been shattered or torn or smashed. There was no sign of Walter’s bed or any of the small, precious mementos he’d collected on his visits to the rubbish bins and junkyards.
It wasn’t the fight with Javier that had done this. Dorian had run rampant after he’d returned from his fruitless hunt, blinded by rage and lust. He hadn’t been content to find the nearest human and drop him in some alley with just enough blood left in his body to keep him alive. This time he had sought very specific prey.
He had come within inches of killing Gwen Murphy.
Shaking with reaction and horror, Dorian went to the warehouse door. He edged his foot into the sunlight. All he need do was remove his clothes and take another few steps and he would begin to burn. Soon his skin would crack and blister, causing excruciating pain. But it would be over in minutes as his body’s resources were exhausted, every last particle of his strigoi strength and vitality given up to a hopeless fight.
Yes, it would be a quick way to die. Gwen would be safe from him. But even if someone else found his body before she did, she would learn of his death eventually.
Dorian stepped back. Exposure to sunlight was not the only way a vampire could end his own life. He could shoot himself in the head or sever his own spine.
Or he could simply stop feeding.
Knowing he had only a limited time, Dorian put on his overcoat and hat, and left the warehouse in search of something he could use to wrap Javier’s body. He found a roll of canvas among a stack of boating supplies. Another warehouse provided a coil of rope and a length of heavy chain, which he hid under his coat.
Javier’s body was stiff and brittle. Dorian wrapped it in the canvas, bound the bundle with the rope, and coiled the chain around everything. He couldn’t wait for nightfall to discard the body, so he dragged it out the door and scanned the docks to either side. The nearest humans were some distance away, busy loading a large freighter. Dorian carried Javier out to the end of the pier and dropped his body into the river.
It sank beneath the surface, trailing bubbles. As soon as it was out of sight, Dorian returned to the warehouse. He started at one end and began picking up the splintered remains of crates and unidentifiable objects scattered over the floor. He piled them neatly against one wall. When the concrete was bare, he put on his hat and coat again, and left without a backward glance.
DORIAN WAS THERE.
Gwen searched the warehouse in growing panic, bewildered by the heap of broken crates and the utter bareness of the space around her. Everything she saw hinted at some sort of violent struggle, and yet the way the shattered objects had been stacked so neatly against the wall hinted that someone had taken the time to clean up afterward. There was no sign of the knickknacks Walter had asked her to gather, no clue as to where Dorian might have gone.
Her heart stopped when she found the bloodstain where Dorian’s room had been. She crouched to touch the irregular circles, feeling sick. There wasn’t enough blood to suggest that someone had been killed, but Gwen didn’t doubt that the one who’d lost the blood had suffered a serious injury.
Was it Dorian?
But who would have attacked him? His past concealed a darkness she had yet to penetrate; he might have enemies. Yet this might as easily have been a random assault by hoodlums like the ones who had cornered her on the pier.
If he was hurt, why did he leave? Why didn’t he come to me?
Forcing herself into a state of rational calm, Gwen searched the waterfront. A few discreet questions gave her little to go on, though one longshoreman had seen a man in an overcoat skulking about early that morning.
By late afternoon she was sure Dorian was no longer in the area. She caught a taxi back to the hospital and rushed to Walter’s room, where the old man was taking a sip from a glass offered by the nurse at his bedside.
“Gwennie!” he said, trying to sit up. He looked past her toward the door. “Where’s Dorian?”
“Mr. Brenner,” the nurse said reprovingly. “You must lie down.”
Walter sank back, a little pale from his exertion. “Still couldn’t get him to come?” he asked.
“I can’t find him,” Gwen said, pulling a chair up beside the bed. “He’s not at the warehouse. It looks as if something might have happened there.”
“What?” Walter attempted to rise again, only to collapse in exhaustion. “What d’ya mean, something happened?”
Gwen cursed herself for upsetting him. “I don’t know,” she said carefully. “His things…” Were destroyed, she thought. But she couldn’t tell the old man that. “His things weren’t there.”
Walter uttered a mild expletive. “I was always afraid he’d run off someday.”
“Why?” Gwen asked.
“It was hard for him to be around people, even me. He thought he was taking care of me, but sometimes…” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes I pretended to be more sick than I really was, just to keep him from…doing something bad.”
“Something bad to somebody else?”
“No. I’d never believe that.” Walter closed his eyes. “The way he talked, sometimes…I thought he’d do himself a mischief.”
Gwen gripped the arms of her chair. “And now he thinks you’re in good hands.”
The old man opened his eyes again. “I won’t impose on you, Miss Murphy. Soon as I’m out of this bed…”
“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll find some decent place for you to stay until you’re well again.”
Walter was silent for a long half minute. “I hoped,” he said at last, “I hoped you’d make a difference. Give Dorian something else to think about. He took to you, Miss Murphy. Never seen him so interested in another human being.”
“Maybe you hoped for too much.”
“Maybe. But if he’s really gone, it ain’t because of you. He—”
The nurse intervened. “Mr. Brenner, it’s time for you to rest.” She gave Gwen a stern look. “You may return tomorrow, but our patient has had enough excitement for one day.”
“Just a few more minutes, please,” Gwen said. She leaned forward in her chair. “Walter, I have to find Dorian, especially if there’s a chance that he may be in trouble. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
The old man shook his head. “Always got the feeling he knew the city like the back of his hand. Could have gone anywhere.”
“You must have some notion, even if it’s just a guess.”
“Well…he used to talk about the place he grew up. Some old tenement in Hell’s Kitchen. Made it sound like he’d lived there a hundred years ago.”
“Did he say where this tenement was?”
“He mentioned Thirty-fourth Street.”
Gwen
