The Necropolis, beneath New York City, 1992 AD.

Louis knew when it happened, he tossed in his half-sleep, turned onto his stomach and clawed at his mattress. He knew that his Father had given the blood to Blade. And there was just one single thought in response: NO!

And Robert knew that the others knew. He lay beside Blade, asleep, but in his dreams he saw Faye, her eyes snapping open suddenly, he saw Louis scratch holes in his sheets, and Troy just around the corner locked in the vault: waking.

And somewhere deeper than that he saw another face turn toward him, saw a pair of violet eyes focus in on him, and the sharp flash of a smile. And then all Robert could think was: NO!

They stood as if at the center of the tower of Babel as it fell down around them. And in this dream tower Louis gazed across the crumbling room, looking as Robert had never seen him: truly sad.

"Disaster, my father?"

And dream-joke not lost on him Robert just cried.

The Fall of the Nephillim; she could very well be their ruin. And the worst pain of all was knowing that love had brought this about. Robert had let it happen, allowed it in a self-destructive, Human way. And then there in Babel Robert looked up and saw Eros sitting upon a ruined wall. "I am the beast," he said, "what thing is more cruel than love?" And he looked down at his father, smiled.

And Ariella stood there, beside her son, yet she was changed, this was not the woman whom he had watched die, she stood haughty and proud, a shiny dragon at her side, a hand on its long dragon snout, she wore cyan. "We say you let Paris keep her, we are not bothered by her."

And then there was Death.

"Satisfied?" It looked more male than usual, the hair slightly shorter, but the eyes remained cold and black, lightless, while the skin glowed more brightly than any of the other's. "You should have sent her to me, Honey."

All eyes turned to Blade. She held her hands to her ears as she screamed: NO!

She staggered back, seeming wounded. "No! I will not go along. Fight, I'll fight you. I'd rather die than give you control!"

Louis stared at her, fell to his knees.

b b b

The real world. Robert was awake. He lay in his bed watching over Blade carefully. He knew that the others had gathered in the very next room, he knew also they would not dare to come any closer. He could hear them talking, Min's tired whines: Faye had dragged her from bed, forced blood into her and driven all the way from New Orleans in the old Porsche, stopping only for petrol, oil, and tires. The sun had exhausted Min. Faye was speaking rapidly, asking what this woman was like, how she could have bewitched Robert. Louis was explaining that Robert thought Blade was like Ariella.

And then Blade woke up. She looked terribly frightened. "I can hear them," she said.

She tried to sit, but when she did she folded double over the side of the bed.

"It's OK, just whatever you last ate wanting to come up, it'll pass."

She glared at him.

b b b

They had a confrontation before the old green sofa. Just woken Robert still wore only a pair of black jeans, Louis and Faye stood at each other's side looking dressed for a funeral while Min stood thinner and more pale than ever holding Troy by his collar as if knowing as they all must that given his freedom Troy would take Robert's side in any case. And Niki, she stood back behind Louis, arms crossed at her chest, dressed this time as out of date as ever in what appeared to be a man's suit of the 1940's. Psyche wandered about in the kitchen.

"She's a freak," Louis said, "do you even know what you have done? You never studied! You never bothered to speak to any others of our kind about such matters. Strong-willed, rebellious, good-seeking, death-wisher...she'll be a freak...she'll ruin you."

And Blade came from the bedroom, wearing a pinstriped suit, which Robert had always thought made him seem a gangster, without a shirt underneath, the pants cinched tightly with the belt Robert had taken from her closet. "Freak?"

Louis took several short steps forward over the marble floor, green eyes staring at her all the time. "Just don't you imagine you're a match for me."

"Yeah, I'm not high on Angels' blood."

Louis' eye darted to Robert's face. "You told her!"

Faye stepped forward then, one hand on a hip as the other pointed, the head jutting forward at the neck a bit, "She knows all our names! I vote we kill her now."

"Vote?" Asked Robert.

Faye seared him with her gaze. "I say we invite her to start running: like a fox."

"Koki-teno," Psyche said suddenly.

"No..." said Louis, "We don't let her run anywhere, we keep her here, close to us."

"Exactly, Blade stays," Robert said. Louis' eyes were on him again. But Louis could not divine the truth from those dark pools, he looked away.

"I can't stay here," said Blade shrilly. Min loosed Troy to cover her ears and the wolf whined. Faye's brow was wrinkled. Blade's voice had been painfully high in pitch; she realized this herself hit the heel of her palm upside her head as if this would help. She was the palest Vampyre Robert had even seen, the pale blue eyes were all the more clear and bright, like looking into clear water, and the shoulder length white-blonde hair had a new sheen to it, it was fuller and writhed as if having life whenever she moved. Robert knew this much, just as all other cells of the body take on a new form on life when one is turned, the dead cells that make up the hair and nails are infused with this life, they do not feel of course, there were never nerves there, but the cells regenerate. And then he noticed her fangs, she was hungry, and so their entire length had pushed from under the gums. They were not as long as Louis' fangs could get; he seemed to have the longest of them, but they looked sharper. Robert thought that maybe all their fangs had been quite that razor sharp when they were young.

"I can't stay here," Blade whispered.

"This will end badly, My Brother," Niki said.

They were concerned by what Louis had explained, that some types of people should never be given the blood. Apparently he had learned this during his time in China, among the Spawn of Asbeel's line. It occurred to Robert with Blade there that the others were shocked. They had all been there together, learned something Robert had no idea about. They took it for granted that their number should be guarded. Every one of them had killed every Human lover they ever took since then. And Robert feared they were right.

Psyche had said before, at times, that she could taste madness in Blade, and certainly Blade's own best friend had believed her quite capable of madness. Besides that she still was cursed in her own way with being too Human. She carried the mark of slavery, the need to do good in the eyes of a master, and yet there was another being inside her who fought authority: thus her madness continued and was constantly generated within her. Robert understood Humans, and Louis understood slavery, they knew Blade must be stripped of either her goodness or her rebellion.

And of course they knew this was a near impossible task, and that Blade would not be Blade when all was done. They stared into each other's eyes, in conversation, and neither knew how to begin. And Louis knew, whatever happened, he'd already lost his father to her, there would be no use in killing the freak, and his father would never forgive that sin.

Blade was pacing the platform as if expecting a train would come through on that track and carry her away.

Louis moved close to Robert. He lay his head on his father's chest and squeezed his body as a boa does its prey. He stood on tiptoe then, whispered in Robert's ear, "Just take her out of here, but watch her, you made her, you keep her from destroying us all!"

"I'll watch her."

They kissed then. Louis held on with lips and hands like it was the end of the world. Perhaps for him, it felt like that. The family remained family, but Robert had grown past being father or lover to him. Louis felt more alone than ever surrounded by the women of the family, yet he snapped his fingers and Psyche was there kissing him.

Robert looked back once as he led Blade out through the tunnels, coat and baggage in hand. Louis sent him one of his most seductive smiles, and Robert mimicked the smile, sent it back.

Troy bounded down the steps and padded after his master.

b b b

Blade and Robert had taken a train uptown. Troy was on a short harness and in Robert's hand while Blade sat shyly at Robert's side. He was speaking to her in whispers again. "You chose it," he said, "I couldn't have killed you any more than you could kill me now. We're connected now, Baby, if one calls the other hears, if one is in pain, the other knows, we feel it."

"I'm scared."

"I know. Listen to me carefully now: you are still Blade Dangerous, you can fake your death, or you can try living as Blade, but I'll warn you, it won't be easy to live as Blade, you aren't the same as she was. I tried to live my life and ended up losing my wife. Whatever you do, I'm going to follow and watch; I've got to, it's for your own good. Right now you need blood. I won't do it for you, no matter how much I love you I won't do this for you, not when you have the power to do it yourself. Get off this train, I don't care where, just get off..."

"I don't want to kill anyone."

"Well, it will be virtually impossible for you to help it the first time, you won't know your own strength yet, won't know how much you can slow their heart before it just stops. And besides that, you can't leave witnesses, most people in the world are like you were, they don't believe, but some people know, and if you'd ask Louis he'd say the government knows and they cover it up-but he likes conspiracy theories-so don't leave proof for the wrong sort of people to find. It's dangerous enough for us all to still be in New York."

"Do you think I can do it? Where will I go after, where will I live?"

"It's up to you where you live. Listen, I'll tell you ahead of time, I'm going to see Steven tonight, I need him...anyway, you'll know what to do, if you try to put it off you'll feel pain, after a while it'll be so bad you just attack the first thing that moves near you, even if they're a friend, that's why we've got to hunt out victims, we'd eat up all our friends if we didn't, turn into those nasty creatures that live in graves and feast on their surviving relatives."

"Don't hurt Steven."

"No, I told you I wouldn't. Now get off the train soon, I want to know that you've taken at least one step, and Troy's hungry, I need to take him out of here."

Blade wrapped her arms about her stomach. "All right, just a few stops..."

b b b

Robert took Troy to the park; it had been years and years since Troy had been out anywhere, but as always he trusted Robert. Robert wondered why Blade had come so far uptown. They were in the north half of Central Park, near the rambles. Robert loosed Troy on the first person they came across and took blood from a wrist only when Troy had already torn the throat open.

Robert walked the wolf down Fifth Avenue past the museums. And when he was tired of walking he hailed a cab and they rode to Steven's building.

And as one might guess Blade had gotten there before them. You didn't guess, you were surprised like Robert, because you thought Blade mad and out of control. But Blade was devious as ever, and the moment Robert had mentioned going to Steven she had planned to make Robert take the train as far as she could manage, to but physical distance between he and Steven. She had transferred to a downtown train in that same station and left the Subway only when she was in Midtown. She went into a fast food restaurant; she bought something, a soda perhaps. And she sipped this on her way to the bathroom.

The only thing Blade had not planned on was the effect the sugar and caffeine had on her: she had not been told in any plain words that sugar was harmful to her kind. (Had Robert left the bit about the pagoda with windows made of sugar out of he story when he told it to Blade? How careless of him.) And so she staggered into the bathroom, her heart pounding against the inside of her chest, her temples throbbing, hands shaking. But as she planned another woman soon entered. Blade used her increased flexibility and speed to duck right under the door of the stall before the woman could undress. And she went right for the jugular, the long fangs sinking past muscle and other Human tissue and the blood pouring out into her mouth.

She was a naturally neat killer, despite her sloppiness in other areas, her lips locked to the skin and kept blood from spilling, the tongue lapping blood into the throat and closing the wound before her lips even left the skin. Looking through the woman's purse she found makeup, money, ID, keys...and it occurred to her that killing these Humans was easy, and because she did it to live it was good, and that she could take their cash and other things that interested her. And yet the day before she had not believed this good in Robert...she was unstable.

Ducking under the door again with money and make-up shoved in the pockets of Robert's jacket Blade stood before the mirror and did her face. With the exception of the fang teeth she could make everything else pass as Human. She practiced smiles in the mirror, ones that just hid the tips of the fangs, and let her muscles feel and memorize how the smiles were made. The hair looked strange, but it looked beautiful, and people are forgiving of beauty.

She hurried to Steven's building and arrived ahead of Robert. She explained quickly what had happened to her, that Robert would be coming. Steven was becoming used to her, he wasn't afraid, but he was nervous. And then Blade saw in his mind his reason. There was someone there in the penthouse with them.

When Robert arrived some time later Steven was standing in the living room drinking a scotch, Blade was at the glass wall looking at the city lights, and John was there, on the sofa, still as a statue except for tears which kept falling from his eyes, dripping then from nose and jaw.

And when Blade turned into the room Robert saw a perfectly Human looking face streaked with red tears.

Robert let Troy loose and walked to John. He seemed paralyzed. "What did you do?" He asked Blade.

"Made him stop," she cried. "He tried to kill me."

Robert stood straight and looked at her.

"'They must be destroyed,' this is what my best friend says when he looks at me. What have you done to me?" She repeated herself, "What have you done to me?"

Robert didn't answer this. He was really beginning to realize how unstable Blade was as a Vampyre. He made a small shake of his head. He said then, "Come and tell him that he does not need to destroy us, we are his friends and we will not hurt him, ever."

It seemed almost that Robert's own power of suggestion had worked on Blade, she went so quickly and said this to John. But Robert wasn't trying to force an action from her.

John stood suddenly, embraced Blade as if he was coming into the room for the first time. He gave Robert a shady look, but did not seem either afraid or angry. "Well, John and I are going home now," Blade said. She had made her choice: she would remain Blade.

When she had gone Robert and Steven were alone, but of course for Troy who was curled on the floor in the shadow of the couch. Robert thought to himself that he ought to just go wrap himself about Steven and kiss his neck, but he didn't do it.

"You're moving back in?" Steven asked, almost bashful.

"Yes."

Steven nodded. "I hope that wolf there is housetrained."

"Yes, trained to keep down the population of unwanted pests."

"There are no rats in this building."

"Trust me, Steven, he's harmless."

Steven rolled his eyes, "Trust you, of course..."

Robert bent and rubbed his pet's neck. "Come, he's entirely under my control, let him have your scent, I'll tell him not to hurt you."

Steven was hesitant, stood several seconds eyeing the wolf. But he put his empty glass down and joined Robert on the floor. The wolf picked up his head and stared yellow-eyed at Steven.

"Give him your hand, slowly," Robert whispered.

And slowly Steven extended the palm of his hand.

"Troy, this is Steven," Robert whispered at the wolf's ear, "He's my friend, we must never hurt him, and if Steven needs helping, we should help him. This is his house. When strangers come, Steven will tell you if they are friends or not."

"Does he come to Troy?"

"Yes, or Destroyer, he's usually more friendly to people who call him Troy, if you call him Destroyer he begins to suspect you are going to call him to kill."

"Thanks for the tip," Steven said as he backed away. He looked toward his bedroom. "Listen," he said as he turned to look down at Robert.

"I know."

Steven smiled. Robert loved these smiles. "Really, I don't mind you being here with me, but, Robert, I don't want to ever be alone with Louis, not ever."

Robert sighed. The last time Steven had seen Louis he had been fighting over him with knife in hand. "He wouldn't hurt you now, things are different."

"He doesn't care about me like you do," Steven said quietly, that trick of saying things that may be awkward at a volume which can be chosen to be ignored.

Robert looked up. "Blade said that to you?"

"Sort of. I suppose I knew." He looked at the window. "I'm going to bed now...oh, I just remembered." He went to the table and picked up a tabloid paper, "Here, it's on the inside..." Steven laughed, "They now call you my accessory, it's a new one on me. They also say you are Blade's latest interest."

Robert scanned the page, noted the black and white picture accompanying the story taken a night ago in the club, Robert and Blade standing alone at the edge of the dance floor, very clear shot of his face in profile. He shrugged. "Well, I guess I deserve this one for talking to that reporter."

"Yes, throw in Keri and we'll soon have a love pentagram, eh?"

"Oh, who'd be the fifth?"

"Oh, well, they keep trying to print stuff about Mandy Valois and me. I think he must write the stories himself, he just won't stop."

"Mandy hits on you, Steven?" Robert was thinking that they would have something much larger than a pentagram if Steven became involved with anyone like Mandy. If Robert were Human he would have to be mad to get involved with Blade, no matter how gorgeous. Blade had Keri and she had Mandy, and he had so very many lovers.

"Mandy's hit on me for years," Steven said with a nervous laugh. "I get invitations to all sorts of strange and exclusive parties, both his galleries have me on their mailing list, I'm afraid I broke down once and let him decorate a lounge in the downtown building, all out clients hate it, looks like something out of the Neitherworld."

Robert laughed, "Want I should discourage him, Steven?"

Steven shook his head quickly. "It's all right, I can handle him, besides, John has, on several occasions, saved me from him. He seems very nice: John." It only occurred to Robert then that Steven must have known Blade and John some time before he also knew of their crime-fighting skills.

b b b

In the first days of Blade's new life things went as well as could be expected. She slept through sunrise, but once the sun was up she was able to wake with a little effort and start her day of fooling the world. It took longer to make herself up, she had always had very Europeanly pale skin, pinkish and not at all tanned, but getting that same even rosy complexion took some effort. The best thing for it was having large amounts of blood before any picture was taken of her.

A lot of make-ups tended to seem thick on her skin. So Blade and John ran to Mandy, as they always had when needing to deal with anything very strange. He was the type who seemed to be connected with every separate underground scene there was, and socially connected to many legitimate powers as well. In any case, he always seemed to have money, he always had someone somewhere who owed him a favor and who was working on some new and experimental thing, and he was always very convincing and persuasive.

Of course, he said he knew a couple of men right in The City, an ex-artist and a research biologist who had worked out ways of giving people new faces which were very artfully painted and which never aged, but Blade didn't want a new face, just make-up that was very thin and adhered to near poreless skin while supporting whatever she put over it.

This was way too easy for Mandy, he said, Steven himself happened to own a small cosmetics company he picked up because they made cruelty free products: if they'd do a certain young chemist a favor by getting him a job there, Mandy was sure they'd have no problem. And so Steven met with the executives of this small NY based company and they opened a new division, which this young genius, James, was put in charge of as long as he promised he wouldn't use live subjects in his testing. And within a month Blade had all sorts of new make-up and Mandy had a new collection of beautiful color photos in his gallery all of inhumanly beautiful models with faces made up in strange beautiful patterns, blue skin, or violet, and dots and lines and flowers drawn on the faces. And underground magazines had slick looking ads for what they called alternative make-up from your future, which could be bought to give skin or hair or nails any texture, sheen or lack of that you wanted, while the fashion magazines had layouts of artfully painted faces rivaling Shiseido ads.

Blade's career became even more successful than it had been when she was Human. Magazines gave her more head shots so that Blade appeared in this new make-up with hair slicked back and plastered to her neck in curls, less the All American Girl, and rivaling the intriguing hollow-cheeked faces of European models, eyes appearing silver in photographs and staring out from a painted mask of color.

And while all this went on Blade spent her nights, in whatever city her work brought her to, hunting for mortals, draining them, and collection blood in paper funnels into empty wine bottles as it fell from gashes for immediate refrigeration. John was always at her side ready to swat assistant make-up artists away, or stand between her and the sun. He still knew she was a Vampyre, but it no longer bothered him, Blade didn't let it.

It was never said to anyone but John and Steven that Blade was a vampire, but Mandy suspected as much, being he had for years been posing as one. Robert did not think Mandy a real vampire, because he was not one of the Nephillim Spawn. The fact that Mandy used up people did not impress or frighten Robert. But it did other people, people like Daniel.

Mandy more impressed with Blade than ever? No surprise. When actually introduced to Robert he just stood staring for the longest time before saying, "I want to take pictures of you..."

Robert let him, liked when he went to the opening of the new show and felt appreciative glances in his direction as much as at the photos of him. In some of the photos, all of which were in sepia tone and burnt in various places, Robert was posed with a man named Marc. In other photos Robert was posed with Blade herself. In none of them did they wear clothes.

Blade and John had explained to him that Marc had been living with Mandy for some years now, and that no one knew why, as Marc did not disguise the disgust he had for most of Mandy's friends, especially the more flamboyant and loud friends (as Blade and John could be if in a certain mood.) Robert recognized Marc from watching Blade's apartment. Marc was older, looked a little like a Sean Connery, though somewhat more lithe in figure and having a fuller head of long graying hair, dyed to silver at some times as it tended to yellow.

As it happened Louis trusted Robert to watch Blade, and when Blade was going to London or Milan or Paris Robert trusted John to control her. It had been rare that Blade and Robert spent time alone together. He always knew where she was, and if she made an appearance in public he was most often with her, but she slept in her own apartment while he lived with Steven, very rarely returning to the Necropolis to sleep.

Louis only occasionally showed. They might be at the gallery, and he would just appear, or they would see him across the street watching. He was not always alone, but he never had any of the family with him. Once Robert saw him with the young painter whom he had given Louis' number to outside a Parson's School of Design building on Fifth Avenue. That was the school the girl, Julia, would be going to in the fall.

On one rare night Blade came up to Steven's penthouse actually wanting to see Robert. He had been reading a comic. "Sandman special!" Blade had said happily as she snatched it from him. They had spoken about Death and the fact that Desire looked ugly as drawn in the book, whereas usually this character had a certain androgyny and flawless symmetry to its face that was rather beautiful. Blade thought Louis might make a good Desire, while Robert was surprised Blade did not mention his sister. (But Blade did not often see Niki.) No one mentioned Robert's eyes.

Blade started undressing, she curled up in Robert's lap and bit into his neck, mentioned, as she held her fingers over the wound, that boy Daniel she had first seen him kill, asked again why he'd done it. And before he might answer she confessed she had lately been watching rented vampire movies. Robert didn't try to answer, but expecting Steven would be embarrassed if he saw them there he lifted Blade and took her into his bedroom.

Troy was lying on the bed, but moved aside when they lay down. The wolf slept a lot, and Robert worried at times that it was cruel to keep the wolf in the city.

Blade and Robert lay in the bed, Blade wanting the top, of course, and bit at each other, swallowed what came out of each other's wounds and scratched and tickled each other's flesh, this was love making to vampires. When a vampire drinks from another, and keeps on sucking there is no death. The one who drinks will feel the other's heart speeding. It speeds trying to get the smaller volume of blood to keep all the parts of he body awake and moving. The heart will not slow, not as it does in a Human where the heart slows and slows until you feel the heart stop and one last gush of blood enter you. But after a point the vampire heart will falter, it will go faster and faster until it's like a constant fluttering machine, and then it will skip a beat, and it will lull, the body will go stiff. And when you drink of this heart and the skips come and then the low, the pulsing that has been taking over your body silences, and it is a little death.

Drinking in turns, allowing the lull to come trusting the blood will be offered to you in turn, it is quite a bit like sex, different, but emotionally it has the same impact.

This is what they did.

And then, unlike Humans, not the least bit exhausted Blade took Robert's penis into her mouth, knowing she could draw blood from it, draw the blood into the organ till it hardened as a Human's, and then take the blood from him in a single spurt. Robert grinned at her and parted Blade's legs. In an instant she knew what was happening. He licked at her, put pressure on the thin membranous tissues till blood seeped from them and sucked it from her. This was not something dead, she thought, she could feel this, it wasn't going to bring her to mortal orgasm, but she'd already experienced the equivalent time and time again just drinking Robert's blood from the vein, still this was a good feeling, like being kissed, actually better.

And just as Robert was doing this, and Blade was thinking that maybe he had felt something that time in her bedroom, the phone beside the bed rang. Blade reached for it held the receiver to her ear. It was John. "John...I'm kinda busy now," she said slowly.

"No, wait, don't hang up, Jules is on the other line," John said quickly.

"My brother..." Blade said.

"I'm putting him on three way," said John.

"No-wait-" Blade started but John had already done it. "Oh, hey Jou Jou," she said happily as she could. Robert guessed if he called her Baby then it wasn't surprising she called him by a silly name too.

"Sorry, I can't talk long, do collect calls show up on your phone bill?"

Blade moaned, tried to hold the phone out of hearing distance. "Are you grounded from the phone again?"

"What are you doing, girl?" He laughed, "I'm always grounded."

"I sorta have someone here, but go on..." She reached down and pushed Robert's face away from her.

Her brother was gasping and stuttering, "Ohmigod, Oh, Jesus, you really have someone there? I didn't mean-"

"Just tell me why you had to call."

"Well remember you said I could come live with you?"

Robert had crawled up to lie beside Blade and had actually heard this. He waited for Blade to answer. She just went silent, held the phone away. And at the same time brother and lover both said, "Blade?"

She was shaking her head, "I told him," she mouthed, "but he'll know. He'll know."

Robert shook his head. "We'll think of something, just talk to him, he'll think something's wrong if you don't."

She lifted the phone. "Julien...I remember I was just explaining to Robert that I'd promised that to you."

"Well, I'm really sure now, I need to come there, for a month or something if you don't want me to stay...I got into school...don't tell Mom and Dad. They-Mom and Dad, like, wanted me to go to this other school, and I didn't even take the right classes in High School-Sorry, I'm sorry, so, like, anyway, are you sure I could come there?"

"Yeah, when?"

"Oh, not till August, I'll call before then...hey, is it him with you, I mean the guy in the papers? I mean...that stuffs not usually true, right, but I think it's funny that they make up these stories about you, and that guy, Jewel or something, vampires, right?" He was laughing.

"Yeah, Robert's here with me."

"He's really-ya know-well I mean I'm sure you think he's good looking."

"Yeah," said Blade. She screwed up her face as she looked at Robert. "Ya know, he's a strange kid, has all these friends who wear black lace and purple lipstick," she said silently.

"I gotta go, now. Bye," he said quickly. Blade lay the receiver down slowly.

"I'm serious, Robert, Julien'll know, we've always been close in that way."

"Well, if you want, we could go see Louis, he's better at these things. I'm sure there's a way you could fool him, but Blade, remember what happened to Ariella..."

Blade shook her head. "I just want him to live a normal life, that's all I want, if I have to throw him out of the house as soon as he can find his own place, or if I have to leave the country...anything, but he can't know, can't be hurt in any way."

Robert nodded slowly. "How old is he?"

"Julien?...three years younger than me...22 in October I guess."

"And he's grounded? What's he doing living at home?"

Blade looked upset. "I don't know!" She said loudly, "I don't even talk to my parents. My father doesn't even like him talking to me, he thinks my friends are all...you know...the wrong crowd. I told you, my father's an asshole."

b b b

Louis was expecting them. He sat on the steps where the platform went up into the old station entrance that was their living room-an entire token booth had been taken apart and was right now reassembled on the platform-the platform below was strew with tools, cement dust, and gunk. Troy bounded up the stairs ahead of them in pursuit of a rat. Louis looked down at the rubble. "I'm thinking of putting in a pool," he said.

"We need to talk to you," Blade said.

Louis stood slowly, he was wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket and thin biker shorts, nothing else, only a large gold crucifix about his neck. He brushed hair back over his ear. "OK, what do you want?"

Louis walked up to the living room and sat in the wing chair that sat cattycorner to the green sofa. He pulled his feet up into the chair with him and picked at his fingernails. He was trying to look very calm and uninterested, Robert noticed the effort.

"My brother, he's going to come live with me, I need for him to be convinced I'm normal, that everything's usual."

"And you need me for that? Humans are so easy to trick."

"No, no mindfucks!"

"We've spoken to Steven," Robert said, as they had just been to see Steven, "Blade wouldn't have room in her apartment, so Steven said we would be able to get the second penthouse in his building, it was vacated at the beginning of the year, and no one's taken up the lease. I thought, we thought, if we pretended we were married-"

"Married?" Louis asked, illusion of calmness all gone. "You and Blade?"

Blade took a step toward Louis and bent down to his level, "It was my idea, Louis, and Robert agreed, it'll be easier if we pose as a married couple, it won't look quite so strange if I took in my brother then."

"What, you're concerned about his image? Or afraid the papers will say he's Robert's new boyfriend?"

"They wouldn't say that, why would they say that?"

"Chill, Blade, they say it about everyone. Everyone thinks my father a slut." Louis flashed a smile up at Robert. "You know there's the marriage license thing, and the marriage, better make it one of those secret weddings that celebrity's have, not to mention the actual posing as Human to someone who lives in the same house as you."

Robert bent to his son's side. "You can do this, Lou, didn't I fool your mother? And you're better than I am, you can help Blade, teach her the tricks, get documents for us, you're so good at that."

"Kissass. You think I don't know I'm good at this? You think I haven't lived with Humans many more times than you. Shit, I've fucked people and still kept them thinking I was Human."

Robert stood smiling. "Louis is good at faking."

And Louis felt he should prove this to Blade, eyelids fluttered as he screamed: "Yeeeeaasss!" He laughed then. "I can almost pull of being a woman, too."

"I'm sure," said Blade. "You gonna help us or not?"

Louis nodded. "Some conditions are in order..."

Blade folded her arms across her chest. "What?"

"OK, for the duration of the experiment you are to cease all crime-fighting activity."

Blade shook her head.

Louis nodded his slowly, "Yes."

"Yes, OK. I'll stop."

"And you do as I say, if I say get out of the city within the hour, you do it, if I say get up at four in the mourning and kill this person, you do it."

"You will not tell me how to kill."

"But I'll tell you when...if I like."

"Ah! If it's good for the plan...and don't call it an experiment."

Louis just waved this whole line of argument away. "All right, I'm in. How bout you tell me about your brother, we'll need to know about him if we want to all pull this off. If you start making plans like for a wedding, you better give me notice. Don't you ever call me in the middle of the day and say you need anything by that night."

b b b

Blade and Louis sat in the living room discussing the plan. It was decided immediately that Blade should tell only her friends about the marriage, let the story leak out just to a few people, so when she and Robert suddenly moved in together and claimed to be married it would not be so shocking that they drew more attention with the mystery. Louis suggested Valentine's Day. He'd always thought it an exquisitely romantic day, and often gifted loved ones with real hearts.

It became obvious that Blade knew many stories about her brother as a child, that they used to play Ringeleveo every night in the summers, that he was very cute, that he'd once got into Mom's make-up and made a huge mess: Blade thought there was a picture of this somewhere. But beyond the day she'd moved to New York there were very few stories. She could describe vividly seeing him on Thanksgivings and Christmases. She could describe the horrible Thanksgiving smells, and the arguments the large extended family got into, could recall the brand of beer they had snuck up to Julien's room and drank, and the songs they'd listened to, but could not really say what sort of person her brother was.

She went on and on about the special significance Christmas had always had for both of them. That Julien used to call Jesus, The Magic Baby, until their father yelled at him one Christmas.

She could describe the strange friends he had, could point out that the backyard pool had never lacked girls around it, that she'd scarred Julien for life by buying him a Depeche Mode album when he was young and that it was his favorite group now. She could describe the very last time she had seen him, the day she and John had driven out to the Island and told Blade's parents that they were moving in together. They had gotten the wrong idea entirely and out of anger Blade had told her mother that John was gay and that anyway he was her very best friend and it was a lot safer living with him than with Richard who had been her agent and temporary guardian.

She said Julien had been in the basement with his girlfriend, a small Puerto Rican girl who looked an odd match for the tall blonde. He'd taken a copy of Vogue from John that had Blade on the cover. She could remember exactly how it felt to hold Julien that one last time.

Dad had thrown her out.

Every time she spoke to Julien after that he sounded strange and horrified, as if living in the house without her was now like being in Hell itself. He'd taken that girl, Kara, to the Junior prom, but the next year their parents had taken him out of public school and he'd gone to a military boarding school.

Blade said something had gone on in that house when Julien was sixteen, even Julien couldn't tell her what. Blade could only guess that it was something to do with the fact that Julien had refused to take the sort of classes Dad wanted, that he had sabotaged his chances of going to some big famous university and becoming a lawyer. She said it should be understood that this was made worse by the fact Dad said that Blade was "lost" and he was all the more determined not to lose his son.

She expected because he'd always been an odd child, and all his friends were so strange looking that he wanted to do something like go to art school, which to Dad would be blasphemous.

And Blade added last that Julien had never minded being called Jules, that only she called him Jou Jou whereas a lot of people called her Baby, and that if you ever said his name as Julianne he would try to hurt you. She said she wasn't sure about calling him Jule, she had no idea what his friends called him.

That was all she really knew.