The modernized federal building was a tall, imposing structure fitted with lions at the main entrance. They were enormous, carved out of solid marble and with wind-tousled manes, an intimidating statement of judgment on all who passed through the revolving doors. Everyone except the night watchmen had gone home for the night, and he was on his rounds. There was an embossed elevator that took them most of the way, the ride made in absolute silence. The drive up had been much the same, them choosing not to look at one another, as if to do so would shatter their mutual agreement this had to be done. With a faint pinging sound, the doors rolled open and let them out into the upper hall.
There were several doorways that led into spacious offices marked with impressive names, and one that fed onto the roof. Josef turned the knob and glanced up the narrow flight of stairs that ascended to the outdoors. He could make out the faint glow of the city lights above them as they climbed, encouraging her to wait in the shadows as he stepped out onto the flat rooftop, abandoned except for pieces of piping that had been left from the last reconstruction. It was cold at such a height and his senses tingled, sensing the vampire long before he set eyes on him.
A single figure stood up on the low stone railing that formed the outer foundation, his long black coat rippling in the wind that blew in from the sea, carrying with it the scent of an impending storm. It was still miles out but Josef knew it would be there before the morning. He approached but did not speak, confident Tervain was aware of his presence. There was a long pause before the man turned toward him, and Josef could make out the high cheekbones, the arched brow and the wideness of his eyes. Tervain was a handsome man by most accounts, a little older in appearance for all he had seen and taken part in, but the dangerous allure had not worn off over his decades of concealment. He was charismatic, and always had been. It was one of his most dangerous attributes.
"And to think the government believed they had caught the last of the war criminals," Josef remarked as his companion stepped down from the ledge. There was a glint in his eye despite the seriousness of the situation. "All those Nuremburg trials and accusations, and they never realized the man responsible for most of the bloody terror had escaped. I wasn't even certain you had survived."
"It takes more than bullets to kill me, Josef, as you well know. Not even Hitler's incompetent assassins could take me down when they wanted to. They were so foolish to threaten me, but they paid for it with their lives, with their blood. Can you blame me for going into hiding from a world no longer tolerant of my ideals?" Tervain still retained a hint of his accent, just enough to remind Josef of Berlin before the war. The scent of hot bread on the breeze, issuing from vendors that crowded the streets, girls bicycling on their way to school, charming little street side shops run by polite shopkeepers. That world had been great once, but it had fallen beneath the Gestapo, and changed in the long years since. Berlin was now ravished with a sense of guilt, echoing with the footsteps of thousands of soldiers.
They were circling one another discreetly, maintaining distance between them at all times, but sizing one another up. Josef was much older and more experienced than his adversary, but the harsh realities of life had made Tervain strong, sharpening his instincts. There was no haste in this meeting, nothing to indicate the current beneath it was deadly, that they hated one another with an inhuman passion. One blended into the mortal world, eternally amused or repulsed by it but ever intrigued in its advances, while the other clung to the past, preferring to live in darkness.
"So many years abroad, and yet you come here. Why?" Josef was watching every slight movement the man made, becoming familiar with Tervain's tendencies. Each vampire was different in a fight, for what they had been in life impacted them in death, granting them unique strengths and abilities. Mick had speed and force, Josef had intellect, and Tervain possessed brutality and cunning.
Tervain was smiling, but it was not a reassuring turn of the lips, rather a cold one that did not quite reach his eyes. They were cold and hard, twin dark pools set into the prominence of his features. They were lifeless, like those of a shark swimming in the darkness of the seabed. "Is not America the land of opportunity?" he asked. "Men have come here for hundreds of years desiring to make a new life for themselves, to possess whatever it is they desire… wealth, power, influence. It was baptized in blood, those of the natives and the greedy, anyone who stood between humanity and their unceasing quest for meaning. Where there is opportunity, there is possibility, and I am no different than those that have come before me. But you would prefer I was still in Berlin, eh?"
"I would prefer you were in hell."
The panoramic view of the city around them was magnificent, so many lights glowing that the skies above were diminished in an ethereal golden haze. It was never completely dark in Los Angeles, but there were shadows enough for the creatures that prowled the streets. Retreating to the ledge overlooking the street so far below, Tervain said, "They are like ants, these humans … scurrying about the nest doing as they are told in the beginning, but as they grow older, they become more aware of the world, of the choices given to them every day. Some of them make terrible choices, Josef, and that is where true madness is born. Not in a glorious explosion so much as a single decision that opens the door to dark possibilities."
Tervain slipped his hands into the pockets of his trench coat, unmoving apart from the wind that teased the long tresses of his burnished hair. He was enjoying this moment, the acknowledgement that Josef was beginning to comprehend how and why this nightmare had begun, that it was because of sheer creativity and the vast opportunities of the modern world that he had brought his unique brand of violence to foreign shores. "You understand it now, don't you? You know why I have come for her."
"What I understand is that you have truly gone insane. What have you done with Carmilla?" Josef could not stand this a moment longer, listening to this madman attempt to justify his behavior, to attempt to make him see that it was no more than supply and demand, to believe humans were so callous that they might resent one another into an early grave. He wondered how Tervain had succeeded, how he had made contact with the desperate young men that turned to him for retribution against the women that had wronged them, that had humiliated them, that had refused their advances and flirtations. He wondered at a world in which a vampire might be hired to kill someone, but not to put a bullet in their brain or a knife in their gut, but to make it a slow and torturous death.
A snarl crossed his companion's features. The façade was at an end, the mask torn away to reveal the hideousness beneath, the air crackling with tension as the hair lifted on the back of their necks and they glared at one another. It was not the polite, distant society man that now stood before Josef, but the murderer of Auschwitz, the brilliant mind behind many of the modern forms of prolonged torture. "You pretend to understand these humans, to identify with them, even to like them, but deep in your soul, you know what they are, Josef, nothing more than animals!"
"Animals or not, you could not survive without them. Tell me where she is!"
He had not noticed that Blair was no longer in the shadows, but had crept across the roof behind him. He had not sensed her mood as it sharpened, her instincts as they tightened, her presence as it merged with another's, only knew where she was by the sound of her voice. "She is here," Blair cried out, perhaps to halt the intensity between them, to prevent what she feared would become violent. It drew their attention to her, and the crumpled figure at her feet. Carmilla was alive but half unconscious, lying there in her business suit, looking all the world as though she had just walked out of court. There was nothing in Josef that responded to seeing her like that, no emotion, no rush of concern, nothing, and that alone horrified him.
In the split second his head was turned, Tervain lunged for a man he had looked upon as an adversary for so many years, someone who in his eyes betrayed what it meant to be a vampire. His movements were quick despite the fact that he had not put them to such strenuous use in many years. Blair cried out a warning but it was not time enough to dodge the glancing blow, which brought out the vampire in him, a murderous expression returning to his eyes, a heightened sense of the area around him, an awareness of his adversary's strengths and weaknesses. He was barely aware of what was happening, only that they were moving as intricately as if they were dancing, but it was not friendship that prompted each step, each stroke.
There was blood around them, whose he could not know, only that pain was spiraling through his limbs as Tervain grasped the end of a piece of piping and struck him with it, forcing him to the ground. "STOP!" Blair screamed, and the demand alone caused the hand to cease its torment, his assailant lifting his gaze to find that she was leveling a revolver at his chest.
Amusement played across his face. "Do you really think a bullet is going to stop me, little girl?"
There was a hollow clang as the pipe hit the rooftop and bounced away, rolling to a stop against the edge of the railing. Blair backed up several paces as Tervain advanced toward her, her hand trembling but managing to keep the gun pointed squarely at his chest. His burning yellow eyes were terrifying, their murderous intentions clear but not enough to prompt her to squeeze the trigger. She was many things, but a murderer was not among them.
Josef watched through a pain-induced haze as Tervain snatched her by the throat, causing her to drop the weapon as he lifted her off the ground. He was choking her, but not tightly enough that she ceased to breathe, only that it was painful for her to do so. He pushed her against the side of the stairwell and went for her throat, but three shots rang out from the gun Blair had dropped, the one she had found in Josef's bedside table, the one he kept for his own protection, the one filled with silver bullets. It oozed from the wounds in his chest as Tervain staggered backwards, dropping Blair and looking in an absolute rage at Josef, who was still holding the smoking revolver. Three bullets was not enough to stop him, but it would slow him down.
Throwing the weapon to the ground and snatching up the piece of pipe, Josef struck Tervain across the chest with it. The movement was enough to send him crashing into the railing, bits of it giving way beneath his weight. One hand reached out and caught Josef by the arm as he fell, toppling over the edge of the roof and drawing his adversary after him. It was a long way into the street below, the impact breaking every bone in their bodies as they slammed into the roof of a parked car. Josef had taken such a beating on the roof that he could hardly recover as he rolled off the hood to the ground, Blair's screams still resounding in his ears. The car alarm had gone off at impact and was piercing the night air, competing with the distant sounds of traffic and the hum of the electrical lights.
He shuddered as he felt his bones mend, too weak to stand but strong enough to crawl toward the wall of the building and climb to his feet. Tervain was weaker still from the silver in his veins, but was starting to move his fingers. Lowering his gaze, Josef saw the steady stream of oil flowing into the street, spreading in a deadly puddle across the pavement. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out an embossed silver lighter. Mick thought he was mad for carrying it around with him. Fire was one of only two things that could kill a vampire. But Josef had always known there would be a use for it one day. He watched the blue flame as it sprang to life beneath the flick of his fingers, staring at it for a moment before he tossed it into the street.
In what seemed like slow motion, the flame spread away from him, surrounding the vehicle where his old adversary remained immobile. There was a magnificent explosion that ended the incessant sound of the alarm as the car rose off the ground beneath the immense fireball that tore through the gas tank. Sparks shot forty feet into the air, raining down on the blacktop outside the building, the noise setting off every other alarm within a twenty block radius. The level of noise was incredible. Behind him, the doors burst open and then Blair was in his arms, watching the burning rubble with amazement, wondering how he had managed to survive. She held onto him, her arms closed around his midsection, oblivious to the fact that Carmilla had stumbled out behind her, pale but fully aware of her surroundings.
"What happened?" Blair asked when she could speak again.
There was so much to tell her, but only one response to offer. "It's over," he said. Flames were licking the vehicle, and the distant sounds of sirens were coming to them on the breeze. There would be no remnants of Tervain left, nothing to indicate a great and terrible man had perished there, that the world had lost one of its most infamous madmen, only black smoke that poured into the skies. Blair kept her arms around him, protectively, as though fearing he was not yet completely safe, but it was Carmilla who had to help him, who did so without question as they helped him to the car he had parked in the alley. Giving Blair the keys, Carmilla ordered her to drive as she climbed into the backseat with Josef. Blair was pale and shaken, glancing frequently into the mirror, but did as she was told. From her perspective, it must have looked innocent enough, Carmilla brushing the hair away from Josef's face and reassuring him that he would live, but in reality the hand drifted down to his mouth and pressed against it, pain crossing her face as his teeth sank into her flesh. He could feel her heart pounding through her veins, and could not help but be grateful that she cared enough to help him one last time. He knew without asking that this was the end, that he would never taste her again, that she had seen enough to want no further part in his world.
Her eyes flickered forward to rest on Blair, who forty-eight hours earlier had seemed so different, who was driving with confidence as she took them home. It was Blair who activated the gate, who drove through it, who parked in the garage and got out to pull open the second door. It was Blair who reached in for him and was astonished when he came out fully recovered, Blair who hung onto him as he wrapped his arms around her in reassurance that he was all right, Blair protested when he took up another set of keys. But it was not over yet.
There was one final thing he had to do.