Napoleon Solo stared through his office window as the evening sky darkened,  the canopy streaked by the oranges and blood-reds of the sinking sun as it  disappeared below the horizon, followed by rich purples, then deep blue, and  finally the blackness of night. He glanced at his watch: 7:30 P.M.: thirteen  hours since the discovery of his partner’s mutilated corpse and then,  that  of his lover -a vampire. Solo sighed -as C.E.A. of UNCLE, he was supposed to  know his people, but he hadn’t known Kowalski at all, it seemed. The  pugnacious junior agent had played the part of a vampire-phobe very well; he  had fooled everyone...he had fooled *him*.

It didn’t break the rules for a member of the knighthood to consort with a  member of the nether race they were charged with monitoring...but neither was  such a relationship entirely accepted. It *was* the purpose of the Covenant,  after all, to keep the two species -human and vampire- apart.

“You are in mourning.”

Solo suppressed a gasp of surprise as his present “partner” made his  presence known -he would never get used to the cat-like way with which  Kuryakin moved and wondered if every vampire was born with that same silent  grace. Finally, Napoleon answered: “I suppose that I am. My partner  -Kowalski- was obnoxious and he grated on my nerves...but to die that way...”
He shuddered. “No-one deserves that.”

“No. They do not.” The ice-blue eyes locked on Solo’s. “Did you love him?”

Napoleon blinked, taken aback by the blunt nature of the question. “What do  you mean? I just *told* you--”

“There is no shame in it,” the vampire said softly, ignoring or not noticing  the human’s discomfiture. “My people are like that also -we love whom we  love, sometimes at first sight...but, unlike humans, we rarely allow  ourselves to commit. For us, death, should it come, leaves the survivor too  long to mourn.” Illya stood beside his human partner. “Too many of my people  died under similar, brutal circumstances as your partner before the Covenant  -it didn’t matter if they had harmed no--one...like my own mate. I mourned him  a long time.”

“Your ma--” Solo struggled with the math and how it conflicted with the  image before him. He would have estimated the vampiric investigator to be no  more than twenty-four years old, but-- “That would make you at least--”

“--432 of your human years.” Kuryakin’s pale lips twitched with a small,  rueful smile. “Barely a babe amongst my own.” He studied the human, amused  by the man’s open amazement, but then frowned, eyes momentarily flashing  blood-red as they fastened onto Napoleon’s chest. The UNCLE agent’s heart  raced as the small blond creature hooked a finger under a gold chain  half-hidden by Solo’s tie, revealing a tiny shimmering crucifix. Kuryakin  arched an eyebrow quizzically. “Protection?” he asked pointedly.

“Catholic,” Napoleon replied, tucking the crucifix back beneath folded silk.  “I *know* crosses don’t really affect your kind -that’s only superstition.”

“Of course, but not all humans would think so.” Illya began to pace and then  paused. “I have been pondering a theory about our killer.”

“Killers.”

“Yes...’killers’.” Illya shot Napoleon a pained look. “I think that, like  most humans, our murderers believe in the old, erroneous traditions.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you ever read ‘Dracula’?”

“Well...yes...”

“How does the book tell you to kill one of us?”

Napoleon nodded slowly, a metaphorical light going on in his head, as he  began to see where the small vampire was leading. “Crosses, staking and  removing the heart, decapitation, garlic stuffed in the mouth and neck,  burning the body...” Napoleon’s eyes narrowed with gradual comprehension.  “The killers used four -maybe up to six- of the traditional metthods, when
decapitation is the only method that will actually do it -are you saying that  these serial killers are being guided by a *book*!?”

“Or they wish us to *believe* they are. There is something else though.”

“Illya, get to the point--” Without warning, Kuryakin reached out, grasping  Solo’s wrist in one small hand. “You are...maybe thirty pounds heavier and  five inches taller than I,” he hissed, fangs bared. “Could you break my grip  or make me let go if I chose not to?” The UNCLE agent cried out at the  increasing pressure around his trapped limb. “Of course you couldn’t -no
human could. Regardless of the novels, no human could kill one of my kind as  easily as these *monsters* have... Nor would they drain and drink their  blood.”

Napoleon grimaced. “Illya--”

“What?” The blaze in Illya’s eyes extinguished itself, red giving way to the  more familiar, almost human crystalline blue. “Agent Solo...please forgive  me-- I am so sorry.”

A sudden, seemingly impossible, brutally cold wind blew through the sealed  room, throwing the UNCLE agent against a wall. When Solo recovered his  equilibrium, he realized that he was alone, and as he cradled his bruised  wrist he understood what he had seen in Kuryakin’s eyes for just a few  moments...

...hunger, for what he did not know...

...sorrow, for hurting him...

...and anguish at the acceptance of what Napoleon himself had already deduced.

Whatever the rationale behind the brutality...one of the killers was a  vampire.
 
 
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