggle.

The stadium roof opened, and a gentle breeze kept everything cool. We occupied five seats at the end of two rows. Ronnie and I sat together with an empty seat between us for Albina. Bevy and Anabella sat in the next row so they could listen in.

Stadium security confiscated my Mokuba wrecking bar, but we were not defenseless. Anabella carried a plastic squeeze bottle of Pastor Steve Wheat’s Best Sparkling Holy Water. Bevy carried a fully-charged Dustbuster that cost me $50,000 to smuggle past an old man checking packs and purses. I carried a popcorn cup full of turbo-caffeine mints, ready to crush any hint of tingling. Ronnie wore a pocket protector equipped with deadly, needle-sharp No. 2 pencils.

The game was a slugfest. Pitching broke down in the second inning, and both sides went through the batting order three times before the fifth. The nuns screamed with excitement, and the ushers responded to several citizen complaints about blasphemers.

Albina Aldana arrived at the top of the sixth, wearing a gray Marlins tank top, teal booty shorts, and white Chuck Taylors by Converse. She bounced up the long stadium stairs carrying a collectible beer bat and a fully-loaded chili dog. The eyes of a thousand lustful spectators followed every step.

Ronnie slipped two mints under my tongue, and Bevy smacked the back of my head to help restart my brain.

“I’m alright, I’m alright. Let’s do this.”

I stepped out of the row so Albina could take her seat. She steadied herself with a hand on my muscular shoulder as she slipped past. I silently thanked Sylvia for supplying me with pleated slacks.

Albina sat down, and I made introductions.

“I’m glad to finally meet you all,” she said. “Sylvia is very complimentary of your work. It’s nice to put faces to names.”

She inhaled her chili dog and beer, then ordered nachos and a red wine spritzer for dessert.

“Sorry to pig out like this,” she said. “I always eat a big breakfast.”

Albina proved to be friendly and conversational. Anabella and Bevy warmed to her, which worried me a little bit. Ronnie remained calm and cool, as usual. I nibbled an extra turbo-caffeine mint for safety.

As the Marlins took a commanding lead in the sixth, a rapid clicking noise distracted me from the game. It sounded like those pistol shrimp you can hear while snorkeling. The roar of the crowd dominated, of course, but the clicking emerged clearly in the quiet moments between batters or during mound visits.

I looked all around, thinking the retractable roof might be closing. Much to my surprise, I noticed that the penguins had stopped watching the game. They were glaring at Albina and speed-counting their rosaries. Perhaps Albina displayed a demonic aura that only the righteous could sense. Hail Mary. Click. Hail Mary. Click.

Multiplied by fifty nuns, it was a serious distraction.

I caught Bevy’s eye and nodded toward the scrum. Bevy looked at them and solved the problem instantly. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and unleashed a screeching New Jersey train whistle.

“Hey! Stulti! Mind your own business!” she shouted.

The nuns flinched and turned back to the game. One of them flashed Bevy a one-finger salute.

Albina laughed so hard that a little beer sprayed through her nose. It was kind of cute.

“You’re amazing,” she told Bevy. “I’ll remember that for next time. Where did you study Latin?”

“Fork Union Military Academy,” Bevy replied. “A two-year program for wayward girls. The Latin instructor was a hottie, so I paid close attention. Top of the class.”

We settled back and watched the game until the seventh-inning stretch. I sent the nuns another round of beers, ordered a basket of fried pickle chips for Albina, took a deep breath, and plunged into the topic of the day.

“Albina, we need to talk.”

“Of course, John. That’s why I’m here. You have my full attention.”

I told her about my masterful infiltration of The Eternal Night and asked why she showed up on video with Pandora Blackwood. My team shifted uneasily in their seats. Ronnie gripped a needle-sharp No. 2 pencil beside his leg. Anabella pointed her Sparkling Holy Water squeeze bottle at Albina’s soft, kissable neck.

I shook my head to refocus.

“My first night out since the tragedy,” she said. “Pandora’s club was the perfect place to be seen and get on the tribal radar. They’re probably still talking about me, which is exactly what we want.”

Managers love it when an employee shows initiative. Albina’s move was a solid contribution. The team nodded approval.

Next, I discussed how we identified probable Miami vampires and cross-checked them against Lucian Bloodbane’s neon-pink iPhone 35. Ronnie handed her the printout. We waited patiently while she munched on fried pickles and reviewed the target list.

“You’ve got her entire leadership council here,” she said. “This is fabulous work. Cross-checking against Lucian’s phone was inspired. Every vampire in the tribe must be included in his contacts. He lusted for Pandora’s throne and was building his own power base.”

“We were surprised to find only 150 names in the Miami area. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Most tribes are not large. The scarcity of AB-negative donors and the aggressive nature of vampire society puts a natural cap on our numbers. It’s also the reason we’re concentrated in urban centers.”

“Not enough donors living in flyover country?” Anabella asked.

“Correct. A rural county might have only one AB-negative. Not enough to feed a single vampire, much less a whole nightshift.”

“That’s good news,” I said. “The fewer vampires in Pandora’s tribe, the easier for us to take them out. How are your preparations coming along for Miami Fashion Week? Sylvia seems pleased.”

Albina squirmed in her seat. I got a feeling she was uncomfortable destroying a whole tribe of her own kind, no matter how richly they deserved it. Nevertheless, as she briefed me on her progress, I could sense Albina’s full commitment to our bargain, comfortable or not.

“It’s all falling into place. As long as Pandora doesn’t suspect I’m conspiring against her, we’re good to go.”

It was time to steer the conversation in an unpleasant direction.

“Next item. We discovered how Pandora profited from the zombie apocalypse and just how far she’s willing to go. It’s worse than we thought. San Francisco was simply the next step.”

Albina raised a quizzical eyebrow and crunched a fried pickle chip. She licked her greasy fingers. I ate another turbo-caffeine mint.

“That was fast,” she said. “Very impressive. So tell me, how did she benefit from destroying Manhattan? What do you mean by ‘the next step?’ Is there more?”

“Before the apocalypse, Pandora’s tribe bought the entire Miami financial district. After the apocalypse, Manhattan firms scrambled to relocate, and the value of Pandora’s real estate holdings quintupled overnight. It was a commercial property play. Destroy the balance between supply and demand. Simple, but effective. Pandora primarily targeted the Wall Street banks. Most of Manhattan was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Albina dropped her pickle basket.

The stadium erupted as the Nats scored the tying run with two outs in the top of the eighth. Albina sat quietly, processing the sudden realization that Pandora slaughtered her entire tribe without a second thought. They were collateral damage in a fucking real estate deal. Their deaths were meaningless.

Anabella laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Mi amor, ¿estás bien?”

Albina touched the corner of her eye.

My lonely empathy neuron screamed. This damsel was in distress. She needed a knight in shining armor. She needed me.

But first, I had to confirm that my empathy neuron wasn’t misreading the signs. Perhaps my Adonis Syndrome tricked it. Maybe Albina really did have an hidden agenda. Would she lie to me? The team tensed for action.

“Albina,” I said softly. “Did you lose someone in Manhattan?”

An old lawyer’s trick. I already knew the answer.

She touched the corner of her eye again.

“Not someone. Everyone.”

She burst into tears.

Forty Five

God Save the Queen

ALBINA’S SORROW melted my granite heart. I offered a strong, comforting arm and warm embrace. She nestled against me, trembling at my touch. They all do.

Bevy and Anabella glanced at each other. They had never seen this side of my character.

We sat in silence for the rest of the game. The cheering crowd drowned Albina’s sobs as she struggled to control her grief.

The game ended with two new records: one for wins and one for losses. The Nats celebrated on the field. The Marlins general manager tendered his resignation.

We waited for the fans to clear out. The penguins marched past in a happy group, but the sight of Albina crying in my arms disconcerted them. I embodied pure goodness, evidenced by the free tickets, Marlins merch, and eight beers apiece. Albina embodied pure evil, evidenced by her wicked beauty, demonic aura, and booty shorts. Yet, right before their sacred eyes, the good comforted the evil. Quizzical eyebrows were raised. World views imploded.

The Mother Superior noticed their confusion and punched the speed dial on her flip phone as she walked away.

“Buona sera. This is Mother Bertrille. I need to speak with the Pope. Yes, it’s an emergency.”

Albina wiped her tears on my sleeve and tucked an errant strand of platinum hair behind her ear.

“I’m so sorry,” she sniffled. “It’s been a hard year.”

“Come with us,” Anabella said. “You can’t be alone like this.”

We called for a stretch limo with a full bar. Anabella and Bevy sat beside Albina, whispering to her in full consolation mode. Ronnie made Cosmopolitans for the girls and an Old Fashioned for me.

I wasn’t sure where to take Albina. Bringing her to the safe house seemed like a bad idea. My office and mansion were probably under surveillance by Pandora’s minions. Sending her home to cry alone was heartless. But a knight in shining armor doesn’t dump a gentle lady in distress on the side of the road.

When life gives you lemons.

“Albina, it’s time for you to meet the rest of my team.”

Ronnie frowned, but Anabella and Bevy nodded their approval. Albina’s perfect cheekbones glistened with another cascade of tears. Ronnie sighed and gave her a handful of tissues. He was a knight in shining armor too.

The limo driver took us to the ten-bedroom safe cottage on San Marino Island. He pocketed a brick of crisp hundreds for his silence and good service. Anjali Khan and Sylvia Sakura met us at the door, ushered Albina into the big lanai, and opened all the windows for maximum ventilation. Jane Austen hovered in the background. I figured she was banking a few tactical surprises in case Albina got excited and lost control.

I sucked on a handful of turbo-caffeine mints and made introductions all around. Albina sipped a cup of hot fennel tea and gradually recovered her composure, building a small mountain of tear-soaked tissues in the process.

After the tea worked its magic, she explained how the Manhattan zombie apocalypse impacted her jet-set life as a smoking-hot vampire babe. Anjali listened intently, on high alert for gaps in Albina’s story that conflicted with our Scamwell Financial Group intel.

“My entire tribe lived in Manhattan. It’s part of our ancient culture. Of course, we all have our little mansions in St. Tropez or Bali, but maintaining a residence in Manhattan is mandatory. The Peninsula Hotel always hosts our annual shareholder meeting. Or they did, before the apocalypse.”

Albina touched the corner of her eye.

“We were a large tribe; almost 500 strong. Our conference planner kept a standing reservation for half the hotel rooms and three of the largest ballrooms.”

“Sounds pretty boring,” I said. “Shareholder meetings suck. Pretending like they have a voice in the corporation. Ridiculous.”

“It was more like an annual family reunion,” Albina replied. “Lots of fun and gossip. Everything revolved around a Catan tournament on the second night. We lived in Manhattan, but you know how it is. You hardly see anybody. Now they’re gone. I’m alone.”

She paused and touched the corner of her eye. Ronnie handed her another tissue.

“The zombie outbreak caught them by surprise. I would have been there too, but engine trouble crippled my plane. I’ll never buy another jet from Microsoft.”

I nodded. Selling beta-test software was bad enough, but selling beta-test jets is wack.

“What happened to your people?” Sylvia asked softly.

“After the ceremonial opening on Sunday evening, they partied through the night and went to bed before sunrise on Monday. The governor’s quarantine isolated the city at 8:01 a.m. Of course, the whole tribe slept through the first day. We’re not like sleeping babies. Once we’re down, you can’t wake us. By the time they did wake up at sundown the next day, escape was impossible. My phone exploded with calls and texts from my friends on Monday evening. They were hysterical, and I couldn’t help them.”

Albina started crying again, and added more tissue to Mt. Everest.

“Why didn’t your people leave?” I asked gently. “Couldn’t they fight their way out, or turn into a mist and drift away?”

Albina laughed bitterly. “Most of them died when they stepped outside their hotel suites. The corridors were full of zombies.”

“But vampires have the strength of twenty men. A few zombies shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Zombies are strong too, and they never get tired. You demonstrated that on ‘MythBusters: The Zombie Special.’ Plus, a busy hotel contains more than a few zombies. We’re tough, but once your head is pulled off, and somebody eats your brains…”

Albina’s voice trailed away. I could see Jane Austen making a mental note for her tactical file: “Pull heads, eat brains.”

Bram Stoker missed that one.

“What about floating away as a mist? Turning into a bat? Or is that another myth you’d like to bust?”

Albina sighed. She was reluctant to surrender her secrets, but what other choice did she have?

“A bat fluttering in a zombie-packed hotel corridor is doomed, and our mist can only travel short distances outside. It will dissipate in the breeze, and then you can’t rematerialize. In fact, that’s how old-school vampires it all. When a vampire gets tired of living forever, they take a long walk on a windy beach. Poof. The old ones go to Rehoboth Beach on the East Coast, where it’s easy to blend in. Huntington Beach in Cali plays the same role.”

My lonely empathy neuron suggested Albina probably considered a long walk on the beach sometime during the past year. Time to change the subject.

“How are you dealing with the trauma? What are you doing to recover?” I asked.

My empathy neuron swelled with pride at such perfect questions. I’m a fast learner.

“I cried in my chardonnay for three months,” she said. “I called every number in my tribal contact list. Over and over. They’re all gone. Many of them left voice mails. It was horrible.”

I nodded. Several podcasters built loyal audiences based on final voice mails from the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. An endless source of material. Depressing stuff.

“Since your tribe has been wiped out, what are you doing for money? How do you live?” Anjali asked.

“That’s the worst part. They’re all dead, and I inherited all the tribe’s assets. Everything except a few personal art collections and a small superyacht in Belize.”

Classic case of survivor’s guilt.

“Oh dear. Is that enough to live on?” Sylvia asked.

Albina hesitated. I could see the calculation in her eyes. A half-truth is a half-lie. If we caught her in a lie, she’d be on her own again.

“Yes,” she replied. “Every tribe has a financial specialty. Pandora’s tribe does Miami real estate. Mine does cryptocurrency. I’m quite comfortable. Don’t worry about me.”

“That explains why it was so hard to find information about your business interests,” Anjali said. “Your accounts exist on servers belonging to the faceless, all-powerful Crypto Lords. Highly secretive. Not part of the regular banking system.”

“Not at all vulnerable to the Manhattan zombie apocalypse,” I mused. “As long as you have the 356-digit hexadecimal key, the Crypto Lords give you access. You manage the accounts from anywhere in the world. Perfect for supporting a nomadic lifestyle while staying two steps ahead of the IRS.”

Albina hesitated again.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Anjali asked.

“Yes, well, I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. Sure, I can tap those accounts from anywhere in the world. That’s the beauty of crypto. But it’s not quite accurate to say the Crypto Lords give us access. Or rather, give me access, now that I’m alone.”

Albina touched the corner of her eye. Ronnie handed over the entire box of tissues and opened another one.

“What do you mean?” Sylvia asked.

“Every tribe has a specialty. Ours was cryptocurrencies. Global crypto. Blockchain. The whole thing. Nobody gives my tribe access. We ARE the Crypto Lords.”

Ronnie’s jaw dropped. Anjali did the math for me.

“Now you own it all? You’re the Queen of Crypto?” she asked.

Albina nodded and smiled shyly. It was very becoming.

I whistled softly.

“Wow. You’re the richest woman in the world.”

“Richest person,” Albina corrected.

My spine tingled.

Forty Six

Party Planner

MIAMI FASHION WEEK arrived like a barbarian horde. Private jets flooded the regional airports. Spirit Air jumbos dumped thousands of low-rent fashionistas at Miami International. Supermodels, agents, and buyers packed the hotels. Airbnb sold out. VRBO sold out. Bars, restaurants, and Pilates studios opened at 6:00 a.m. on Monday and didn’t close. Paparazzi prowled the city in packs, stalking A-list stars and elite designers.

Early in our planning process, we recognized these prying eyes would complicate our coup de main. I was still an A-lister in great demand. My handsome face and shirtless torso dominated the media for months after the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Anjali Khan received similar A-list treatment, but without the shirtless pics.

“The world knows your names. You’ll trend on Insta, and Pandora’s goons will find you,” said Bevy Bellaseno. “It’s already hard enough keeping them away. If your stupid fucking fans get involved, the coup de main will be at risk. You’re gonna have to disappear.”

I’m proud of my fans, but Bevy made a good point.

The plan called for unleashing our coup during an exclusive midnight fashion show starring three of Milan’s top new designers. Albina Aldana would be the show’s celebrity sponsor. She was absolutely confident our scheme would work.

“Pandora worships the Milan fashion houses. One of her famous ancestors served as a condottiero in Lombardia during the Renaissance. Her tribe will show up en masse for this. It’s a command performance. No excuses. Everyone will be there.”

My former DCH colleague Veronica Scarlett recruited the Milanese designers using an unstoppable combo move of outrageous flattery plus a $250 million equity investment in each of their ateliers. Haute couture needs investors like any business. Slam. Boom. Cash.

Veronica’s involvement raised my comfort level. She was an elegant, voluptuous redhead who spent 20 years climbing to the top by taking crap from no man, a role model for every woman on the planet. Her boutique investment firm opened in Milan after the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, and Veronica became a well-known financier in the Italian fashion industry. But that’s another story.

Location proved to be a contentious issue. I wanted to rent a major Miami hotel ballroom, but Albina insisted on hosting the entire event at her palatial estate.

“We must have total control,” she said. “I live on an isolated island near Miami Beach, accessible only by boat or helicopter. That adds to the mystique. The whole vampire world is dying to know more about my personal situation. I’ve kept a low profile since the tragedy. We can position this fashion show as my coming-out party.”

I finally agreed, on condition that Anjali and I would hide in her guest house when Fashion Week kicked off. If I couldn’t attend my favorite designer shows, at least I could share a luxury guest house on a private island with a sultry beauty ripped from the global fashion magazines. Anjali was coy, but didn’t seem to mind the idea.

I shook my head to refocus.

Every vampire in Pandora’s Miami tribe received an engraved invitation for our Friday night runway show, the grand climax to a week of fashion, fun, and frolics. Albina called them in person to confirm their attendance.

To make the invitation utterly irresistible, Sylvia Sakura hired Marco Testosteroni, Italy’s top fashion photographer. He agreed to shoot the whole event and take portraits of each VIP guest posing with the Milanese design trio. Albina loved the idea of leveraging their vanity and arrogance. I loved the idea of isolating them while the other guests went home after the show.

Everybody pitched in. Pastor Steve Wheat graciously donated an Oshkosh Defense Industries A-45 tanker truck loaded with 2500 gallons of his Best Sparkling Holy Water. Sylvia’s handyman connected it to the mansion’s sprinkler system and added an extra pump to boost the flow rate. At Jane Austen’s instruction, Bevy siphoned 100 gallons of holy water into two dozen 4-gal. Ryobi Lithium M16 backpack sprayers. Another one of Jane’s imaginative tactical innovations.

“You should think of it as a very wet, effervescent flamethrower for close combat,” she explained.

Bevy brought her entire security firm from New Jersey. Jane armed them with the Ryobi sprayers, Nepalese kukri knives, and custom Colt Cobras. She ran close-combat drills on the pickleball court.

“Everything depends on delivering a faceful of the holy stuff. Work in teams, keep those sprayers going until your target is down, and then deploy the kukri.”

Albina’s mansion included a commercial kitchen and a master chef. She designed a vampire-friendly menu featuring popular hors d’oeuvres. Blood sausage. Steak tartare. Watercress finger sandwiches with Hellman’s Mayonnaise.

We recruited about fifty people to serve the food and drinks. Sylvia Sakura and Anabella Busto contributed their interns, and John Bardeen brought all his doctoral candidates from Princeton. Albina added her own personal staff: a lady’s maid, two footmen, five cleaning ladies, three gardeners, and a smoking-hot pool boy named Giancarlo. We ordered black tuxedo-style uniforms for everyone.

Andrea Aiuto ran a quick blood test to eliminate any AB-negatives. When she finished, we gathered on the pickleball court for a mission briefing. I took away their phones and gave them the full story. Zombies. Vampires. Revenge.

Nobody blinked.

Even Gina Prensa played a key role behind the scenes as she recovered from her brutal vampire enthrallment. She used her corporate flacking skills to generate tremendous media buzz. Miami Fashion Week focuses on Latin and South American designers. Gina positioned our private event as the “Italian Invasion,” hosted by a mysterious Miami newcomer, the luscious Albina Aldana. She was an haute couture rebel leading Old World fashion designers to plant their flags in the New World.

TMZ ate it up.

Last, but not least, John Bardeen and Zoe Rogue returned from the vacant CIA black site, carrying a liquid nitrogen storage chest. Zoe showed no further signs of unnatural attraction to Bardeen. I breathed a sigh of moral relief.

“Where are your volunteer test subjects, the scientists?” I asked. “What did you do with the remaining single mom zombies?”

“We took the single moms to the Florida Pizza Sauce milking barn and put them down,” Zoe said. “Then we shot up the place like World War IV and burned everything to ashes. The local sheriff told CNN it was a cartel dispute about human trafficking. They all deserved to die, except the women.”

“Did the sheriff believe your fairy tale?”

“Not at first. But I gave him a black duffle bag loaded with crisp hundreds, and he came around.”

I nodded. Untraceable cash has an amazing power over law enforcement officers. Almost supernatural.

“What about the scientists?”

“Bardeen doesn’t need the volunteer test subjects anymore. I called an old friend, Captain Alton Cain Field III, the famous adventurer. The guy who pulled off that crazy hot air balloon rescue from Central Park early in the apocalypse.”

“Sure,” I nodded. “A manly man among manly men. Always ready for action. Was he able to help?”

Zoe looked at Bardeen. He shrugged.

“Yeah,” Zoe replied. “As you know, Manhattan still swarms with millions of zombies, and the governor’s Manhattan Quarantine Zone lockdown remains in effect. But Captain Field has a radar-absorbing BuzzBuggy microcopter. He runs a lucrative side hustle taking people into the MQZ. Retrieving family photos, looting jewelry stores one step ahead of the zombies, all sorts of things.”

Zoe was stalling. I furrowed my brow and glared at her.

“Zoe, what did the hell did you do?”

“Bardeen and I figured, you know, karma is a bitch. So we asked Captain Field to drop the scientists in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Naked and afraid.”

Employee initiative.

Gotta love it.

Forty Seven

Red Carpet

THE FINAL PREPARATIONS came together nicely. On the morning of the event, the team hummed like a well-oiled machine. My role was to stroll around making helpful suggestions about their work. The strategy consultants refer to this as “management by walking around.” It’s the heart of good leadership. Order your team to make a plan, watch the team implement their plan, and then distribute bonuses or pink slips after you count the money.

Sylvia Sakura absorbed so many of my suggestions that she unselfishly suggested I share my wisdom with others.

“Get out of my hair,” she said. “Go for a walk and manage someone else. Stay out of the way.”

Albina’s island estate was a sprawling complex with enough infrastructure for a small African country. There was a helipad, a deep-water dock for superyachts, reverse osmosis equipment for clean water, and four cell phone towers. Five bars anywhere on the island.

Her mansion boasted three floors and 60 bedrooms, each with a luxurious marble and gold-encrusted bathroom. Masses of tropical perennials defined the formal English gardens. Rare frangipani trees scented the morning air. An artificial lagoon included a swim-up bar and a water slide. There were two other guest houses, in addition to the one I shared with Anjali Khan. Dormitory-style servant housing lurked behind a small berm. Upstairs, downstairs.

Workers swarmed over the mansion, installing stage equipment and electronics. For our purposes, the ballroom was the key architectural element, a larger and more tasteful version of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. Rows of chairs, stacks of Klipsch speakers, and racks of computer-controlled Chauvet flood lights flanked an elevated runway. Anabella Busto and Gina Prensa developed an intricate seating plan to ensure that all the Miami vampires sat in front.

Sylvia hired the best production crew in town for the finishing touches. They were already booked by one of Miami’s old guard designers, but Sylvia tripled their fee, paid the cancellation penalty, and stole them away. The cuckolded OG couldn’t find a replacement on such short notice, and ended up hiring a choreographer from the University of Miami marching band. Go Canes.

The fashion show was three events in one. Each designer ruled the runway for twenty minutes, starting at midnight. They brought their own models and an army of art directors, hairdressers, and seamstresses. Marco Testosteroni prepared his VIP photo session in an adjacent, smaller ballroom. I told him to schedule the shoot for ten minutes after the last designer and his models left the runway.

“The designers and VIPs will join you. Move quickly. Speed is more important than art,” I told him.

Marco protested and waved his hands, cursing me in Milanese-accented Italian, until Sylvia produced a new wire transfer to his Swiss bank account.

“Ahh, sì, Signor Carthage. Now I see what you mean. Speed is the ultimate art form. Like the beauty of an Olympic sprinter. Va bene.”

I waved him away and looked for another opportunity to add value.

The first guests arrived at sundown. A wave of fashion editors, bloggers, influencers, and buyers disembarked from a flotilla of local fishing boat charters. It looked like the Mariel boat lift, except for the waiters serving champagne cocktails on the dock. Wet foot. Dry foot.

A wave of superyachts followed after sundown, loaded with gowned and tuxedoed vampires, celebrities, and their entourages. They walked a long red carpet to Albina’s front doors, where they were greeted by champagne-toting waitresses as an army of paparazzi behind red velvet ropes shouted, “Who are you wearing?”

Once inside, the crowd was treated to fifteen fully-stocked bars, a gourmet feast, and a cover band playing gothic-rock classics. Bauhaus. The Cure. Sisters of Mercy.

The highest-ranking vampires arrived an hour later in a squadron of personal helicopters. The waitresses greeted them with trays of champagne and coke, in accordance with their executive status. After offloading two or three vampires, each chopper flew to a holding area on the other side of the island.

I watched the arrivals with Albina from her bedroom suite, dimming the lights so we couldn’t be seen through the bay window. We had fun, laughing at the badly dressed media types and spotting celebrities in the crowd. She pointed out several important vampires, but we couldn’t see Pandora Blackwood.

Albina was nervous. After the senior vampires arrived, she was scheduled to make a spectacular entrance down the grand staircase and lead the guests to the Hall of Mirrors, where ushers would make sure they found the right seats.

“I wish you could come with me,” she said. “Having you around calms my butterflies. Your aura projects strength and endurance.”

I held both her hands and stepped back. She was magnificent in a classic Balenciaga strapless black silk sheath with a thigh slit that went all the way up. Her salon-fresh platinum hair was luminescent, and the Casa Damiani diamonds rivaled the sparkle in her ice-blue eyes. The latest Manolo Blahnik stilettos completed her look and brought those ruby-red lips dangerously close to mine.

“Nobody this beautiful should have butterflies,” I said. “You’re going to be fine. I can’t risk tipping our hand. Pandora’s vampires would sniff my AB-negative blood, or some idiotic Instagram influencer would recognize me. I’ll be here watching over you. Everything is under control, I promise.”

Albina squeezed my hands and smiled. My spine tingled at the sight of her slightly longer than normal canines.

“When this is over, John Carthage, we’re going to have a talk.” She turned and walked out like a runway model, as if every eye in the room was watching.

Which was absolutely true.

Forty Eight

Double Cross

OUR COMMAND CENTER was located in a third-floor suite jammed with surveillance equipment. Zoe Rogue’s EW specialist installed the system with help from Ronnie Numero, who had been four-time president of his high school audio-visual club. He equipped Albina Aldana’s mansion with little WiFi cameras concealed in potted plants, tucked away in bookcases, or simply stuck to the ceiling with velcro. A Universal Industries cell-phone cloner lurked in the disco ball over center stage. We would capture every phone in the audience.

Zoe’s specialist installed a new Paranoia AI on a Mac StudioBoss supercomputer to serve as a data hub. She named it Hal.

Except for Bevy Bellaseno, each of my team members monitored a specific set of cameras on dedicated 99-inch Samsung Quantum OLED televisions. They could tag any guest with the click of a mouse, and Hal would automatically track that target. Bevy installed a smaller monitor in the carriage house, where she waited with her flamethrower-equipped security team and could respond instantly to urgent distress calls from anywhere on the estate.

Sylvia Sakura loaded the Mac StudioBoss with our information about the vampires, including Dr. Stonjohn’s dissertation and Bram Stoker’s famous novel. Once an individual was tagged, the Paranoia AI displayed a little data box that trailed them everywhere, showing name, rank, net worth, and predicting their next move. I wondered if the AI was aware of how powerful a tool it might be in the wrong hands. Mine, for example.

It was a brilliant system, enabling us to track 150 vampires at the same time. Maybe a little too brilliant. Hal absorbed Sylvia’s data dump and deciphered my plan in less than five minutes. For the remainder of the evening, a red chyron crawled across our screens: “Warning! Warning! You’re all about to die.”

Everyone’s a critic.

Albina made her grand entrance to thunderous applause and a chorus of wolf whistles. After brief remarks about the wonderful Milanese designers and the hot Italian models, she invited the guests to the Hall of Mirrors for the most important show ever hosted at Miami Fashion Week. The crowd cheered.

Zoe delivered bad news about fifteen minutes before the first model stepped onto the runway. I answered the phone call without taking my eyes from the main monitor, which displayed an overhead shot of the crowded Hall. Scores of vampire data boxes floated across the screen in non-Brownian motion as they moved to their assigned seats. Albina’s data box was highlighted in ice-blue.

“Pandora’s not coming,” said Zoe. “She left her mansion around 11:30 p.m., and right now she’s walking into a swanky bar with the Mayor. Looks like a late meeting.”

I frowned and toyed with a small garage remote in my pocket.

“Are there any other guests? Anybody you recognize?”

“Yeah, about two dozen. I have a good view from across the street. A couple of city councilmen, three Miami-Dade commissioners, a priest, a rabbi, and the Chair of the Atlanta Federal Reserve.”

A priest, a rabbi, and the Chair of the Atlanta Fed walk into a bar? What the hell? Was Zoe diversifying into stand-up comedy?

“That’s a fucking strange Friday night rendezvous,” I said.

“I can also see some commercial bankers, a few real estate agents, and a sprinkling of hot blonde waitresses from the Eternal Night. Does that set the stage for you?”

“Yeah. Her evil scheme plays on. She must have another move to make. A good executive always has a fallback plan.”

“There’s nothing we can do right now,” Zoe replied. “Pandora is obviously not coming to Albina’s fashion show. You said this might happen. Should we pivot to Plan B?”

“Absolutely. We may never get a better chance. Alert your team and keep an eye on her.”

“Roger that. Good luck with Albina.”

I put the phone away and focused on my screen. At the stroke of midnight, the Hall of Mirrors flashed dark and then exploded in blinding light and deafening techno-music. Hal automatically adjusted the camera feeds to compensate.

As the first models pranced down the runway, Albina slipped out of the Hall. The cameras followed her to our third-floor command center. She looked agitated.

“Pandora’s not here yet,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Everything’s under control,” I assured her. “There was always a chance she might not come. You’re the new girl in town, so she’s delivering a little social snub.”

“What will you do?”

“I have a backup plan. You’ll see. The most important thing is to keep the party going until we deliver the coup de main. Get down there and make our guests feel welcome.”

Jane Austen interrupted us.

“Hey, I’ve got a problem.”

Hal cloned Jane’s viewscreen to our main monitor. A handsome man with a Euro-trash haircut led a smoking-hot Italian model up the main staircase into a second-floor bedroom. She was stumbling badly, with his arm around her waist for support. Hal calculated a 99 percent probability that she had been drugged or was under the influence of vampire hypnosis.

Either way, that girl needed help.

Albina stared in horror. I slipped a kukri into my belt and raced to the second floor. Jane dumped her headphones, kicked off her stilettos, and ran after me with a Ryobi backpack sprayer. Hal sent a live video feed from the bedroom to my neon-pink iPhone 35. The hot Italian model sprawled unconscious across the bed. The handsome vampire fumbled with the zipper on her dress.

My inner caveman roared. I kicked open the door and charged. The vampire spun around faster than a lying politician and flew across the room at me in a single leap. His snarling mouth displayed needle-sharp canines of impressive length.

I yanked the gleaming kukri from my belt and dealt a swift stroke, skilled and deadly. His outstretched neck clove asunder, and his hewn head fell like a stone.

Backward I sprang as he crashed to ruin, arms outstretched, crumpled on the rug. His head rolled under a nearby chair, frozen in mid-snarl. A heartbeat later, he dissolved into gray dust, and his shadow passed away.

“What the fuck?” muttered Jane. “How did you do that?”

“The headmaster was a big Tolkien fan.”

Jane gave me a puzzled look, then dialed housekeeping. The maid took one look and called for a bucket and shovel.

Andrea Aiuto arrived with a medkit and two interns. She examined the hot Italian model and ordered the interns to wrap her in a bedspread for transport.

“She’ll be alright. Thank heaven it wasn’t a roofie. The bastard hypnotized her. Now that he’s dead, she’ll wake up soon. I’ll put her on an IV and get some solid food into her. I doubt she’s eaten anything in the past week.”

We left Andrea in charge and returned to the command center. Albina was waiting. She watched the whole thing.

“That was incredible,” she said. “I’ve never seen such courage. You gave that pig exactly what he deserved.”

Albina hugged Jane, winked at me, and raced back to the Hall of Mirrors. Nobody missed our dead vampire. Hal flagged several similar incidents during the evening. Bevy and her team rescued the girls and dusted the vampires. Nobody missed them.

The fashion show roared on with full volume and frenetic pacing. The crowd cheered every smashing new look. The department store buyers placed million-dollar orders on their iPhones.

Our finale raised the roof. All three Milanese designers appeared on stage with Albina, surrounded by hot models and dumpy minions. The standing ovation lasted at least ten minutes. Albina delivered closing remarks and promised that next year’s show would be even better. The house lights came up, and the crowd departed.

Except for Pandora’s vampires.

These extra-special guests were guided into a second ballroom, where they stood along a red velvet rope. Marco Testosteroni and his assistants jumped into action. Each vampire posed for a smiling vanity shot with our three Milanese designers in front of a Miami Fashion Week backdrop.

As a distraction, the hottest Italian models worked the crowd in low-cut Renaissance ball gowns, flirting and posing for selfies. Interns pushed Dom Pérignon champagne and 925 Diamante tequila shooters to the guests waiting in line. The vampires drank it up.

That was our plan.

It was the critical piece of an invisible coup de main. Every glass of expensive champagne or tequila in that ballroom carried Pandora’s zombie virus. Nobody touched the premium booze except our extra-special elite platinum guests.

Thanks to Gina Prensa’s insider information, we knew the virus would turn the vampires into humans after a few hours. Thanks to the free booze we flogged all evening, they were too drunk to notice any immediate side effects.

All the human servers were volunteers. John Bardeen vaccinated them against the virus four days in advance. I took the first dose. He served it on sugar cubes.

Marco wrapped the photo shoot about an hour before dawn. The vampires boarded helicopters for the return flight or staggered along the red carpet to their superyachts. Hal tagged several of them for stealing dresses. I told Bevy’s security team to let it go. No sense making a fuss after everything went so well.

The last vampire superyacht weighed anchor, the last vampire helicopter chattered away, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief. The horizon hinted at dawn. I called Zoe to launch Plan B, the second half of the coup de main.

Albina charged into the command center. Her eyes were red, and her canines were long.

“What the hell happened?” she screamed. “You were supposed to wipe them out tonight. I played my part. Why didn’t you trigger the Sparkling Holy Water sprinkler system and send in your goons? I did all this for nothing. They’ve ruined my carpets. Now the sun is coming up, and I have to go to bed.”

“Chill out,” I grinned. “You did a wonderful job. Fabulous. Pandora’s vampire tribe is toast.”

“How so? They’ll discover the fashion show was a set-up, and they’ll come after me. After you, too. You’re as good as dead. All of you.”

“I’ll explain it tonight over dinner. Your favorite restaurant. The two of us. I’ll bring flowers.”

My team erupted in protest.

“Okay,” I relented. “Let’s make it a working dinner with the whole group. See you at my mansion around 9:00 p.m. Business casual.”

Albina growled, but a tiny ray of morning sun sent her packing before she could reply.

“I’m still not sure it was a good idea to keep her in the dark about this. We should have briefed her about the virus.” said Ronnie.

“She’ll understand,” I assured him. “We couldn’t risk telling her the real plan. Besides, it’s just business.”

The girls looked at each other and laughed.

“John, she’s a woman,” Anjali said.

They nodded in unison.

“It’s all personal.”

Forty Nine

Fourth Estate

THREE HOURS LATER, I stood across from the shiny steel doors of Pandora’s Box, LLC in downtown Miami. My charcoal Valentino suit, crisp white shirt, and gold doubloon cuff links screamed investment banker. A small gaggle of federal officials clogged the sidewalk. Their rumpled gray pinstripes and cheap ties screamed GS-12, tired wives, kids, and mortgages.

Anjali Khan stood beside me, wearing a slinky red silk Palmerston dress by Giorgio Armani and a pair of Jimmy Choos from the spring collection. A dozen gold bangles jingled on her Pilates-toned arms. We made a fabulous couple.

One of the GS-12s looked at his watch and raised a quizzical eyebrow. I nodded my approval. He clicked the talk button on his L3 Harris tactical multiband radio.

Sirens wailed, lights flashed, and three fully-armored Lenco TigerCats roared up. A dozen troopers in full FDIC body armor jumped out and opened Pandora’s steel doors with an Ensign-Bickford satchel charge. Screech. Slap. Boom.

Somebody in the foyer offered a full 30-round magazine in protest. The FDIC squad leader fired two rebuttals from a Milkor six-shot 40mm grenade launcher, effectively ending the argument.

“That’s a little over the top, doncha think?” I muttered.

The troopers charged through the smoldering gap with guns blazing. Two of them caught 9mm rounds in their Kevlar vests. Shake it off.

When the last kernel of corn popped, the FDIC squad leader reappeared from inside. She doffed her Gensco Ops-Core tactical helmet, revealing a cascade of luscious, silver-streaked black hair.

It was Zoe Rogue.

She waved to me and patted the Milkor grenade launcher, happy to finally make some noise. A little kid on Independence Day.

Two minutes later, a Mercedes EQS e-limousine screeched to a halt in the CEO’s parking spot. A cute blond intern in a blue FDIC windbreaker jumped out and opened the passenger door.

It was Charles Pulton, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Scourge of the banking world. His Brioni suit and royal-blue silk tie screamed Illuminati.

Pulton strode through the ruined doorway like Hannibal after Cannae, with a clusterfudge of GS-15s trailing close behind. Local news satellite trucks rolled up, disgorging network camera crews and young field reporters eager to make the big time. Saturday mornings are slow in the news business, so every network in town sent a crew, even the German public broadcasting network, ARD.

When Pulton reemerged, he addressed the press gaggle, fielding their questions with practiced ease. His interns distributed an FDIC press release. Five minutes later, he buzzed away for his next appointment, flashing me a V-for-Victory as he boarded the limo.

After Pulton’s departure, the young field reporters stood before the cameras and delivered breathless news reports. It was Miami’s biggest Saturday morning news story since the Great Bikini Heist.

One sharp-eyed young reporter recognized me, thanks to my endless post-apocalypse media exposure. She raced across the street for an exclusive interview. When she realized Anjali was standing with me, I thought her head might explode.

“Mr. Carthage and Miss Khan,” she squealed. “I’m Breezy O’Hara with QFOR News. What a joy to see you together! Why are you in Miami? Are the rumors true? Have you set a wedding date?”

We looked at each other, and there was a moment. But Anjali shook her elegant head to refocus and dismissed the idea with a laugh.

“No, Breezy, we’re here for Pandora’s Box. The FDIC seized the company this morning. Mr. Carthage and his firm agreed to buy all the assets. My company is handling the transaction. As you know, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe provides a full range of services, including free checking, time shares, and reverse mortgages.”

“Any chance this raid is related to the recent upsurge in violence among Miami drug cartels?”

“That’s a great question, Breezy,” I replied. “Pandora’s Box got what it deserved. Operating as an unlicensed cartel bank gave the FDIC jurisdiction to seize everything. So this is a standard FDIC purchase and assumption transaction. Nothing unusual, except the drugs and human trafficking, of course.”

“That’s fantastic. Mr. Carthage, what is your role going forward?”

“First and foremost, I’ll help the FDIC put about 150 of these scoundrels in federal prison. Second, thanks to Chairman Pulton’s restructuring team, I’m the proud landlord of every skyscraper and small business in the Miami financial district. Hundreds of entrepreneurs will prosper under my guidance.”

“One more question, Mr. Carthage. Do you ever get tired of being an All-American Hero?”

I smiled.

“Not with fans like mine.”

Fifty

The Frame

AFTER THE PRESS CORPS pulled out, Anjali and I toured Pandora’s Box with one of the GS-15s. Government lawyers and accountants swarmed everywhere, unplugging computers and hauling away cardboard boxes stuffed with newspaper clippings, old restaurant menus, and classified nuclear secrets.

“We will wrap this up in a few more hours, Mr. Carthage,” the GS-15 said. “You’ll be open for business by Monday morning. Have you decided on a new name?”

“I’ll leave that to my marketing department. The most important tasks right now are transferring the corporate assets and arresting the senior executives.”

“The FDIC never leaves money on the table,” he grinned. “You’ll get everything, don’t worry. The executives are already in Miami-Dade County jail, except the CEO, Pandora Blackwood. She’s in the wind.”

Anjali and I looked at each other. Not good.

“We’re snatching the last few of them as we speak. It’s a joint FDIC-DEA operation. The U.S. Marshals Service is helping. Their Asset Forfeiture Division seized all the personal assets. Cars. Yachts. Private jets. Box seats at the Miami Opera.”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” I said. “I’ve never seen the federal government move so fast.”

“Your counsel served them on a silver platter. She gave us everything to crush the whole operation.”

“Yeah. Anabella Busto is the best lawyer in Miami. That’s why she works for me.”

“Your generosity in purchasing the whole company for twenty cents on the dollar is amazing. You’ve done your country a real service. Finding buyers for failed banks is the hardest part of our job. You made it easy for us.”

“No sacrifice is too great for American justice,” I smiled.

Anjali rolled her eyes. The GS-15 didn’t notice.

“You’re an unstoppable warrior, Mr. Carthage. The way you saved those people in the Manhattan zombie apocalypse was amazing. The closing of Pandora’s Box adds a new chapter to your legend. And, Miss Khan, your Vogue covers are spectacular. Is it true you’ve been approached by the Sports Illustrated swimsuit people?”

Anjali clenched her fists. I hustled the GS-15 away before she could punch his lights out.

“Thanks so much for your help,” I said. “We can take it from here. Please give my best to Chairman Pulton.”

The GS-15 bowed low and left us to poke around in the CEO’s office. I didn’t expect to find much. At her level of wealth, Pandora Blackwood undoubtedly operated over drinks and dinner. A plebeian office in downtown Miami was not her vibe.

Anjali frowned.

“How did they miss Pandora? Do you think the government truly believes Pandora’s Box served as a cartel bank? We both know it’s not a bank. More like a real estate investment trust.”

“People swallow everything they hear on television,” I replied. “Anybody who objects to our narrative will be condemned as an apologist for drug dealers and human traffickers.”

“That’s true. But what if the case unravels? The vampires aren’t part of the cartel. You framed Pandora with those shootouts at PMS and Florida Pizza Sauce.”

“Not gonna happen. The FDIC never loses a fish once the hook is set. Chairman Pulton seized the corporate accounts and persuaded the IRS Commissioner to audit any law firm foolish enough to represent a Pandora’s Box executive. Pandora’s minions will be lucky to hire rookie lawyers from the Miami-Dade public defender’s office.”

Anjali nodded absently. An empty bookcase had captured her full attention. She started at it for a long time.

“Look,” she said. “The FDIC dumped everything on the floor. You can see dust on all the shelves, except this one. Why is that?”

I stared at the empty shelf. She was right about the dust. The back section yielded to a gentle push. It popped open, revealing a small black electronic safe.

“How about that?” Anjali said. “Vampires have secrets.”

“Maybe. Or it could be Al Capone’s vault all over again.”

Anjali retrieved a nerdy young woman with red hair, clad in a blue FDIC windbreaker and lugging a heavy duffle of electronic equipment. Probably a GS-9. Once she overcame the sheer joy of meeting me in person, she bubbled with eagerness to help.

“This shouldn’t be a problem, Mr. Carthage. It’s not a high-end safe. Looks like something you could buy at Walmart. Not that I’m implying you shop at Walmart,” she hastened to add.

“Everybody shops at Walmart. Can you open it?”

“Of course. But FDIC standard operating procedures require two people must be present when opening a safe or other locked container. I’ll go find one of my colleagues.”

“Hang on, I’m the new owner, right? You’re with me. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Anjali pulled a brick of crisp hundred-dollar bills from her briefcase.

The GS-9 stared at the brick. She looked at me.

I smiled.

“That’s true,” she said. “Technically, it’s your safe now. I’ll be happy to open it for you. FDIC is a full-service agency.”

A black box appeared from her black duffle and opened the black safe in less than thirty seconds. The black box went back into the black duffle. The brick disappeared into her blue FDIC windbreaker.

We posed for selfies, and the GS-9 left us in the office.

The safe was empty, except for an old Motorola flip phone.

“That’s gotta be a burner phone,” I said.

Anjali pushed the power button and scrolled to the contacts list. There was only one name.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve System.

Fifty One

Regroup

MY COUP DE MAIN exceeded all expectations. I eradicated Pandora Blackwood’s tribe and seized her immense treasure trove.

A golden taste for plunder, indeed.

But two loose ends nagged me: Pandora and her human enablers.

The evidence of Pandora’s collusion with evil humans was incontrovertible. It was far worse than simply hiring an army of ignorant minions. Investment bankers do that all the time. Bribing a lowly GS-9 or a half-bright Supreme Court Justice is the cost of modern business. Pay to play.

But when you deliver millions of your own people to slaughter, you’ve crossed a line. The scumbags working with Pandora betrayed their own humanity. My inner caveman growled.

They would soon feel my wrath.

It was the next challenge. We drove away from Pandora’s Box, and I slipped into a genius-level trance to find a solution. Anjali noticed immediately. She gave me space to think deep thoughts and called Sylvia to give her an update.

“Hey girl, we’re on our way to the estate. Yeah, he’s asleep. Everything went well. Watch the news tonight. Big show, you’ll see. It was wild.”

As we rolled onto the grounds, I smiled and waved to the mob of zombie conspiracy theorists camped outside my granite walls. They smiled and waved homemade signs with their favorite zombie conspiracy theories. Freemasons. DARPA. Disney. All of the Above.

If only they knew.

Sylvia and Ronnie were eager to brief me, so we settled on the veranda for an afternoon cocktail and late lunch. My personal chef took orders and reappeared in less than twenty minutes with Caesar salads, quiche Lorraine, and Beluga caviar. My personal cocktail waitress served me a stimulating French Blonde on a silver platter. Sylvia and Ronnie stayed with the European-themed meal and ordered French 75s.

Sylvia opened her iPad.

“Anjali says the Pandora’s Box raid was a smash hit. I’ve sent Thank You notes to the Chairman of the FDIC, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service. Gina Prensa is monitoring the media. She’ll give us a report when the story is trending.”

“Gina broke all previous records in mobilizing the press,” I replied. “I haven’t seen so many satellite trucks since our escape from Manhattan. Even our old doucheflack at DCH couldn’t pull the networks together like that.”

“Yeah, she knows the ropes. I’ve already put her on our payroll. Head of Corporate Relations.”

“Good call,” I nodded. “Ronnie, what do you have for me?”

“We’re moving our command center from Albina Aldana’s mansion to your estate. Hal transferred himself after the raid, and Sylvia’s interns are setting up the vampire tracking room again. The FDIC will work closely with me to incorporate the asset seizures into your boutique investment firm. Sylvia assigned one of your smaller guest mansions to their team. I’ve assigned three assistant butlers and four junior cocktail waitresses to provide lifestyle support.”

“Wait. Are federal employees allowed to live like me?” I asked in disbelief. “How is that possible?”

“Yes, as long as they reimburse you. That’s why they get per diem. Otherwise, it’s considered a bribe.”

I laughed, but Ronnie’s face remained serious.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said.

“No, it’s good government ethics. They have to pay, or people will think we’re buying them off.”

Sylvia looked pensive.

“What if we let them stay on Pandora’s superyacht?” she asked.

Ronnie tapped a few keys on his laptop and studied the results.

“Good idea. The yacht is no problem,” he said. “There’s something called the Thomas Loophole. Not sure why, but sleeping on the yacht means they won’t have to pay for anything, and nobody can complain about bribery or the appearance of impropriety.”

The briefing paused as a Sikorsky CH-93 King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter thumped overhead. Our Oshkosh tanker truck and its 2500 gallons of Pastor Steve Wheat’s Best Sparkling Holy Water dangled beneath it on steel cables.

Bevy Bellaseno waved at us from the driver’s window, her luxurious brunette hair blowing wild in the rotor wash. Sylvia’s terrified handyman stood on the running board with fear in his eyes and a death grip on the door handle.

The chopper lumbered away after dropping the tanker behind the main residence. Sylvia checked her to-do list.

“There’s one more thing,” she said. “Jane Austen designed an additional set of security measures for your estate. Everything will be ready by sundown. Pandora is on the loose, and it’s only a matter of time before she comes after you. Better safe than sorry.”

“I’m more worried about Albina Aldana,” said Ronnie. “She’s not gonna be happy with you.”

Sylvia shrugged. No big deal.

“Beautiful women are always mad at him.”

Fifty Two

The Best Revenge

THE SUN FINALLY SET on our busy day. The entire team gathered in my colossal media wing to celebrate. The dress code was sexy casual wear from our three Milanese designers. Hal cranked out a playlist of classic hip hop and trap music. Champagne flowed like wine. My personal chef provided an endless lobster and caviar buffet. Beautiful women vied for my favors. They always do.

Samsung OLED televisions streamed coverage of the Pandora’s Box raid. Breezy O’Hara’s sidewalk interview went viral, and she gained a million followers on Insta. The public rejoiced to see Anjali Khan and me together again for the first time since the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Anjali’s “evasive” answer to the marriage question trended so hard that it overshadowed a small ground war in Asia.

“Evasive?” she muttered. “I said, ‘No.’ What more can I do? Take out a restraining order?”

The party was in full swing when the front gate called.

Albina Aldana had arrived.

I told them to send her in.

Albina parked her hydrogen-powered BMW in the circular driveway and strode briskly through my grand foyer. Hal followed her on security cams. The floating data tag flashed a yellow alert.

Madder than a wet hornet.

Footsteps tick-tocked closer on the marble floor and stopped abruptly. I took a deep breath and opened the double doors. She walked in, looking magnificent in a sea-green Balenciaga resort dress with golden summer cutout sandals by Ramy Brooke. The room fell quiet as the other girls surveyed their competition.

Then, Ronnie Numero started to clap. Bevy Bellaseno joined in. The whole team broke into applause, punctuated by cries of “Brava!” and “My bitch!” They crowded around her with high-fives, fist-bumps, and hearty back-slaps.

She was blown away.

I’m a tough executive who shows no mercy to slackers. But a good executive recognizes outstanding work and rewards it. Albina played her part to perfection, and she deserved every accolade.

The team escorted her to the buffet table for champagne, caviar, and more congratulations. She seemed genuinely touched.

We were cheating. Under Zoe Rogue’s guidance, our Paranoia AI provided a psychological analysis of Albina and her current state of mind. The death of her entire tribe weighed heavily in the results. Her new wealth stemmed from that loss, but exacerbated her inevitable survivor guilt. She walked alone in the world. Her vulnerability index topped the charts.

Hal flagged an opportunity. Make her part of the team. Her fierce devotion to the tribe would manifest as devotion to us. One less threat to worry about. I’d be able to trust her.

So we showed her the love.

After the celebration, Ronnie dimmed the lights, and most of the team sat down to watch Resident Evil, the investment world’s all-time favorite movie and video game franchise. I’ve seen it a hundred times and always learn something new. It’s an allegory for the entire financial system. Think about Raccoon City when paying your next Verizon bill. You’ll understand.

Sylvia Sakura and I retired to a plush VIP booth. I waved at Albina to join us. My personal cocktail waitress brought a silver tray of Negronis and a crystal bowl of Blue Diamond salted almonds.

Albina made herself comfortable, crossing her well-toned legs and smoothing the short hem of her Balenciaga resort dress. The golden Ramy Brooke sandals winked at me.

I offered a toast to Manhattan’s glorious dead, both human and vampire. Albina raised her Negroni in salute. She took a sip and looked at me expectantly.

“Albina, you must have a lot of questions,” I said. “Go ahead and ask me anything. Anything at all.”

She frowned and got right to the point.

“What the hell happened last night? Why didn’t you pull the trigger? You should have killed them all. That was the plan.”

Time to take the plunge.

“I gave this a lot of thought. Pandora’s tribe killed millions of people in Manhattan, yours and mine. I wanted revenge. So did you.”

Albina touched the corner of her eye. My lonely empathy neuron woke up and went straight to Defcon 1.

“But there are worse things than dying,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she sniffed.

Sylvia set a tissue box on the table.

“As an example, let’s think about a cartel death threat. It can force someone to commit unspeakable acts, but not always. People are brave and stubborn. In those cases, the cartel selects a different weakness. Something more important than life itself. A more painful loss. Children. A wife. The family cat.”

“Vampires don’t like cats,” Albina said. “That’s a witch thing.”

Sylvia raised a quizzical eyebrow. I ignored her and plowed ahead.

“I didn’t want Pandora and her evil tribe to get off so easily. A few moments of excruciating pain, followed by peaceful oblivion for all eternity? Not good enough. I wanted something worse than death.”

“So, what’s worse than agonizing death for Pandora and her tribe?”

“Have you seen the news this evening?”

“No,” she said. “When I woke up, there was a voice mail from Sylvia inviting me here. I didn’t even stop to eat breakfast.”

Sylvia propped her iPad on the table and opened YouTube. The top ten trending videos covered the FDIC raid on Pandora’s Box. Bloomberg News gushed that my emergency purchase of Pandora’s assets saved the American banking system. The Fast Money team on CNBC tried to calculate my new net worth, but couldn’t count that high. America’s Most Wanted ran a profile on Pandora Blackwood, cursed scam artist and evil drug lord.

Albina dabbed her eyes and smiled a little.

“You destroyed her empire. It’ll take centuries to rebuild. How in the world did you manage to do this?”

“Simple. I bribed the FDIC to designate Pandora’s Box, LLC as a failing bank, and I bought it for pennies on the dollar. She stupidly concentrated everything into a single holding company. Her arrogance made my job easy.”

Albina furrowed her perfect brow.

“That’s the traditional vampire financial structure. Power and wealth always flow to the top. Over the long centuries of vampire lives, everything ends up in the hands of one person.”

“The same trend operates in our world,” Sylvia said. “But death keeps the system from reaching an absolute state of wealth accumulation. One kid can’t win all the marbles. He always dies first.”

Albina shook her head with a sigh.

“Vampires don’t die. Immortality, remember? Pandora can rebuild. Maybe you’ll be dead by that time, but I’ll still be around. ”

Sylvia tapped her iPad and opened an audio file.

“These are calls among senior members of Pandora’s tribe,” she said. “We cloned their phones during the fashion show. Notice anything unusual? Out of the ordinary?”

She tapped the play button on an urgent call between two greasy vampire hosers named Luigi and Mario.

Albina flinched and leaned forward.

“I met them at a banking conference in Geneva. They worked for Lucian. Slimy bastards.”

Sylvia turned up the volume.

“Mario, what the fuck? Why are we awake?”

“I don’t know, brother. I’m trying to reach Pandora, but she’s not answering. I feel weak. Dizzy.”

“What the hell is going on? My servants left me after I woke up mid-morning. I couldn’t compel them to stay. I’m standing on my balcony in broad daylight. It’s terrifying, and…”

Luigi’s bewilderment was interrupted by a crash of splintering wood and Miami-Dade SWAT gently encouraging him to get down on the fucking ground.

The line went dead.

Albina’s jaw dropped.

Sylvia played a dozen other clips. The vampires were hysterical. Several of them searched frantically for sunglasses. Nobody understood what was happening. My favorite calls included gunshots and harsh voices screaming, “DEA! Show me your hands! Show me your hands!” There were tons of those.

Albina stared at the iPad.

“We wanted revenge,” I said softly. “Sure, Pandora and her tribe deserve to die. But I’m not a mass murderer. Living with that many deaths would be hard for me, and an eternity for you. So, I found an alternative. Something worse. The family cat, so to speak.”

“I don’t understand,” Albina sighed. She was weary and emotional.

“What are the two most important things in the vampire world?”

Albina shrugged.

“I give up. What?”

“You taught me in our first meeting. Immortality and obscene wealth. In other words, the family cat.”

Albina toyed with her Casa Damiani diamond necklace as she processed the thought. The corners of her mouth ticked up, and her face slowly brightened.

I could see the light bulb flickering on.

“You found something worse than death,” she said.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“You turned them into humans.”

Sylvia grinned and added the kicker.

“Broke-ass humans.”

Albina smiled. Tears rolled down her perfect cheeks.

“Thank you, John.”

“There’s more,” I said. “Most of her tribe are in prison. No bail. They’ll be convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and charging excessive fees on checking accounts. Some of them won’t stop babbling about being vampires. Florida State Hospital for the Criminally Insane agreed to hold them indefinitely.”

“So, they’ll finish their lives in prison or the loony bin, surrounded by the dregs of humanity?” Albina asked.

“Yep,” I replied. “Worse than working in a major law firm.”

Albina’s smile was incandescent.

“How did you do it? I understand the business part; that was brilliant. How did you turn them into humans? Was there zombie blood in the canapés last night?”

“No, but you’re close,” Sylvia replied. “We served Pandora’s pure zombie virus in the Dom Pérignon and Diamante during the VIP photo shoot. Irresistible, not to mention ironic.”

“The actual zombie virus? I didn’t know you had access to that. Where did you get it?”

“From the laboratory at Phage Molecular Sciences,” I said. “We stopped the San Francisco shipment before it went out. I kept the virus on ice. Liquid nitrogen, to be precise.”

“That was a terrible risk, don’t you think? What about the humans at that photo shoot? The interns and grad students. Weren’t you afraid one might steal a drink and turn into a zombie? You could have accidentally started a Miami zombie apocalypse.”

I looked at Sylvia. She nodded. Albina was one of us now. She deserved the whole story.

“Our team developed a vaccine against the zombie virus. Well, one man did. Dr. John Bardeen.”

I pointed to John, deep in a Formula 1 arcade game with Jane Austen and Andrea Aiuto. They looked like innocent, carefree undergrads. So sweet. So innocent.

“Wow!” Albina said. “That’s incredible. He should get a Nobel prize for that. Or a Peabody. But what about me? Did you give me a dose of the vaccine too?”

“Absolutely not. I kept you safe. Remember those two handsome interns by your side?”

“Sure. They pampered me all night.”

“They only had one job. Make sure you didn’t drink anything with virus in it. Same for the serving crew. There were fifty people watching over you.”

“You’re part of the family now,” Sylvia said.

And all the lights went out.

Fifty Three

The Battle of Pandora

MY PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY has always been to plan for victory, but prepare for disaster. In this case, the victory was mine. Pandora’s tribe vanished into Florida’s prison system. Her enormous wealth disappeared into my pockets. Two beautiful women sipped Negronis with me in a billion-dollar mansion.

Yet, I prepared for disaster. My well-honed Manhattan social skills warned me that Pandora might snub Albina’s fashion show. Alpha socialites don’t share the limelight. I had a backup plan. A trap.

The publicity explosion from our FDIC raid was no accident. I wanted Pandora to know who attacked her. Gina Prensa convinced the anchors at CNN, CNBC, and TMZ to lay it on thick. Pandora Blackwood is an evil hag. John Carthage is a national hero. Pandora is broke. John is richer than ever. Pandora buys her clothes at Costco.

Sylvia contributed that final slap.

“It’s a deadly insult among women. Her sense of fashion and honor will demand quick, bloody revenge.”

Jane Austen agreed.

“The whole world knows where John lives. She’ll come for him. He’s our bait, the goat tied to a tree.”

So, when the power went out, and Hal switched to emergency batteries, I didn’t panic. Everything was under control.

Bevy ordered us to hunker down, then rushed off to join her security forces. I opened the over-stocked secret weapons locker, grabbed my favorite Mokuba wrecking bar, and jammed a custom Colt Cobra .357 under my belt. I offered one to Albina.

“No thanks, I’m good,” she smiled.

Jane Austen strapped herself into a 4-gal. Ryobi Lithium M16 backpack sprayer. Razor-sharp kukris, Mossberg trench guns, and custom Uzi machine pistols flew off the shelves. Zoe disappeared for a moment but returned quickly, armed with her Wastelander 10 ga. kinetic breaching shotgun.

Sylvia texted her handyman. The estate will need some drywall work in the morning.

Hal switched our main screen from Resident Evil reruns to a real-time tactical view. The chaotic scene harshed my buzz.

A large group of mercenaries blew through a side gate in the solid granite perimeter wall. Bevy’s outnumbered security force engaged them in a wild, running firefight around the formal English gardens. Sheets of fire decapitated the coneflowers and Black-eyed Susans in the lush perennial beds. Tracer rounds ignited my giant boxwood maze. Another team breached the library wing and advanced toward the grand foyer, fighting Bevy’s guards room by room.

We had overlooked Pandora’s hidden reserves. An unknown unknown. Nothing was under control. The world fell apart.

Perfect.

I love chaos. It’s my superpower.

“I want Ronnie and Bardeen to stay here and protect the women. I’ll launch a one-caveman counterattack and drive these bastards out.”

Anjali and Sylvia looked at each other and rolled their eyes. I pulled an AK-95 from behind the bar and ran toward the double doors, which slammed shut and locked in my face.

The Paranoia AI had exceeded its programming.

“Hal, open the media-wing doors,” I shouted.

The doors didn’t budge.

Andrea Aiuto pointed at the screens. A flashing red chyron rolled across the bottom. Three words, repeated endlessly in all caps. Boldface and underlined.

“Arm the crazies. Arm the crazies. Arm the crazies.”

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

We stared at Hal’s tactical display. An evolving constellation of pink data tags swirled through the gardens, surrounding a smaller constellation of blue data tags. Suicide drones whizzed across the battlefield and blasted any data tag that stood still. Pink data tags moved through the mansion by leaps and bounds, blocked by blue tags at choke points, until fire superiority let them jump forward.

But we were not alone.

Hal highlighted a cluster of white data tags by the front gate. Almost a hundred of them. Zombie conspiracy theorists in their campsite. A full company of crazies.

The light bulb flickered on.

Hal’s idea was so good, I claimed it for myself. We emptied the secret weapons locker onto a large Persian rug. Thirty Heckler & Koch assault rifles, twenty Mossberg trench guns, forty 9mm Glocks, and plenty of ammo.

What can I say? It’s Florida.

“Let’s roll,” I said.

Jane, Anjali, Sylvia, and Ronnie grabbed the front end of the bulging rug. Albina carried the back end all by herself.

The strength of twenty men.

I led the team across the veranda and headed for the front gate. Zoe covered us with her breaching shotgun and Milkor grenade launcher. A one-woman fire team.

Pandora’s attack targeted the other side of the estate. That worked to our advantage. I raced ahead and reached the main entrance without interference. The ornate titanium gates opened silently with my digital fingerprint.

The conspiracy campers cowered against the solid granite perimeter wall, a motley collection of dumpy men and pudgy women in t-shirts and cargo shorts. The fierce firefight terrified them, but they were reluctant to leave the camp. Nobody wanted to miss any potential revelations about the Manhattan zombie apocalypse.

My arrival validated their decision to wait out the storm.

“Look, it’s John Carthage!”

Cheers erupted.

“Wait, how do we know it’s him? It could be a body double. Or a shapeshifter,” somebody shouted.

“Take off your shirt, John,” an elderly woman demanded. “How else will we know it’s you and not a body double?”

“Damn that Vogue photoshoot,” I muttered.

But I ripped open my shirt anyway.

The old lady whistled in admiration, confirming both my cross-generational appeal and the benefits of two hundred sit-ups a day.

“That’s him, I’d know those abs anywhere.”

The campers crowded around, thrusting their grimy, handwritten manifestos at me. They were scared and clamoring to know what the hell was going on.

I raised my hands and called for quiet. The loud firefight rattled in the background, punctuated by an occasional RPG.

“The Manhattan zombie apocalypse is not over. These guys want to kill me. Help fight them off, and I promise to tell you everything.”

They looked at each other. Someone shouted, “All for one, and one for all! Let’s git sum!”

Cheers erupted.

My team arrived. The heavy Persian rug landed with a thud. Our arsenal spilled on the ground.

The conspiracy theorists stared in disbelief.

“Strap up,” I shouted. “Time to kick some Illuminati ass.”

The campers jumped for the guns and ammo like ducks on a June bug. Zoe divided them into three fire teams of thirty wackos each.

“Anybody got military experience?” she called.

Four campers raised their hands. Two ex-Marine sergeants, an ex-Army corporal, and a former Space Force colonel.

Zoe assigned a fire team to each sergeant and the corporal. She took away the colonel’s rifle and made him carry ammo for the others.

The fire team leaders logged into the estate network. Hal’s tactical map appeared on their iPhones. Zoe showed them where to go. When assault force was ready, I mounted a soapbox and rallied the troops, waving my Mokuba wrecking bar like King Arthur with Excalibur.

“Listen up!” I cried. “Remember, you’re morons, not Deal Team Six. Keep it simple. Stay behind cover, deliver heavy fire, and my guys will hit them in the flank. You’re the militia, we’re the regulars. Got it?”

The weaponized conspiracy campers erupted into another rousing cheer and followed their leaders into action.

Zoe and I stood silently, watching them march away in perfect cadence. I swelled with pride at their newfound courage and willingness to die for me.

“You realize they’re probably just going to accidentally shoot each other, right? Zoe asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “But it’s a good cause. When you’re a conspiracy theorist, there’s no better way to die than fighting for what you believe. The truth is out there.”

We zigzagged back to the media wing in time to watch Kitchener’s army turn the tide of battle. Their white tags deployed across the formal English gardens in a solid block, pinning down Pandora’s pink tags with a steady barrage. Bevy’s security force regrouped and launched a devastating flank attack that crushed the enemy position. The pink tags wavered, broke, and fled. White tags rushed forward in pursuit. There were no survivors.

Meanwhile, Bevy’s security force pivoted to the mansion. She led them into the library wing through the same gaping hole blasted by Pandora’s first wave of mercenaries. Her blue tags charged the grand foyer and surprised the pink tags as they fired at Bevy’s outnumbered house guards. The hammer and the anvil. Classic pincer movement.

General Patton would have been proud.

Bevy rejoined us with a big smile. Deafening battle noise dwindled to almost nothing, leaving only an occasional snap, crackle, and pop as her team dealt with a handful of dead-enders. Bad shooting by the mercenaries kept our casualties surprisingly light. Plenty of flesh wounds, but no KIAs on our side. One conspiracy theorist was shot in the ass by his battle buddy.

“You get what you pay for,” Zoe said.

We started to relax, when a bat fluttered across the open veranda into the media wing. Hal flashed a red warning on the main monitor.

“Vampire alert! You’re all going to die!”

The little bat dropped toward the floor and morphed into something large, dark, and fuzzy. Large, dark and fuzzy morphed into Pandora Blackwood, clad in a Lena Quist tactical cat suit with a plunging neckline and stiletto-heeled boots from Elvira’s Fashion Dungeon.

The Tatler’s low-res pictures did not do her justice. Pandora was a statuesque beauty with salon-fresh black hair, alabaster skin, pouting red lips, and flashing red eyes. Every inch was Pilates-toned, and the black cat suit utterly failed to contain her impressive curves.

I shook my head to refocus.

Pandora’s conventional assault had failed miserably. I’m not sure exactly what she expected to accomplish by attacking me head-on. Probably some version of an epic boss fight where she ripped out my spine and waved it triumphantly for the replay.

That might have succeeded, except she forgot about my team. I think Pandora dismissed them as a bunch of low-IQ human NPCs with no independent initiative. Typical vampire arrogance.

Big mistake.

Bevy growled, “Bitch stole my look,” and fired six quick rounds from her Colt Cobra. Tight group. Center mass. Hollow points.

Zoe opened fire with her Wastelander 10 ga. breaching shotgun, blasting Pandora’s well-toned legs and working up from there.

Anjali unleashed a full mag from her custom Uzi. All 32 rounds hit the target. Center mass. Impressive.

Ronnie Numero and John Bardeen emptied their Mossberg trench guns. Twenty rounds of double-ought buckshot. Twelve pellets per round. Take off your shoes and do the math.

They were shooting Pandora to pieces. Blood, brains, muscle, and guts splattered a pair of Jackson Pollocks behind her. The drywall cried out for patching.

Adding insult to injury, Jane Austen stepped forward and pressed the trigger on her 4-gal. Ryobi Lithium M16 backpack sprayer. A thick, 15-foot stream of Pastor Wheat’s Best Sparkling Holy Water scourged Pandora’s shattered figure like an acid bath. She opened her mouth to scream, but her vocal cords were gone.

When the team paused to reload, Pandora dissolved into white mist and swirled from the media wing onto the veranda. I ran after her with Albina close on my heels. She tried to rush the door, but I grabbed her arm and held her back.

“Wait,” I commanded.

The white mist consolidated into a cumulus cloud at the center of the veranda. Pandora’s striking figure rematerialized. Completely intact. Not a scratch. Even the Lena Quist tactical cat suit was untouched. Tight in all the right places. Still plunging.

I shook my head to refocus.

Pandora spotted me, took one step forward, and stopped abruptly. She noticed Albina for the first time.

“YOU!” she exclaimed. “I should have known. This over-sexed bloodbag isn’t smart enough to conceive such an evil scheme by himself. You helped him. And I do NOT shop at Costco.”

Albina’s eyes turned completely red, and her snarling lips revealed a set of canines to die for. She gathered herself to spring at Pandora, a supernatural cat fight worth millions on pay-per-view.

But I wasn’t sure Albina would win that fight. Pandora was six inches taller and a helluva lot more savage. My lonely empathy neuron suggested Albina was a big softy beneath her elegant, polished vampire exterior. Huge disadvantage in a fight to the death.

Investment banking is all about managing risk, and this was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. I hip-checked Albina to stop her lunge, slammed the sliding glass door, and unleashed my deadly surprise.

“Hal, activate veranda fire suppression.”

Hal responded instantly. Ceiling sprinklers blasted the veranda with a monsoon wedding of Pastor Steve’s Best Sparkling Holy Water.

Pandora’s salon-fresh hair began to smoke. Her exposed head and neck began to peel. She began to writhe and scream, tugging frantically at the cat suit.

Albina stared in disbelief. Her arch enemy was dissolving in real time right before her eyes.

But Pandora had another trick up those tight satin sleeves.

Her dancing, screaming figure morphed into something large, dark, and fuzzy. Large, dark, and fuzzy morphed into a small, smoking bat. The small, smoking bat fluttered across the veranda into the dimly-lit pool area and stopped smoking.

I flung open the sliding door and gave chase. Albina followed me, but stopped short when a tiny droplet reminded her of the skin-peeling watery peril.

The small bat circled me on the pool deck, as if deciding what to do next. She who hesitates is lost.

I raised my Mokuba wrecking bar and pointed. Pandora paused, fluttering in place, and cocked her fuzzy little head.

In that split second, a majestic snowy owl sailed from the darkness above and snatched the bat in mid-air. Both tumbled to the deck, landing with a rustle and a thud.

The bat’s head protruded comically from a clenched fist of steel talons. Her eyes bulged, and her mouth emitted tiny, helpless squeaks. The other set of talons immobilized her body like a brand-new pair of Craftsman vise grips.

Hal shut down the veranda sprinklers. The team finished reloading and splashed across a half-inch of water on the marble floor. Ronnie gallantly carried Albina over the soggy danger zone. The Sir Walter Raleigh of investment bankers.

The team surrounded us and stared in disbelief.

Enormous owl eyes blinked at me.

I nodded.

The snowy owl grabbed Pandora’s neck with its razor-sharp beak, snapped off her head, and dinner was served.

Crunch. Simple as that.

Soft footsteps caught our attention. We whirled around to face the new danger, guns and backpack sprayer at the ready.

A pudgy, middle-aged man in khakis and a golf shirt joined us. He wore a long, thick gauntlet on one hand and a sturdy leather pouch strapped across his chest.

“Hey, there she is. Looks like she caught another one.”

He pulled a small object from the leather pouch and clicked his tongue. The snowy owl immediately abandoned the bat carcass. Two big flaps, and she perched on his forearm, talons digging into the thick glove. The object from the pouch was a live mouse, which the owl ate with gusto. The man chirped his approval.

Zoe glared at the man. She pointed the Wastelander 10 ga. breaching shotgun at his stomach.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The man didn’t seem to understand his peril. He pointed at the logo on his golf shirt.

“I’m Bob, from Miami Owls, LLC. I work for Mr. Carthage. Pleased to meet you.”

Everyone turned to me.

I grinned.

“Bob served as Chief Owl Trainer for the Hogwarts park in Orlando for fifteen years. I recruited him to clean up my ongoing bat problem here at the Florida estate.”

“I appreciate your business, Mr. Carthage,” Bob said. “But you know, it’s weird. We’ve been working here all week and didn’t see a single bat. Now we’ve caught five in one night. I guess all the fireworks attracted them. Weird.”

A pretty young lady in khakis and a golf shirt called from the other side of the pool. She carried a large brown owl on her arm.

“Hey Dad, I’m gonna take another walk around the garden, in case we missed something.”

Bob waved, and she disappeared into the shrubs. After a few minutes of small talk, Bob excused himself and resumed his patrol.

“Four other bats?” Anjali said. “Four other vampires, no doubt.”

“Good thing you hired that guy,” Bevy added. “Four vampires in addition to Pandora’s assault team would have wiped us out.”

Albina stared at the grotesque remains of the evil woman who killed her entire vampire tribe and almost every human in Manhattan.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She shook her head to refocus.

“Oh yes, thank you. I was deciding what to do with her body. It’s rare for vampires to die in the form of a bat or wolf.”

“Do you want to hold a ceremony?” asked Sylvia. “Maybe a funeral pyre? Some sort of Viking thing?”

Albina shook her head.

“There’s a toilet in the media wing. Can I borrow a dustpan?”

Fifty Four

Cleanup on Aisle 3

THE MORNING SUN DELIVERED a tsunami of federal law enforcement agencies. Gina Prensa delivered a tsunami of news crews. My billionaire neighbors delivered the local sheriff. Apparently, the night’s festivities exceeded my HOA noise limits.

I granted full access. There was nothing to hide. No trace of dead vampires. All the corpses belonged to trespassers. Florida’s expansive Stand Your Ground statute covered them like a coroner’s blanket. Florida’s expansive Guns for Kids statute covered my private arsenal. A federal firearms loophole allowed direct transfer of that arsenal to the zombie conspiracy community. You can make unlimited gifts to family, friends, and casual acquaintances.

So sweet.

The Miami-Dade sheriff raised a technical issue about Bevy Bellaseno operating an unlicensed private army. Anabella Busto quickly added Bevy’s existing company to the Florida Division of Corporations online portal. Bevy became Brick City Bodyguards (Florida), LLC. I paid the filing fee and a $50 penalty. No harm, no foul.

After the cops finished poking around, Gina Prensa and Sylvia Sakura organized a full-bore press conference in the Sunken Garden. Despite the oppressive morning heat, I slipped into a navy-blue tropical weight Armani blazer from the spring collection and pounded my $19,000 lectern for well over an hour. While I spoke, a pair of well-oiled bikini models cooled me with ostrich-plume fans. Assistant butlers and junior cocktail waitresses served frosty Moscow Mules, organic watercress sandwiches, and nachos for the reporters. They absolutely loved it.

I presented myself as an oppressed member of the working class, besieged on all sides by drug dealers and charlatans. Gina distributed a press release hinting at Pandora Blackwood’s involvement with the Atlanta Fed, the Mayor, and a handful of local government officials. It was inspired. They could deny it, of course, but proving a negative is always tough. Especially since Pandora had vanished. Nobody thought to check the media wing toilet.

Gina spent the afternoon giving reporters a guided tour of the estate. They snapped the obligatory war-zone photos of dead bodies and bullet-riddled walls, but most of their attention and cameras focused on my austere lifestyle. The indoor pool and waterfall, wine cellar and tasting room, luxury spa, wellness center, and bowling alley all received their fair share of attention.

One of the reporters apparently studied art history at an exclusive women’s college in Virginia. She spent the rest of the day in my private art gallery and was so charming that Sylvia gave her a small Caravaggio and a pass for unlimited refills.

Meanwhile, the Southern Living camera crew refused to vacate the master bedroom until they photographed every tchotchke and objet d’art. They switched the bedding set on my California King three times to get the right look. Several of them winked at me when they saw the mirrored ceiling.

Anabella’s cartel friends recommended a local mortuary. Ronnie Numero negotiated a bulk discount. The mortician promised to remove the bodies by Sunday. Sylvia’s handyman purchased all the drywall and mud from every Home Depot in a fifty-mile radius.

Sylvia shooed the reporters away by 5:00 p.m. We left the estate and moved into suites at the exclusive Faena Hotel in Miami Beach. My mansion boasted plenty of guest rooms, and the kitchen was still intact, but the sickly sweet smell of decomposing mercenaries could not be ignored. Same for the bluebottle flies. The Florida sun waits for no thug.

The Faena’s master chef was an old friend of Anabella’s, and he readily agreed to prepare an informal team dinner in my suite. Nothing fancy. A beef tenderloin, ginger-glazed salmon, grilled zucchini with a crispy panko and mozzarella topping, spaghetti alle vongole, and a Southern green bean salad. A midnight snack.

Albina joined us in time for dessert. She looked cheerful and collegiate in a little blue-and-white bandeau tube dress by Jean Paul Gaultier. She wore the Ramy Brooke golden cutout sandals and a few simple gold accessories. Absolutely stunning.

After the last spoonful of tiramisu, we retired to the balcony for chocolate bonbons and brandy. The night turned breezy and cool, so we gathered around the fire table in comfortable loveseats. Albina sat beside me and held my hand.

The happy banter and gossip died around midnight, when the team could no longer avoid talking about the 800-lb. gorilla in the room.

What happens next?

Fifty Five

The Diamond Bullet

THE MOOD TURNED SOUR as we contemplated the future. Somebody famously said, you can kill a vampire, but you can’t kill an idea. Indeed, we killed Pandora Blackwood, and nobody deserved it more. But her heartless idea of making money from an apocalyptic event would not go back into the toothpaste tube.

“It’s a horrible thing,” Ronnie Numero pronounced. “Profiting from the death of millions is something that only hedge fund managers do.”

Sylvia Sakura caught my eye and shifted nervously in her seat. We cashed a big ticket on the colossal Nintendo-Boeing merger, thanks to insider information we stole during the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Nobody ever found out. What would Ronnie say? Did Sylvia and I profit from the death of millions?

Despite her discomfort, I was confident we held the moral high ground. After all, we stole money from other investment bankers. It was like robbing coke dealers. A victimless crime.

I shrugged at her and moved on. No sense rehashing the past. The money was parked offshore where nobody could find it.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s figure this out. Pandora’s human partners are evil scum-sucking trolls. What are we gonna do with them?”

I opened the floor for a high-octane brainstorming session, one of my hallmarks as a successful senior executive. Let the smart people talk, and then steal their best ideas.

Jane Austen and Bevy Bellaseno offered terminal solutions involving severed brake lines, unsolved muggings gone wrong, and accidental falls from high places.

Ronnie suggested using the IRS tip line to trigger fraud audits that would tie up their assets for a lifetime.

Anabella Busto wanted to sue them into oblivion. She said it would be a slam dunk, a no-brainer with extra cheese.

“We can buy the loyalty of every trial court and appellate judge in Florida. In addition to the usual offshore cash payments, you can send the judges on luxury vacations to Bali, lend them money to buy motorhomes, cover the cost of their children’s schooling, and overpay for their mothers’ homes to preserve them for posterity.”

The discussion grew heated, until Andrea Aiuto tapped the brakes.

“Wait a minute. Exactly who are we targeting with all this love?”

“You’re right,” Bevy gushed. “We need a death list.”

Sylvia opened a new document on her iPad, ready to take notes. The girl never missed a beat.

“Great idea,” I said. “Pandora’s drinking buddies should be right at the top of that list. The Mayor, those five city officials, and the Chairman of the Atlanta Fed.”

“What?” Albina exclaimed. “The Atlanta Fed? What the hell are you talking about?”

Zoe Rogue described how she tailed Pandora while we entertained her minions with Renaissance babes, Italian fashion designers, and vaccine-spiked beverages.

Albina’s jaw dropped.

“There’s more,” Anabella said. “We found a burner phone in her office at Pandora’s Box, LLC. There’s only one contact. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve System.”

Albina’s eyes flashed red.

“Fucking bitch,” she snarled. “Nobody talks to the Fed unless it’s part of the regular consultation process.”

“Vampires are part of the Fed?” I asked.

“Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

I was annoyed.

“Explain it to me like I’m a third-grader.”

“Better make it a first-grader,” muttered Sylvia.

I glared. She looked away and started a new game of Vampyr on her iPad. Coward.

Albina chose her words carefully.

“Remember when we first met, and I told you about the non-profit entity? That’s how AB-negative blood is purchased and distributed to the vampire community. No more hunting. No more murder. No more vampires fighting over blood donors. It brought peace to our world and spared the lives of countless humans.”

I nodded.

“Yes, I remember. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Go on.”

Albina cleared her throat.

“That wasn’t the whole story.”

Everyone raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“The CME suffers from manipulation. Someone always tries to corner the market on pork bellies, wheat, orange juice, and so on.”

“Sure,” I replied. “Cornering markets is a popular specialty service of my boutique investment firm. The plan almost never works, but the fees are huge. Sweet.”

“It’s always accompanied by a great deal of market disruption and global turmoil, right?” Albina asked.

“Always,” I replied. “Bunkie Hunt tried to corner the silver market. Sumitomo tried to corner the copper market. Martian Mining tried to corner the rhodium market. Epic failures.”

“Vampires can’t take that risk. AB-negative is not a simple commodity for us. It’s everything. You can live without bacon, but I can’t live without AB-negative.”

“Live without bacon?” I contemplated the prospect with horror.

Anjali snapped her fingers, and I refocused.

“How does this relate to the Fed?”

“We recruited a neutral third party to oversee everything. The Fed is non-partisan, and they wield tremendous market power. Given the vampire community’s deep involvement in the financial system, the Fed was a perfect choice.”

“Oversee everything? What does that look like?” Anjali asked.

“Hands off, at first. But after many years, the Fed’s involvement expanded to every part of the purchasing, collection, and distribution process. The CME provides an electronic trading portal for us, but that’s about it.”

“What about the non-profit entity?”

Albina shifted uncomfortably.

“The non-profit entity now depends entirely on the Fed. In fact, ninety-nine percent of the Fed’s staff are working exclusively on vampire assignments.”

Jaws dropped all around the room.

Ronnie crunched the numbers for me.

“It makes sense. The agency employs almost 30,000 people. But the only real job is spinning that stupid Big Wheel on CNBC to change interest rates eight times a year and confuse the ninety-nine percenters. You don’t need 30,000 employees for that. The Vanna White clone can do it all by herself.”

Albina nodded.

“Over the years, outside contractors absorbed the Fed’s traditional economic work. Vampire work filled the void. Our AB-negative distribution model kept growing and eventually covered the entire vampire world. The Fed’s staff happily transitioned to working with us. Keep your job and get an annual bonus. What’s not to love?”

“The bureaucratic imperative,” Anjali said. “Adapt or get RIFed.”

My head was spinning faster than the Fed’s Big Wheel.

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “What’s the bottom line here?”

“The Fed is a neutral third party. Our system relies on maintaining a Chinese wall between the Fed and the thirty-seven vampire tribes. We hold two meetings with the Fed each year: Davos and Sun Valley. That’s all. Those events are exclusively for tribal leaders. No other Fed contact is allowed. All thirty-seven tribes signed the agreement in actual blood. The original document is stored in Rome at the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican’s bank.”

“So, Pandora was cheating,” said Anabella.

“Yes, it’s beyond doubt. There is no greater crime in my world. Corrupting the Fed destroys everything we’ve built and triggers a global vampire war.”

Anabella looked thoughtful.

“Lucian mocked the non-profit entity before we dusted him. He said it wouldn’t operate as a charity anymore. No more mandates to maximize employment and stabilize prices.”

“Those are the Fed’s public goals, the famous dual mandate,” Albina said. “But in reality, running our AB-negative blood network is the Fed’s core business now.”

“How can all this be a secret?” Sylvia asked. “With so many people involved, how come it hasn’t leaked?”

“We’re vampires,” shrugged Albina. “Almost the entire agency is hypnotized, except for the Chair and his senior staff. Nobody can talk about it with outsiders.”

“So, Pandora planned to convert the Fed into a for-profit entity?” asked Anjali. “Wow. Get leverage over the thirty-seven tribes and the entire fucking world economy at the same time. That’s bold.”

“Dr. Stonjohn warned me that vampires are incredibly arrogant, but this is too fucking much,” said Bevy, shaking her head.

“Tell me about it,” Albina said, her voice tinged with bitterness.

I ate the last chocolate bonbon and sipped my brandy while the team argued over Albina’s latest revelations. She brooded beside me on the love seat, with arms folded across her chest.

The high-octane brainstorming session fizzled to a halt. Nobody could think of anything to say. We stared at the fire table. The blue flames and sparkling glass beads hypnotized us.

Problems besieged me, all competing for my attention. The Fed Chair shouldn’t escape punishment. But he was protected by the Federal Reserve Board’s Law Enforcement Unit, a crack team that eats Navy Seals for breakfast. A global war between vampire tribes loomed on the horizon. Albina was safe, but she reeked of misery and seemed unstable. Anjali kept glancing at me, as if reconsidering her answer to Breezy O’Hara’s sidewalk marriage question. My mansion was in ruins. Emails from furious investment clients flooded my inbox, demanding that I return their calls. A certain Swedish bikini model wouldn’t stop texting me.

My mind went blank. A tiny thread of drool leaked from the corner of my mouth and dripped to my chest like a filament of spider silk.

Then, the answer found me. Like I was shot with a diamond. A diamond bullet right through my forehead. We had leverage.

I had a plan.

Fifty Six

Albina

THE MOOD BRIGHTENED as I outlined my new idea. Despite the late hour, the business center provided a large whiteboard with a colorful array of markers, so I could diagram it for the visual learners.

I love the smell of markers in the morning. They smell like… victory.

After a strategic overview, I divided the team into sub-groups and huddled with each one to review details of their task assignments. Bankers love leverage, and their excitement swelled as my diamond epiphany dazzled them.

Somewhere around 4:00 a.m., I noticed that Albina was missing.

“She’s been gone for a while,” Bevy said. “Something about needing a breath of air. I’m sure she’s fine. That girl can take care of herself. It’s a safe neighborhood. Honestly, how could anyone mug a vampire?”

My lonely empathy neuron flashed a warning signal. I pulled out my neon-pink iPhone 35, opened the Paranoia AI app, and asked Hal where we could find Albina.

Hal displayed a map of the Faena Hotel property. A little green data tag blinked rapidly. She was alone on the beach. I tapped the tag. Albina’s info popped up like a video game, including an action forecast for the next twenty-four hours.

There was a ninety-percent chance of self-harm.

I left Ronnie in charge and raced downstairs, past the pool and the boardwalk, and leaped over a wall of beach chairs neatly stacked for the next day’s sun worshipers.

Albina stood right at the waterline, where an occasional wave washed over her perfect pedicure. The Ramy Brooke golden summer cutout sandals rested neatly together a few steps above the high tide line. The ocean breeze was crisp, and I could tell she was cold in her Jean Paul Gaultier bandeau tube dress. It was a moonless night, but the stars were bright and twinkled like a nursery rhyme. The night breeze was strong enough to be deadly.

I ran to her and stood ankle-deep so I could see her face. My heart broke. She was crying.

For most of my life, I’ve steered well clear of weepy girls. Too much drama. But something happened to me during the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. Overwhelming heartbreak awakened a lonely empathy neuron buried deep in my brain and changed my life. It was the only good thing to emerge from that dreadful catastrophe. Except for the Nintendo deal, of course.

Albina looked up at me. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled with starlight and tears. My lonely empathy neuron slammed into turbo mode, screaming that this damsel needed her knight in shining armor. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I wrapped my brawny arms around her and held on tight. Her well-toned body was unusually warm, almost hot. She trembled at my touch.

They all do.

We stood there for a long time, listening to the waves and our pounding hearts. When she stopped crying, I took her hand, and we walked down the beach toward South Pointe Park Pier.

“What were you thinking?” I asked. “Or do I not want to know?”

She sniffled her answer.

“I’m lost, John. Vampires lead solitary lives by nature. But we’re also tribal, so we’re never really alone. Pandora destroyed my life when she destroyed my tribe.”

“Can you join another tribe? You’re the Queen of Crypto, a real asset. Anybody with a brain can see that.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I embody an entire tribe now. A very small tribe. That makes me a target. Sooner or later, somebody will make a play. Money alone can’t protect me. I have nobody.”

I stopped, took her hands in mine, and looked in her eyes.

“You have me, Albina. I’m here for you.”

She smiled.

“That’s sweet, John, but it’s not real. I’m sure your scientist friend told you about my seductive power over AB-negatives. That’s why you’ve been drinking espresso by the gallon and gobbling those awful caffeine mints. Did you think I hadn’t noticed? It’s a folk remedy. Partially effective, but not sustainable. Eventually, your heart will wear out, and you’ll die young.”

“Albina, when was the last time you saw me drink an espresso? Or chew a mint? Or wear pleated pants?”

She looked pensive.

“I didn’t see anything this evening. Did you buy a caffeine patch?”

I unbuttoned my shirt and turned around slowly, posing like a male model on the catwalk. The shirt fluttered wide open in the cool air. Albina’s eyes popped, and she shook her head to refocus.

“See any patches?” I challenged.

“No, but…”

Albina stared at my six-pack abs. Her mouth opened and closed. She was having trouble finding words. I raised her chin with one gentle finger, until she looked in my eyes again.

“Albina, there’s something you need to know. Bardeen tested his zombie vaccine on me. There are side effects. Faster muscle growth, elevated testosterone levels. Stuff like that. Nothing serious.”

“Sylvia would probably say your testosterone levels are already too high,” she muttered.

I ignored her quibble.

“More importantly, the vaccine triggered a natural defense to your vampire pheromones.”

She laughed.

“So, now you’re resistant to my charms? I can’t control you anymore? You’re a free man?”

“I can resist your vampire charms, Albina. But you have other charms. I can’t resist those, and I don’t want to.”

I took her in my arms and drew her close. Her warm body trembled again. She gazed into my eyes, looking vulnerable and confused. I tried to explain.

“You see, Bardeen says the vaccine activates a dormant gene sequence and…”

Albina grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me closer.

“John, shut up.”

She kissed me.

Fifty Seven

A Cancer on the Fed

I WANTED TO LINGER on the beach and explore the possibilities of Albina’s sultry kiss, but the sun rises early in Miami. We collected her Ramy Brooke golden cutout sandals and strolled back to the hotel. The team was grinding away on their assignments like the old days at Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. I beamed with pride. To the grinders go the spoils.

We paused in the doorway, holding hands. I swear Albina blushed.

Sylvia Sakura noticed us right away, and gave Andrea Aiuto a little nudge. Andrea looked up, sighed, and passed a $20 bill to Sylvia, which she gleefully tucked into her black lace bra. Anabella Busto and Bevy Bellaseno glanced at each other and shrugged in defeat.

I rescued Albina from the edge of oblivion, but she was still fragile. Sleeping alone in an empty mansion was not a good idea. Sylvia and Bevy offered to take her home and stay until the next evening. They grabbed a change of clothes and a bottle of tequila before bouncing away, laughing and giggling.

Albina blew me a kiss as the door closed.

I shook my head to refocus.

We worked a few more hours before I finally called a halt. Investment bankers develop a vampire-style circadian rhythm early in their careers. Grinding on large global deals late at night completely resets your internal clock, especially in the M&A department. The sun never sets on a good grift.

But even a coke-fueled financial analyst needs an occasional power nap. I tapped a spoon against my cocktail glass and announced a short break. Sleep arrived the moment my head hit the pillow.

Much to my surprise, the sun was already setting when I finally emerged from my bedroom, scratching and yawning like a grizzly bear after a long winter nap. I slept through the entire day. Good practice for dating Albina.

Andrea diagnosed it as a metabolic response to the punishing amounts of caffeine, alcohol, rich food, and stress I absorbed over the past few days of nonstop action.

“That’s the normal lifestyle of a manly man,” I protested.

Andrea rolled her eyes.

“Take a cold shower, Conan,” she said. “Don’t come back until you can dress yourself.”

She pointed at my fluffy white terrycloth bathrobe, which danced perilously close to a wardrobe malfunction. No belt.

My hasty retreat drew peals of laughter. Young people are so disrespectful these days.

The cold shower reinvigorated me. Time for action. Business before pleasure, I always say.

“That’s is why you can’t keep a girlfriend,” Sylvia always replies.

I rejoined the team, restored and resplendent in a colorful Egyptian-cotton summer shirt, dark linen trousers, and rope-soled canvas shoes. A gourmet team dinner awaited us in the Faena’s private rooftop restaurant. Fantastic views of Miami’s glittering skyline reminded me of countless meals on the roof of DCH Tower. Having lived at the bottom, I’ve always loved being on top.

The master chef served a decadent feast, heavy with red meat and free-range lobster. The rich fare was greeted with cheers. Vegetarian investment bankers are few and far in between. We’ll eat anything with a face on it.

Gina Prensa joined us for her first team dinner. Andrea’s superb nursing skills wiped away any sign of Lucian Bloodbane’s evil mistreatment. It was good to see her smile.

Like most women in corporate relations, Gina channeled the essence of Salome. Luxurious, salon-fresh brunette hair. Full, sensual lips. Eyebrows en fleek. As she expressed her eternal gratitude for my gallantry and good looks, I couldn’t help noticing how well she filled out her cheerful Retrofete halter-top sundress.

Sylvia drove a stiletto heel deep into my foot. I winced. My rope-soled canvas shoe provided zero protection.

“Leave her alone. She wants to win visitation rights for her kids,” Sylvia hissed in my ear. “Not to mention that Albina will literally kill you in a very painful way.”

I shook my head to refocus.

My aching foot comprised only a small part of the evening’s discomfort. Sylvia announced that Albina would not join us. My heart twinged and delivered a strange aching pain, entirely new and different. My lonely empathy neuron laughed knowingly.

“She woke up at sundown, and now she’s on her personal jet, heading for Rio de Janeiro,” Sylvia explained.

My face fell, and I slumped in my chair.

“Aw, look at the puppy-dog eyes,” Anjali Khan said. “Hey, genius, remember, it was all your idea. You gave her a mission, and now she’s taking care of it. Your love life will have to wait.”

“That’s right,” Sylvia said. “As they say, business before pleasure.”

Et tu, Brute?

I sputtered in protest.

“It’s not about my love life. I’m worried about her being alone at a time like this. That’s all.”

The whole table laughed, including Gina, who hardly knew me.

“Don’t worry,” said Sylvia. “Bevy Bellaseno volunteered to go with her. She’ll provide protection and a shoulder to cry on. We can’t trust Albina’s personal security firm for a job like this. Besides, Bevy has lived in New Jersey almost her entire life. This is her chance to finally see the wild, wonderful world.”

My heart replayed that strange aching pain. But Sylvia was right. Business before pleasure.

Albina played a crucial role. The other vampire tribes would have to be informed about Pandora’s evil scheme to overthrow the non-profit entity. That scheme died with Pandora, but the cancer remained. Surgery was required to excise the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and all of Pandora’s co-conspirators. We didn’t know how far the tumor reached. Tribal cooperation would be critical.

I sighed.

“Okay, I get it. That makes perfect sense, and it’s only a few days.”

The whole table laughed again.

“John, did you sleep through your own planning session?” Anjali said. “The thirty-five remaining tribes are scattered across the planet. She’ll be on the road six weeks to meet with them, probably eight. Zoom calls won’t cut it. These are rich, powerful vampire lords with a rigid commitment to diplomatic protocol. If Albina wasn’t the new Queen of Crypto, she wouldn’t even get past the receptionist.”

Jane Austen chimed in.

“Don’t look so sad. Your ingenious plan includes a lot of moving parts. We’ll be hard-pressed to put everything in place, even with eight weeks. It could have been a lot worse. Be thankful.”

“What could be worse than eight weeks?” I sulked. “What the hell do I have to be thankful for?”

Jane stage-whispered a secret.

“There are no vampires on Mars.”

Fifty Eight

Canine

THE FRONT DESK called early the next morning with a package for me. I told them to bring it up, and then I called Zoe Rogue.

She arrived in two minutes, wearing an Olivia von Halle short camisole set in a shimmering royal-blue foulard fabric. Her hair was still tousled by sleep. A late-model SiG P232 completed the look.

I slipped into a pair of gray-heather pajama pants and a white tank top that left my own guns free, in case swinging the Mokuba wrecking bar was required.

A silver-haired bellman entered with a large open-sided crate on a baggage cart. He handed me a small pink envelope and unloaded the crate. I gave him a brick of crisp hundred-dollar bills. He backed out of the room, bowing repeatedly.

“Jesus, he was practically genuflecting,” Zoe muttered in disgust. “Show a little pride, man.”

The pink envelope was addressed simply to “John” and carried a familiar scent. Not perfume. Something else.

Albina.

I broke the ornate red wax seal and removed a heavy cream-colored notecard. She left me a short message in an elegant, ancient hieroglyphic style called “cursive,” something we were forced to study in the orphanage. The headmaster was big on classics. Latin. Greek. The Grateful Dead. Bruce Springsteen.

I needed a moment to decipher the text. Zoe tapped the SiG against her well-toned thigh until she could wait no longer.

“You gonna tell me or not? I could still be in bed, you know.”

I handed her the card, and she read it aloud, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar cursive script.

“Dear John, I’m sorry to leave without saying goodbye, but I have many miles to go before my task is complete. Please don’t worry. Bevy will keep me out of trouble. I’ve left some special companionship, so you won’t forget me. XOXO. Albina. P.S. Thanks for last night’s pep talk. Looking forward to our next one! XOXO”

Zoe groaned.

“I don’t even want to know what that’s about. Open the damn box so I can go back to my room.”

The wooden crate yielded to my Mokuba wrecking bar, revealing a large wire cage and a six-month-old black Labrador retriever. She sported a pink tactical dog collar in ballistic nylon and diamonds, personalized with her name.

Buffy.

Zoe whipped out her phone and started texting. I opened the wire cage. Buffy knocked me down, licking my face and wagging her tail.

Moments later, a small mob of half-dressed women burst into my suite, shrieking in delight. I shook my head to refocus.

“A puppy! John got a puppy!”

Buffy made the rounds, politely sniffing and greeting everyone with a kiss and a tail wag. She circled around to me and flopped down on the floor, obviously enjoying the attention.

“A gift from Albina,” Zoe explained. “So John won’t get lonely.”

This elicited another round of squeals and giggles.

“What are we? In the seventh grade?” I muttered. “You’re supposed to be grown-ass women.”

Another round of giggles at my expense.

“You realize this is more than a dog, right?” Anabella Busto asked.

“He didn’t read the dissertation,” Sylvia Sakura said, shaking her head. “Or the novel.”

“It wasn’t a novel, It was a docudrama,” I muttered.

“Either way, you failed Dr. Stonjohn’s class,” Sylvia snapped. “Dogs detect vampires and their evil minions. In ancient times, villagers set them loose at night, and they would howl if a vampire showed up. Things are quieter nowadays because of HOA rules. Instead of howling, dogs evolved to identify vampires by jumping up on them. Notice how this sweet little princess didn’t jump on any of us? That’s because we’re not vampires.”

She scratched Buffy behind the ears. Buffy wagged her tail.

That made perfect sense. But my lonely empathy neuron added yet another factor. Buffy was much more than an elven blade that glowed when vampires were near. She was a test. Albina would grade me after her mission.

Not a problem. I love dogs, and Buffy was a sweetheart. Best of all, I owned my own company, so she could join me in the executive office without generating a nasty memo from the Vice President for Human Resources. Buffy would get her own intern, of course.

The girls resumed to their morning beauty routines in preparation for another day of hard work. I donned a fresh black Speedo and swam my usual one hundred laps in the rooftop pool. Buffy paddled alongside for a while and then climbed on a lounge chair to watch.

After the morning swim, a squadron of well-toned waitresses served me a hearty breakfast of whole wheat toast, orange marmalade, and crispy bacon. I washed everything down with a latte and scanned the morning market news on my neon-pink iPhone 35. Buffy gave each waitress a quick sniff and flopped back in her chair.

The whole team was already at the grindstone by the time I returned to my suite. Buffy bounced around the big table, giving each person a sniff and a tail wag. When she reached Gina Prensa, there was a moment of hesitation, but after an extra sniff and a lick, she wagged her tail and moved on.

Good to know.

Fifty Nine

Sail Ho

MY INGENIOUS SCHEME came together over the following month. The team moved at amazing speed, driven by supernatural urgency and my close, constant executive supervision.

Hal declared that Pandora’s death reduced the vampire threat level to yellow, so Zoe Rogue said we didn’t have to change hotels every night. We couldn’t stay at the Faena any longer because of their 25-lb. limit on furry guests. I suggested we work from the opulent Louis XIV deal room at my boutique investment firm.

Unfortunately, Anabella Busto insisted that my scheme must remain separate from my firm. Activities intended to overthrow the Fed Chair did not fall under the firm’s registered business purpose, and the feds might pierce the corporate veil, or some such gibberish.

My estate wasn’t available either. Contractors swarmed everywhere and made it impossible to get anything done. Sylvia’s handyman outsourced all the repairs to his new company, Miami Drywall, LLC, and hired hundreds of day laborers. He showed up in a McLaren Arturo 908, which suggested he might be padding the payroll.

A very solid grift. Classic.

As a compromise, Sylvia reserved suites at The Setai, a landmark in the South Beach art deco district. The Presidential Suite was mine, of course. She provided a matched pair of bikini-clad personal attendants who kept me well-lubricated with coconut oil and Aperol spritzes. My executive productivity reached new heights. No detail was too small for my personal attention.

Sylvia eventually suggested that now was the perfect time to reward myself with the ultra-yacht I yearned for.

“You’ll have a secure place to work, and it will keep you out of our fucking way,” she said. “Here, pick something.”

She tossed a handful of glossy ultra-yacht sales brochures on my lap and waited impatiently. Without hesitation, I selected the longest one with the most chrome and endangered tropical hardwood.

Size matters.

“Of course,” Sylvia muttered. “What was I expecting?”

She handed me the checkbook.

Two days later, I boarded the gleaming ultra-yacht as Sylvia broke a bottle of Cuvée Dom Pérignon over the bow. Buffy sniffed the crew. I allowed my hard-working team to select the name, and after a short huddle they came up with a real gem, something to reflect my true inner soul, they said.

The Grifter.

After the naming ceremony, they went back to the hotel, leaving me alone with my new love. Our first voyage took us beyond the three-mile limit to rendezvous with Captain McDormack and the Mistress. I returned his black duffle, fully loaded with crisp hundreds, and added two more black duffles for the vig. He inspected the ultra-yacht and declared everything seaworthy.

“I love the hydrogen fuel cells,” he said. “The high-capacity electrolysis module replenishes your fuel from ocean water, so you have unlimited range. Better than a nuclear submarine. I knew your captain when she commanded the last Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the old Navy. I’m sure she can handle the Grifter’s extra length and considerable girth.”

We shared a few bottles of Guinness before Captain McDormack reboarded the Mistress. His curvaceous all-girl crew lined the rail and saluted me. Captain McDormack put the wheel hard over and tacked away, bound for new adventures unknown.

After three days of testing the Grifter’s nautical delights, I decided she was everything a man could want. Time to cut my earthly bonds. I connected with Sylvia on FaceTime.

She answered the phone in a white French bikini and her signature four-strand pearl choker, looking tanned and happy. I could hear loud music in the background.

When the cat’s away.

“Sylvia, find a broker and dump the estate. The Grifter is my new permanent home. The ocean will cover Miami Beach in a few years anyway. Only the skyscrapers will survive.”

“Are you sure? You have a lot of good memories wrapped up in that mansion, and six tax auditors buried in the perennial beds.”

“Time and tide wait for no banker. Everything I need is right here. I even have a Dassault ElectroCopter for quick commuting to shore. Tell Anjali Khan to pack her bags. Anabella, too.”

“Where are you taking them?”

“The belly of the beast.”

Sixty

Fuse

THE ATLANTIC WAS CALM, and the Grifter made good time on our high-speed cruise up the East Coast. Anjali Khan and Anabella Busto loved their private cabins and were impressed by the Grifter’s luxurious amenities. Full spa, a Pilates studio, well-stocked library, hair salon, and a massage therapy clinic with Nordic masseuses named Bjorn and Ingrid.

“He’s just gonna use all this to meet girls,” muttered Anjali.

Anabella shrugged.

“He has to work at least three hours a week, so he can write the whole thing off as a business expense.”

Their disdain was ironic, considering they were lounging on my sun deck in matching white bikinis, nibbling fried chicken and sipping Bellinis. They rubbed coconut oil on each other, and every inch of their perfect tans glistened like deep molten gold.

I shook my head to refocus.

We arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in the late morning, and by noon we were gliding past the old sunken city of Alexandria. The Potomac River channel to Washington D.C. was deep and well-dredged. Buffy barked at the jet-skiers and wagged her tail.

Our prime berth at the Wilbur Mills Tidal Basin Yacht Club put us in good company. There was clearly a yachting hierarchy. Mega-yachts for senators and any members of an appropriations committee. Superyachts for ordinary House members.

As an ultra-yacht, Grifter occupied a class by herself. The senior senator from Idaho waved to me from the foredeck of his tiny mega-yacht. Penis envy was scrawled across his leathery face, which confirmed the wisdom of my purchase.

The girls joined me in my luxurious new office at 5:00 p.m. sharp, dressed for a summer outing. The feng shui dazzled them.

“Wow,” said Anabella. “How many endangered tropical hardwoods can one man jam into a small space?”

“Alright, let’s focus. It’s time to light the fuse.”

Anabella pulled a Ziploc evidence bag from her leather briefcase. It held Pandora Blackwood’s burner phone.

I flipped it open, punched speaker, and dialed the only contact.

The call timed out. I dialed again. And again. I was beginning to lose faith, when a tentative, familiar voice answered.

“Pandy?”

Anabella and Anjali looked at each other and cringed.

“No, Mr. Chairman,” I replied. “This is John Carthage. Do you recognize my name?”

There was a long silence, and I thought he cut the line. But he answered, still tentative and now fearful.

“Yes, of course, Mr. Carthage. I’m honored. What can I do for you?”

I smiled. Jackpot.

“Mr. Chairman, that isn’t the right question. You should be asking, ‘Mr. Carthage, what the fuck are you doing with Pandora Blackwood’s burner phone and my private number?’”

“Yes, you’re right. I’d like to ask that as well.”

“So, let’s meet. Now.”

Another long silence. I could sense him trying to draw up a play. There wasn’t one.

“Okay. Where?”

“Food trucks parked on Constitution Avenue near the Vietnam Memorial. There’s a frozen daiquiri guy. Meet me there. Two bodyguards max. Fifteen minutes.”

I figured his bodyguards were non-negotiable. A Fed Chair can’t go to the toilet without security. He knows too many secrets.

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

I hung up.

The girls smiled in relief.

“Pandora had that man’s cojones in a box,” Anabella said.

“Now I’ve got it.”

“What?” Anjali asked.

“The box.”

Sixty One

Waterworks

CONSTITUTION AVENUE was an easy stroll from our Tidal Basin anchorage. We walked along the seawall protecting the downtown area, then rode an escalator to ground level near the Japanese Lantern.

Buffy tugged at the leash, leading us past the Lincoln Memorial directly to the frozen daiquiri truck by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It was a typical Washington summer evening: ninety degrees and a thousand-percent humidity.

The Fed Chair stuck out like a sore thumb, a pasty bureaucrat in a Jos. A. Bank gray pinstripe. His hulking security guards wore cheap black suits and stared at my colorful resort shirt, linen slacks, and rope-soled canvas shoes. Or maybe they were looking at Anjali Khan and Anabella Busto, fresh and free in almost-legal sundresses by Pierre Balmain and Tom Ford. Their bare legs glistened with coconut oil. Their platform wedge sandals were to die for.

I ordered four strawberry daiquiris while Buffy sniffed the Fed Chair and the two bodyguards. She jumped on one of the bodyguards and tried to lick his face.

Good to know.

We settled into a pair of park benches and sipped our frozen drinks. Better than the Daiquiri Deck in Sarasota and half the price. The bodyguards sat nearby and tried not to stare at Anjali and Anabella.

The Fed Chair looked tighter than a bond trader in a market meltdown. His eyes twitched as he tried to spot the national network camera crews that surely lurked among the swarm of tourists.

“Nobody but us,” I assured him. “No press.”

The Fed Chair swirled his daiquiri and took a big slurp. He reminded me of Gator Gomez. Another greasy little man.

“How did you get Pandora Blackwood’s burner phone?” he asked.

“I grabbed it during the FDIC raid. They didn’t notice.”

His eyes narrowed as he spotted a possible escape route. He could order his guards to kill me and claim I was simply another enraged stock analyst gone wild on meth and molly. Dump the burner phone. Nobody would suspect a thing.

Anabella derailed that train of thought.

“We kept cloned copies ready for the Financial Times, the Nikkei, and the Wall Street Journal, along with the video we’re making right now. You’d be arrested before you get back to the office.”

Anjali held up an iPhone 35 live-streaming our conversation to an encrypted server in Bermuda. She flicked the screen to a series of classified DHS surveillance videos obtained by Zoe’s captive castrato at the Agency. Pandora boarding the Fed Chair’s official jet. Pandora vacationing with the Fed Chair in Bali. Pandora dining with the Fed Chair at the Old Ebbitt Grill in D.C.

He sighed and slumped against the bench in total defeat.

“What do you want?”

“Not much. How did Pandora convince you to join her evil plan against the non-profit entity? Did she threaten you? Your family? Any mitigating factors I should know about?”

“No,” he sighed. “It wasn’t like that. We were partners. Running the non-profit entity is boring. Worst of all, I get paid as a fucking ES-1. Practically nothing. This was my chance to cash a big ticket, like an elected official.

“Were other tribes involved?”

“No, Pandora planned the whole thing. If she could control an endless new supply of AB-negative, the non-profit entity would become her shiny new toy. My job was to transform the Fed into a for-profit agency and make a fortune in the process. That was our partnership. Pandora running the blood machine, and me running the cash machine.”

“You need Congress to change the Fed’s charter,” Anjali said. “Who supports this on the Hill?”

“Nobody yet. That’s phase two, after establishment of the new blood supply. Pandora planned to find a couple of AB-negative committee members and compel them to sponsor the amendment. You know, the vampire control thing. Totally against tribal rules, of course, to compel elected politicians. As a backup plan, she possessed kompromat on half the Senate.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Anabella snorted.

The girls grilled him for details while I sipped my strawberry daiquiri and digested his confession. The situation turned out better than I expected. Since Pandora had not yet engaged with Congress, the Fed’s for-profit transformation ended with her feathery demise in Miami. My revenge tour of Washington could stop with the Fed Chair and his staff. Nobody would miss a few bureaucrats, but elected officials are another matter entirely.

“Who else knows about this at the Fed? Think hard. Your life depends on telling me everything I want to know.”

“My inner circle. Maybe ten people. Pandora recruited the Atlanta Fed Chair. That’s it.”

Anabella took his Blackberry and cloned it with another one of Zoe’s borrowed electronic devices.

“Does Langley ever check their inventory?” I muttered.

“How did you sign them up?” Anjali demanded. “Has your senior Fed staff been vampire-compelled?”

“No. They’re doing it for the money, like me. Most of them are GS-15s. I’m sure you can understand. We didn’t love Pandora’s pivot to zombie real estate deals, but sometimes you gotta go along.”

Go along with profiting from the death of millions? If he expected sympathy, he came to the wrong banker.

“What about your own sorry ass?” I asked. “Did Pandora compel you to do this? Did she use her vampire charms?”

“No,” he replied. “Didn’t need to. The money convinced me, and she wasn’t my type.”

He snuck a side-eye glance at Anjali.

Anabella smacked his head.

“Eyes front, motherfucker,” she muttered.

“Last question. You went to Harvard, right?”

He brightened considerably at the prospect of an old-school personal connection that might provide him with leverage. After all, I was a world-famous investment banker. We almost certainly shared common ground and acquaintances.

“That’s right, I’m a Quincy man. Bachelor’s in Economics and a PhD in Finance. What about you?”

“GED. From the Army. Hooah.”

The Fed Chair cried.

Sixty Two

Flex

THE FED CHAIR agreed to submit a resignation letter to the President. His staff and the Atlanta Fed Chair would resign simultaneously to enjoy more family time.

In return, I promised not to kill them all.

He dried his eyes, wiped his sweaty brow, and trudged back to the Federal Reserve Building. The bodyguards trailed behind, unsure about what happened. They didn’t overhear our chat, but they could tell their boss was unhappy.

“You’re going to let them live?” Anjali Khan asked. “I’m a little surprised. When did you become such a softheart?”

“He promised not to kill them,” Anabella Busto corrected. “Legally speaking, that’s not the same as letting them live. The Supreme Court has ruled on this issue many times. He’s on solid legal ground.”

I nodded. Anabella could split hairs with the best.

“No need to get my hands dirty with these bastards. When the tribes hear what Albina Aldana has to say, they’ll want to clean house. I’m helping them find the dirt.”

We strolled to the Grifter, where a small army of contractors prepared the ballroom for a Washington-style cocktail party. Flowers. String lights. Name tags. Old people.

“It’s gonna be wild,” muttered Anabella.

Once we were aboard, I took Buffy off the leash, and she ran free, sniffing and wagging her tail.

We had an hour to shower and change before the first guests arrived. It was a treat to slip into my Armani formal wear after so much time in casual beach attire. Don’t get me wrong. I love Egyptian cotton and white linen, but there’s something undeniably special about an impeccably tailored Armani tuxedo and a perfectly knotted bow tie.

My guest list featured the cream of Washington’s financial elite. Key Senators. The Speaker of the House. The entire Senate Banking Committee. The Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Half the President’s Cabinet. The Swiss Ambassador.

Nobody declined the invitation. My free food guaranteed the press would attend. My flawless business reputation guaranteed the regulatory crowd. My money guaranteed the politicians. I avoid Washington whenever possible, but I do know how to play the game. It’s simple. Anabella made $100 million contributions to everyone’s re-election PACs. They all showed up.

Sylvia arranged the whole event from Miami. A Bruce Springsteen cover band turned the helipad into a dance floor. Impoverished grad students from Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy circulated with silver trays of champagne and caviar. The smoking-hot Italian models flew up from Miami on my private jet, eager to work on their genius visas.

Anjali played hostess, welcoming the guests as they boarded. Thanks to endless post-apocalypse Vogue coverage, Anjali’s global star power almost surpassed mine. She was recognized instantly, and she charmed them all.

Anabella and I monitored the guests from the command bridge. The men dressed in poorly tailored off-the-rack tuxedos and 3D-printed bow ties. Washington is the city where men’s fashion goes to die.

Their wives, girlfriends, and secretaries tried hard in badly sequined gowns from Macy’s and Nordstrom. Several of them wept openly when they saw Anjali in her strapless Versace silver-mesh cocktail dress and six-inch Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Even from the bridge, I could see the dress shimmering in all the right places as she moved through the crowd. Anjali’s relationship to the Kama Sutra presented itself for additional consideration.

Anabella snapped her fingers in my face.

“Hey, let’s get to work.”

I shook my head to refocus.

Hal signaled when the big dog VIPs were finally on board. Anabella escorted me down the central staircase. As usual, the hot babes watched and jostled to make eye contact as I made my triumphant entrance. Several frustrated wives pulled out phones and enrolled their pudgy husbands in fitness boot camps.

Anabella drew plenty of her own admirers in a backless white halter gown from Michael Lo Sordo that accentuated her perfect tan and high-speed curves. The junior senator from Texas took one look and spilled his drink. The clip is still on YouTube.

“Your neckline is so deep, we can see your belly button,” I whispered.

“Of course, you idiot,” she hissed. “You wanted to me make an impression. That’s what I’m doing.”

Anabella stomped off to find Anjali. I plunged into the crowd.

Investment banking is all about romancing the rubes. Politics works the same way. I glad-handed my way across the ballroom, making new friends over cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and Instagram selfies. The Chairman of the SEC slipped me his daughter’s resumé, in case my boutique investment firm had an opening.

That was the whole point. Flaunting my ultra-yacht, surrounding myself with beautiful women, and flooding the zone with mega-donor money made me irresistible to the political class. I was the lion with the loudest roar. The dragon with the brightest flame. Even the Georgetown intelligentsia wanted me at their stuffy salons.

To hammer the point home, I didn’t make a speech. Think about it. If you need a speech to introduce yourself, then you’re nobody.

Late in the evening, I spotted Anjali and Anabella deep in serious conversation with FDIC Chair Charles Pulton, ABA President Douglas Blick, and Senator J. Philpott Raullin of Delaware.

Pulton and Blick were my co-conspirators from the good old days at DCH, but I didn’t know Raullin at all. He was the former Mayor of Rehoboth Beach and achieved national fame by leading a successful counterattack early in the zombie apocalypse. But he couldn’t save Delaware’s junior senator, who was in Manhattan for a Broadway burlesque when the apocalypse started. Raullin won a special election to fill the empty seat. He took 95 percent of the vote and made the cover of Surf Fishing magazine.

I drifted over to meet Raullin and thank Pulton and Blick for their invaluable help in unraveling Pandora Blackwood’s evil empire. Anjali waved me off with a frown and a tiny shake of her head. She didn’t need me. A good sign.

By Washington standards, the party went deep into the night. The guests departed at 10:30 p.m. In D.C., the skulduggery starts early in the morning, and elderly politicians need their beauty sleep.

We retired to the poop deck bar. Hal stepped up and dispensed Perfect Martinis from the AI-linked cocktail machine. The smoking-hot Italian models changed into skimpy summer pajamas and joined us, delighted to have an early evening for once. They sprawled lasciviously together on a corner couch, telling funny stories about the thirsty old men who stalked them during the party.

Buffy tried to stay awake, but puppies need their rest, and she quickly fell asleep on my lap. I rubbed her ears and recapped the evening with Anabella and Anjali.

“That was a smash hit. You performed brilliantly. Nothing but compliments from the guests. I’ll pick up half a dozen new clients for my boutique investment firm. Three members of the cabinet asked me for your numbers.”

“Don’t you dare,” Anjali growled. “We don’t need genius visas.”

Her response nonplussed me, but I forged ahead anyway.

“We’ve made a grand entrance. Keeping up the momentum will be easy. This town is greedy and starved for good designers. I can work with that. Did Sylvia say how long we can keep the models?”

“If the clothes are good, they’ll stay as long as you want,” Anabella replied. “Or until a better offer comes along.”

“Let’s fly Gina Prensa up here.” Anjali said, peering at her phone. “Your little party went viral instantly, and I’m getting a lot of media requests. Not only the usual CNBC and Bloomberg financial programs. Morning Joe called twice already. The Council on Foreign Affairs says they’ll build a global financial seminar around you. Washington Post wants an editorial. Brookings offered a seat on their Board of Directors.”

“Yeah, forward that stuff to Gina and send the jet right away. Tell her I’ll do all of it. Extract the usual pound of flesh in exchange. Anybody get an update from Albina and Bevy?”

“Living their best life,” Anabella said. “I’m following Bevy on Instagram. She’s sight-seeing all day and partying with Albina all night. I don’t know how she does it.”

“Jersey girl,” I said. “It’s a genetic thing.”

“I’m sure there must be some actual work involved,” Anjali said. “They’re making fast progress. Almost twenty cities so far: Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Bogatá, and all the major African and European capitols. Satellite tracking shows them on final approach to Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi. Singapore will be next.”

I winced.

A painful memory. My ex-girlfriend Susie Golden moved to Singapore after the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. We broke up when the CEO gave her the top job in Asia as compensation for the pain of dating me. Susie swore it was a deep, mutual hormonal attraction, but the Vice President of Human Relations insisted that supervisors and their employees can’t fall in love. Game over.

The breakup devastated us. As part of the settlement package, I was forced to resign. The only bright side was that Anjali Khan got my job as Head of M&A after I recommended her to the CEO.

“Sorry, John,” Anjali said. “I forgot. The City That Must Not Be Named. This must be so hard on you.”

I touched the corner of my eye.

“Water under the bridge. I’ve moved on.”

Anjali and Anabella rolled their eyes in unison, as if they were synchronized Olympic swimmers.

“Sure,” Anabella said. “That completely explains all your flings with half the stacked blondes in Miami this year. You’ve clearly gotten over stacked blonde Susie. She’s just a distant memory.”

I ordered another Perfect Martini.

And touched the corner of my eye.

Sixty Three

Sun-Kissed Skin

A SCORCHING SUNRISE opened the day far too early. I staggered on deck for morning calisthenics and rediscovered the Swamp’s most unfortunate feature: no morning breeze. In Washington, summer nights flip from warm-muggy to hot-steamy in a blink. No wonder the British gave up so easily. Who would want to live here?

A quick workout in the Grifter’s infinity pool cooled me down, and my pounding head welcomed a sumptuous bacon-heavy breakfast served by my curvaceous boatswain’s mate. After she cleared the table, I settled into a poolside lounge chair to savor a morning latte and browse MLB scores from last night’s West Coast games. The Dodgers busted my 12-leg parlay. Again.

The smoking-hot Italian models interrupted me when they tumbled up the gangway for a quick tune-up of their perfect tans. This entailed a level of mass European topless sunbathing rarely seen at the Wilbur Mills Tidal Basin Yacht Club.

My sun deck became the target of a thousand eyeballs. Marine One swooped overhead, hesitated, and reversed course for a second look. I swear even the snipers on the White House roof pointed their scopes our way. The senior senator from Idaho sat on the bridge of his mega-yacht with a pair of Steiner 20x80 military-grade binoculars. He was only twenty feet away in the adjacent berth. The Italian girls waved at him. Apparently, aggressive bird watchers are common in Italy. Here, we call them Peeping Toms.

Anabella joined me for a chocolate croissant and a Cuban coffee. She was power-dressed in an Alexander McQueen single-button blazer and matching skirt, ready for a hard day’s work as a Washington lawyer. She didn’t blink at finding me surrounded by a dozen half-naked Italian fashion models. I asked her if the girls should cover up, in case they were violating Washington D.C. obscenity laws.

She shook her head vigorously.

“All your rich neighbors are posting. This will go viral in a big way. Bigger than last night’s bash. I can smell the jealousy from here. Earned media. Gina will be happy. We want this.”

The hatch opened. Anjali appeared in a barely-tied black string bikini, clinging to the handrail and reeking of gin. She stood by the AI cocktail machine and mumbled, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” over and over like a magical incantation.

Anjali had felt bad last night about her Singapore faux pas. She tried to make amends by matching me drink for drink. Big mistake. I tenderly carried her to bed after she passed out. Anabella tucked her in. Now she tried to rise from the dead.

My curvaceous boatswain’s mate guided her to a poolside lounge chair right beside me and brought a mug of hot tea. Anjali took a few sips, mumbled a few slurred pleasantries, and fell asleep. Her glossy dark hair, perfect figure, sun-kissed skin, and barely-tied black string bikini created a striking impression.

My spine tingled. I shook my head to refocus and draped a white towel across my black Speedo.

“Let her sleep it off,” Anabella said with a grin. “I’ll meet you for lunch, and she’ll join us later.”

Misery loves company, so I reclined my chair and enjoyed my own little well-deserved power nap.

The next thing I knew, Sylvia Sakura’s gentle hand was stroking my brow while she whispered in my ear.

“Wake up, pumpkin. Time for work.”

I blinked. The sun was directly overhead, burning the city like a kid with a magnifying glass and a big ant hill. Anjali and the Italian models were gone. Gina Prensa worked her phone at a café table under the awning. She looked cool and sexy in an off-white Dolce & Gabbana tropical shirt dress with a big alligator belt and matching sandals. The dress was unbuttoned down to exactly the right spot.

The world was throwing the kitchen sink at me today. And the rest of the kitchen too. I shook my head to refocus.

“C’mon big guy. You need a shower and a loofah before lunch. Too much coconut oil,” Sylvia said.

She dragged her well-manicured fingertips across my glistening torso and rubbed them together. The smoking-hot Italian models must have applied an extra coating while I slept.

An hour later, I was wearing Fendi haute couture in a black Uber Exec SUV on my way to Georgia Brown’s. Sylvia accompanied me, looking demure and professional in a tight blue pencil skirt, sleeveless white silk blouse, and her signature four-strand pearl choker. She stared at the appointment app on her iPad, as if trying to figure out the New York Times crossword puzzle.

“John, how long has Zoe Rogue known this guy?”

“I dunno. They served in some shithole together, back in the day. Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to figure out how she managed to land you a short-notice lunch with the Director of National Intelligence.”

“Zoe keeps files on everyone,” I replied. “She asks for small favors. In this town, lunch is a nothing-burger. He probably thinks I have a money-laundering problem or need to remove another small Caribbean dictator.”

Sylvia nodded thoughtfully.

“I hope he likes surprises.”

Sixty Four

Intelligence

GEORGIA BROWN’S is a fabulous restaurant, beloved by Washington’s elite power brokers for live jazz and the best Southern cuisine. All within walking distance of the White House, the World Bank, and the IMF. Center of the known universe.

Anabella Busto and the silver-haired DNI waited for us in a private dining room, chatting away like old friends. Buffy sniffed the DNI and gave him a helicopter tail of approval. The DNI scratched her ears and greeted me with a hearty backslap. He kissed Sylvia Sakura’s hand and held the chair for her. An old Southern gentleman.

The waiter took our drink orders while Anabella finished telling a gruesome story about defending a cartel death squad in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. The DNI was incredulous.

“They killed twelve people? The judge let them go? All of them?”

“Yep,” Anabella replied. “Florida’s Stand Your Ground law has a wide penumbra. You can shoot someone in a Walmart parking lot if they get too close to your pickup truck.”

“Where did they bastards go after that? Back to Colombia?”

“Hell no. They embarrassed their boss by getting caught, so he killed them a week later. Good motivation for the rest of the organization. Saved a ton of money for the state penal system. That’s a win-win. The Florida Bar Association named me Defense Attorney of the Year.”

We were still chuckling when our waiter brought the drinks and took lunch orders. After that, the DNI jumped right in.

“Mr. Carthage, it’s a real pleasure. I’m honored. Saving all those people in Manhattan makes you a true American Hero. And now, crushing that evil bitch behind the apocalypse? Stopping a San Francisco cataclysm? Incredible. Zoe told me everything. The nation owes you a debt of gratitude. I’m sorry you can’t get public recognition for your excellent work.”

I shrugged modestly.

“Zoe exaggerates. It was a complete team effort throughout all phases of the game. But I appreciate your generous words.”

“Zoe Rogue suffers from many flaws,” the DNI chuckled. “Exaggeration is not one of them. If you were my agent, I’d give you the Distinguished Intelligence Cross with oak leaves and diamonds.”

Sylvia giggled at the thought of me winning any kind of award, let alone one for intelligence.

“You’re too kind,” I replied. “But we’re not done yet.”

The DNI leaned forward and listened grimly while I described Pandora Blackwood’s evil scheme in detail, and how quick action could stop similar plans in the future. He wasn’t convinced.

“We’ve watched the vampire tribes for almost two centuries,” he said. “The early OSS created an entire department dedicated to vampire surveillance and tracking. As long as their bloody squabbles didn’t spill over, we left them alone. In time, the global growth of their non-profit entity pacified the entire vampire community. Nowadays, all they wanna do is have some fun. Peel the label from a bottle of Bud. You know? I’m pretty sure Pandora’s evil scheme is an outlier.”

“Director, how did you miss Pandora’s plan?” Sylvia asked. “And afterwards, why didn’t you realize that a vampire tribe unleashed the Manhattan zombie apocalypse?”

The Director squirmed in his seat and frowned.

“Pandora’s plan never appeared on our domestic surveillance radar. The humans were compelled not to discuss it, and the vampires are damn good at keeping their own secrets. It was a complete intelligence failure, like missing the Pearl Harbor raid or the Martian democracy uprising. A dozen GS-9s lost their jobs for that one.”

“What about after the apocalypse? Why couldn’t you identify her?” Surely you have the spies everywhere.” Sylvia pressed.

“Another failure,” he sighed. “Our Spycraft AI 5000 insisted the insurance industry orchestrated the whole thing. The stupid bitch made perfect sense, but Cassandra was dead wrong.”

“You named your AI ‘Cassandra?’” I asked, incredulous.

The Director sighed. “It was meant to be ironic. Back then, no insurance policy covered losses from a zombie apocalypse. As a result, the industry didn’t pay out a dime when Manhattan was destroyed. After that, every corporation on the planet wanted expensive zombie riders on their policies. The insurance companies made a fortune. That’s why Cassandra insisted they must have unleashed the virus. Ninety-nine percent probability. In fact, we were still torturing insurance executives for information when Zoe Rogue called last week and requested this meeting. She gave me the real story. You’ve been a busy boy.”

“Torture? You mean enhanced interrogation, right?” Anabella suggested gently.

“Nah,” the Director grinned. “They’re insurance executives. They don’t feel pain like real people do.”

“Are you pulling the plug on Spycraft?” I asked. “If Cassandra was one of my analysts, she’d be out of a job.”

“Can’t,” he frowned. “It’s a cost-plus government contract without an escape clause. Don’t worry. Cassandra says this was a one-time thing. Ninety-nine percent.”

Anjali and Anabella looked me in disbelief. I shrugged. Government contracts are forever, like death and taxes. Well, death at any rate. Taxes are negotiable.

“Look,” I said. “Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t stop her. Ask Robert Oppenheimer about the atomic bomb. Ask the NFL about quarterback cloning. We stopped Pandora Blackwood, but what about the next vampire tribe with a bright idea and a lust for absolute power? Don’t focus on intent. Look at capability. Their supernatural powers and unlimited finances pose an existential threat that won’t vanish by itself.”

I pitched him hard until he finally blinked. The epiphany washed over him. The light bulb flickered on. What choice did he have? My marketing skills are so good, I can sell Arctic circle condos to sun-baked Florida retirees.

“Okay, that’s pure genius,” he said. “You got me. How can I help?”

“Easy. Stay in your lane. I don’t need extra resources, and there’s a good chance vampires have compromised your intelligence community. Most of the fucking Federal Reserve works for the vampires, for chrissakes. I doubt your agencies are completely staffed by Vestal Virgins. Keep this between us. Don’t react to what you see.”

“So, don’t do anything? Nothing? That’s your big ask?”

“Not a thing, no matter what you see or hear,” I said.

“What if your plan doesn’t work?”

“If that happens, I don’t care what you do. It won’t matter.”

He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be dead.”

Sixty Five

Finance

WE BID FAREWELL to the Director of National Intelligence and hopped into an Uber Exec SUV with Anjali Khan and Gina Prensa for my next meeting.

Anjali’s quick recovery from our martini duel impressed me. Her luminous complexion and luxurious dark hair glowed with the vitality that comes from good nutrition and a high-end salon. I nodded approvingly at her red double-breasted structured blazer by Ferragamo, applauding her bold choice to wear it without a blouse. Very edgy. A short black skirt, Louboutin stiletto pumps, and a giant Fendi purse completed her power look. The La Perla fishnets were a practical yet stylish choice for the hot summer day.

In fact, fishnets are always a good choice.

Anabella shifted into pit bull lawyer mode and gave us a quick briefing before we arrived.

“The Senate Banking Committee loves bankers. They open the doors for the big deals and bail you out when everything goes south. Be extra nice to them. Best behavior.”

Anjali and I nodded. Every banker needs a taxpayer-funded bailout at one time or another. Never burn that bridge.

“This iteration of the Committee has been particularly helpful. After the Manhattan zombie apocalypse, the Committee championed Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and a flood of cash from Congress. The money helped millions of ordinary people and, naturally, ended up in the pockets of the banking industry.”

“Of course,” I said. “The conservation of mass. Once created, money never goes away. It simply flows uphill to the one percent.”

“This hearing focuses on the FDIC’s seizure of Pandora’s Box and your subsequent purchase of the assets. The Committee also wants to learn how Anjali contributed to the deal in her role as Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.”

“That’s easy,” Anjali replied. “I’m cleaning up Pandora Blackwood’s mess. Consolidating assets, pruning the portfolio, firing all the middle-managers. Doing my job.”

“Perfect,” Anabella said. “FDIC Chair Pulton testified in detail earlier today. This was a routine FDIC transaction. Nothing special, except for the meth lab and human trafficking.”

The U.S. Capitol Police waved our Uber Exec straight into the underground parking as soon as they saw my famous smile. We left Buffy with the driver. Anabella bustled us down a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, into the Capitol. We emerged right outside the hearing room.

FDIC Chair Pulton and ABA President Blick were engaged with a dozen reporters, allowing us to slip into our seats unnoticed. The Committee Chair gaveled the session to order and swore us in.

The opening minutes were rough. The Chair’s first question touched on possible wedding dates for Anjali and me. I provided a solid non-answer. Anabella had to stop Anjali from climbing over the witness table and rushing the dais.

After that, it was smooth sailing. The committee lobbed softball questions for two hours, and we hit them out of the park. Nobody wanted to cross-examine two national heroes about an obscure Florida holding company. Not a good look back home.

Senator J. Philpott Raullin drove a line of congratulatory questions that highlighted my spectacular rise from destitute orphan to wealthy plutocrat and global thirst trap.

“You’re an American Success Story,” he said. “One of the richest men in the world. Your financial acumen and economic genius are legendary. You’re on the cover of Vogue. How can you do it all?”

“That’s kind of you, Senator Raullin. To be honest, I’ve been a team player all my life.”

Sylvia choked and coughed uncontrollably. Anabella pounded her on the back until she recovered.

Anjali fielded similar kid-glove questions, mostly about wedding dresses and venues. She resisted at first, but finally resigned herself to the awkward inquiries after Gina whispered sharply in her ear.

“Well, Senator, I do love an elegant off-the-shoulder satin sheath, deeply plunging neckline, and medium train,” she said. “Throw in a long veil, a pearl choker, and golden earrings. You can never go wrong holding the ceremony in a formal English garden. But I haven’t given it much thought.”

Sylvia tapped detailed notes into her iPad.

Why did that make me so uneasy?

After more praise for our unmatched service to the nation, the Chairman wrapped up the whole circus with a hint that his wife expected invitations to the wedding. A hundred cameras clicked and flashed. Committee members nodded their unanimous approval.

He banged the gavel.

We fled the room.

Sixty Six

Fast Fashion and Father Time

WE ROCKETED out of the underground garage and blew past the waiting mob of paparazzi and financial press. Gina Prensa arranged for the U.S. Capitol Police to deter any pursuit. They deployed Grappler spike strips behind us as we roared away down Independence Avenue. We could hear the tires exploding.

“I like your style,” Anabella Busto grinned.

Gina frowned.

“It’s a tough business. If those scum-sucking vultures want photos of my boss, they have to ask nicely. That’s my job.”

Our next stop was McPherson Square, a lovely pocket park on K Street in the heart of Washington’s lobbying industry. Consultants, think tanks, and advocacy groups swarm the area like bluebottle flies on two-day road kill.

Sylvia enlisted a trio of local D.C. designers for a flash fashion show featuring our smoking-hot Italian models. Contractors built a stage and catwalk. A grizzled DJ pumped Washington’s unique go-go music through a sound system big enough for Yankee Stadium.

“This is another flex move, a strong direct message,” said Gina. “The train is leaving the station, so you better hop aboard.”

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“What are you talking about? I want to destroy the Fed Chair and knock the vampire tribes into line. How does this help?”

The girls looked at each other.

“John, you don’t have to understand it,” Anjali Khan said. “Trust the process. Trust your team.”

Our Uber Exec SUV delivered us to the red carpet arrival area. We smiled our way to the VIP seats, passing an army of corporate lobbyists waving cell phone cameras. The show was quick and tightly choreographed. Our Italian models brought their Euro-charm to masterworks by the legendary design studios of Jah Kente, Eileen Bleyer, and Nikki Hendricks. Anjali and I hit the catwalk together. The crowd went wild.

After the last twirl and a round of applause for our hard-working models, we retired to the hospitality tent and hobnobbed with K Street’s heaviest hitters. Oil industry revivalists. Lagrange Point landlords. Sea wall whisperers.

The smoking-hot Italian models mingled and chased their genius visas. Buffy sniffed the crowd, wagging her tail and distributing wet kisses. She bodyslammed a few people and licked their faces.

Gina dragged me around the air-conditioned tent, so I could shake hands and accept compliments for my latest Vanity Fair spread. I made twenty-five close friends in less than an hour.

“I love how they literally bend the knee to you, John,” said Gina. “Very old world manners. Maybe I’ll buy you a fat gold pinky ring and give them something to kiss.”

Anjali and Sylvia were drinking Aperol spritzes at the bar with a small, mustachioed man. He was dressed in a long black cassock and a wide-brimmed hat, like a Catholic priest from the 1600s. When Gina and I walked over, he crossed himself several times, as if warding off an evil presence, and beat a hasty retreat before Buffy could get close.

“Who the fuck was that?” I asked.

“Father Malachi Scourge,” Anjali said. “He handles public relations for Georgetown University. We’re meeting his boss after the party.”

“Nice guy,” Sylvia said. “Last week, he connected me with an Adjunct Professor in their School of Public Policy. That’s how I recruited those impoverished grad students to serve drinks at the reception last night.”

I was getting frustrated by the random side-quests.

“Why the hell am I meeting with a priest? What does the Church have to do with any of this?”

“To be honest, I’m not completely sure. Father Scourge contacted Gina through the dark FlackNet and insisted on the meeting, but he wouldn’t say why. Gina said it’s a must-do.”

“Probably wants me to fund a new basketball arena,” I grumbled. “The Hoyas haven’t won a title since John Thompson. Can’t you handle this one?”

“No,” Anjali said firmly. “Georgetown is a Jesuit school. The order dates to 1540. Their hoard of dossiers and ancient secrets is immense. I bet he’ll talk about the Miami vampires. You have to go.”

I pouted, but finally gave in. Buffy sat on my lap and tried to revive my spirits as we crawled down M Street in Washington’s never-ending rush hour traffic.

The Uber Exec left us at the crumbling old Lauinger Library as dusk descended. We scurried across the poorly-lit campus. Heavy Georgian architecture established a jump-scare vibe I couldn’t ignore. Students raced for the safety of their squalid dorm rooms.

“Bram Stoker would love this place,” I muttered.

Father Scourge welcomed us at the steps to Old North. Buffy gave him a sniff and wagged her tail. He offered a hearty handshake and apologized for not greeting me at the flash fashion show.

“You drew a lot of attention from those young models, Mr. Carthage. Not all of them were, shall we say, completely dressed. I could not risk being photographed in such company. The Holy Father is always working to rehabilitate our image, yes?”

We followed him up the stairs and into Old North. The building was dark and well-worn. The thick, musty smell of ancient history added texture to the jump scare vibe.

He led us into a small office with dingy wooden paneling and a view of Dahlgren Chapel. An aged priest in a red cassock wobbled to his feet and extended a withered hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Carthage,” he croaked. “Thank you for coming. I am Father Wrinkle, the Vice President for Mission and Ministry. I hold the most senior religious position here at Georgetown.”

An elderly black Labrador with a gray muzzle limped out from beneath the round wooden conference table. She sniffed us, wagged her tail, and flopped onto the ancient Persian rug. Buffy sniffed Father Wrinkle, wagged her own tail, and curled up beside her canine colleague for a nap.

Father Wrinkle waved us toward a pair of overstuffed red leather loveseats. He sat in a stout wooden chair behind a small desk stacked high with old books, dusty papers, and brittle parchment scrolls. A black, leather-bound copy of Dr. Stonjohn’s dissertation sat on top of the pile. Its title was hand-lettered in an elegant gold cursive.

The side door creaked open. A young nun in full habit appeared, carrying a tarnished silver tray of frosty espresso martinis.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Father Wrinkle wheezed. “I took the liberty of ordering for everyone.”

The young nun stepped around the loveseats to serve our martinis, and I caught a whiff of something familiar. Anjali glanced at me. We silently mouthed the words to each other.

Chanel No. 5.

The nun gave me a side-eye glance and demurely tucked an errant strand of glossy black hair into place. Her cheekbones were high. Her eyebrows were on fleek. Her lips were full and red. Her eyes promised an earthly paradise.

“Thank you, Sister Elvira,” Father Wrinkle sighed. “That will be all. Please return to the cloister for evening prayers.”

Sister Elvira bowed her head and backed out of the room, catching my eye before she disappeared.

“I’ll make this quick, Mr. Carthage. You have more important things to do than meeting an old priest.”

“Mr. Carthage deeply respects the Church and its institutions,” Gina assured him.

Sylvia coughed. A drop of espresso martini dribbled down her chin. Anabella dabbed it with a paper napkin.

“Thank you, Ms. Prensa, but I think the last time Mr. Carthage visited a church, he was escaping from an orphanage. Stashed a backpack of clothes and extra food in the chapel, Mr. Carthage? Collected it before you jumped the fence, did you not?”

My jaw dropped and a small thread of drool leaked from the corner of my mouth. Anabella dabbed it with a paper napkin.

“I told you they have dossiers,” muttered Anjali.

Father Wrinkle smiled.

“You are equally well-known, Miss Khan. By the way, our Holy Father thinks you two make a great couple.”

Anjali groaned.

“Thanks, Father Wrinkle,” I said. “But with all due respect, we’re in the middle of something. What can I do for you?”

“You’ve already done a lot for us, Mr. Carthage. Our engagement with the vampire community spans many centuries. Sometimes in peace, often in war. We sponsored the original non-profit entity to reduce the wanton vampire violence. In fact, our Sistine Chapel serves as official repository for their treaty, and the Vatican is a signatory. Everything was going as well as you could expect, considering they are bloodsucking monsters.”

“Until…” I prodded.

“Until Pandora Blackwood and her Miami tribe became a grave threat to our holy world order. Our global flock. We got wind of her evil plan two years ago and implemented a monitoring program. Sorry for your loss, by the way. The Holy Church also suffered grievously. St. Peter’s Cathedral in Manhattan was one of our crown jewels. A magnificent piece of architecture, full of relics, sacred gold artifacts, and many blessed memories.”

He touched the wrinkled corner of his eye.

“You knew about Pandora’s scheme in advance?” I asked. “Why didn’t you stop it?”

Father Wrinkle sighed. More of a wheeze, actually.

“We knew about her intentions, but we didn’t understand her full capability until it was too late. The Manhattan zombie apocalypse caught us flat-footed.”

“You and the CIA outdid yourselves on this one,” I said. “Do you people ever talk to each other?”

“All the time. You’d be surprised at the secrets we share. Spies love to talk. Better yet, vampire hypnosis doesn’t work during a confession. Our eminent theologians call it God’s backdoor hack into the supernatural. People share everything with their priests, even if they’ve been magically compelled to remain silent. The Agency has its tools. So do we.”

“Then how did Pandora catch you off guard?”

Father Wrinkle wheezed again.

“Because most bankers are godless heathens. The same goes for real estate investors and, of course, vampires. They never go to confession. That limited our visibility into her evil plan. It’s also why the Federal Reserve presents such a hard target for us. Nothing but bankers there. In fact, many senior Fed executives embrace the Satanic rites, including goat sacrifice. It’s a tight circle. Worse than a coven.”

The two priests crossed themselves three times.

We sipped our martinis in silence, digesting his story and thinking about what might have been. If only.

The office felt oppressively small, jammed with old furniture and overflowing bookshelves. Complete darkness settled outside. Georgetown’s jump-scare vibe intensified. I felt an irresistible urge to get the hell out.

“Is there anything else, Father Wrinkle?” Gina asked.

He twitched and awakened from an old dream of glory days long ago, when religion ruled the world.

“Yes, of course. Forgive me. Two things. First, Mr. Carthage, we have a long history with the supernatural and possess tremendous assets, including a top exorcist. Please feel free to call us for assistance at any time. Father Scourge will serve as your point of contact.”

“What is your role here, Father Scourge?” I asked.

“I wear two birettas. On the secular side, I run the public relations department and handle corporate outreach.”

He nodded at Gina. She smiled. Fellow flacks flock together.

“On the spiritual side?”

“My official title is Inquisidor de la Tortura.”

We flinched, and he laughed.

“It sounds better in Latin. Inquisitor Torturae.”

“Oh yeah, much better,” muttered Anabella.

“That’s why Georgetown professors only give ‘tests’ or ‘exams.’ We find the word ‘quiz’ triggers a lot of student anxiety. Dredges up unpleasant comparisons to 17th-century Spain.”

The girls laughed and Father Wrinkle smiled, but I didn’t understand why. Nobody ever explained it to me.

“We’re delighted by your offer of assistance, Father Wrinkle,” Gina said. “I’ll serve as Father Scourge’s contact on our side. You mentioned two things. What’s the other one?”

Father Wrinkle turned and picked up a long, dusty leather scabbard propped against the wall behind his desk. It was something a cowboy might use to carry a Winchester 1873 carbine in an old Western. Scourge untied the flap for him, withdrew a fancy gentleman’s walking stick, and presented it to me.

It was solid and heavy, carved from a single piece of dense ebony heartwood. Delicate silver and gold tracings veined the 16th-century Fritz handle. It felt older than time, yet featured a modern tungsten-steel tip. A good complement to my favorite pair of 17th-century gold doubloon cuff links.

“You may find this useful,” Father Wrinkle wheezed. “More effective than your Mokuba wrecking bar, under certain circumstances.”

I stood and took a few practice swings. Well-balanced, and much lighter than the Mokuba.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But a Mokuba better suits my purposes. The best I could do with this might be a broken-bat single.”

“If you are crushing zombie skulls, yes,” Father Scourge replied. “This provides a significant advantage when dealing with vampires. Here, I’ll show you.”

I gave him the cane and, with great effort, he unscrewed the handle to show me the butt end of the shaft. The dense heartwood was a pure, solid black, except for a tiny brown dot in the center, about an eighth of an inch in diameter.

Both priests gasped when I scratched at the dot with my well-manicured fingernail.

“Don’t do that!” Father Wrinkle choked. He grabbed an inhaler and took a deep puff.

“Why? What is this? A corked bat?

Father Scourge looked at Father Wrinkle, who nodded and sucked on the inhaler again.

“It’s a five-inch splinter from the True Cross, embedded in the wood by a Vatican artist still on his rookie deal. A man named Leonardo Da Vinci. Pope Leo X commissioned the piece for personal defense during a particularly nasty vampire war.”

“Holy fuck,” muttered Anabella. “Oh, sorry, Fathers. I mean, gee whiz, that’s amazing.”

“Leo X was one of the best Medici popes,” I said. “A dynasty for the ages. They invented the corporate holding company.”

Anjali looked at me in astonishment.

“So, a wooden cane is useful against vampires?” Sylvia asked. “Bram Stoker didn’t mention anything like this. Neither did Dr. Stonjohn.”

“You can’t write about secrets you don’t know,” Father Wrinkle replied. “It’s more than a wooden cane. Not much of the True Cross survived after the crucifixion. A few pieces were crafted into weapons, like this one. The others were incorporated into Bernini’s masterpiece, the Chair of Saint Peter, or used in the Vatican casino’s roulette wheels. They contain unimaginable power.”

The two priests crossed themselves three times.

“So, I guess Vatican roulette is a real thing,” muttered Anabella.

“Why would this work against a vampire?” I asked. “It’s not heavy enough, and as you said, vampires don’t believe in God.”

“Perhaps,” wheezed Father Wrinkle. “But God believes in vampires.”

I shook my head. No sale.

“Look at it this way, Mr. Carthage,” Father Scourge said. “Let’s say you don’t believe in guns. You’ve heard about them, but you don’t believe they work. In that case, you won’t care if I shoot you, right?”

He extracted a beautiful antique two-shot .45-caliber derringer from a hidden pocket in his black cassock.

The girls gasped.

I gripped the wooden cane and tried to judge the distance to his head. He smiled and put the derringer away.

Father Wrinkle frowned. Father Scourge looked contrite.

“We don’t need Father Scourge’s melodrama to convince you, Mr. Carthage. You own eyes provide enough evidence. Pastor Wheat’s Best Sparkling Holy Water. That worked splendidly, yes?”

Sylvia nodded.

“John, it makes sense. Pastor Wheat’s Sparking Holy Water was devastating, even though it’s nothing more than factory-blessed Pellegrino. I saw the production line myself. An old MP3 player hooked to a Blackstar practice amp blasts his blessing on a loop while the water flows past in a six-inch cast iron pipe. That’s all it takes. Can you imagine the power contained in a piece of the True Cross?”

“Sure, if it’s real,” Anjali said. “But, respectfully, the Church’s record on fake relics is pretty sketchy. Should John bet his life on it?”

Father Wrinkle coughed and shifted in his stout wooden chair.

“I admit, our relic business has been profitable over many centuries. We have to pay the bills, after all. But we operate much like you. Some of our revenue comes from questionable practices, but we also engage in genuine, substantive transactions.”

“You’re grifters,” I said. “Making money on hope and faith with an occasional real deal to salt the mine. Pyramid sales. Ponzi schemes. Medicare Advantage plans. How do I know this cane is real?”

“Because the cane is not for sale. It’s our gift to you, an investment in your success. As I said, our window into the world of bankers and vampires is limited. You live in that world now. Like it or not, you’re doing the Lord’s work, a righteous warrior fighting a timeless evil. You going to need this.”

He pointed at the cane.

“God’s Rod.”

Sixty Seven

Reunions and Raiders

AFTER FATHER WRINKLE gave us his blessing and a bacon treat for Buffy, we scurried to the Uber Exec SUV for our return ride.

God’s Rod felt firm and reassuring in my hand, but Georgetown’s dark campus and jump-scare vibe were intense. I sighed with relief when we reached the Tidal Basin. Gina Prensa gave the driver a brick of crisp hundreds for staying with us all day, and a second brick for taking care of Buffy. The driver was sobbing as she pulled away.

A large, restless crowd lined the sea wall, mostly middle-aged men in cargo shorts suffering from terminal dad bod. I joined my captain on the bridge to assess the situation.

“They’ve been arriving all day,” she said. “Busloads. Some of them are coming from as far away as Heathsville. This morning’s Italian tanning salon went viral and continues to trend. The internet demands a repeat performance. That’s the first problem.”

A bloodcurdling scream erupted on the poop deck. It was Anjali. I grabbed God’s Rod and was halfway out the door when the captain held up her hand to stop me.

“Wait,” she said. “Listen.”

I cocked my ear toward the open companionway. Anjali’s scream was replaced by a string of curses that curled my hair. Many of them addressed me by name.

“From the sound of it, I think Miss Khan has encountered your second problem,” the captain said.

She tapped one of the bridge tactical displays and opened Instagram. The display scrolled through video clips of Anjali and me, sound asleep in adjacent lounge chairs.

I resembled the Greek god of war in my black Speedo, while Anjali looked even better in her barely-tied black string bikini. Topless Italian models massaged both of us with coconut oil. Many of the clips were accompanied by raunchy electric blues from the 1960s. John Lee Hooker. Paul Butterfield. Freddie King.

“Sorry I slept through that,” I muttered.

“You’re trending everywhere. Completely dominating the news cycle. The New York Times captured the prevailing sentiment. Here.”

She tapped the display again, and the NYT front page popped up. A smoldering pic and a 100-pt headline: “Put A Ring On It, John.”

Even the Wall Street Journal chimed in: “Don’t Let Her Get Away.”

“This is not my fault,” I protested.

“I’m not sure Miss Khan will see it that way. In any case, I recommend that we wait a few hours, until the crowd goes to sleep. I’ll move us to another anchorage after that. The U.S. Park Police anticipates 10,000 horny men by tomorrow morning. We’re well-equipped to repel boarders, but it could get bloody.”

“Anjali worries me more than the mob. My fans adore me, but Anjali must abhor me now.”

“Your friends will talk her down,” she said. “I recommend a hasty retreat. Stay in your quarters. When you wake up tomorrow morning, pretend nothing happened.”

Anjali unleashed another wave of screams and curses, as if to illustrate the wisdom of the captain’s advice.

“Make it so,” I said.

The captain called the harbormaster and prepared for a midnight departure. I exited through the fire control center and, with Hal watching the corners for me, managed to reach my luxurious stateroom without casualties.

I phoned the galley for a late-night snack. My personal cocktail waitress brought a tomahawk rib eye, Parmesan-crusted zucchini planks, and a small spinach salad with mandarin orange vinaigrette. Nothing too fancy.

The Grifter eased away from her mooring and glided into the Potomac River channel. I savored a perfect crème brûlée for dessert and watched the glowing Jefferson Memorial slip past my wraparound windows. A million-dollar view. The best of everything. The sweet life of boundless prosperity.

After dinner and a long, cold shower, I slipped into my Derek Rose Classic silk pajamas and an Arthur Sarnoff smoking jacket, grabbed a copy of Thucydides, and settled down for a quiet night. Samara Joy crooned romantic jazz, and Buffy kept me company, snuggled at the end of my California King bed.

The Sicilian Expedition was about to implode when I heard a quiet knock on the sitting room door. Buffy’s ears perked up. I grabbed God’s Rod from the bedside table and pulled a custom Colt Cobra .357 from under my pillow.

No sense taking any chances.

“It’s open,” I called.

Gentle footsteps approached the bedroom. Buffy sniffed the air, and her tail wagged. My spine tingled. A shadowy figure paused in the doorway. The silhouette was pure Balenciaga.

Albina Aldana walked in.

Buffy leaped straight from the bed into Albina’s arms, unleashing a shower of wet kisses and spinning her tail into helicopter-mode.

“Hey, girl,” Albina laughed. “Seems like you’re doing alright. Did John remember to feed you? Maybe you should…”

Buffy never heard the rest of Albina’s thought. I sprang from the bed and wrapped my muscular arms around both of them, planting a long, tender kiss on Albina’s ruby-red lips. She closed her eyes, tilted her chin, and did that girly leg-kick thing. Things were looking up.

But Buffy had other ideas. She jumped to the floor and proceeded to run tight circles around us, pausing now and then to jump on Albina and deliver more wet kisses. We burst into laughter and bowed to the inevitable. Buffy was a force of nature that would not be denied.

We moved to a big couch in the sitting room. Buffy planted herself squarely between us and showed no signs of leaving. With her in the middle, the best we could manage was to hold hands and play a little footsie. It was more than enough to keep my spine tingling.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be in Asia, talking to important vampires?”

“We finished early. All the tribal leaders gathered together for the annual Hong Kong dragon boat races, so I was able to finish the Asia meetings in a few days. Luck, not skill. I totally forgot about the races when making my travel plans. We landed at DCA a few hours ago and called the captain. She dispatched your electric speedboat to collect us off Gravelly Point. Bevy is talking to Ronnie and the girls right now, handing out the travel gifts.”

She ran her well-manicured fingers through my hair. Buffy licked my face again.

“How did you figure out where I was?”

“You do know I’m on Instagram, right?” she replied. “The whole fucking world knows you’re here. Nice boat, by the way. Size matters.”

The conversation was taking an interesting turn.

“Well, now that you mention it…” I began.

A soft klaxon interrupted my well-practiced line. Red flashing lights replaced my customized romantic mood lighting. Samara Joy’s seductive voice on the surround-sound was replaced by the captain’s harsh voice on the intercom.

“All hands, action stations. Owner to the bridge. All visitors remain in your cabins. This is no drill.”

“What the hell?” I muttered. “Does she think this is still the fucking U.S. Navy?”

“Better go, John. It sounds important. I’ll stay here with Buffy. Call me if you run into any…uh, vampires.”

I rummaged in the walk-in closet to find my black velvet Santoni bedroom slippers. Albina tossed the custom Colt Cobra .357 to me, but when her hand reached for God’s Rod, there was a loud crack and the flash of a bright spark.

“Ouch!” she said, shaking her fingers. “That stings.”

She looked closely at the cane, and her eyes widened in recognition.

“Wow. You’ve been a busy boy. We have a lot to talk about.”

I slipped the .357 into the pocket of my smoking jacket, picked up God’s Rod in one hand, and swept Albina’s perfect body hard against me with the other.

“Yes, we do.”

Her eyes closed, her chin tilted, and her leg kicked up. I gave those ruby-red lips a proper, Buffy-free kiss, and headed for the bridge. My spine was on fire.

Bevy Bellaseno and the captain hunched over a radar display, murmuring the best tactical words to each other. They sounded like a couple of well-practiced lovers.

“That’s it,” the captain said. “No, a little higher.”

Bevy tapped a small dial on the screen.

“Oh yeah,” the captain said. “That’s perfect. Keep doing that.”

They made an odd couple, the captain in her white uniform and Bevy in her black tactical cat suit, yet somehow I found them oddly reassuring. Here were two people who knew exactly what the hell they were doing. That’s a rare thing.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s the skinny?”

The captain turned and did a double-take when she saw my elegant bedroom wear and accessories: God’s Rod and the Colt Cobra. I puffed out my chest and struck a manly pose, leaning rakishly on the black-and-silver cane and twirling the Colt around my well-manicured index finger.

She snickered and poked Bevy, who glanced at me and snorted with poorly concealed laughter.

“Holy crap, John,” she said. “Smoking jackets have been dead more than a century. The world moved on.”

“Classics never go out of fashion,” I muttered. “Style is…”

The captain cut me off.

“No time for Project Runway, Mr. Carthage. I have three incoming bogies. The Paranoia AI classifies them as 15-ft. Zodiacs, probably carrying six passengers each. They’re two miles upriver and closing fast on our position.”

A red chyron rolled across the screen.

Please call me Hal.

Hal switched to an infrared camera and displayed the bogies at 1x magnification. Bevy tapped the screen and zoomed close enough to count warm bodies and hot weapons. Lots of both.

“Definitely not fishing for striped bass,” Bevy said. “Their tactical gear looks very federal.”

Hal rolled another flashing red chyron across the display, identifying the fast-moving Zodiacs as property of the Federal Reserve Board’s Law Enforcement Unit. Data tags on the warm bodies identified them as LEU Special Agents.

“Ouch,” the captain said. “Those guys eat Navy Seals for breakfast. We need to get ready. How kinetic do you want to get?”

“Tough question,” I replied. “The LEU agents are probably under vampire compulsion and don’t understand that we’re the good guys.”

“John, you’re an investment banker,” Bevy said. “You’re good guy adjacent, at best.”

I ignored her quibble.

“If they’re not under compulsion, they’re probably operating on false information. From the Fed Chair, no doubt. Greasy little fucker.”

“So, you don’t necessarily want me to obliterate them with the touch of a button?” the captain asked.

“You can do that?” Bevy asked.

“Sure. The Grifter carries a complete self-defense package, including a Battletech CIWS heavy laser turret. I spent two years fighting pirates in the Strait of Malacca. I know what I’m doing. Give me the word and they’re toast.”

Bevy was thrilled with the idea.

“Awesome. Lasers. Let’s do it!” she grinned.

Jersey girl.

“I don’t want to kill anybody, especially federal agents,” I said. “We need prisoners for interrogation.”

The captain leaned over the radar screen, lightly tapping the console with her Naval Academy ring.

“Okay, here’s what I can do. If they follow standard assault protocol, the three boats will split up when they close to one-quarter mile. One team will board at the stern, one on the port beam, and one on the starboard beam. After they split, I’ll hit two of the boats with the CIWS laser. We’ll allow the third team to board, and then subdue them with the Grifter’s intruder module.”

“Won’t your laser kill the agents in those boats?” I asked. “Don’t forget we’re parked right offshore from the National Harbor casino. If the gas and ammo cook off, that is sure to attract a lot of eyeballs. That won’t be good for my image.”

“Anchored, Mr. Carthage,” the captain sighed. “We’re anchored offshore from the casino. No, nothing is going to explode. The laser will disable their engines and puncture the inflatable hulls. There are no sharks, and Zodiacs aren’t electric. These guys can easily swim back to shore.”

“Can you make that shot?” I asked.

“Hal will handle the laser. He never misses. Right, Hal?”

A red chyron crawled across the display. Ninety-nine percent probability of success.

“What about the boarding party? How big is your security team? Can we handle them?” Bevy asked.

“It’s just me and my XO, and two of the cocktail waitresses who learned to shoot in the National Guard. You and Mr. Carthage make six. Miss Aldana makes seven.”

“That’s all?” Bevy said. “On a boat this big? What about the rest of the crew?”

“The Grifter is almost fully automatic, and Mr. Carthage declined the option for a security detail. He chose extra personal staff. A gourmet chef, a mixologist, three cocktail waitresses, two masseuses instead of one, a manicurist, one each of Pilates and yoga instructors, and so on. No room in the crew quarters for security personnel. There’s always a tradeoff, one way or another.”

Bevy looked at me in disapproval. She would change her tune in the morning after a luxury breakfast and Swedish massage.

“Enough chatter,” I said. “Captain, can we handle these guys when they board us?”

“Yes sir. Absolutely. We probably won’t have to fire a shot. Bevy will lock the guests in their cabins, then return to the bridge. I’ll arm the cocktail waitresses and have them barricade those Italian models into the crew quarters. If you bring Miss Aldana up here, we should be fine. She’ll be our closer.”

Executive decisions are never tough for me. Gather all the available information. Listen to your experts. Make the call. Have a go-bag and untraceable cash in the closet.

This was easy.

“Make it so.”

Sixty Eight

Sticky Wicket

ALBINA ALDANA AND BUFFY joined me on the bridge. The captain stepped into the fire control center for a chat with Hal. Bevy Bellaseno locked the guest cabins and rejoined us after grabbing her MAC-17.

The captain reappeared on the bridge and shut down the klaxon and emergency red lighting.

“I want them to think they’ve achieved tactical surprise. As far as they know, we’re all sleeping, except for the night watch. Hal will disable their boats when they lose sight of each other.”

The captain provided binoculars and pointed us in the general direction of the fast-approaching Zodiacs. As predicted, they split up about a quarter-mile away. I trained my glasses on the shadowy boat heading for our stern. When it lost line-of-sight contact with the other two, the captain released fire control to Hal. Bevy tensed with anticipation.

Very underwhelming. The bridge lights dimmed briefly. I heard two quick, soft cracks. I turned my glasses to the other Zodiac. The lights dimmed again. Two soft cracks. That’s all.

Both boats went dead in the water and listed heavily. Infrared cameras showed the federal agents scrambling to ditch their body armor, weapons, and tactical gear. Bright white streaks on the engine and across the deflatable hull faded slowly and gave off tendrils of steam as the vessel settled into the Potomac. The agents drifted away in the gentle current.

“Nice shooting, Hall,” the captain said.

“I didn’t see anything,” Bevy complained. “Can we do it again? I wanna see the lasers.”

The captain shook her head.

“Real lasers are invisible, unless there’s smoke or fog in the air.”

“Where’s the other boat?” I asked.

Hal switched our display to a masthead infrared camera. The third Zodiac swooped alongside the Grifter and came to an abrupt halt. The agents tossed grappling hooks. As soon as they were aboard, the Zodiac zoomed away.

“Okay, Hal,” the captain said. “Let’s hit the trifecta.”

The lights dimmed, and the CIWS laser cracked twice. The Zodiac decelerated instantly and settled by the stern. The pilot tried to restore power without success. He slammed the engine cover in frustration, tightened his life vest, and stepped into the Potomac as the boat disappeared beneath him.

Hal switched to an on-board tactical view. The six agents deployed into two-man teams. One team headed for the bridge. One headed for the engine room. One headed for the bar.

“That’s where they expect to find you, John,” Bevy said.

A red chyron rolled across the screen.

Ninety-nine percent probability.

“Everyone’s a comedian,” I muttered.

We tracked their progress on the tactical screen. Small red dots followed by data tags. The captain clicked on a tag.

“We have to be careful,” she said. “These guys are carrying a full weapons load.”

“Not to mention the duct tape and zip ties,” Bevy said. “It’s like a bad Tinder date.”

The first team formed a tactical short-stack outside the double doors leading to the bar. The leader held up three fingers for a silent countdown. Three, two…

When he reached one finger, Hal triggered a half-dozen sprayers embedded in the bulkhead. A nasty brown foam blasted the agents from both sides of the passageway, expanding until they were covered from head to toe. They tried to withdraw, but the brown foam hardened almost instantly, leaving them immobile and helpless.

“Damn,” I said. “What is that stuff?”

“It’s called santorum,” the captain replied. “Not sure why. Smells even worse than it looks, but it gets the job done.”

Hal switched cameras to the second team, which was preparing to blast the engine room doors. He closed a steel bulkhead across the passageway behind them and created a sealed compartment. As the panicked agents tried to force their way out, Hal pumped a greenish gas cloud into the chamber. The agents slumped to the deck.

Albina looked horrified.

“Are they dead?”

“No,” the captain replied. “That’s a fentanyl-based incapacitating gas from SodaStream. They’ll wake up quickly.”

“Wasn’t fentanyl banned ages ago?” Bevy asked. “It’s dangerous shit. I read about it in my ancient history class.”

“Yes, that’s why our gas is fentanyl-based, not actual fentanyl. Perfectly legal. We can administer naloxone to reverse the effects if somebody inhales too much. Watch. Here comes the XO.”

The bulkhead retracted. The executive officer appeared, crisp and authoritative in his white uniform. The two cocktail waitresses who could shoot provided flank security. The team wore gas masks and carried Stechkin machine pistols from the spring collection.

The XO checked pulse and respiration on the unconscious agents while the waitresses took away their weapons. In addition to Federal Reserve body armor, they were equipped with H&K MP10s, 9mm Berettas, and a variety of brass knuckles, razor-sharp combat knives, push daggers, flashbangs, and pigstickers.

“These are not nice people,” muttered Bevy.

One agent got a naloxone shot. After he revived, the cocktail waitresses put the duct tape and zip ties to good use. The executive officer hustled off to disarm Team Santorum, leaving the cocktail waitresses standing guard with their machine pistols.

Hal switched cameras to the third team. They were not headed for the bridge. A red chyron flashed across the screen.

Oops. Sorry.

“What the fuck?” I said. “Where are they going?”

The captain watched for a moment, tapping her Naval Academy ring on the console.

“Master suite and guest cabins. Probably intending to catch you asleep in bed. Your cheap basic intruder module doesn’t cover low-priority areas, only vital points like the bridge and engine room. That includes the bar, of course. Think about getting an upgrade, after this is over. You can afford it.”

Bevy racked the slide on her MAC-17.

“Let’s take them out the old-fashioned way.”

“No,” Albina said. “Leave them to me.”

Before anybody could blink, she dissolved into a white mist and swirled away. Her tracking dot and data tag disappeared from Hal’s monitor. I bolted for the hatch with Buffy right beside me, but the captain grabbed my arm.

“Wait!” she ordered. “Let’s see what happens.”

The agents breached my suite and stormed inside. It only took a moment to clear the rooms and realize I was not there.

Albina poured through the door and rematerialized. The men froze.

In all fairness, Albina was indeed a jaw-dropping beauty. Her skimpy black Balenciaga mini-dress featured a plunging neckline deeper than the Mariana Trench. Her thigh-high La Perla stockings and Versace ribbon-cage pumps were perfection. Her platinum hair and salon-fresh angled bob cut were exquisite. Her cheekbones were high. Her ruby-red lips were full. Her Casa Damiani diamond jewelry was beyond compare.

To a pair of macho grunts with Tractor Supply girlfriends, Albina looked like a fantasy goddess come to life. No wonder they froze.

That momentary shock was her only tactical advantage. Albina smiled and started talking. We couldn’t hear what she said, but I could see her canines were quite a bit longer than normal. Her eyes flashed red as she moved around the agents, occasionally caressing their cheeks with a perfectly manicured red fingernail.

The agents shouldered their weapons and followed Albina out of the room like baby ducks.

“I gotta learn how to do that,” Bevy muttered.

We regrouped on the fantail. The captain remained on the bridge to weigh anchor and get under way.

“I want more distance between us and those agents still in the water. No sense collecting any barnacles.”

Our six captives presented a pitiful sight. Two of them were trussed up like Hannibal Lecter’s lunch. Two of them were completely encased in rock-hard santorum. Two of them sat peacefully, staring at Albina in a state of lustful worship. Their arsenal was piled on the deck, visible but beyond their reach.

Buffy joined us and gave them a friendly sniff. She plopped on the deck beside me. Nothing to report.

My personal cocktail waitress delivered a tray of espresso martinis and warm élairs au chocolat. The evening was warm and pleasant. We sipped and nibbled, talking about our next move. Sleeping with the fishes was the consensus favorite. Bevy pushed hard for that one.

I tapped my martini glass with a silver éclair fork.

“Gentlemen, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

Bevy giggled, managing to look gorgeous and homicidally insane at the same time. Probably the half-unzipped black tactical cat suit and the MP-17.

“I’ve seen this movie. Trust me, it’s not gonna end well for you fuckers,” she said.

“She might be right,” I said. “But you still have a chance to go home with your man-parts intact. Answer a few simple questions, and I’ll cut you loose. Lie to me, and we’ll cut something else.”

Albina picked up a razor-sharp combat knife and absently stroked the blade with a perfectly manicured red fingernail.

Hannibal Lecter’s lunch squirmed and tried to talk through the duct tape. Albina’s fans stared at her with complete devotion. One of the santorums signaled frantically with his eyes.

I used my silver éclair fork to chisel an opening for his mouth.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” he said. “We’re a protective detail, not assassins. What do you want to know?”

The others nodded frantic agreement, their eyes darting between Bevy and Albina.

There wasn’t much to learn. As Hal reported, they were part of the Federal Reserve Board’s Law Enforcement Unit. The Fed Chair ordered them to assassinate me. Since he was an ES-1, and they were GS-7s, they had no choice but to obey.

“He gave us two days. We spotted your ultra-yacht on Instagram. A boating accident seemed best. Billionaire playboy dies in tragic fire after drunken orgy. Threat to global financial system averted.”

“I’m an investment banker, not a casino operator,” I protested.

“Yessir, we understand that now. A great investment banker. The best. Truly,” he babbled.

When they had nothing more to say, we retreated to the poop deck and watched Albina walk among them, whispering in their ears and stroking cheeks with a perfectly manicured red fingernail. After a few minutes, she waved to us and left the fantail. The eastern sky glowed.

The XO helped me cut them loose. We used a 5-lb. sledge to remove the santorum. The agents were happy, friendly, and seemed to have absolutely no memory of Albina.

“Sorry about trying to kill you, Mr. Carthage. We’ll make sure our colleagues know it was a big misunderstanding. ”

We gave them souvenir Grifter life jackets, and they jumped over the side into the warm waters of the Potomac.

“I think we got lucky tonight, ” Bevy said, as we watched them paddle away. “If they were professional hit men, this might have gone sideways in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Their full frontal lacked imagination.”

“So, what are we gonna do next?”

“Cut off the head of the snake.”

Sixty Nine

The Board Is Set

ALBINA WAS ASLEEP when the last Federal Reserve agent disappeared. I expected to find her sleeping in my stateroom with the curtains drawn. Much to my surprise and disappointment, the California King bed was empty. I began to suspect that a malevolent spirit blocked me, conspiring with the universe to keep us apart. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“She’s in my cabin,” Bevy Bellaseno said. “Apparently, when Albina sleeps, she really needs to sleep. That’s not gonna happen in your bedroom. I’ll grab a nap with the Italian models and join you for brunch later on.”

Not much I could do about the laws of vampire nature. The California King wrapped its arms around me for a few lonely hours, until Buffy decided to wake me by slobbering all over my face.

I’m a simple man. My world always looks better after a long shower, a clean shave, and a healthy finishing splash of Old Spice. Adding a frisky black Lab to the picture upgraded my routine nicely. I donned a fresh Speedo and went topside.

Sylvia Sakura reclined by the infinity pool in a classic nautical-striped Louis Vuitton swimsuit, Ray-Bans, and a big floppy hat. Bjorn finished her coconut-oil massage and departed, promising that Ingrid would handle me later. Buffy jumped in the pool.

“Good morning, John,” Sylvia said. “That was an eventful evening. Bevy told us everything. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, no problems. What’s going on this morning? Where are Anjali Khan and Anabella Busto? Gina Prensa?”

Sylvia laughed.

“They left two hours ago. Didn’t you hear the ElectroCopter?”

“Must have slept right through it.”

She picked up her iPad and scrolled through the notes.

“Gina is meeting on the Hill with Senator J. Philpott Raullin and senior staffers from the Senate Banking Committee. Anjali is meeting with Phil Blueberry, the NPR investigative reporter, at a dive bar in Georgetown. You know he got a Pulitzer prize last year for his zombie series, right? Anabella has a lunch date with the CDC Director and the FDA Commissioner. John Bardeen and Andrea Aiuto flew in last night on your ElectroJet to join her. Zoe Rogue and Jane Austen came with them. They’re checking security for tonight’s conclave. Ronnie Numero came too. He’s at the FDIC tying up loose ends on the Pandora’s Box deal.”

“I still don’t understand why we need to meet all these bureaucrats. Too many crooks spoil the grift,” I grumbled.

“This is the way. Gina says trust the process. It’s Washington, not New York. Things are different here.”

Sylvia gave me a side-eye glance. I suspected she was suppressing key details, but I lost focus when Ingrid arrived with a new bottle of coconut oil. She worked her Nordic magic on me, and Sylvia rose to leave. The smoking-hot Italian models poured on deck for a topless tanning tune-up.

“Relax, John. You don’t have anything on your schedule until later tonight. The team agrees that you deserve a day off. Stay here and enjoy the view.”

How could I say no?

Seventy

Conclave

EVERYONE GATHERED in the Grifter’s formal dining room for our traditional last supper before a major transaction. They dressed for the occasion. Balenciaga. Chanel. Armani. Etsy.

It felt like old Manhattan.

I touched the corner of my eye.

Albina Aldana sat beside me, and her warm hand strayed under the table to my knee. She wore a new perfume that sparked tingles up my spine. Flower Market by Maison Margiela Paris. I fell in love for the first time all over again.

A glance at the menu card revealed a simple yet delectable meal. Gold leaf-encrusted Wagyu beef with truffle infusion. Twice-baked potatoes with caviar and crème fraîche. Grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto with a Parmesan-bacon crust and a drizzle of aged balsamic. Classic peasant recipes from the Middle-Ages.

Buffy patrolled the banquet, searching for the weakest link, which turned out to be Sylvia Sakura. I always thought of her as a cat person, until Buffy caught a third piece of Wagyu.

The captain and executive officer joined us. John Bardeen and the captain hit it off pretty well. As Hollywood well knows, there is something irresistible about a man with an English accent, not to mention a woman in uniform. The executive officer was a handsome, bearded sea-dog and had his hands full of a frisky Bevy Bellaseno.

When the feasting ended, our smoking-hot Italian models cleared the table and served tiramisu, espresso, and grappa. I stood and tapped my water glass with a silver spoon. The room fell silent.

“We’ve been through a rough patch. I want to thank you for everything. An excellent team effort.”

Heads nodded all around.

“I especially want to thank my new client, Albina Aldana, for delivering the evil vampire bitch who destroyed Manhattan, the greatest city in the universe. Living well is not the best revenge. Revenge is the best revenge.”

Albina stood up and threw her arms around my neck for a big wet kiss. She added that girly leg-kick thing.

Sustained applause from the crowd and a robust “Hear, hear” from the very English Dr. John Bardeen.

“But we’re not finished. Tonight is the night we slam the door on the Fed Chair and pummel the vampire tribes into line. The zombie apocalypse must never happen again.”

Wild cheers and high fives.

My cocktail waitresses appeared with champagne glasses and silver ice buckets of priceless Dom Pérignon 2075. A very good year. We toasted each other one more time.

Sylvia hugged me close and whispered the banking community’s traditional message before closing a big deal. Sort of like “Break a leg,” in the theater world.

“Remember,” she said, “if this doesn’t work, it was all your idea.”

I led my away team to the gleaming ElectroCopter for our short ride to the battlefield. Everyone else retired to the bar for nightcaps and a game of Taboo.

The rotors were already turning as we strapped in. Bevy had switched out of her Etsy haute couture and donned her black tactical cat suit. Zoe Rogue wore her standard urban combat gear: black silk harem pants, a skimpy gray fighting-bra, and Filipa Julio ballet flats. They carried heavy black duffle bags.

Jane Austen unboxed a crimson skirt suit by Karl Lagerfeld, her favorite designer. Albina opted for a more formal look with Balenciaga’s off-the-shoulder draped jersey gown in a deep blue.

The girls perfectly complemented my classic black Fendi suit, crisp white shirt, shiny gold-doubloon cuff links, black Santino oxfords, and newly-polished God’s Rod.

“If nothing else works, we’ll blow them away with our fashion sense,” I shouted over the whir of the engine.

Albina kissed me, and I held her hand until we reached our destination, a rooftop helipad at 18th and H St. NW. A large man in a gray jumpsuit and fully-loaded tactical harness greeted us the moment we touched down.

“Welcome to the World Bank, Mr. Carthage. We’re honored to have you. I’m Captain Kavi Rahna, Head of Security. Please follow me, and I’ll take you to the Board Room. Everything has been arranged.”

A squad of grizzled Gurkha guards escorted us down a short flight of stairs to the 26th floor. They carried standard-issue Czech Scorpion submachine guns and kukris with rosewood hilts.

I made a mental note for Bevy. If the World Bank’s penny-wise corporate procurement office selected Czech Scorpions, they must be damn good value for money.

Father Malachi Scourge waited for me beside a set of Peruvian mahogany doors, his long black cassock accented by a blood-red sash. The murmur of conversation seeped through the doors behind him.

“Are you ready?” he winked.

Captain Rahna threw the doors open without waiting for me to answer. He stepped back and motioned me in.

“Welcome to the World Bank Board Room,” he said.

I tightened my grip on God’s Rod and swaggered into the cavernous, opulent space. Albina and Jane followed, doing the fashion-model catwalk strut. One of my best-ever triumphant entrances.

Bevy and Zoe trailed behind us in a loose tactical formation. Zoe carried the Milkor grenade launcher. Bevy wielded the Wastelander 10 ga. kinetic breaching shotgun. Father Scourge brought up the rear, delicately lifting the hem of his cassock so it wouldn’t drag on the gold-veined marble floor.

The vampires gasped when they recognized the priest.

Captain Rahna closed the doors behind us.

The room fell silent. Thirty-five powerful vampire lords stared at me with obvious distaste.

I took my place at the center of the massive glass and endangered hardwood conference table with Albina and Jane on my flanks. Bevy and Zoe stepped into overwatch positions. Their black duffle bags clanked when they set them on the marble floor. Father Scourge stood by Zoe, counting his rosary and trying not to stare at Bevy in her black tactical cat suit.

I glared at the vampires, looking left and right without blinking an eye. A few of them sniffed the air, appraising my AB-negative blood. One of them licked her lips.

Albina briefed me in depth about the leaders of the thirty-five tribes. Rich, dangerous, stubborn men and women. Centuries of blood. Survivors of a cruel world.

But her briefing didn’t prepare me for the harsh reality of a room full of evil fucking vampires from around the planet. Brutal Slavic warlords. Handsome Latin American caudillos. Hot Asian dragon ladies. Dumpy American bankers. The usual assortment of Euro-trash wearing Valentino and Versace.

A regular United Nations of bloodsuckers.

Surprisingly, they weren’t all as young and beautiful like Albina Aldana or Pandora Blackwood and her Miami thugs. The tribal leaders came in all shapes and sizes, ranging from a 95-lb. Scandinavian pixie queen to a 500-lb. Samoan jelly mountain floating in an IKEA-Bugatti anti-gravity chaise lounge.

Baron Harkonnen, I presume.

Regardless of size, they were dressed to kill and dripping with jewelry. The pixie queen wore a glittering gold Cartier necklace that must have weighed ten pounds. The Samoan sported a thick platinum dog collar and a matching ring with a round-cut Martian emerald the size of a ping-pong ball.

“Thanks for joining me on such short notice,” I began.

“Get to the point, bloodbag,” growled an aged woman a few seats to my right. “Or we’ll eat you.”

A low titter ran around the table. It was Bella Lugosa, head of the New England tribe and Pandora Blackwood’s only friend at the council. Albina warned me about her. Murderer. Chaos factor. Boston Red Sox fan.

Time to reset expectations.

“Sure, let’s get to the point.” I stood up and strolled behind Bella’s chair. She turned to look at me.

“Tonight, we’re gonna follow Robert’s Rules of Order.”

I raised God’s Rod high over Bella’s old gray head.

“Rule Number One, fuck with me, and you’re dead.”

The cane descended on Bella like a bolt of ebony lightning, splitting her skull down the middle. Bright blue flames shot from her ears as she slumped on the conference table. Her sundered head bounced once. The aroma of freshly buttered popcorn filled the air.

The council members flinched. A few rose from their chairs, but sat down again when Bevy racked the Wastelander.

We watched in silence. Bella Lugosa crackled into 110-lb. of gray dust. The vampires on either side nudged their chairs away.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re all complicit in the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. You allowed Pandora Blackwood to run wild, outside this council’s control. That means you’re weak. In my world, the strong eat the weak. Not the other way around.”

I brushed a speck of gray dust from my black Fendi sleeve and sat down again with an air of casual arrogance.

“Albina Aldana told you how I killed Pandora Blackwood and wiped out her entire tribe. Tonight, I’m finishing the job. That’s why you’ve been called here.”

Jane tapped the tabletop AV control panel. Video monitors around the steel-paneled conference room flickered into life with a breaking news clip from CNN. The latest Walter Cronkite clone provided excited commentary as FBI agents dragged the screaming Fed Chair out of the National Gallery of Art.

It was the East Wing, where they keep the best modern stuff. Rothko. Kandinsky. Bush.

“Tonight, FBI Special Agents arrested the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. They grabbed him at the National Gallery during the Grand Opening of a new exhibit by Sir Peter Lenfon, the world-famous artist and Scout leader.”

The vampires gasped. They all had at least one Peter Lenfon in their private masterpiece art collections.

Walter Cronkite’s clone rumbled on.

“The agents arrived with a SWAT team while the Fed Chair was giving a speech. He tried to escape through the Terrace Café.”

Walter’s reassuring face was replaced by a montage of shaky cell phone videos and screenshots.

“Quick-thinking Sir Peter Lenfon foiled the Chair’s getaway by entangling his feet in a fully-loaded merit badge sash. Agents subdued the fugitive and took him to an undisclosed black site.”

Jane cut Walter’s feed, and we joined a live Bloomberg interview with the handsome, debonair Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Phil Blueberry.

“Mr. Blueberry, tonight’s arrests of the Fed Chair and the Atlanta Fed Chair sent shock waves rippling across the global financial community. FBI sources said their warrants are based on your bombshell NPR report this afternoon. How did you learn about the links between our Fed Chair and Pandora Blackwood, a notorious drug lord and human trafficker?”

“That’s my secret,” Blueberry said with a devilish smile. “A good reporter always protects his sources.”

“Please tell us, where in the world is Pandora Blackwood? She’s been missing ever since the FDIC seized her holding company and sold it to John Carthage, the fabulously wealthy investment banker.”

Blueberry smiled again.

“Miss Blackwood was spotted recently at a Munich biergarten for British tourists, working as a €2 beer wench in a low-cut peasant blouse and cheap cotton dirndl.”

Several of the vampires chuckled. Jane cut the video feed. The room went silent.

“I offered the Fed Chair an easy way out,” I said. “All he had to do was resign and take his staff with him. But he decided to fuck around and find out. He sent an army of assassins after me. Obviously, that didn’t work. Now he’s going to fester in a stinking Florida jail with his buddies. Forever. Unless someone decides to kill him for conspiring with Pandora Blackwood to destroy the non-profit entity. Hint. Hint.”

The vampires looked each other and shrugged, as if Fed Chairs come and Fed Chairs go. Which they do, I suppose.

“So, now, there will be a new Fed Chair,” I said. “The non-profit entity continues working as advertised. But I’m amending your global treaty to make you personally responsible for keeping each other in line. Joint and several liability. Allow me to introduce Father Malachi Scourge, Special Representative from the Holy See.”

Father Scourge pulled a brittle, yellowed parchment scroll from his cassock. The vampires gasped in bewilderment.

“Is that the treaty? Is he one of those fucking Inquisidores? That must be God’s Rod. The Pope double-crossed us again. Oh shit, we’re screwed for sure.”

I nodded.

“That’s right. No more war of all against all. No more of that Leviathan thing. From now on, it’s mutually assured destruction. You’re mutually responsible for each other’s behavior. Or, you can rest assured, I’ll bring the destruction.”

I paused to let my words sink in. The vampires chattered anxiously. A few murderous glares beamed my way. One of the hot Asian dragon ladies raised a bejeweled hand.

“Mr. Carthage, we regret what happened in Manhattan. We all had friends in Albina’s tribe, and we appreciated their valuable work in developing the crypto space.”

Albina touched the corner of her eye. The taipan nodded at her.

“In addition, Mr. Carthage, we deeply admire your brilliant work to eliminate the global threat posed by Pandora Blackwood and, frankly, by Bella Lugosa.”

She flicked an imaginary speck of Bella from her snug Shanghai-style blue silk cheongsam.

“But, with all due respect, you’re only one man. No matter how gifted you might be, a policy of collective punishment is effective only if you can find a way to enforce it. This is the essence of Austinian Positivism: a command backed by a sanction. Otherwise, you’re leaving the door open for another Pandora Blackwood. How will you address this key issue?”

“Easy. Let me explain it to you,” I said.

Jane tapped the control panel again. A clip from Good Morning America flickered on the monitors. Dr. John Bardeen shared a split screen with the CDC Director and an ABC science reporter.

“Dr. Bardeen, please tell us more about your incredible announcement this morning. The whole world has been praying for a zombie vaccine since the apocalypse.”

Bardeen downshifted into full professor mode and delivered a five-minute answer involving the latest mRNA technology, viral vectors, and quantum cryo-electron microscopy.

“Thank you, Dr. Bardeen,” the science reporter yawned. “Should we all get the zombie vaccine? Is this related to your work at Princeton?”

“My research was commissioned by a wealthy patron of the sciences, the amazing John Carthage. Thanks to his generous support, our breakthrough zombie vaccine will be available to the entire world in less than a month, free of charge. The man is a saint. Everyone should get the vaccine, unless they have AB-negative blood. We have a small problem there, but I will fix it soon.”

The CDC Director nodded.

Jane cut the feed.

Thirty-five quizzical eyebrows raised around the room.

“How is that an enforceable punishment?” a Slavic warlord asked. “I’m sure we’re happy the bloodbags… uh, the humans can be vaccinated against the zombie virus, but that doesn’t support your policy of mutually assured destruction.”

“The devil is in the details,” I said.

Several vampires laughed at my sharp wit.

I smacked God’s Rod against the palm of my hand. They cringed and fell silent immediately.

“Albina told you how I used pure zombie virus to turn Pandora’s tribe into ordinary humans. Ordinary. Dirt. Poor. Humans.”

Heads nodded, and a grumble ran around the table.

“Cruel and unusual. How could anyone be so mean? Horrific. Evil. He’s Hannibal Lecter in Fendi.”

I brushed aside their objections.

“What Albina didn’t tell you is that vaccinated humans now carry a form of the zombie virus. If you drink their blood, you’ll become an ordinary human. A mortal.”

The frustration boiled over.

“You’re an idiot,” nattered a handsome South Asian nabob in a Nehru suit. “We only drink AB-negative. That’s the whole point of the non-profit entity. Your vaccine doesn’t work on AB-negatives. Stop wasting our time.”

I drifted around the table toward him. God’s Rod throbbed in my strong, manly hand.

“Dr. Bardeen told a little white lie during that interview,” I said. “The vaccine works perfectly well on AB-negatives. I’m AB-negative. It worked on me. No problem at all.”

Now the vampires were completely confused.

I smiled.

“As long as this council keeps the peace, the non-profit entity will continue to operate with no changes. And, since two tribes are out of the market, your access to AB-negative will improve. Fewer thirsty vampires means more blood for those who remain.”

The vampires nodded respectfully to Albina. She touched the corner of her eye.

“Sure, we get that,” the nabob nattered. “Most of us studied supply and demand with Adam Smith. The extra blood supply is your carrot. Where is the stick? Where is the sanction?”

I slammed God’s Rod on the table. Three times. Slam. Bam. Boom.

The vampires flinched.

“Think!” I roared at them. “What happens if you get out of line? If you start fighting each other? Start hunting free-range bloodbags? Mix plastic and glass in the recycling?”

He shrugged meekly, as if dreading the answer.

I slammed the table again. Crack. Bang. Zowie.

“I’ll tell you what happens. The CDC will announce they fixed the zombie vaccine so it can work on AB-negatives, and I will vaccinate them all. Then you’ll have to choose. You can drink AB-negative blood from vaccinated donors and become human, or you can starve to death in your mansions and on your yachts.”

The vampires stared at each other in horror.

“That’s genocide,” someone sputtered. “A war crime.”

“Don’t think of it as genocide,” I smiled. “Think of it as a giant meteor from outer space.”

“And you’re the dinosaurs.”

Seventy One

Conspiracy

AFTER BEATING THE VAMPIRES into submission, I left Albina Aldana and Father Scourge to collect their signatures on the amended treaty. The Vatican’s legal department provided an appropriate parchment addendum. Father Scourge brought a large supply of alcohol wipes and fingersticks to draw the necessary ink.

Captain Kavi Rahna escorted me to the C-suite, where the dark-haired President of the World Bank was finishing a call with her Country Director in Indonesia. Despite the late hour, she was still impeccably dressed in a Milan-stitch midi dress by Armani with three-quarter sleeves and dangly silver earrings. The only concession to a long, hard day was her well-toned legs and stocking feet stretched on the fragrant sandalwood coffee table.

La Perla fishnets, I noticed.

She ended the call and padded over to extend a warm greeting.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Carthage. I’ve heard good things. You know, Anjali Khan is an old classmate. Quite a catch, if you get my drift.”

She winked.

I stifled a groan.

“Thanks, you’re too kind. And thank you for letting me use your board room tonight. The World Bank’s convening power gave the proceedings a level of dignity that would be completely lacking at a Holiday Inn Express.”

The President laughed.

“How true. I love the board room. All that endangered tropical hardwood warms my heart. Did you get what you needed from those slippery weasels? The World Bank does business with a few of them, so I know exactly what you’re facing.”

“Yes, everything. We’re wrapping up now. I want to express my personal appreciation. I owe you one.”

More hearty laughter. An alluring woman. Brains. Style. Curves.

I shook my head to refocus.

“Trust me, I won’t forget,” she said. “If things don’t work out with Anjali, you have my number.”

She gave me a lecherous once-over, winked, and padded to her desk for the next phone call.

Captain Rahna left me alone on the helipad to wait. The sparkling cityscape triggered a welcome sense of peace and serenity. From twenty-six stories, the brightly-lit national monuments and 19th-century neoclassical architecture of the U.S. Capitol lend a special charm to Washington, D.C. The city exudes a unique gravitas unmatched by any other place in the world.

“Capitol city of the richest, most powerful nation in the solar system,” I muttered. “Yeah, I could get used to this.”

My reverie ended when my team spilled onto the roof, dancing and laughing about our victory.

“They signed,” Anabella Busto said. “Every single one. We even got an e-blood signature from Bella Lugosa’s deputy in Boston. The New England tribe belongs to him now, at least temporarily.”

“Father Scourge uploaded everything into the Vatican’s diplomatic database,” Jane Austen added. “He’ll hand-carry the original document to Rome for the archives.”

A small, dark figure with a jet pack swooshed up from the sidewalk like a ballistic missile headed for Georgetown University.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

My ElectroCopter whisked us to the Grifter, where a wild celebration greeted our arrival. Hal played DJ and unleashed a psychedelic light show from the Battletech heavy laser turret. The smoking-hot Italian models danced like Moanna Pozzi. After a couple of hours, I feared Ronnie Numero might have a heart attack.

“Take it easy, Ronnie. You need a break.”

“YOLO, John,” he panted. “YOLO.”

I didn’t know what that meant, and before he could explain, a pair of the Italian models dragged him below deck with a bottle of vintage Bollinger champagne.

“That looks like a pretty good idea,” Albina whispered in my ear.

A familiar tingle shot up my spine.

“Buffy’s having a lot of fun,” I said. “Maybe we can slip away…”

Albina silenced me with a perfectly manicured red fingernail and carried me off the teeming dance floor to my stateroom. The strength of twenty men.

Our long wait was over. She carried me across the threshold, and we entangled ourselves on the California King bed. Albina’s core temp went up another ten degrees. My spine tingled wildly.

A few passionate moments later, Albina’s phone sounded an alarm.

“Damn,” she said, and flopped back in frustration. “Sorry, John. I gotta go. Sunrise in five minutes.”

“But, but…”

Albina stood up, re-zipping her stunning Balenciaga gown, and fumbling for her stilettos.

“You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek and ran for Bevy’s cabin. There could no longer be any doubt. The universe was conspiring against me with evil intent.

Time for another cold shower.

Seventy Two

Set Up

MY EARLY MORNING THOUGHTS of Albina Aldana and the malevolent universe were quickly displaced by a devastating market meltdown. News of the Fed Chair’s arrest triggered a Nikkei crash that cascaded around the globe.

Anjali Khan and I ate a quick breakfast by the pool. She managed to tie her black string bikini properly this time, and my six-pack rippled in a fresh black Speedo. No paparazzi in sight. Their loss.

When the New York markets opened, we fired up our laptops and surfed a tsunami of panicked institutional sellers and weak-kneed retail investors. Every market crash in history has been a spectacular buying opportunity. This one would be no different.

Capitulation arrived in the mid-afternoon as the sellers were flushed out, establishing a clear market bottom. By that time, we had grabbed major positions in the twenty largest blue-chips on the planet, purchased at deep discounts from book value.

“I’m getting ten million shares of Electronic Arts at five dollars a share,” Anjali said. “Pure insanity. That’s a $500 stock. Do these idiots think people are gonna stop buying video gaming brain implants simply because the Fed Chair got busted?”

“It can’t last forever,” I said. “The government will intervene. They always do. Flood the zone with cash or announce a new fiscal stimulus plan. The President can’t let greedy traders hammer retirement accounts during an election year. It may take a few months, but the market will rebound.”

Anjali smiled, as if she was suppressing key details.

Sure enough, the NYSE and NASDAQ suspended trading at 3:00 p.m. for an important White House announcement. We closed our laptops and went to the bar so we could watch on the big screen. My whole team was already there, sipping Mai Tais and giggling about some private joke.

I felt left out.

The President appeared at 3:05 p.m., flanked by the Vice President, the Senate Majority leader, the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senator J. Philpott Raullin of Delaware. The President gave a short speech about the epic fall of the Fed Chair, calling him a vicious scoundrel who would die alone in prison after a long incarceration.

“Sooner than you think,” I muttered.

Gina Prensa shushed me.

“Shh. Here comes the best part.”

The President addressed the market meltdown and assured the country that the financial system was still in good hands.

“But we need to restore faith in the Federal Reserve System. The people of our great nation must have confidence in its leadership. We need to know the Fed Chair is working for America, not for a gang of drug dealers and human traffickers.”

The President took a deep breath.

“With that important goal in mind, I have consulted with Senate leadership, as well as Mr. Charles Pulton, Chair of the FDIC, and Mr. Douglas Blick, President of the American Bankers Association. They are in unanimous agreement.”

“Here it comes,” Bevy squealed.

“Accordingly, I have forwarded to the Senate Banking Committee the name of my nominee to serve as the new Chair of the Federal Reserve System. A man with unmatched financial wisdom, deep empathy for all mankind, and an unparalleled sense of fashion.”

“Mr. John Carthage of Miami, Florida.”

Seventy Three

Sweeter

THE TEAM GATHERED around me, whooping and hollering as they celebrated the President’s announcement. Buffy barked and wagged her tail, not sure why the humans were so happy, but glad to jump into the celebration.

“Congratulations, John,” Anabella Busto smiled and gave me a big, sloppy kiss. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked. “I’ve never even met the President, and now he nominates me to be Fed Chair? Is there another John Carthage with fashion sense and deep grifting experience?”

“No, John, it’s you,” Anjali Khan laughed. “We set up everything. Well, mostly Gina Prensa. She put you on the presidential radar at the right moment.”

“Wouldn’t have happened without you, Anjali,” Gina said modestly. “Your morning of coconut oil with John broke the internet and landed on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Black string bikinis sold out online within the hour.”

“Nothing to it, Gina,” Anjali vamped. “I do what comes naturally.”

“Is that why you made me host that god-awful cocktail party?” I demanded. “And the K Street fashion show? And testify at that ridiculous Senate hearing?”

“Exactly,” Anabella said. “This is how you get things done in Washington. Spread the money around, get face time with the players, and surround yourself with beautiful women. Like us.”

They did the Charlie’s Angels thing.

My spine tingled. I shook my head to refocus.

“What’s the point?” I asked. “We already got our revenge. Why stick me in the Fed?”

“Insurance,” Anabella said. “Until the vampires are in full compliance with the new treaty, we need a death grip on the non-profit entity. A knife at their throats. A noose around their necks.”

“Best of all, the vampires didn’t know this was coming,” Jane Austen added. “When they wake up tonight, they’ll realize how hard we double-stuffed them.”

“Makes it taste all the sweeter,” Anjali said.

“Does Albina Aldana know?” I asked.

“The whole thing was her idea,” Jane said. “She demanded a backup plan. Blick, Pulton, and Raullin jumped on the initiative and convinced the President.”

“You’re meeting with him tonight in the Oval Office,” Anabella grinned. “The Majority Leader agreed to expedite the nomination process. He will hold a floor vote tomorrow morning.”

The markets reopened, and by 4:00 p.m., stocks recovered all the ground lost during the day. Anjali and I made instant, spectacular gains on the deeply discounted companies we bought. Nice beginning to my tenure as Fed Chair.

Sylvia Sakura ended the celebration so I could shower and prepare for my first meeting with the President. I insisted on bringing her, along with Anjali, Anabella, and Gina.

“Surround myself with beautiful women, right? And the smoking-hot Italian models don’t speak much English, so you’re coming with me. Get dressed, and make it hot.”

When the White House learned I would not be coming alone, they scheduled a late supper in the Family Dining Room with the President, the First Lady, the Secretary of State, and the Swiss Ambassador.

Sylvia strapped Buffy into a red Carhartt Service Dog harness and told the Secret Service she was my emotional support animal. I couldn’t go anywhere without her.

“Mr. Carthage needs Buffy. Nobody survived the Manhattan zombie apocalypse without a little PTSD, not even a manly man like John Carthage,” she insisted.

The Secret Service walked Buffy through the bomb detector and gave her a blue visitor pass. Buffy’s reaction to the President and his inner circle was the most important take-away. She ran around the Oval Office sniffing and wagging her tail, then flopped on the Great Seal of the United States for a nap.

The Oval Office meeting was more of a photo op than a substantive discussion. I thanked the President for his total confidence in me, but he was so distracted by Sylvia’s well-toned legs and her Manolo Blahnik stilettos that he didn’t even notice.

Dinner turned out to be more fun than expected. The President spent most of the meal drooling over Sylvia. The ambassador opened Swiss bank accounts for everyone. The First Lady played footsie with me and whispered lewd hints about the Lincoln Bedroom. She was a former UVA cheerleader who met the President during his first term as mayor of Chicago. Poor bastard never stood a chance.

“If she offers you a private White House tour, for pity’s sake, say no,” whispered Anabella.

We returned to the Grifter at midnight to find Albina gone. I was devastated beyond words.

“She rushed off to handle an emergency in South America. That’s her new side hustle now,” Bevy said. “The treaty named her Special Envoy for Vampire Disputes. Here, she left you a note.”

I broke the wax seal on a small pink envelope. Inside was a heavy cream-colored card with no message, only the imprint of Albina’s ruby-red lips. And her scent.

My spine tingled. My face fell. Buffy tried to cheer me up. Was she part of the conspiracy to keep us apart?

“Don’t worry, John,” Sylvia said. “I promise you’ll be busy. You won’t have time to sulk.”

Seventy Four

Servant of the People

THE GENTLE MORNING SUN crept softly through my stateroom windows and cast the room in crimson shadows. Anjali’s well-toned arms pinned me on the California King, while her hot, 5-inch tongue bathed my face with passionate kisses. I groaned with pleasure. Anjali barked and licked my face.

“Hey, wake up sleepyhead. Big day today,” Sylvia Sakura said as she threw open the curtains.

Anjali barked again and jumped off the bed. I wiped my face on the pillow and tried to recover my dignity.

Sylvia was dressed for the season in a colorful Thai silk sheath, wedge sandals by Jimmy Choo, and her signature four-strand pearl choker. She bustled around my walk-in closet, pulling out a charcoal-gray Fendi suit and a matching yellow power tie.

“Hit the showers, John. I let you sleep late, but it’s time to get ready. Everyone else is dressed.”

The cold shower brought me to full consciousness. A smooth shave and a finishing splash of Old Spice brought me to peak fighting trim. When I emerged on deck, most of the team had already flown directly to the White House in my freshly washed ElectroCopter. Anjali Khan, Anabella Busto, Gina Prensa, and Sylvia were waiting on the helipad.

Anjali gave me a funny look, as if Buffy spilled the beans about our morning encounter. My spine tingled, and I blushed.

“The Senate is already voting,” Gina said. “You’ll meet the President in the Oval Office, then walk outside for the Rose Garden ceremony. Deliver short remarks and then answer questions. Be sharp. I’ve never seen so much press at a White House event. Bloomberg. The Economist. Vogue. Seventeen. They’re all here.”

We landed beside the President’s helicopter and walked a red carpet to the Rose Garden. It was a beautiful summer day. The packed crowd chanted my name.

I spotted Ronnie Numero with the Director of OMB. Bevy Bellaseno chatted up the CIA Director and slipped him a business card. Jane Austen and Andrea Aiuto were laughing with the CEO of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe Inc., our old investment firm. The smoking-hot Italian models chased their genius visas. Everyone looked happy. No zombies. No vampires.

Life is good.

The President and his entire cabinet waited for me in the Oval Office. He extended a warm handshake and even gave Buffy a pat. She sniffed him and wagged her tail. The First Lady tried to drag me off for a private conversation, but her press aide grabbed my other arm. After a brief tug of war, the aide pulled me away.

“Not on my watch,” she muttered.

The Marine Band played “Hail to the Chief.” The President escorted me to the podium and jumped straight into his speech. Done deal. The Senate vote was 100-0. Our financial future is in good hands.

He introduced me as the new Chair of the Federal Reserve System. Standing ovation. I promised stability, honesty, and transparency. Sylvia choked on her mimosa. A handsome White House doctor rushed over and wrote her an opioid prescription.

Reuters asked a few questions about quantitative easing and wedding planners. I dodged. Marie Claire asked about my ebony walking stick. I gave it a rakish twirl and told them I bought it on Etsy. A new fashion trend erupted.

The President disappeared. The crowd filtered away. I said a tearful goodbye to my beloved team. They flew back to the Grifter, then to DCA, where my ElectroJet waited to take them home. A white government stretch limo, complete with disco lights and a full bar, carried Sylvia and me to the ancient Eccles Federal Reserve Board building on Constitution Avenue in the heart of Old D.C.

Sylvia frowned.

“Stripped classicism is not my style,” she groaned. “Do we have to work here? Can’t we phone it in from home?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll build you a new one.”

The Vice Chair and the entire Fed staff crowded the marble steps, applauding wildly as I stepped out of the limo. Hundreds of people. Buffy went crazy, jumping on dozens of them with sloppy, wet kisses and helicopter tail wags.

Sylvia and I looked at each other. She shrugged.

The Vice Chair walked us to my gigantic new office, an eerie sanctum featuring dark, heavy Georgian-style furniture. Buffy gave the Vice Chair a sniff and wag before flopping on the rug for a nap.

I settled into the infamous Leather Throne, surveying my domain like Conan with a freshly conquered kingdom. My enemies had been crushed, driven before me, and the lamentations of their women echoed faintly in the corridors. The Vice Chair tapped a small silver bell with an ebony handle.

Hidden doors opened in a ceiling-high bookcase made of Madagascar rosewood. Thirteen dour-faced men and women entered solemnly, forming a semi-circle around my desk. They wore hooded black silk robes and red skullcaps.

Instant recognition. The thirteen most powerful CEOs in the financial world. Goldman Sachs. BlackRock. Loan Falcon. All of them. Giants of the industry.

The Vice Chair tapped his silver bell again. A beautiful young woman appeared, draped in flowing green robes and a white lace veil. She presented me with a diamond-crusted golden mace. A handsome young man in a crimson cassock followed her, carrying a ceremonial obsidian knife and leading a white goat on a golden chain. The CEOs bowed their heads and sank to one knee. Sylvia’s eyes widened in fear and astonishment.

A crystal coupe glass waited on the side table. I poured myself a Woodford Manhattan from a gleaming cocktail shaker bearing the Federal Reserve seal. The Vice Chair added two maraschino cherries. The bright red ones. Delicious.

The black-robed CEOs remained motionless, heads still bowed. I heard a large, bejeweled mechanical watch ticking away the long seconds as they waited for a sign of things to come.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said.

They shifted uneasily.

“We’re all gonna get rich together.”

Heads bobbed around the room. Someone muttered “Hear, hear.”

Sylvia frowned in disapproval, clutching her signature four-strand pearl choker.

I shot her a quick, exaggerated wink that the CEOs couldn’t see.

She smiled.

Seventy Five

Consequences

THE FOLLOWING YEAR was spectacular. My new position as Fed Chair gave me raw financial power beyond the wildest dreams of King Midas. I leveraged that power to enrich the investment banking community and turbocharge the U.S. economy. The stock market soared to new highs for 300 consecutive days. Annual GDP growth stabilized at three percent. Congress cut taxes to record lows. Wages and worker productivity took off like rockets to Mars, and inflation became a distant memory.

The dark-hooded CEOs in my secret cabal profited immensely, just as I promised. But they paid a price for my largess: I made them responsible for all the single moms in America.

“You can print money hand over fist,” I told them, “as long as single moms have everything they need to raise happy, healthy children. That means good jobs, good housing, good schools, good medical care, a free spa day every month, and an occasional Caribbean vacation. Take it or leave it.”

The dark-hooded CEOs looked at each other and shrugged.

“No problem. All you had to do was ask.”

To protect the deal, I crafted a new metric: the Single Mom Index. The SMI became part of the Fed’s core mandate, along with full employment and price stability. CNBC tracked it alongside the S&P 500. At my request, Congress appointed a single mom to replace the disgraced Atlanta Fed chair and ensure the new mandate became a permanent part of the Fed’s DNA. No deep state backsliding allowed.

The vampire community prospered as well. My strong economy benefited everyone’s financial interests and eliminated much of the age-old tribal competition for financial advantage. Peace and prosperity settled over the gentle land. A rising tide lifts all yachts, I like to say. Everyone loves a winner.

Best of all, pressure on the AB-negative blood supply vanished. The destruction of Pandora’s and Albina’s tribes meant fewer mouths to feed, leaving plenty to go around. As head of the non-profit entity, I slashed blood prices to win over the vampires, while quietly funneling huge sums into my Swiss accounts. From there, I directed the funds to several charitable foundations for victims of the Manhattan zombie apocalypse. I became the biggest, most famous philanthropist on the planet, and it didn’t cost me a dime. It was all Gina Prensa’s idea. One of Sylvia’s best hires.

John Bardeen donated his zombie vaccine to the World Health Organization, which offered free vaccinations through a global program directed by Andrea Aiuto. She pocketed a fat bonus from the insurance industry for ensuring they would never have to pay out on their zombie riders. They offered a similar compensation package to John, but he waved it off with a smile and wouldn’t accept a dime from the transaction.

Instead, he used a sample of Albina’s vampire tears to create a new perfume that made women irresistible. It was sort of like Old Spice, but for girls. He got the sample from Ronnie Numero, who saved Albina’s tear-soaked tissues on the night she learned the truth about Pandora Blackwood’s evil scheme. Jane Austen and Ronnie retired from Veronica Scarlett’s private equity firm, and with Bardeen as CEO, launched a new perfume company that captured half the global fragrance market. They bought matching superyachts and Dassault ElectroJets with their year-end bonuses.

Bevy Bellaseno folded Brick City Bodyguards, LLC into Zoe Rogue’s global security firm and became her Special Operations Executive. They disappeared from the radar, but I receive a postcard from Bevy whenever the press covers a coup d’état in some small, godforsaken Third World country. It’s always the same card: a pink flamingo on the front and a red lipstick kiss on the back.

Anjali Khan handled the sale of the 200 skyscrapers acquired when I grabbed Pandora’s Box. The FDIC had offloaded everything to me for pennies. Anjali flipped the properties into a rising real estate market juiced by my brilliant work as Chair of the Federal Reserve. I quintupled my investment in less than six months. Hundreds of small ancillary properties were sold to their occupants for just $1 each. Restaurants. Nail parlors. Hair salons. Dry cleaners. Pilates. I became the most popular man in Miami.

But every silver lining has a gray cloud. The relentless universal conspiracy against my love life continued working its old black magic. Three months into my reign as Fed chair, I was perched on the Leather Throne, granting indulgences on a gray, dreary day. My neon-pink iPhone 35 buzzed with a text from Albina. Buffy’s ears perked up at the sound, and Sylvia stopped tapping on her iPad.

I hadn’t seen Albina since the night of the vampire conclave, when the council appointed her as Special Envoy for Vampire Disputes. My new plans for the non-profit entity hadn’t taken effect yet, and her time was fully consumed by tribal disagreements in every corner of the globe. Our schedules refused to align.

The message was short and devastating. I passed the phone to Sylvia without a word. She studied the text carefully, twisting her signature four-strand pearl choker in dismay.

“Damn,” she said. “That’s cold. Getting dumped is bad enough, but in a text message? And you guys never actually connected, did you?”

Sylvia shook her head sadly. Buffy whimpered. She sensed my pain.

“No,” I sighed. “The fucking universe conspired to deny my needs again. It’s like I’m cursed. Jinxed. Bewitched.”

“What does she mean by ‘your delicate constitution?’ Are you sick?”

“I’m fine. It’s something we discussed at length with John Bardeen. Vampires have the strength of twenty men, and their romantic escapades are, let’s say, quite vigorous. It’s similar to rugby. Splattering a little blood is not uncommon. That’s not a problem for me, since I have a platinum health-care plan. But I’m AB-negative, very tasty, and I’ve been vaccinated against the zombie virus.”

“Connecting with you would put Albina at risk of losing her immortality. That’s why she dumped you?”

I touched the corner of my eye.

“Yes. We had a long talk. Our spiritual connection is undeniable, but Albina wasn’t sure she could face life as a mere mortal. She needed time to think. I guess she made her decision.”

“Spiritual connection?” Sylvia snorted. “Let’s be real. You two are like cats in heat. It gets downright embarrassing sometimes.”

That was a cheap shot. I’m a very spiritual person.

“Why does the universe conspire against me? First it was Susie Golden. Now it’s Albina Aldana. Why is the universe pushing me away from the women I love? Don’t I deserve happiness?”

“John, face the facts. You’re a fucking investment banker. If anything, you deserve the noose.”

What could I say? It was a fair point. My face turned sad.

Sylvia laughed.

“Sweetheart, you have occasional flashes of genius, but most of the time you’re dumber than a bag of hammers. Think about it. Is the universe pushing you away from someone, or toward someone?”

She tapped her iPad and displayed an endless, rolling montage of glossy magazine covers featuring Anjali Khan and me. Forbes. The Economist. Modern Weddings. Bridal Bling.

My spine tingled with ten thousand volts of sweet electricity. Buffy barked and wagged her tail. Bright sunshine broke through the clouds. Birdsong drifted through the windows. My jaw dropped.

Sylvia smiled in triumph.

THE END

I hope you have enjoyed John Carthage and the Miami Vampires! My fragile ego needs stroking, so please leave an honest review for me on Amazon.com. My autobiography continues soon with another fast-paced supernatural adventure: John Carthage and the Washington Witches. Keep reading for a sizzling preview!

About the Author

John Carthage lives on a magnificent ultra-yacht in the Republic of Miami, one of the luxurious floating nations created by private equity firms after Florida disappeared during the Great Glacier Melt. When he’s not chasing money and monsters around the globe, John works on his autobiography, so the rest of humanity can profit from his wild adventures in the unseen world of the supernatural.

Also by John Carthage

Coming Soon! John Carthage and the Washington Witches

John Carthage has battled the undead hordes and faced off against a deadly vampire empire, but his war with the supernatural is far from over. Now, the most dangerous and eldritch force of all threatens the world: the Washington Witches. He’ll need every ounce of his fame, fortitude, and fashion sense to unravel the mysteries of their magical kingdom and protect the world he loves. Well, mostly the bankers, but a few regular people, too.

John Carthage and the Washington Witches

Chapter One

MY FIRST TERM AS CHAIR of the Federal Reserve System had three more years to run when the Miami vampires came roaring back into my life. Not in the form of bloodsucking monsters, of course. My iron grip on their AB-negative blood supply was keeping that particular threat well-contained.

Instead, I was sitting in the owner’s box at Teatro La Scala for the opening performance of the new opera season. The Prime Minister of Italy and his wife were in the box on my left. The President of the European Central Bank sat in the box on my right, accompanied by my old DCH colleague, Veronica Scarlett.

My date for the evening was an Italian bikini model in a cobalt-blue Oscar de la Renta threadwork fringe gown. I wore a fresh, perfectly tailored Fendi tuxedo, elegant but understated, with a crisp wing-collar shirt and my favorite gold doubloon cuff links. Our arrival caused quite a stir, but the carabinieri knocked enough heads to keep the paparazzi and autograph hounds in line.

Veronica Scarlett joined us during the intermission, her statuesque figure showcased by a strapless emerald-green Alexander McQueen gown that subtly highlighted her lush golden-red hair.

I shook my head to refocus.

“Enjoying the show, John?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Rigoletto is one of my favorites, and I adore ‘Questo o Quella.’ It’s practically my personal anthem.”

Veronica snorted. She nodded at my smoking-hot date.

“I’m guessing she doesn’t speak English, otherwise she’d smack you in the head for that one.”

“English is a challenging language,” I said. “But we manage to communicate. Isn’t that right, Elletra?”

Elletra smiled at her name and squeezed my thigh.

Veronica laughed. “You’ll never change. But seriously, we need to talk after this is over. I’ve come across a dangerous situation that requires your attention and special skills.”

I frowned. Veronica was a gorgeous, immensely capable woman who climbed to the top by taking crap from no man. If she needed my help with a problem, the world might be coming to an end.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s no time to explain right now. Drop the girl at your hotel and meet me at the Castello Sforzesco.”

Veronica stood up.

“Hey, don’t leave me hanging,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

Veronica paused and glanced at Elletra, who was busily scanning the well-dressed crowd with my opera glasses, looking for fashion designers, celebrities, and unaccompanied millionaires.

“I had a visitor this morning. Gator Gomez.”

What the fuck? Gator was a sleazy lawyer I leveraged for critical information to bring down Pandora Blackwood, ruthless leader of the bloodthirsty Miami vampires.

“Gator Gomez?” I said. “That’s impossible. The guy can barely zip his pants, much less book a flight to Milan for the opera season.”

“It’s Gator Gomez,” Veroncia affirmed. “I checked him out. He brought someone to see you. I checked her out, too.”

“Who in their right mind would travel with Gator Gomez?” I snapped. “He’s a stinking mess.”

“She didn’t travel with Gator. They rendezvoused at Il Duomo and came to see me at my mansion on Lago di Como.”

“Why should I care? If I never hear that name again, it’ll be too soon. The scoundrel is lucky to be alive.”

“You’ll want to meet them,” Veronica said. “Especially the woman. You’ll like her. She’s smoking hot.”

I was losing my patience. Act III was about to begin, and Elletra wanted to snuggle.

“Why? Smoking hot is my baseline. What’s so special about her?”

Veronica sighed.

“John, she’s smoking hot, and…uh, she’s a fucking witch.”

The house lights dimmed, and the curtain went up.

John’s next adventure has begun! Stay tuned for more supernatural action!

John Carthage and the Manhattan Zombies

Available Now!

John started life as a penniless orphan. Now he’s a handsome, filthy rich playboy running M&A at Manhattan’s most notorious investment bank. Life is good, except for one small problem: he’s trapped in a 50-story skyscraper swarming with ferocious zombies as his favorite city implodes around him.

Meet John Carthage at the dawn of the apocalypse! The story that launched a thousand adventures begins right here! Don’t miss a word!

John Carthage and the Martian Mechs

Coming in 2026!

A shadowy cabal of Martian oligarchs takes aim at Earth, wielding obscene wealth and supernatural powers in a savage bid for total control. Enter John Carthage: ruthless investment banker, fashion icon, brilliant tactician, and the last man standing between the free world and a hostile takeover. Aided by an elite team of gorgeous babes and disposable interns, John must wage war among the stars to protect everything he loves. Can Earth escape its fate, or will humanity kneel before the Martian overlords?

Packed with high-octane action, razor-sharp wit, and satirical jabs at the ultra-rich, John Carthage and the Martian Mechs is an apocalyptic adventure like no other. Buckle up for a cosmic collision!