Service was slow at the small-storefront restaurant in downtown Gary. The two men were the only customers and they wondered why the carryout dinners were taking so long. It was late evening and the sun was dipping below the rooftops of the slum buildings and houses to the west. Darkness was coming much too quickly. The streets of Gary, Indiana are always dangerous, but they are especially dangerous at night. The two men were walking and they wanted to make it home before dark.

John "The Beast" Wechakhulia was dark, keen featured, and wore his dense-black hair and full beard very short and neatly trimmed He was six-three or six-four, two hundred sixty pounds, and muscled like an NFL fullback, linebacker, or tight end. He was in his late twenties. His friend Lysander was slim, of average height, movie-star handsome, and he had medium-brown hair of medium length and in a ponytail. He was clean shaven. Lysander was in his mid-forties. Both men were highly intelligent and highly educated. John the Beast had majored in the humanities and fine arts. Lysander was an engineer. Both men were bitalos—African vampires.

As it grew darker, the bitalos became even more afraid. Then finally the dinners were ready, and the two men hurried away, walking as fast as they could. Broadway was dark and dangerous and looked like a scene from a nightmare or a horror movie. They headed north past huge, tall, black, long-dead, burnt-out and abandoned buildings, and vacant lots infested with weeds, vines, bushes, and small trees. They saw five or six young black men, two skinny young black women, and an elderly black woman waiting on the bus. At least four Gary police cars passed by and the bitalos felt safer. They turned west on Sixth Avenue, which was even darker than Broadway. They were greatly relieved when they finally reached home. They had just purchased an old, once-elegant three-story house in the near northwest quadrant of Gary known as the Horace Mann area.

"Make sure that door is locked!" John the Beast warned. "I can't tell you anything! I told you, you're going to need a gun if you plan on walking the streets of Gary! We were very lucky tonight!"

What Has Gone Before

The African vampires were on a "blood hunt." They were on the trail of two of their ancient, most hated enemies, two Irungu Knights. One was a seventy-year-old man named John Irungu, who was a master African vampire hunter and killer. Short, slim, and dark, John Irungu resembled the Yoda character in the STAR WARS movies. The other man was younger, forty or fifty, and was believed to be Irungu's apprentice. His name was John David Hunter, and he was called "the Preacher." He did look like a black Baptist minister. Hunter was dark, a little shorter than average, and had that well-fed look. He also dressed like a preacher.

Looking for clues, African vampires burglarized the Preacher's house. They found closets full of Armani, Kuppenheimer, and Brooks Brothers suits, overcoats, and sports coats. They found Murphy Johnson shoes, and other items of clothing with very expensive names. Very little was known about this Preacher. He was a mysterious figure. Quite a bit was known about John Irungu. He had killed many bitalos.

An African vampire named Machupa had spotted John Irungu at Los Angeles International Airport. Irungu was waiting to board a flight to Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Irungu had killed Machupa's parents. African vampires in Chicago were alerted to wait for Irungu at O'Hare, but due to a storm, Irungu's plane sat on the runway for three hours. Then his flight was cancelled and he caught a Southwest Airlines flight the next day. Southwest Airlines does not go to O'Hare. It flies out of Midway. Eventually, the Chicago bitalos figured out what had happened and they traced Irungu to Gary, Indiana.

Meanwhile, a group of young male and female gang-member African vampires from Los Angeles, without authorization, had organized their own hunt. The gang-member bitalos shot it out with the Preacher in the woods surrounding the Little Calumet River. Their action ran both Irungu Knights out of town and into hiding. Now the trail was cold.

Lysander was still angry. "I should kill them!" he raged. "If it hadn't been for those young punks, we could have gotten every Irungu Knight in this area. Irungu is a senile old man. He would have led us back to the rest of them."

"If it hadn't been for those young punks, we wouldn't have known anything about this new guy, this Preacher, or what his capabilities might be," John the Beast replied.

"There's something I don't understand," Lysander said. "If he is an apprentice Irungu Knight, then why is he trying to kill us with silver bullets? What does he think we are? Werewolves? What is John Irungu teaching him?"

"I don't understand that either. This Preacher didn't have the slightest idea of what he was supposed to be doing. Otherwise, he would have killed up quite a few of our fine young people," John the Beast said.

"Well, it really doesn't matter," Lysander shrugged. "Neither one of them is that big of a problem. Whether we kill him or not, Irungu is an old man, and he has but a few days left in the land of the living. And this Preacher is an ignoramus and a minor irritant."

"But this ignoramus and minor irritant killed one of our immortal leaders. He killed Duvalier. He killed a Sozufe. Sozufe means never die, but he killed one of our greatest Sozufes!" John the Beast noted.

"You think this Preacher is dangerous? Why?" Lysander asked.

"I think he might be more than dangerous," John replied. "One man can make a difference. Essentially, one man destroyed the ancient Bitalo Kufu Civilization. Had it not been for one man, our race would still be in power. We would be ruling the world now."

"I don't understand what that has to do with what we are talking about," Lysander complained.

"I believe that this Preacher may be `the promised one.' The reincarnation of the one we hate. You can't deny that he does have certain abilities," John said.

"Then we must find out just what these abilities are," Lysander shrugged. "His house is still here. He will return to his house eventually, and when he does, we will be waiting."

The sun was warm, bright, and the streets did not seem so threatening the next morning. A few minutes before eight the two vampires walked east on Fifth Avenue to Broadway. There were only a few people up and about. They didn't look like working-class people.

"This used to be rush hour," Lysander said. "Steel workers, other factory workers. Downtown was booming. There were a lot of businesses, not only on Broadway, but on Washington and Massachusetts, too. Lots of businesses on Fifth Avenue."

John the Beast nodded. He knew the story. Black Mayor. Too many Blacks moving in. The whites moved out and took their businesses with them.

"It never was a beautiful city, but it wasn't ugly," Lysander continued. "It kind of reminded me of some women. They are no great beauties, but they certainly have a lot of interesting-looking parts."

Both African vampires were dressed impeccably and looked like prosperous businessmen. Lysander wore a medium-brown, pinstriped, single-breasted suit that went great with his hair and complexion. John the Beast wore a black, double-breasted, window-pane suit. Both men wore matching fedoras. Their destination was the old Gary National Bank Building on the southwest corner of Fifth and Broadway.

African vampires are more accurately described as bitalos, or bitalo kufus. "Bitalo" means finger-licking, like in "finger-licking good." "Kufu" means death. Bitalo kufu means the finger-licking death, as in being eaten by an African vampire, and maybe even having your flesh washed down by a pitcher of your own blood. Of course, African vampires drank blood, otherwise they wouldn't have been vampires, but most of them didn't like blood. To them it was like milk. They just drank it because it was good for their health. Unlike their European counterparts, African vampires were the vampires of life, not death, and they enjoyed everything that life had to offer, especially food—the finest food. And they drank many liquids that tasted much better than blood. Even milk tasted better than blood.

The bank and a drugstore occupied the first floor of the building. The rest was occupied by offices. Most of the offices were empty. The two bitalos were going to see a private detective named Tony "The Baby Bull" Marciano. He had an office way up on the thirteenth floor. Marciano was about six feet tall, and very solidly built. He was dark, moderately handsome, and wore his black hair in a short ponytail. He looked Italian and was probably not a man to be trifled with or taken lightly.

From his office they could see the huge, white, rectangular tank-like civic center just across Fifth Avenue on the east side of Broadway from two medium sized buildings, the old abandoned Sheraton Hotel and City Hall. Just across Fourth Avenue on the west side of Broadway was the tank-like, narrow Adam Benjamin Transportation Center, which was the bus and train terminal. Further north, on Lake Michigan, was U.S. Steel.

"His name is John David Hunter. His uncle died and left him a substantial inheritance," Lysander lied. "I'm the executor of the will." He gave the private detective a manila envelope containing a picture of the Preacher and all of the information that bitalos had about him, including his social security number.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Tony shrugged. "I'll get on it right away. I'll get back to you as soon as l have anything. Shouldn't be too long."

"He's the private eye for the Mafia. Hit man, too," Lysander said as they waited for the elevator.

"I don't care if he's the private eye for the FBI.," John the Beast said. "He is not going to be able to find an Irungu Knight who doesn't want to be found!"

"But this Preacher is not a real Irungu Knight. He's just an apprentice, and he'd be on his own," Lysander said.

"Maybe so," John replied. "By the way, how did he lose his arm?"

"Says a werewolf bit it off," Lysander shrugged. "He must be a little off, himself. There's no such thing as a werewolf!"

"What about the werewolves of Haiti?"

Lysander shrugged. "You know what I'm talking about! A real werewolf— like Lon Chaney!" John snapped.

"I believe in real werewolves," Lysander said softly. "Think about it. This Preacher had silver bullets. He must have gotten them from John Irungu. Now, why would John Irungu have silver bullets except for protection against werewolves?"

"Well, you said the old man's getting senile. Maybe he's becoming paranoid and schizophrenic, too," John said.

Lysander shook his head. "No. I despise John Irungu, but I respect him, and I'd never underestimate him. Anything he does, he does for a reason. If he has silver bullets, then he needs silver bullets."

"Do you think he had a reason for choosing this Preacher as his apprentice?" John asked.

"Yes," Lysander replied.

There was a new restaurant on the northeast quadrant of the fourth floor of the bank building. It offered a view of the best part of downtown, the Genesis Center and Transportation Centers, City Park, the South Shore train platform, the old Sheraton Hotel building, City Hall, and U.S. Steel.

"Helluva buffet," Lysander exclaimed. "Country ham and redeye gravy, smoked pork chops, Canadian bacon, New York Strip Steak, Eggs Benedict, scrambled eggs, fruit. Everything! Breakfast is on me!"

"I'll just take a cup of coffee," John said.

Wechakhulia means "he who came to eat," but John the Beast had lost his appetite. He was depressed because he had lost Julia Christian. She didn't want to be a bitalo—an African vampire. He had tried to convince her that they couldn't change what they were. Unlike most of the other bitalos who worshipped either the gods of voodoo or Satan, she worshipped God and was a Catholic. She had loved him, but he hadn't loved her because he wasn't good enough for her, and he really wasn't what she wanted. He'd cared for her a lot. Much more than he wanted to.

There were only about a dozen customers in the restaurant. Lysander ate a lot. John didn't even finish his coffee. He just couldn't stop thinking about Julia.

After they left the restaurant, the two bitalos rented a medium-red Cadillac Escalade. Then they went on a tour of the city.

"Despite what you see or hear in the media, not everyone in Gary is a murderer, dope dealer, or gang member. Not everyone in Gary is functionally illiterate or on welfare. There are some very nice African vampire people in Gary, and we are going to meet them," Lysander said.

They stopped at a liquor store and got a six-pack of Budweiser tall cans and a fifth of Johnny Walker Red "to ride with."

"Shouldn't be too hard to find them. You've got them all on computer, don't you?" John asked.

Lysander shook his head. "No! It was too dangerous. Irungu Knight hackers. We had to go back to paper records. Anyway, our local people have probably all gone into hiding. Their identities and faces are known, and their cover is blown. Still, we can look around and see if we can find any of them."

"If Irungu is so senile, then how could he disrupt our entire organization in this city?" John the Beast asked.

"He didn't. It was his apprentice, this Preacher person," Lysander said. "The truth is stranger than fiction. This Preacher and our people knew each other. They were fishing buddies. He didn't know that our people were African vampires, and our people didn't know that he was an African vampire killer. Lysander had a piece of soluble, edible paper that contained the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and pictures of all of the known African vampires in Gary. There was also a thumbnail biography for each bitalo. Most of them lived in the section of Gary known as the Small Farms. Just as Gary is an urban slum, its Small Farms section is a rural slum. The Small Farms area is located west of Chase Street and south of Twenty-fifth Avenue on the far west side of Gary."

The Escalade headed south on Clark Road, then turned east and followed the winding avenue into the heavily wooded area of dilapidated houses, old buildings, trailers, and cultivated fields. They passed two roadhouses and a church. They came to a crossroads where a blasted, blackened, burnt-out structure that had once been a church now stood. Now it was just a pile of rubble with one wall left standing. Lysander parked the Escalade and the two bitalos got out and walked around.

"Duvalier's church was right here," Lysander said. "They processed their meat in the sub basement. When this Preacher discovered them, they did a helluva job in getting all the meat shipped out, then destroying all of the evidence."

John the Beast shook his head. "They really had some excellent meat there. Choice and prime. Delicious white people, succulent Hispanics, and some very tasty black people. They were even getting some Asians in."

Lysander agreed, "It's all in the processing. They really knew how to process meat, cure it, tenderize it, and age it. Whose Wechakhulias are the best?"

"They are overrated, but they make okay stew meat," Lysander shrugged.

"Do you think any of our people are still around here?" John asked. "This looks like a good place to hide."

Lysander shook his head. "I don't sense any of them. I feel a great emptiness—a great loneliness. I don't think they are here."

"This city is too small to hide in," John the Beast shrugged. "This Preacher left town; maybe they left town, also."

"Maybe so," Lysander agreed.

They drove to the nearby Little Calumet River and stopped by the bridge where the Preacher used to fish along with his African vampire friends. The fishing spot was deserted.

"It happened here, in these woods," Lysander said. "This is where our young people almost got themselves killed."

"I still want to know what in the hell Irungu was doing, screwing around in L.A. when he should have been back here in Gary, training his apprentice," John said.

"Maybe he was looking for us," Lysander replied.

"But how could he know about us?" John asked. "We have taken great pains to remain secret."

"Maybe he didn't know about us," Lysander shrugged. "Maybe he was just searching for any bitalos he could find. Irungu is a senile old man. Maybe he just wanted to die believing that he and his kind had exterminated our whole race. Now he knows better. He's surely figured out by now that he was followed back from L.A."

The two bitalos finished the six-pack and the fifth of whiskey, then threw the cans and bottle into the river. Then they headed for home. On the way back, they drove past the Preacher's house.

"Neo-classic," Lysander said. "It is both the house of the future and the house of the past. Like I told you, he'll be back. You know how the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. And when he does, we'll be waiting."