Chapter 20. Vampire Junction

Aster took very little from the Zoo when she went with Daniel Wolfkiller. Her bow and arrows. Some spare Zookeeper's uniforms. Her best knife. She had wanted to take the surgical tools from the medical building, and some axes, saws, and other tools from the sheds around the zoo, but the older man refused. There were plenty of such things lying around from Pre-War times, he said, and although the horse he had brought to the zoo was large (part Percheron, he said), he didn't want to burden it with much more weight than the two of them. Nor did he want to waste time either getting a lot of stuff, or having her tell him immediately about the Vampire, which he wasn't entirely certain actually existed. While it was true that he lived in an age of dark miracles, and all manner of improbable (and usually unpleasant) things did exist, it was also true that Aster was half-mad with grief and abuse. The Vampire could simply be a figment of her imagination.

He did relent and go back into Aster's house again to get a small, glass framed photograph of Aster with her father and Thumb, taken when Aster had been much younger. Thumb was practically little more than a baby in it. Aster only glanced at the photograph to make sure it was the one she wanted, then stuck it in the bottom of one of the horse's saddlepacks. She didn't want to look into the eyes of her father and sister. Not yet. Not so soon.

Wolfkiller took some clothes out of another saddlepack. A rough, homespun dress and a coat made from a cut-up pre-war blanket crudely stitched together.

"Put these on." He told Aster. She gave him a curious look and he explained. "Sorry, but that Zookeeper's uniform sticks out like a sore thumb, just now. Half the people in Dystopia know about the 'only one the Maestro ever kneeled to'. Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't hunted you down for that. Just to stop the talk. I suppose he has other things on his mind."

"He has a lot on his mind." Aster said in a dark tone.

The older man gave her a curious look, but didn't ask her exactly what it was the Maestro had on his mind. He turned his back so that she could undress. "Well, regardless, you're famous, you know. Half the people in Dystopia know about you, if not where you are. They think the Zoo is cursed, which is lucky for you. Keeps them from poking around here. If they did know about you, most of them would probably sell you back to the Maestro for a pound of meat."

"They'd probably get the kuru." Aster muttered, her tone darker. Daniel Wolfkiller, not having her education, didn't know what 'kuru' was, and assumed it was some sort of slang term (or in Aster's particular case, possibly some sort of medical term) he was personally unfamiliar with for vomiting or other problems caused by eating either rotten or undercooked meat. Not surprising. Food, especially meat, was becoming very scarce, and it wasn't surprising that desperation would lead starving people to eat meat that was tainted.

After Aster had stripped out of her Zookeeper's uniform and put on the shabbier clothes, the older man helped Aster get onto the horse. She had ridden a horse, before, of course, but never one as large as the part-Percheron mongrel, and could barely get her toe into the stirrup.

"Should have rigged this for you." He muttered, lifting her upwards with no difficulty onto the rear seat of the double saddle. He himself had no problems getting on the horse, being 8 inches taller than Aster's own 5 foot 9 inch height. Besides, he was used to the height of the animal. He got onto the horse, in front of Aster. He needed to be able to see and control the animal.

"We'll both ride until we get about a mile from the city." The former stable master told Aster over his shoulder. "We need to get some distance between ourselves and him. After that, we'll have to take turns walking and riding. There's a long way to go, and I don't want the horse getting exhausted."

"A long way to go…" Aster thought about that. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Somewhere safe."

"Nowhere is safe." Aster said, and snorted slightly. Though of course she knew that wasn't quite true, but the few safe places that did exist were next to impossible to get to. "If we stay in the city, he'll find us. If you go to the Outside, he'll find us. If you go to the Beyond…" She enunciated the term for the poisonous, radioactive lands that were past even the parched farmland surrounding Dystopia where unfortunate farmers were forced to scratch a living for the few years they could manage it, "He probably won't find us, but he won't have to. We'll die of radiation in days, or weeks."

"We're going close to the Beyond." Wolfkiller said. "Perhaps it's even in the Beyond. But nobody comes there, and there's no radiation. Or at least, not very much."

"Everywhere in the Beyond has radiation." Everyone knew that. Scavengers who were driven by desperation to get Pre-War jewelry, or even just plain metals, had a remarkably short lifespan.

"Not here." The man shook his head. Seeing that Aster still didn't believe him, he offered her proof. "When we first found the place, it was infested with rats. And there's fish. Small ones, not very good for eating. But neither the rats, nor the fish, nor the bugs were mutated or sick."

"Hmmm." Aster thought about it. If a rat could live somewhere, probably a man could live. She hoped. They were both mammals, after all. "How can that be? What is this place, some sort of undergound bunker, like Rick Jones had."

"Nothing so obvious." In Wolfkiller's opinion, Jones had been a great fool, who had brought his own fate on himself. "It's an abandoned mine. An iron mine, I think."

"In the Catskill Mountains?" That would explain a great deal. The Outside, which the Maestro's various technological devices had at least somewhat cleared of radiation, extended for tens of miles, and the Catskill Mountains were near the edge of that area. The green monster needed that much farmland, given the poor production of the land, to keep himself and Dystopia supplied with food. Though his foolish policies during the past century were making that nearly impossible, despite the lesser radiation.

Aster didn't understand why the Maestro didn't improve his devices, and get rid of more of the radiation in the Outside. Or clear a larger area of radiation. Or something. That way there would be more food, and he wouldn't have to now be resorting to cannibalism.

But then…

What makes you think he's resorting to it? Came a mocking voice in her head. What makes you think he has any objection to it at all? Has he ever displayed any morality or regret over the thing's he's done? Very likely, he likes what he's doing. As for getting rid of more radiation… what should he do that for? He was created by radiation. It makes him stronger. Why should he get rid of more of it? For our sakes? Don't make me laugh, girl.

Why indeed, should the Maestro do things for the sake of other people, and not himself? Aster tried to think of a reason. She did things, or had once, for her sister and father, but she loved them. The Maestro didn't love anybody except himself.

He needs us. She pointed out to the mocking voice in her head. After all, it was ordinary, weak human beings who grew his food and made most of his devices for him.

The mocking voice just laughed. Oh, yes. He does. But do you honestly think that HE knows that? Or would even admit it to himself if he DID know it?

No, it was true enough. The Maestro would never admit to needing anybody. That would be showing vulnerability, and it was quite clear to Aster that he would never do that, for any reason. He had let his own son die, rather than show any vulnerability by doing the one thing that might have saved him, changing back into his human form so he could give the premature infant a blood transfusion.

The two horse mounted travellers went a few miles from the Zoo, then Daniel Wolfkiller stopped the horse in an old, Pre-War railroad yard that existed near the outer fringes of Dystopia. There were several engines and cars, some still on the tracks, some fallen over for various reasons. Most had been partially stripped of metal. He got off the horse, then helped Aster off and led it by the reins past several box cars that were fallen at various angles, as if bringing them into the interior of a maze, then stopped them at a point where they could not possibly be seen from outside the train yard.

"We'll stop here for the night." He said to Aster, as he used a rope to tie the horse to a sturdy looking piece of metal that jutted from one of the boxcars "I need to feed and water the horse."

Aster had noticed grain in the saddlebags, but wasn't clear on where the water would come from. The few canteens she had seen in the saddlebags were barely enough for her and the older man for the trip to the Catskill Mountains. As if in answer to her question, Wolfkiller went into a nearby boxcar, and came out carrying four large, pre-War plastic bottles. The bottles contained 5 gallons each, and were in two pairs, each tied together with a thick leather strap. It was by this strap that the older man held the bottles, one pair for each of his hands. Aster was impressed. She had carried such bottles before, but always only one at a time. Those things were heavy when they were full, and here was Wolfkiller, slinging them around four of them as if they weighed no more than the canteens in the saddlbags.

Of course, the Maestro could have easily lifted those bottles, or an entire Pre-War tanker truck full of water for that matter, but he was a Gamma. Some sort of freak. It was actually far more impressive when a normal man did it. Not noticing, or perhaps not caring that Aster was impressed by the fact that he could lift 160 pounds, Wolfkiller set the bottles down, went back into the boxcar, and brought out a two barrels that had been sawn in half, one large and one small. He set them down near the horse, poured some grain from the saddlebag into one barrel, then poured half the water from one of the bottles into the other barrel, and let the horse have at it.

Aster watched this curiously. "Why didn't you let the horse have all the water?" It seemed strange for him to go to the trouble of carrying so many heavy bottles out, if he wasn't going to even use them all.

"Let me tell you about the three easiest ways to kill a horse." Wolfkiller said as he dug some grubby looking jars of food out of the saddlebags. "First way is to give it all the water it wants to drink. Second way is to give it all the grain that it wants to eat. The third way is to let it run itself to death. Which it will, if you're fool enough to tell it to."

The horse had slurped up most of the water, and was trying to lick the dregs off the bottom of the barrel.

"I'll give it more, later." He said to Aster. He set two jars and a leather package on the ground. "Baked beans, baked possum, and dried apples. We'll have to eat them cold. It's getting dark, and a fire will show. And heating the food will increase the scent."

Wolfkiller twisted the jars open and handed one lid to Aster. Apparently she was supposed to use it as a plate, as there was nothing else. There was no silverware, either. Not even a stick. Aster shrugged and poured some beans out of the jar onto the lid, then dumped some of the possum meat on top of it. She used one finger to scoop it into her mouth. The cold beans tasted awful, and the cold possum tasted worse, almost as if she were eating something that had been sprayed on by a skunk.

The baked apples actually tasted pretty good, almost like a desert, and Aster wished she could have had only that, but it wouldn't have been fair to Daniel Wolfkiller for her to have all the apples while he got stuck with the bad tasting food. Besides which, she knew she needed the protein and fats in the beans and meat, no matter how badly it tasted.

It could be worse. She thought. She could still be in the Maestro's palace, and unknowingly, or worse yet, knowingly, eating human flesh. She liked to think she would die before doing such a thing, but who really knew. People did all manner of horrible things when they were desperate or frightened enough and until you were in that situation, you didn't really know for sure what you would do.

On the other hand, it could also have been a hell of a lot better. Aster thought with regret about some of the best meals she had had with her father and sister, around Christmas, with a big piece of roast buffalo that had had to be culled, and carrots, and onions, and pickles, and apple cider and raisin pie with sugar sprinkled on top.

She sighed and took another bit of cold, stinky baked possum. It was most definitely not roast buffalo with onions. Far from it. She took a few slices of dried apple, chewed them slowly to get the worst of the taste out of her mouth, then washed it down with some water. She handed the lid back, so it could be put onto the jar again.

Wolfkiller apparently was either more used to the taste of the possum, or, being larger than Aster, had more of an appetite. He ate about twice what she did, belched, then without apologizing, leaned back against the side of a boxcar and regarded Aster curiously.

"So…" He said. "You mentioned someone you said could kill the Maestro. A Vampire. Tell me about him."

"I said he could possibly kill the Maestro." Aster corrected the older man.

He waved away her grammatical objections. "Nothing in life is certain. Possibly I could get a hangnail tomorrow and die from infection. Possibly I could live for another fifty years and die in bed. Tell me about him anyways."

There was so much to tell, Aster wasn't sure where to start. "What do you want to know?"

"Start with exactly how you know about this Vampire." Knowing her sources would do a great deal towards determining if the Vampire really existed, or was simply a figment of a deranged imagination. "Then explain exactly why you think it is, what abilities he has, that you think might let him kill the Maestro."

"Well… it's a long story." Aster said. She let her memory go back, and began explaining how she had first learned that Michael Morbius was still alive. She started by telling how she had seen his clothes… but not his body… when she and her family had been forced to parade through the Hall of Fallen Heroes, after the Maestro had killed the Hulk. How she had found the book 'Fundamentals of Biochemistry' in Doctor Llewellyn's library, and the name of the author 'Michael Morbius' had seemed familiar to her. How she had learned from Betty 31 that she and her family and friends had fled to Dystopia from Milwaukee, despite the latter being a paradise full of plants and animals, out of fear of a Vampire. A Vampire called Michael Morbius.

The same man, the same tragic man, who had written 'Fundamentals of Biochemistry' once upon a time, but had been forced by his own need for human blood to kill.

Wolfkiller interrupted her there. "Aster… I believe that this Vampire exists. But I don't see how he could kill the Maestro. I see that he's killed plenty of people, and why Betty 31's people would be afraid of him, but killing regular people is easy. From what you say, the guy's strong, stronger than any ordinary person, but pretty much a wimp compared to the Maestro. Finding him or bringing him here won't help things. In fact, it'll make things worse, because we'll have two monsters killing us instead of one."

Aster looked around at the remains of the rusting trains, that had once served a vital, industrial nation. Before the war. A passage from the book she loved so much came back to her. It had had a man, Eddie she thought his name had been, alone, like her, with a train engine that no longer ran. He had offered a prayer, maybe to the god of trains. In the name of the best within us...I must now start this train!

Aster offered her own prayer, to whatever god existed for slaves and murderers like herself. In the name of what is best in us, and in the world, I must now convince Wolfkiller of what needs to be done.

She remembered in the books, that the gods had not listened to Eddie. He had never been able to start the train. Hopefully she would have better luck.

"Monster… the term's relative." Aster said to Wolfkiller. "I killed a woman. Betty 31. Am I a monster?"

"By some standards… yes. But you didn't really have a choice. You did what you had to, to survive."

"Morbius doesn't really have a choice, either. He's…" Aster tried to think of the words that would convince Wolfkiller, so that she would succeed where the man in the book had failed, in what needed to be done. "He's like us. When we're given a 'choice' of what to do by the Maestro. When I got to 'choose' what to do about Betty 31. When you got to 'choose' whether to give him your wife or daughter."

"That's the really awful thing about the Maestro. Not what he does to us, but what he makes us do. And the horrible part is, there's always a choice. And he takes our love and our nobility, and our weakness and our fear, and sets things up so that we have just enough weakness and fear to make the wrong choice, and just enough love and nobility to hate ourselves for it."

"I thought the Maestro was the devil once, you know. And maybe I was right. That's what the devil does. Gives people a 'choice', lets them have their free will, but sets things up so any choice is bad. And this Vampire, this man, Michael Morbius, in some ways is worse off than we are. He has his own built in Maestro, that he can never get away from. It gives him the same sort of horrible 'choice': He needs to drink human blood, or he'll die. From what I read about him, he spent decades trying to cure himself. He doesn't want to kill. He doesn't enjoy it like the Maestro. And he damn sure doesn't go around raping women to death, or burning people alive, or putting them on a spit and eating them!"

Very little surprised Daniel Wolfkiller, but the last thing Aster said did. He started slightly. "The Maestro's a… cannibal? I'd heard stories… but there's always rumors in Dystopia."

"I know a human body when I see one." Aster said. "Even when it's been cut into pieces."

He sighed. "It doesn't really matter. From what you say, they're both cannibals. If I'm dead, it doesn't really make any difference to me what part of me is eaten or drunk, or what reasons my killer had for doing it, or whether he enjoyed it or is sorry."

"Actually, it makes a great deal of difference. Potentially, I might be able to get Michael Morbius to stop killing."

"How?" Wolfkiller snorted. "Convince him to starve himself to death? Commit suicide? Lots of luck with that, if he were inclined to that, he'd have offed himself a long time ago. Sorry, he's a monster. Same sort as you and me. He wants to survive."

"He wants to survive. He needs blood. He doesn't want to kill people. In fact, not everyone he attacks dies from it. Some of them survive. Which he and everyone else ought to have been paying attention to, but they kept making the same basic mistake, back before the war. Kept thinking that he should stop drinking blood. Well, if I had my hands on him, I wouldn't make that mistake. I'd try the one thing they never did."

"Praying?" The word was a sneer.

"No, although it wouldn't hurt. But no. I'd offer him a choice. I'd feed the poor bastard."

"Feed him… Aster, your brain's addled. You can't be serious!"

"I assure you, I'm completely serious."

"You'd be dead in less than a week! Probably less than three days. You don't have that much blood. Nobody does."

"Correction. No oneperson does." She waited until she saw comprehension in Wolfkiller's eyes. "But it is possible."

"Possible, maybe." Wolfkiller shook his head. "But nobody's going to go along with that. Being sucked on by some sort of human leech. Well, maybe you would, but you're too damn logical for your own good. Most people aren't like you. They think with their feelings, and they aren't going to tolerate being cattle. Being fed on."

"Yes, that's a terrible concept. Obviously completely intolerable." Aster's sarcasm was obvious. "Next time your daughter has a baby, make sure she doesn't nurse it. In fact, tell her you'd rather have your next granddaughter raped to death by the Maestro, and your next grandson roasted on a spit, rather than give a pint or two of blood. It can't be because you're a selfish coward. I mean, you're willing to hand over your own wife to get ripped apart by the Maestro's gamma spawn, you're willing to use a fourteen year old girl who's being repeated raped as a spy without even asking her. But give a little blood? Well, obviously that would be going quite too far."

The older man's face darkened at the mention of the terrible choice he had been forced to make regarding his wife. He clenched his fist, raised it slightly, then forced it down again with an obvious effort of will. "God damn you to hell."

"Then I'm right. You would feed a Vampire, with your own blood, to destroy the Maestro."

"I'd let him rip my throat out, to do that. Hell, half the people in Dystopia would." He got up, fished a small metal flask out of one of the saddlebags, sat back down with it, and took a drink. "Bloody hell. You're right. You're a ruthless little bitch, and a shameless manipulator, but you're right. I was wrong. Plenty of people would go along with it. If you put it that way. If they thought it would kill the Maestro… if. You still haven't explained why or how you think he can do that. It's not as if he's strong enough to take him on in a fight."

"Well, that's the really interesting part." Aster said. "The thing is, although it's the most obvious and tragic thing about him, Morbius's need to drink blood is actually probably the least interesting thing about him. It's understandable why the pre-War people did it, but calling him a Vampire, because he needs to drink blood, was really pretty simple-minded of them. It would be as if you were to call a human being a 'omnivore' because we eat both meat and plants. There's plenty of omnivores, and what people happen to eat is a very minor part of what we do, and what we are capable of."

Aster then spent the next hour or so trying to explain to Daniel Wolfkiller what she had seen, what she had understood, from the files she had read about Morbius, and from what Betty 31 had told her about conditions in Milwaukee. About the Vampire's brilliant, and terrible potential. The older man interrupted her frequently with questions, often having to get her to spend five minutes to explain the meaning of some obscure medical term or the other. Finally, he sat, thinking, occasionally taking a small sip of whatever liquor was in his flask.

Possibly Morbius could take on the Maestro and win. The Vampire, for whatever reason, had just the right combination of abilities to do that. Almost as if he had been deliberately designed as a failsafe for something like the Maestro. But it would be terribly hard. It would cost so much. Aster seemed to know that, but the former stable master wondered if she knew just how hard it would be. How much it would cost, and what sort of price. He wasn't sure if she did. Likely, she didn't. Aster understood objects and animals. Brilliantly. She understood people very poorly, and the psychology of human maleness not at all. Possibly he should tell her exactly what it was likely to cost… but no. Telling her wouldn't change anything, and he wanted this thing done. It was using the girl, but he had children and grandchildren. Besides, there was nothing the Vampire could do to Aster that could possibly be worse than what she had already suffered.

No. He would not tell her. Again, he'd use her. Poor, damned girl.

"So you're right." Wolfkiller said, screwing the cap back on the flask. "He could… possibly… destroy the Maestro. But it's a slim chance. Terribly hard. And there would be such a high price to pay. For him. And not just for him. I don't know if he, or anyone, would be willing to pay it. We're all monsters. All of us. Him. You. Me. Everyone left in the world. Monsters. Not heroes."

"It has to be done, though. If someone doesn't kill the Maestro, he's going to destroy the world." Aster thought about all the animals in the Zoo that had died. And all the animals that Betty 31 had said existed in Wisconsin, that would probably go straight into the Maestro's stomach if he ever found out about them.

"It should be done." Wolfkiller corrected. "That doesn't mean it has to be. Or that it can be, or will be. A lot of things that should be done, aren't, and a lot of things that shouldn't be done, get done anyways. Look at the world. The ancients quite obviously shouldn't have blown it up with nuclear weapons. But they did anyways."

Aster thought about this. She had thought she knew a way to help the Vampire to be better. To give him a real choice, a good choice, rather than all bad ones, like the Maestro did. But maybe that was just stupid kid wishful thinking. "Wolfkiller, do you think people ever learn to be any better? Do you think anyone ever does? Or is everyone just stupid, and a monster forever, and we all go on making the same dumb mistakes and doing the same dumb things, over and over, in our lives, and in history."

The question made him look like he wanted to open the flask again. "You hated me when you were ten. Or was it twelve? No matter. Do you still hate me?"

Aster thought about this. "I don't really like you. You… confuse and disappoint me. That's the best way to put it. But hate you…?" She sighed. "Hate's a very personal emotion, at least with me. Like love. Or what my father said about respect. It actually has to be earned. I hate the Maestro. And several of his guards, because of what they did to me. I can't just 'hate' people who never really did anything that bad to me, because of some personal disgust that's really probably no more important than my disgust for certain types of food. Doing that sort of reduces the value of hate, just like loving people I never met, because a preacher says I should, reduces the value of love."

"Well, there's your answer. You change at least. It takes you a long time, and going through hell to get there, but you do change."

"You said other people don't think like me." Aster pointed out.

"They don't. But they don't need to. They have you."

"I don't think I want to do other people's thinking for them." Aster said. "It's hard work, and they don't listen to me most of the time anyways. And it just slows me down for doing the sort of thinking I want to do for myself."

"Listen.." Wolfkiller said. "You want to find this Vampire and feed him, right?"

"I think we have to."

"Then you're going to need people. You're going to need to convince them. And it won't be easy. Oh, they'll probably do it. To keep their sons and daughters away from the Maestro, they'll do it. But you'll have to convince them. I'll help you. Lord knows you're terrible dealing with people. I'll help you with that. But you're the one with the knowledge."

"Besides," he went on. "This place Betty came from, Milwaukee, sounds a hell of a lot better than here. It gives us somewhere to go to. The people I'm staying with have been wanting to leave here for a long time. We had a place to go… but I think Milwaukee is a better idea. For several reasons. And if things don't work out with the Vampire the way you want them to… well we can always kill him. Probably the Maestro will eventually find us and kill us with him gone, but maybe not for years, or even decades. A few years, living like decent people, instead of in this hell, is worth having. People will give almost anything, for a few more years for themselves, and their family, when they're looking death in the face."

Aster had gotten alert halfway through what Wolfkiller said. Alarm bells went off in her head. "Kill the Vampire? You can't do that!"

"I can, and I will, if you can't get him to stop killing people."

"No! You can't!" Aster insisted. "Don't you understand? He's the reason why Milwaukee is the way it is. He's why everything there is alive. But he's not finished with what he did. We need him to finish."

"That's…" He shook his head. "That's impossible. I can see how he could kill the Maestro. Maybe. From what you said. But how can he make miles of plants and animals grow. Even the Maestro can't do that. Not even if he had ten times the radiation shields he had. No-one can do that."

"I thought so, too. I thought Betty was raving when she told me about the plants and animals in Wisconsin. But it is possible. When I read Morbius's files, I saw how he could do it. And of course, he would do it. Despite being a monster. Or maybe because he's a monster. He needs human blood to live. That means he has to keep humans alive."

Wolfkiller scratched his head. He thought he might be getting lice again. "I don't get it. How can he do this? From what you said, he's raving mad. He's hardly going to be running radiation shields, and even if he were, where would he get the power to run them? The shielding the Maestro has up takes a large chunk of the hydro plant over by Niagara Falls. Now, I know that some idiot politicians right before the War acted like there was an electricity fairy, but there isn't."

"Don't think physics." Aster gave him a slight grin. "Think biology."

Wolfkiller raised his arms helplessly. "Does he plug radiation shielding into trees?"

Aster's grin widened. "Nothing so complex." She then proceeded to tell him some of the things Morbius had done during his life. Finding cures, or making cures. And to some things, the vampire himself was a cure.

"That's sounds more complex than an electricity tree." The older man finally groused, folding his arms. What Aster had told him was possible. Maybe. And if it were true, it did need to be finished.

"There's nothing in it that he can't do, though. That he hasn't done before."

"He sounds dangerous. More dangerous than the Maestro, if you ask me."

"Everything useful is dangerous." Aster said. "By definition. It's up to us to decide how to use it."

"Sounds more to me like it's up to Morbius. I definitely don't like the sound of what you told me about him. Not one bit."

"Do you like the sound of the Maestro any better?"

"No." Wolkiller got up and put his flask back in the saddlebags, so he wouldn't be tempted to have any more. He got out a few rough blankets, and tossed two of them to Aster. It was dangerous. And horrible. But maybe that's all monsters like him deserved. And it was a chance. "At least the Vampire will kill us quickly. Or do whatever it is he decides to do with us quickly, and we won't really care after that. So it won't really matter. I'd rather have that for my family, than what's waiting for us here."

"Go to sleep." He told Aster. "In the morning, we need to go back into Dystopia."

"I thought we were going to the Catskill Mountains." Aster didn't like the thought of going back towards the Maestro, rather than away from him, as fast and as far as possible."

"We are. But first we need to find some people."

"Some people you know?" Aster could understand his wanting to get friends or relatives away from a mad Maestro turned cannibal.

He shook his head. "Some people you told me about. Betty 31's family and friends."

Aster frowned. She had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, maybe she could make up for what she had done to poor Betty 31, by warning her family and friends how insanely dangerous the Maestro had now become, and getting them somewhere relatively safe. On the other hand, she didn't really know them, and it was dangerous to go back into the city. She was no hero. She was afraid. But she would do it anyways.

But why was Wolfkiller doing it? He wasn't the one who had killed Betty 31. He didn't have any guilt to assuage.

"Why are you going to get them?" Aster said.

"Two reasons." The man raised one finger. "First of all, like I said, the people I'm with have a place they're planning to flee to. I think Milwaukee is a better place to go to, for several reasons. But they've been making their plans for months, and will need a lot of convincing to change their minds. More than just the two of us. Getting Betty 31's family to talk to them will help change their minds."

Aster nodded. It made sense. "What's the second reason?"

Wolfkiller raised a second finger. "War… or rather, avoiding one. From what you tell me, there's a lot of people already in Milwaukee. People defend their territory, or most of them do. If we go to Milwaukee, they aren't going to be happy about us just showing up and moving in. They'd probably try to kill us. Or make slaves out of us. And there's more of them, than of us. If we bring some of their own back, their own people, that we've saved from a monster worse than their Vampire, then they've got a reason to be grateful. It's a way to buy our way in."

"So you're using them." Aster said. It was a statement, not an accusation. It was the way things were. Wolfkiller had used her in the past, but she had also used him.

"I'm using them." He agreed. "I'm also helping them."

She said nothing. It was much what she had planned for the Vampire. And, if all went well, what he would be doing to, and for, everyone else. Maybe a fair trade was all that monsters could hope for. They lacked the nobility for pure generosity.

"Fair enough." Aster finally said. She rolled herself up in the blankets, tucked one corner under her head, and went to sleep.