Alain looked at the back of the hooded head in front of him. He was in a room full of brown and black robes, about fifty people in all, gathered in the empty 20' by 30' storeroom behind an out-of-business adult bookstore in Brooklyn. He hung out in back. He was just here to watch. He didn't want to attract attention... yet.

Three women came in through the door off the alley, dragging some kid. He looked to be about 22 or 23; jeans, black leather jacket, backpack. He was limp in their arms. Whether his unconscious state was the kid's own fault or something they did to him, Alain didn't know.

On Alain's signal, George started working his way forward to get a better view of the proceedings. Meanwhile, the girls had stripped the kid to the waist and were laying him out on an embalming table, leaving his stuff in a pile below the head of the table. He was out cold, but just for good measure they tied his arms and feet down.

Finished preparing the kid, the girls donned robes and were joined by a fourth hooded figure, coming in from the store side, a wicked looking ceremonial knife in his belt and an unconscious chicken in one hand, held by the feet. He was 5'10" and solidly built. Even if Alain hadn't known who was in charge, he would have recognized Vinnie Rinaldi. Though neither Alain nor Vinnie was actively trying to kill the other at present, Vinnie wouldn't pass up the opportunity if it was dropped in his lap. "Bad blood," Alain chuckled under his breath, his nervousness making the pun much funnier to him than it would be at any other time.

Alain slouched down a bit, trying to be harder to spot. It wasn't that he was afraid of Vinnie, but this ceremony was too important. He didn't want it disrupted until he had seen what he came to see.

As Vinnie took his place at the center of the table, facing the milling robed figures, two of the girls lit large brasiers next to the ends of the table and placed a bowl in front of him, setting it solidly on the edge of the table, its edge pressing into the kid's side, just under the ribcage. The cloying stench of the overly sweet incense in the brasiers hit Alain's nose like a fist.

Vinnie pulled his knife and held the chicken over the bowl. Either it had been stunned or drugged, because it barely struggled or squawked, but it was alive. The blood couldn't be cold or artificially warmed. It couldn't be clotted or congealed. It had to be recently pumped from a beating heart. Alain knew that much about the ritual. With a quick stroke, Vinnie drew his knife across its neck, sending its blood draining into the bowl. The crowd waited silently as the sanguine fluid trickled down.

When the blood's flow slowed to a slight drip, the chicken was thrown aside and the chanting began. A slow, rhythmic chant in a dead language. Most all in the room knew it and those who did not took it up after a few repetitions. Alain switched on the digital memo recorder in his pocket.

As the crowd chanted, Vinnie picked up the bowl and began painting on the wall in blood; two circles, one within the other, the inner circle holding a five-pointed star. The ring between the inner and outer circle contained a sequence of symbols, an upside-down cross at its twelve o'clock position. It wasn't just the symbols that were important, but the sequence in which they were painted, even the order of the strokes to make them. Vinnie didn't know, but at least half-dozen of the people in the room were Alain's plants. Two of them carried hidden cameras and filmed the ritual to ensure every element was recorded.

Vinnie turned from the wall, picked up his knife from the embalming table, and turned back to the wall, raising the knife above his head and holding it in both hands.

Alain caught sight of George and made eye contact. A subtle nod from George let him know that everyone was on schedule and ready to go. Alain slid around the outer edge of the crowd, keeping an eye on the table and the people at it.

"Bright Angel," he shouted, "accept our offering and open a way so that we may deliver it unto you."

The lines of the five-pointed star glowed a sickly green, like cracks forming in the wide strokes of chicken blood. The light spread, filling the strokes, then the gaps within the star, then the gaps between the edges of the star and the circle, turning the interior circle into a dull pool of the green glow. Vinnie turned back toward the table, keeping the knife raised high, poised to stab it into the kid's chest and cut out his still beating heart to throw through the circle, and... "Now," Alain yelled!

Alain launched himself at Vinnie, distracting him from the task at hand. Vinnie dropped his knife hand into a defensive posture as Alain came in, throwing a flurry of kicks, driving Vinnie back while he slashed at Alain's leg. Neither the kicks or the knife made contact with their intended targets, but it moved Vinnie away from the table. On his yell, three of Alain's cohorts had started shoving, throwing shin kicks, and rabbit punches, whipping the crowd up into a general melee. They moved quickly to the floor in front of the stage, dove in under the embalming table, grabbed the legs of the three girls, and pulled them out into the brawl they'd created. The girls were swung out into the crowd at knee height, toppling a dozen or so other robed attendees, creating wriggling masses of cursing angry people, ready to lash out at the nearest target even before they got to their feet.

George ran over to the table and freed the kid's hands and feet on one side before waving smelling salts under the kid's nose.

---

"Huh," Kurt said, jerking his head away from the sharp smell. "Wuzzat?"

A man slapped Kurt's face. "What's your name kid?"

Kurt tried to say "who are you," but still a bit sluggish, it came out more like "huryu?"

"I'm a friend," the man said, waving something under Kurt's nose, causing Kurt to flinch as the stinging scent jolted him back toward consciousness. The guy slapped Kurt's cheeks again. "What's your name?"

"Kurt." Just barely impinging on Kurt's dawning consciousness were the sounds of shouting and fighting all around him.

"I'm George," the guy said as he gave Kurt's hand a quick shake before undoing the wrist restraint. "I'll have you free in a sec. Then get the fuck out of here."

---

Alain and Vinnie were slugging it out. An attempt to stab Alain resulted in Vinnie being disarmed by a deft blow to the wrist, the knife going sliding along the floor of the stage just as George swung Kurt's feet off the table, helping him get standing. George felt the knife thud against his shoe and quickly bent down to get it. He put it in Kurt's hand. "Take this."

One of the robed figures had broken away from the brawl long enough to see what George was doing. He came flying toward George, tackling him in the middle and driving him off toward the side.

Vinnie's hood was down, revealing long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and a somewhat attractive looking man. "You're dead meat, Beaudreaux," he snarled at Alain, his voice still thick with a Brooklyn accent. Alain didn't bother replying. He'd fought Vinnie enough times to know that it was pointless to engage in small talk like some pithy comic book hero.

Alain intercepted a right cross with a block and fired a rabbit punch to Vinnie's ribs. Between professional fighters of Alain and Vinnie's comparable sizes, each man solid and athletic in build, these punches would have packed a wallop. Between two vampires who really did not like each other, any one of these punches would have hospitalized a prize fighter.

---

In the midst of all this, Kurt was looking for his backpack. He may have known his name, but he was still drunk from whatever was in his system, and though that guy had told him to get out, even given him this killer knife, he wanted his shirt, his jacket, and his backpack.

In the midst of the fighting and brawling, mostly oblivious to it, Kurt stumbled to the head of the table, saw his stuff, and picked it up, putting on his shirt and coat without bothering to close them, then slung the backpack over one arm. Straightening his pack on his shoulder, he saw the glowing circle on the wall. "Cool," he thought. He went over to the circle and poked at it with the knife. Where the knife touched the circle, it went through the wall. "Like buttah," Kurt said, entertained by the novelty.

George had put down his opponent and looked over at the table. Seeing Kurt playing with the circle, he shouted "Kurt! Get the fuck out of here!!"

Kurt turned toward the direction of George's voice, the knife held out in front of him, just in time to have a kick to the chest from Alain send Vinnie stumbling backward, impaling himself on the knife in the small of his back. Vinnie reached around to grab at Kurt who dodged to the side, causing Vinnie to trip over his own feet as Kurt's grip on the knife wrenched it against his spine. He went falling backward toward the circle, Kurt pushed behind him. In desperation, one hand still on the knife in Vinnie's back, Kurt grabbed Vinnie's hood, trying to keep himself upright. Instead they fell together through the glowing circle. Alain lunged for it, but a moment before he got there, thwip, the circle was gone and Alain slammed into the wall.

Alain gave the signal for retreat and his group disengaged itself from the fight, doing their best to leave the room a seething brawl from which they could slip away unnoticed. Alain ran with George, the two who had hit the three girls took off together, the rabble rousers and videographers in the crowd scattered. In a moment's time, it was just a room full of vampires and Satan worshippers beating each other silly for no reason.