“The system isn’t perfect,” Duncan said. “The bottom line is the Nightkind demesne is trying to avoid letting poor, crazy, blood-sucking immortals loose on the streets to become a burden on the more normal tax-paying society. But here’s the kicker.”
Duncan paused talking and stopped at open double doors. With a polite gesture he invited Rune to precede him. Rune strode into an office with a floor space that was a thousand square feet if it was an inch. Metallic shutters had been pulled back from the two walls of windows, and outside the entire Bay Area, including bridges, was ablaze with electric light. The sun had set and all that was left of its memory was a bloodred glow on the ocean’s darkening horizon.
Rune swiveled back to face Duncan, who had closed the doors. The Vampyre turned to face him.
Duncan said, “Everything I just told you is the official Nightkind demesne procedure. We’re required by federal law to follow it, but it’s like the U. S. war on drugs, or worse, the HIV epidemic. How do you really regulate something that is just a living heartbeat, a heated moment, and a blood exchange away?”
“I’m guessing I know the answer to that,” Rune said. “You can’t.”
“Exactly,” Duncan replied. “Of course we can’t. We can set regulations, issue visas, and work to enforce consequences, but we still have our illegals and crazies, and our non-registereds. Do we possibly know what a Vampyre is doing in your demesne in New York, or the Demonkind demesne in Houston? Of course not, just as you have no idea what individual Wyr might be doing in Chicago. Our police force is effective so we can keep a tight lid on what is visible to the public here in our demesne, but we can only do so much. Also, many of the older Vampyres resent the new restrictions, and they still follow the old ways in regulating their family trees—through secrecy, domination and violence.”
“Oh good,” said Rune. “All the fun from the Vampyre movies just came back.”
Spanned by its famous bridge, the Golden Gate is actually the name of the strait that was discovered in 1769 by Spanish explorers. In 1846, the American military officer John C. Fremont named the passageway “Chrysopylae,” or “Golden Gate,” before the Californian gold rush. The strait had been compared to ancient Byzantium’s Golden Horn.
As Rune looked out, the Golden Gate Bridge towered shining over the darkened waters of the strait. The symbolism of standing before a gateway was not lost on him. He dropped his duffle on the floor near a black Italian leather chair in front of a spotless glass desk that had some serious acreage. He hooked his thumbs into the empty belt loops on his faded jeans and stood at his ease as he regarded the Vampyre.
Duncan did not sit behind the desk, nor did he invite Rune to sit. Instead he moved to the window and looked toward the west. He put his hands in the pockets of his twenty-five-hundred-dollar suit and, for a moment, he went completely still as only Vampyres could. He looked like the airbrushed front cover of a GQ magazine.
Here it comes, Rune thought. Mow the lawn for the next thousand years. One single favor, stated in quite a simple sentence. Yeah Dragos, I know quite fucking well what I gave away.
“It’s disappeared again,” Duncan murmured.
“What?” Rune said.
“The island. It’s disappeared again.”
Rune looked out the window as well. The residual bloodred sunset glow was all but gone, but his sharp predator’s eyes could pick out the details in the night as well as the Vampyre’s could. The island had indeed faded from sight.
He shrugged and said, “Okay.”
“That is where you are supposed to go,” Duncan said.
Rune sighed. “When I got your email, I thought you would be giving me the instructions for this favor.”
Duncan turned away from the window to face him. “From what little I understand, any instructions I might give you would not release you from your magical obligation. Your contract is with Carling, and she must order you in person. She is currently at her home on the Other island, and of course time flows differently there. I am merely supposed to verify you made it here by the stated deadline, and to give you directions on how to get there.”