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Chicago, February 1938

WHEN I set the brake and cut the roaned, and straightened up to look around He suppressed a cough, arh to keep it fro apart

"You okay?" I asked

"Peachy" His voice rasped hollow and hoarse He was lying, but that&039;s what you do when you feel like hell and don&039;t want to give in to it

His na boss out of New York who had come to town to oversee my execution

That hadn&039;t worked out very well

He&039;d taken a bullet through the chest only a couple hours earlier and should be healing faster He needed blood and a day&039;s rest on his ho to do before either of us could have a break

"What&039;s this?" His dark eyes were bleary with fatigue and pain

We were in a parking lot close to the hospital "I gotta see a "

He grunted and pushed up his coat sleeve to squint at his watch The crystal was gone, and the exposed hands swung loose over the nuet a move on"

I slammed out of the car and hurried toward the hospital entrance

The streets weren&039;t awake yet At this bleak hour they see night The sh, and I consciously tried a lungful Clinging to my overcoat was the smell of Kroun&039;s blood The scent had filled the car, but with no need to breathe I&039;d been re away the distraction

Dried stains smeared the front of the coat, but the material was dark, no one would notice Even if someone did, I had more serious concerns I needed to check on ency rooh, I had to see fora lone reception nurse that I was the patient&039;s cousin she gotaway Charles Escott&039;s location He was in the ets a private roo money from my wallet From her shocked look the stack was ets whatever he needs before he needs it" I folded the cash into her hand

She stared at the , I-"

"Consider it a personal thank-you Do whatever you ith it so long as ets first-class treatment I have to see him now"

"He shouldn&039;t have visitors"

"We&039;re not gonna play cards I just need to check on hiht: deterot what I wanted She slipped the ed it to her front, and led the way down the empty corridors herself Maybe I couldn&039;t hypnotize people anyht place can take you far in the world It had worked well enough for Capone, up to a point

The as clean, but still a ward: a high, dim room full of restive misery Some of the bodies shrouded under their blankets were frozen in place by injury, others twitched, sleepless from pain or illness

I had a brief flash of memory of a similar place in France back when I was a red-faced kid still aard in liding back and forth between the wounded So used to the new aroaned despite their doses of morphine, some slept, so tooAfter twenty years, the picture was still sharp, but I couldn&039;t recall why I&039;d been there Probably visiting someone, sahtly propped up on the narrow , his ribs were taped, his hands bandaged like an outclassed boxer who&039;d unwisely stayed for the full twelve rounds He see okay, and when I listened, his heart thu steady and slow as he slept But he looked so da My fault

He shouldn&039;t be here I&039;d been an incredible, unconscionable fool, and he was paying for my lapse with cracked, maybe broken bones, pulped flesh, and sloeeks of recovery God help us both, I&039;d co him He still wasn&039;t out of the woods If I&039;d broken hinizing my own voice, I asked the nurse about that

She consulted the chart at the foot of the bed X-rays had been taken, though how anyone could make sense of a mass of indefinite shadoas beyondand,It was cold comfort I&039;d only half killed my best friend

I wanted to help him, to do more than what had already been done, but no action on my part could possibly make up for such stupidity This was true helplessness, and I hated it My hand went toward hi it into a pocket The nurse read this ht," she said "It&039;ll just take some tiht

One of his eyelids flickered The other was fused fast shut fro him, I started to back out of view, but it was too late He ake, if groggy, and fixed

When I couldn&039;t take the silence anymore, I said, "Charles y-you don&039;t worry They&039;ll get you whatever you want It&039;s taken care of You just say"

His eyelid slowly shut and opened again, and there was an audible thickening of the breath passing through his throat I took that to mean he understood

"I&039;m I&039;m sorry as hell I&039;m so sorry"

He continued to look at iveness I didn&039;t deserve it and never would

He shook his head and made a small sound of frustration

I understood He was afraid for me afraid I&039;d try to hurt ht My face heated up from shaain I swear On Bobbi&039;s life, I proain"

The corner of his host&039;s smile His lips moved in the softest of whispers "Jack"

I leaned in "Yeah?"

"About daed hand toward ave my shoulder a clumsy pat

Sleep took him away

Men aren&039;t supposed to cry, but I came damn close just then

Whitey Kroun, the corpse I&039;d left waiting in the backseat of the Nash, now sluer side with the door open, feet on the running board His left trouser leg was rusty with dried blood, and he cautiously unwound a similarly stained handkerchief fro theone He threw the grubby cloth away, hauled his long legs in, and yanked the door shut The efforthis chest

He didn&039;t say if he wanted to be dropped anywhere, and I didn&039;t inquire, just started thetiround soon

Shadows caught, lingered, and slithered quick over his craggy features as we sped under streetlaht Kroun&039;s eyes were dark broith strangely dilated pupils; now all that shoere skull-deep voids, unreadable

Life had gotten damned complicated lately It happens souy and do a favor for a friend in need

That favor, along with circumstances beyondversion of the hot seat Kroun&039;s arrival in Chicago was to sort things out and put anpeople

But after lookingout the death sentence

Mighty generous of him, except at the time I didn&039;t know the real reason behind his choice Outwardly, I&039;htclub that does pretty well, have a wonderful girl, a few good friends-I&039;e Most of the tiured out about hts to follow never once let slip that he was also a card-carrying ht inodd about him or even remotely suspect It had been one pip of a surprise when the boo used to it, the topper of a very busy evening

It began with one hell of a fistfight between me and Escott, which hat had landed hi really stupid and his attempt to knock some sense into me set me off I hadn&039;t e a little too late Before I could follow his ambulance to the hospital, I&039;d been sidetracked by a phone call froirlfriend, Bobbi In soa gun to her head

That confrontation had ended badly

Bobbi was fine, thank God, but there&039;d been quite an ugly fracas before the dust settled Kroun had been present, caught a stray bullet, and died

Apparently

The shooter was also dead, and I was left with a nastynot to go over the cliff into the screarace of God, Escott&039;s right fist, and Bobbi holding on to me like there was no toh I was still standing closer than was coer wobbling Given tiishly tried to work out the details of what to do next, Kroun picked thatpossum One minute he was flat on the floor with a thumb-sized hole in his chest, the next

Well it had been interesting

It took hours to clear the chaos at Bobbi&039;s I saw to it she was driven to a safe place to stay, then arranged to disappear the dead gunal help involving the kind ofthat inconvenient bodies are never found

Before the cleaning crew arrived, KrounTemporarily He hid out in the back of the Nash until the fuss was over

That I was no longer the only vao hadn&039;t really sunk in yet

Since we each had secrets to keep, we&039;d formed an uneasy alliance out of ht last I had fish ofafter him-but he needed a favor, and, God help ain

I didn&039;t want to think just how badly this could end

Kroun seemed to doze He&039;d not asked about our destination I took it for granted that he wanted a ride away frouratively speaking He had soht as well be in the coh

He took notice when I made a last turn and pulled into the alley behind the house Escott and I hung our hats in an elderly three-story brick in a quiet, respectable neighborhood Not the sort of place you&039;d expect a vaic to ce as I eased the car into the garage

"Home I&039;m all in You&039;ll have to stay the day" Maybe he had plans, but I wanted ask a few hundred questions, but later, when e

"There&039;s no need I found a bolt-hole for et there if you call a cab"

"At this hour?" I set the brake, cut the ht

"Cabs run all the tirown-up"

"That&039;s just a ru wrong?"

"The house key&039;s back atbunch" The wrong coat, too Along with the Nash-which was Escott&039;s car-I&039;d borrowed his overcoat He wouldn&039;t thank me for the bloodstains

I cracked the door, careful not to bang it against the wall of the narrow garage, and got out Kroun did the saed inside, for he paused to catch his breath, which was an event to note LikeHis reaction had to do with pain

He&039;d left a dark patch on the center back of the seat, a transfer froer stain on the back of his coat It&039;d been hours; his wounds would have closed by now The blood he&039;d leaked should be dried Must have been the damp The heavy air smelled of snow, but not the clean kind out of the north This had a sour, rotting tang, as though the clouds were gathering up stink fro easy on his left leg, Kroun liy snow that made up the sh, a big deep, hooping that grew in force and doubled hi out the hard way I started toward hi you can do to help when a person&039;s in that state The fit coo Spatters of blood suddenly bloomed on the untracked drift in front of him

I couldn&039;t help but stare at the stuff The smell had filled the car, but I&039;d successfully shoved it aside This was fresh, dark red, alainst the snow He wasn&039;t the only one with a proble

Nothing for a good long h

Waited

And finally took in a sip of air tainted with bloods reaction twisted uts

No cold sweats

Not even the shakes

It was just blood A necessity for survival, but nothing to get crazy over No uncontrolled hunger blazed through ut, not even the false starvation kind that scared ood

I relaxed, just a little

Cold, though I was cold to the bone but that was okay It wasn&039;t the unnerving chill that leftin a warm room, but the ordinary sort that co

Kroun&039;s internal earthquake clied and spat out a black clot the size of a half-dollar He hung over the ed to keep his balance My instinct was to lend him an arm to lean on while he recovered, but he wouldn&039;t like it I didn&039;t know him well, but I knew that h to wake a neighbor I glanced at the surrounding houses, but no one peered froradually straightened, his face ore

"You okay?" I asked I&039;d have to stop that It could get irritating

"Still peachy," he wheezed When he reached the back porch, he used the rail to pull hi the steps He looked like hell on a bad week "No house key, huh?"

"Yeah, but-"

He fished a small, flat case from the inside pocket of his tattered, filthy overcoat A couple of nights ago it had been new-looking, but an explosion and fire had turned it into soutter Kroun y features were gaunt now, his hair singed-except for a distinct silver-white streak on the side-and when I inhaled he still stank of s a collection of picklocks "Lemme by"

"No need," I said-and vanished Into thin air I was good at it Didn&039;t think twice

"Shit!" Kroun hadn&039;t expected that

His reaction was muffled to me My senses in this state were li

"Fle? You there?"

I&039;, thin crack at the threshold, and slipped in Though I could have passed right through the wood, this path of least resistance was less unsettling Going solid again on the other side, I unlocked and opened up, gesturing Kroun in

He looked like he wanted to say a lot of things, but held back I thought I understood his expression: an interesting combination of annoyance mixed with raw envy It only flashed for a second, then he pocketed his case "Nice trick"

"Just a way out of the cold C&039;ain for all the good that would do Even the dus kne to break and enter in the h none of theotten into the habit of thinking that way, though Blame it on the scurvy company I kept

"Phone?" he asked

"The wall by the icebox" Actually, it was a streaerator that looked out of place in the faded kitchen I dropped ed fro it over the back of a chair "But you can stay here It&039;s safe"

"I don&039;t think so" Kroun wasn&039;t being iot the phone book fro for cab coer down the coluht on Habit We could both see well enough in the dark

He s "How many of these companies have the , ain&039;t it?"

"Cripes" He put the book back "It&039;s as bad as New York"

To his for with everyone else, Whitey Kroun was supposed to be dead Not Undead, which none would know about or believe in, but the regular kind of dead, and he wanted to keep it that way He did not need a cabby re ears There ays around that, but Kroun ainst the shrinking time before sunrise

He was clearly exhausted He&039;d barely survived getting blown up, gone into hiding God-knohere for the day, and only hours before had taken a bullet square in the chest The slug had passed right through, ripped up his dor out his back

My last twenty-fours hours hadn&039;t been even that good We both needed a rest

"Spare bedroom&039;s up the stairs, third floor," I said "All ready Just walk in"

Kroun frowned "Is it lightproof?"

"The &039;s covered You&039;ll be fine"

"Where do you sleep?"

"I have a place In the baseave me a look "What? A secret lair?"

That almost made me smile "It&039;s better than it sounds"

Not by much, but it sure as hell wasn&039;t a claustrophobia-inducing coffin on the floor of a ratty crypt like in that Lugosi ave me the heebies My bricked-up cha clean and dry with space enough for a good ars simple: an army cot with a layer of my home earth under oilcloth, a lamp, a radio, books to fill in the tiuest?"

"I can only get into it by vanishing" That was a lie There was access by means of a trapdoor under the kitchen table, hidden by expert carpentry and a s I just didn&039;t want Kroun in h cracks I was pleased to take advantage of his limitation Just because we had vampiris-lost relative He&039;d sure as hell not tipped his hand to ot a broom closet?" he asked

"Yeah, but you wouldn&039;t like it"

"I could"

"C&039;mon, Whitey, no one knows you&039;re here-"

"Gabe"

"Huh?"

"My real name&039;s Gabe" His eyes were focused inward "Mom&039;s idea Gabriel Hell of a nahts"

Nohy had he toldthe sa with his own version of shell shock Well, I wasn&039;t walking on eggs for him "Okay Gabe No one knows you&039;re here, and no one&039;s looking for you The cops are still sifting through what&039;s left of that car By the time they don&039;t find your body in the ashes, it&039;ll be toht and you can start fresh"

He seeet day visitors? Cleaning lady? Anyone like that?"