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time had lost all meaning to Mike. He had felt there were periods—moments, at least—when he was awake, but mainly he had slept; he had slept, nightmared, and dreamed scarlet dreams. The brothers Francezci: their rabid, grinning faces dripping blood!…the biting pain that Mike felt whenever one of them, sometimes both of them, were near…the burning pain in his throat, beneath his jawbone, sometimes in his wrist…the drowning sensation, of swirling into oblivion, spiralling away like a spider down a plug hole.
    He had been in a box—no, a coffin, in a cavern—a place that was sometimes lit, more often in darkness…and Mike had sensed something nearby that tossed and seethed and lusted. But lusted for what? Perhaps for him? And he’d felt empty and tired…so very tired. So tired indeed that later he would remember thinking: Is this death? Surely this is how death feels!
    But three days later, when Mike had woken up, he’d finally come to understand his error: that his initial weariness wasn’t death but merely the prelude to undeath! At which the brothers had told him how it was going to be from now on…
     

     
    They had been genuinely impressed, even the Francezci brothers, impressed by Mike’s so-called skills, his killer instinct: that he had tackled two of theirs and so damaged them as to incapacitate them however temporarily. A pair of bodyguards, vampires, albeit it “common” vampires, downed by a mere man—an entirely human being! And when he had learned what they were, those two, then he had understood what Francesco had meant with his words: “With his brain ruptured, he would be very definitely dead—as good a way as any to kill such as him…”
    “Such as him:” an undead creature of the night. In fact two of them, laid low by Mike but by no means permanently. And that was how they had recovered, or begun to recover, so quickly: by reason of a certain “something in their blood,” with which they had been “reborn, recreated,” by the Francezcis—just as Mike had now been recreated by them.
    And as Francesco had explained it to him down there in that deep cavern, after releasing him from the narrow crate where he had lain for three days and nights, “Oh, it has its advantages, Mike, but it also has certain disadvantages, naturally. For example: You are no longer your own man but belong to us; you are ‘in thrall’—as the saying goes—to the Francezcis. And for once and for always, throughout the rest of your life, you will obey us or suffer the consequences.
    “As for the advantages: You were strong, but now you are so much stronger! Your five senses, while they were very acute for a mere man, are now twice as sensitive…which is ample justification for what you said of our two men—our ‘boys,’ as you had it—who would certainly have had your measure had you been any less self-sufficient, less talented. You took them by surprise, yes, but that is no excuse; needless to say we were disappointed with their efforts. It seems they had grown soft in our service, slow and careless, and far too sure of themselves. But then again, they were the least and most recent of our thralls, who you won’t be seeing again…at least, not as they were.
    “So then: stronger, faster, more aware—with all of your passions doubled and redoubled, which you’ll use sparingly, and never indiscriminately—you are now a great deal more than you have ever been. And you will live…oh, a very long time! For you are undead, Mike, and will feed on the lives of others. But you must always remember: You can never show the world what you are. You will keep your name, your identity, of course, and you will ever retain the guise of an ordinary man; for anonymity is synonymous with longevity. But only let men see the real you—let them discover you for what you are—and they will hunt you down as others have been hunted before you.”
    Then Anthony had spoken up. “Mike Milazzo, while you were a