I am a vampire. Blood does not bother me. I like blood. Even seeing my own blood does not frighten me. But what my blood can do to others-to the whole world for that matter-terrifies me. Once God made me take a vow to create no more vampires. Once I believed in God. But my belief, like my vow, has been shattered too many times in my long life. I am Alisa Perne, the now-forgotten Sita, child of a demon. I am the oldest living creature on earth.　　I awake in a living room smelling of death. I watch as my blood trickles through a thin plastic tube into the arm of Special Agent Joel Drake, FBI. He now lives as a vampire instead of the human being he was when he closed his eyes. I have broken m　

I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling the beard off as well."e, e, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish female official said, hand extended impatiently."On the contrary," I said, letting the papers and banknotes fall away to disclose the immense .75 recoilless pistol　

　While ethnological material as used in this book is not intended to meet scholarly and scientific standards, the author wishes to acknowledge information derived from publications of Willard W. Hill, Leland C. Wyman, Mary C. Wheelwright, Father Berard Haile, Clyde Kluckhohn, and Washington Matthews; and the advice and information provided by his own friends among the Navajo people.　Chapter 1　　Luis Horseman leaned the flat stone very carefully against the pi?on twig, adjusted its balance exactly and then cautiously withdrew his hand. The twig bent, but held. Horseman rocked back on his heels and surveyed the deadfall. He should have put a little more blood on the twig, he thought, but it mi　

　　This darkness troubles me. I yearn for the light.　　This silence is so deep. I long for voices, the drumming of rain, the whistle of wind, music.　　Why are you being so cruel to me? Let me see. Let me hear. Let me live. I beg of you.　　I am so lonely in this bottomless darkness.　　So lonely.　　Lost.　　You think I have no heart. But if I have no heart, what is this ache? What is this anguish? If I have no heart, what is it that threatens to break inside me?　　This darkness is haunted. I am afraid here. I am lost and afraid here.　　Have you no passion?　　I only wanted to be like you. To walk in the sunshine. To swim in the sea. To feel the winter cold against my skin, the summer heat. To smell a ros　

　　Book One　　Chapter 01　　Behind every great fortune there is a crime.　BALZAC　Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.　　The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand.　　"You acted like the worst kind of degenerates," the judge said harshly. Yes, yes, thought Amerigo Bonasera. Animals. Animals. The two young men, glossy　

　　LIKE THE THEATER DISTRICTS OF so many great cities across the Imajica, whether in Reconciled Dominions or in the Fifth, the neighborhood in which the Ipse stood had been a place of some notoriety in earlier times, when actors of both sexes had supplemented their wages with the old five-acter-hiring, retiring, seduction, conjunction, and remittance-all played hourly, night and day. The center of these activities had moved away, however, to the other side of the city, where the burgeoning numbers of middle-class clients felt less exposed to the gaze of their peers out seeking more respectable entertainment. Lickerish Street and its environs had sprung up in a matter of months and quickly be　

- From a much-disputed translation ofThe Prophecies of the Dragon by the poetKyera Termendal of Shiota, believed to havebeen published between FY 700 and FY 800PROLOGUE(Serpent and Wheel)Lightnings　　　　　　From the tall arched window, close onto eighty spans above the ground, not far below the top of the White Tower, Elaida could see for miles beyond Tar Valon, to the rolling plains and forests that bordered the broad River Erinin, running down from north and west before it divided around the white walls of the great island city. On the ground, long morning shadows must have been dappling the city, but from this prominence all seemed clear and bright. Not even the fabled "topless towers" of Ca　

　The means of destruction are approaching perfection with frightful rapidity.　BARON ANTOINE HENRI JOMINI. 1838　　1　　Terry Franklin was a spy. This afternoon in February, in a small cubbyhole in the basement of the Pentagon, he was practicing his trade. It was tedious work.　He adjusted the screen brightness on his puter monitor and tapped the secret access code of the user he was pretending to be tonight. Now the file name, also special access, a classification higher than top secret. He had to be careful, since the letters and numerals he was typing did not appear on the screen. A mistake here meant the puter would lock him out and deny him the file. And he was not a good typist He worked wi　

　"Now thou art e unto a feast of death."　William Shakespeare Henry VI, Part I, Act 4, Scene 5.　　　　PART ONE　January 1812　　CHAPTER 1　　A pale horse seen a mile away at sunrise means the night is over. Sentries can relax, battalions stand down, because the moment for a surprise dawn attack has passed.　　But not on this day. A grey horse would hardly have been visible at a hundred paces, let alone a mile, and the dawn was shredded with dirty cannon smoke that melded with the snow-clouds. Only one living thing moved in the grey space between the British and French lines; a small, dark bird that hopped busily in the snow. Captain Richard Sharpe, huddled in his greatcoat, watched the bird and willed　

　　　　Dusk was beginning to creep down from the mountains when the Witchfinder rode into Craiglowrie. His hunched position in the saddle of the black mare disguised his true height, yet all the same he was tall and terrible, the features beneath the dark broad-brimmed hat seemed like those of a sun-bleached skull from a distance. The grimace that revealed black and broken teeth; the eyes that glowed with the fire of a personal hatred, and seemed to search out each and every one of the peasants who trembled and watched behind the windows of their tumbledown bothies.　　　　They remembered the last time he had e to this remote Scottish valley, a pany of soldiers in his wake. Six villagers had been 　

　　　　The Treloar Building was, and is, on Olive Street, near Sixth, on the west side. The sidewalk in front of it had been built of black and white rubber blocks. They were taking them up now to give to the government, and a hatless pale man with a face like a building superintendent was watching the work and looking as if it was breaking his heart.　　I went past him through an arcade of specialty shops into a vast black and gold lobby. The Gillerlain pany was on the seventh floor, in front, behind swinging double plate glass doors bound in platinum. Their reception room had Chinese rugs, dull silver walls, angular but elaborate furniture, sharp shiny bits of abstract sculpture on pedestals a　

　Clinch padded to the kitchen and fixed himself a pot of coffee, four eggs scrambled (with ketchup), a quarter-pound of Jimmy Dean sausage, and two slices of whole-wheat toast with grape jam. As he ate, he listened to the radio for a weather report. The temperature outside was forty-one degrees, humidity thirty-five percent, wind blowing from the northeast at seven miles per hour. According to the weatherman, thick fog lay on the highway between Harney and Lake Jesup. Robert Clinch loved to drive in the fog because it gave him a chance to use the amber fog lights on his new Blazer truck. The fog lights had been a $455 option, and his wife, Clarisse, now asleep in the bedroom, was always bit