"Thank you," he said, deciding to play this as cool as he could.
"Oh, don't think I did it for your sake. I did it for mine. I want your complete attention." He motioned Joe to the wall. "Come. Let me show you my domain."
Something had been nagging at Joe since he'd stepped out on the deck ... something wrong . . . something missing . . . and now he realized what it was.
He'd been up here once in his life, in his teens, when his father had brought him. The reason for the trip had been a French exchange student staying with them for the summer. They'd gone to the Statue of Liberty that summer too. Strange. He'd grown up only a short distance from these American landmarks but probably never would have visited them if not for the presence of a foreigner.
He remembered that on his one and only visit here there'd been high safety fencing all around the Observation Deck, with tall, pointed steel tines curving inward like fishhooks. Now most of that was gone, torn away. It made sense, though: The undead weren't worried about one of their own becoming a suicide jumper, and the fence would only hinder the fliers.
Joe approached the wall, eyeing its upper edge. It ran about mid-chest high. Eternity—and perhaps salvation—waited on the other side.
As he came up beside Franco, the vampire waved his arm at the darkness. "There it is: mine, as far as I can see."
Joe's heart broke as he took in the vista, not for what he could see—moonlight glinting off the crown of the Chrysler Building off to the left—but for what he couldn't.
Darkness. The city was dark. Any light he saw was reflected from the moon or this building. Everything else was dead and dark. This wasn't the New York he'd known. This was its corpse.
"The first thing we did was kill the power," Franco said. "It has a numbing psychological effect, especially in a place like Manhattan. People here were so used to light everywhere, all the time, and then it was gone. It serves another purpose. It makes the few who are left light fires to cook, to stay warm on the cooler nights. We home in on those fires. They're like beacons to us. Manhattan is pretty well cleaned out now, but the other boroughs still teem with survivors. We hunt them judiciously, preserving them like a natural resource."
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
"But I keep this building alight. More psychological warfare. The tallest building in this fabled city, its most recognizable landmark, and we have it. I live here with some of my get, just one floor down. Why should I hide in a basement when I can seal off windows in this magnificent building that affords me such a unique view of my domain. I wish those Islamic thugs had left the Trade Towers alone. They were even taller. How I'd love to be standing atop one of them now."
So full of himself, Joe thought, wondering how he could turn that to his advantage.
Franco shrugged resignedly. "But I suppose the Empire State will do. Its generators power everything in the building." He pointed to the cameras ringing the deck. "It has an excellent security system to help our serfs protect us during the day. No one moves in this building without being watched and taped. I like to review the tapes now and again, and punish any slackers I catch. As an extra security measure, we've cut the power to all but two of the elevators."
He held his hand over the edge of the wall. A red glow lit his palm from below.
"But my favorite accessory is the filters they have for the spotlights that bathe the upper floors. Red, white, and blue for July Fourth, red and green for Christmas. We use only red now. It's our color. The color of blood. More psychological warfare." He turned to Joe and smiled. "You're pretty adept at psychological warfare yourself."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Joe said, tearing himself away from the dark vista.
Franco stared at him. "I can't tell whether you're being obtuse or coy. I'm talking about your campaign against the serfs in your area."
"Serfs?"
"Oh, I forget. They like to call themselves cowboys, you people like to call them collaborators—"
"Vichy," he said, thinking with a pang of Zev. "Some of us call them Vichy."
"Vichy." Franco nodded. "I like that. It shows a sense of history, though it gives them more cachet than they deserve." He waved his hand as if shooing a fly. "But my point is, you and your minions have caused more trouble than anyone I can remember."
Again the temptation to tell this beast that Joe had no idea what he was talking about, but he suppressed it. He was good at suppressing temptation.
"It was the terrorist aspects of your campaign that worked. The serfs are such disloyal scum, and so very susceptible to fear. You had the local contingent quaking in their boots. But you made a grave tactical error when you revealed yourself and took back your church. That gave you a face, and you weren't so terrifying anymore. Or so I thought. But when you sent Gregor into true death I decided I wanted to meet you."
Joe had to ask—because he wanted to know and because he sensed that the question might unsettle Franco—"Who the hell is Gregor?"
Franco stared at him a moment. "I suppose it's possible you didn't know his name. Same with Angelica, I imagine. But you and yours have sent two important subordinates to true death in a matter of a few days. No one has ever done that."
Angelica . . . could that be the flying undead that Zev told him about?
"Those winged ones," Joe said, taking a stab in the dark. "They always give me the creeps."
"Of course they do. They're supposed to. Psychological warfare again. Strike terror into the hearts of the cattle." He sighed. "I never cared for either of them. Angelica was too impetuous and Gregor too grasping, but the fallout from their deaths has been, well, vexing. But only temporarily."
He turned back to the night with another grandiose wave of his arm.
"My kingdom. We're facing east, you know. Long Island is out that way. We're well established there."
Joe stretched up on tiptoe, leaned over the top of the parapet, and looked down instead of out. Red light from the banks of spotlights bathed his face. Beyond them, far below and out of sight, empty pavements beckoned.
Not yet, he thought. The guards were too close. They'd stop him before he got over. He eased back and watched his host.
"We've already started the cattle ranches," Franco was saying. "We fenced off large sections of Levittown and populated them with females fifteen to thirty years old. As a reward to the serfs, we set them loose in there to impregnate the cows. Soon we'll have crops of calves to raise." He swiveled his head and smiled. "More psychological warfare."
"More like rape and brutality," Joe said, reflexively raising a fist. How he wished—
His arm was grabbed and twisted backward. A glance showed the scar-eyed one behind him. All around he heard pistols being cocked and machetes drawing from belts.
"Will you stop!" Franco snapped at his guards. "He is a lone, naked, unarmed man! What can he possibly do to me? Now get back, all of you and give us some room!"
"But Franco—"
"Now, Artemis! I won't say it again!"
With obvious reluctance, one-eyed Artemis and the other guards moved off. Not too far, but far enough to give Joe a chance to do what he needed to do ... if he had the nerve. All he needed was a way to distract Franco.
The vampire turned his gaze eastward again. "We made so many mistakes in the Old World. We failed to control the undead population. We just rolled through, letting our numbers spread geometrically. The Middle East was the easiest. Hardly a cross to be found. Same with India and China. We did what no president or shuttling diplomat ever could. We brought peace to every place we've touched. Indian undead now sup with Pakistanis, Greeks with Cypriots, North Koreans with South, and most amazing of all, Israeli and Palestinian undead hunting together." He smiled. " 'Blessed be the peacemakers.' Isn't that how it goes. I think I should be sainted. What's the term the Church uses? Canonized. Yes, I should be canonized, don't you think?"