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Autumn, 1695

A young man, lost and delirious with fever, stumbles through the dark woods outside the village of German Town, in the American province of Pennsylvania. He is Johannes Niedermaier, servant of a German family named Haarmann who have settled a small farm along the Wissahickon Creek. Now the Haarmanns -- parents Jakob and Adelberta, and their children Paulus, Rebekah, Anna, and Willem -- are dying from dysentery. Johannes, sick himself, has been sent to German Town for a doctor.

After wandering for hours, he collapses. He wakes in the cave of a mysterious monk named Zopfius, who gives him a soothing potion to cool his fever. Johannes lies back in bed, relieved, as the kindly monk comforts him. His relief turns to terror when the monk’s face turns white and his teeth sprout into fangs. Before he attacks Johannes, Zopfius reveals that he is a recent arrival from Moravia, where he bore the name Vampyr.

Autumn, 1992

In Philadelphia’s exclusive Chestnut Hill section, funeral rites are held for James “Jake” Herriman, president of the city’s largest investment bank. An Anglican priest delivers a worshipful eulogy to a church packed with Philadelphia’s elite. Jake’s family occupies the front pew: Addie, his 57-year-old widow; Paul, his 32-year old son; daughters Rebecca (30) and Anne (22); and his 10-year old grandson William. Among the mourners are Webster Harper, Rebecca’s husband and Jake’s successor at the family firm; and Pierston Throckwaite, President of the City Council.

No one would recognize the distinguished Herrimans as the starving Haarmanns from three centuries ago. After Zopfius and Johannes Niedermaier converted them to vampirism, the Herrimans prospered. They grew adept at passing as mortal, learning to tolerate limited amounts of sunlight. Rather than rest by day, they restore themselves with longer slumbers in the family crypt below their estate, Moss Glen. After a twenty-year rest, they return to life, refreshed and ready to play their own descendants for another mortal lifetime. The Herrimans are leaders of The Web, the clique of Revenants (“vampire” sounding far too ethnic in their ears) who have quietly but firmly run Philadelphia for centuries.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, a 37-year-old business reporter named Judith Kollman accepts her first assignment in over a year for Achieve! Magazine to investigate rumors that Philadelphia-based Herriman Group is going bust. Attractive and talented, Judith is haunted by guilt and self-doubt. Eighteen months before, she suffered a breakdown after her young son was killed in a car accident caused by her ex-husband. The Herriman story is her first opportunity to revive her former status as an award-winning business journalist. She is unnerved when the researchers at Achieve! provide minimal information on the secretive Herrimans. All of Judith’s Philadelphia contacts clam up as soon as she mentions the family.

Gradually, Judith gains access to the Herrimans, although she is frustrated by Addie’s attempts to manipulate her into writing inoffensive puff pieces. When Judith threatens to quit, Paul Herriman defies his mother and offers exclusive coverage of the firm’s financing of Hemasyn, an experimental synthetic blood. As Paul and Judith work together, their subtle but strong attraction develops into a sexual relationship. The tantalizing, complex liaison causes Judith to overlook Paul’s quirky behavior, such as his refusal to spend the night after sex and his daily need for unnamed medications.

Overcoming the barriers placed in her path, Judith finally discovers the secret of the Herrimans’ Revenance. Acknowledging her love for Paul, she bears the first child the barren Revenant community has seen in centuries. Old Blood traces Judith’s efforts to survive in her new family, threatened by some Revenants but revered by others as the creator of new life.

(Chapter 4 of Old Blood takes place shortly after the church funeral for Jake Herriman, which was strictly for mortal show. Later that night, a procession of Revenants snakes through an underground tunnel led by the “widowed” Addie, her son Paul, and her daughters. They make their way to the Herriman family crypt, where they prepare in earnest to lay Jake to rest.)

Friday, September 4, 1992 – 11:59 p.m.

A hundred footfalls sounded as one, echoing against the stone walls of the shadowy tunnel as the somber procession advanced in silence. The damp air reeked with a heavy mixture of musk, patchouli and myrrh. Torchlight flickered on antique silks and sparkled on the ageless gems that graced women’s necks or adorned the hilts of swords. Suddenly, the quiet of the tunnel was rent by the high, mournful wail of an oboe, joined by the metallic growl of krumhorns and the plaintive whining of bagpipes.

Paul Herriman tripped over a loose brick and pitched forward in the darkness. He was saved from falling by his mother’s hand, which had lain weightless on his sleeve. Her talon grasp hauled him back into place beside her.

“Will you be careful?” she hissed in his ear. “If you would pick up your feet when you walk...”

“Sorry, Mother,” he murmured.

The steely grip on his elbow relaxed slightly. Paul reached up to adjust his elaborate wig, which had twisted sideways on his head, blinding him. He could hear Anne snicker behind him, then the swish of silk as Addie spun around to silence her daughter with a sharply sensed rebuke. Addie tightened her grasp on Paul’s arm, signaling him to continue. Paul hesitated, blinded again when the torchbearers at the head of the procession disappeared around a bend in the tunnel. Behind him, his older sister sobbed loudly.

“Rebecca,” his mother whispered fiercely, “must you make a spectacle of yourself even when no one can see you?”

“But, Ma,” Anne sneered, “how else can she show us what a good little girl she is? Ow!” Anne’s loud, angry voice echoed through the tunnel. “That hurt, you fat cow!”

Addie spun around, truly furious. “What is wrong with you two?”

“She stuck me!” Anne howled. “With the pin of her damn brooch!”

“Brooch?” Paul could see his mother’s eyes flash as she inspected her daughters’ plain, black dresses. “What brooch?”

“Excuse me, Addie.” Pierston Throckwaite’s bewigged head appeared between Rebecca and Anne, the dim light shining on his bifocals. “Could you kindly discipline your little dears? Some of us would like to get through this ordeal before dawn.”

Addie thrust her hand in Rebecca’s face. “Give me the brooch,” she commanded. Rebecca hesitated. “Give!” Reluctantly, Rebecca dropped a cluster of sparkling stones in Addie’s hand. Paul recognized his sister’s favorite diamond clip, a piece of Art Deco contraband smuggled past Addie’s inspection at Moss Glen and donned in the tunnel.

“Listen closely, girls.” Addie’s voice was full of menace. “In a few minutes we will bury your father. Please remember that with a little effort we could squeeze both of you in as well.” Her daughters’ pinching and slapping stopped immediately. Addie took Paul’s arm. “Go on, dear. We haven’t got all night.”

The cortege proceeded without further incident. In a few minutes, Paul and Addie turned the last bend in the tunnel and came upon the mahogany doors of the Herriman family crypt, located below Rock Creek Farmhouse. The Farmhouse, on the site of the Haarmanns’ original hut along Wissahickon Creek, had been restored by Albert Herriman in 1926. In 1976, his son Jake and daughter-in-law Addie had presented the Farmhouse to the City of Philadelphia as a Bicentennial colonial museum. At that time, they neglected to mention the crypt which lay below the Farmhouse, or the tunnel connecting it to Moss Glen.

As Paul and Addie approached the crypt, the double doors were flung open from inside, flooding the passage with a golden light. Blinded again, Paul shut his eyes. When he opened them, his first sight was the Reverend Mr. Mutchinson, standing in the middle of the marble-lined room, his pudgy face beaming. Below his finely powdered perruque, he wore long gray robes and a stole of ebony silk. His acolytes finished lighting the candles in the iron wall sconces, then placed their thick black tapers in tall holders on either side of the priest. From an alcove in the far wall, the musicians continued their dirge, picking up the tempo to hurry the along The Web.

The heavy oak coffin containing Jake Herriman already rested on a low marble in the center of the crypt. The coffin was plain except for a silver plaque on its lid, engraved with the Herriman family seal and motto, both acquired from a Regency London firm in the family’s first flush of prosperity. Their motto was Ut Floreat, Excideo – roughly translated as, "To flourish, I cut back." The seal depicted a fist sheathed in armor ripping a seedling from the soil. Addie Herriman had wanted neither the spurious seal nor the motto on the coffin, but her husband had insisted. After all, Jake had argued, it was his funeral.

Paul bowed before the coffin and led his mother to the first row of oak chairs that surrounded the altar on three sides. As he did, he scanned the walls of the crypt, crowded with countless Haarmann and Herriman memorials from earlier years. The grinning, gap-eyed skulls of the oldest plaques gave way to soft-cheeked cherubs, then to a profusion of Victorian urns, lambs, and wreaths, as the increasingly extravagant bas-reliefs testified to his family’s growing wealth and evolving funerary tastes. In neat rows on the wall behind the priest were simple granite oblongs that honored the most recently departed Herrimans, their self-conscious restraint in stark contrast to the exuberance of the past. Paul tried not to look at the open slot in the middle of the newer plaques, gaping like a hungry mouth demanding food.

Addie sank into the intricately carved chair with a rustle of fine silk. She was resplendent in a noblewoman's mourning gown of the late 17th century. Apart from her pale skin, the only radiance about her body came from the luminous triple strand of pearls around her slender neck. Her ash-blond hair was hidden by an elaborate auburn wig, arranged in delicate tendrils on each side of her face. While one hand rested on her son's arm, the other clutched a voluminous black bag. Nothing about this exquisite vision suggested Addie Herriman, Chestnut Hill matron. Tonight, for the first time in decades, she was Adelberta Haarmann, the woman who first set foot in the New World three centuries ago. But whereas that unfortunate creature wore rags and ate wormy turnips, this was Adelberta reincarnated as her ideal self: wealthy, exquisitely gowned, and widowed.

Paul had also been reborn as his 17th-century self, with improvements, for the midnight ritual. As Paulus Haarmann sat next to his mother, candlelight sparkled on the silver braid of his long, black coat. His knee-length breeches were tightly buttoned around black silk stockings, while ribbons fluttered on his high-heeled shoes.

Rebekah and Anna sat on Adelberta’s left, heads bowed and hands clasped in maidenly sorrow. Their tight bodices and full skirts mirrored their mother's gown, but were simpler in design, and their heads were covered by fine lace veils. Anna wore the same mocking smile that had disconcerted Mutchinson at the morning service. Rebekah’s face was filled with sincerely felt loss, although Paulus suspected it was more for her diamond clip than for her father.

Once the family was seated, the rest of The Web took their places like an army of well-bred ants. Each one had returned to their identity at the time of their conversion to Revenance. Each one was revitalized with a new certainty and assurance, freed from the banal facade of their daylight lives. Over time, the constant need to reinvent oneself in a variety of mortal roles, while staying essentially the same, ate away at Revenants. They grew overly conscious of always doing and saying the right thing, while spontaneity and animation faded. This explained why so many, despite their secure position, stumbled self-consciously through life, consumed by diffidence and insecurity. But not tonight. Tonight, the Revenants knew who they were. As they entered the crypt and bowed or curtsied before the coffin, they were completely, gloriously, at ease. Their handsome faces gleamed with quiet pride, and their bodies moved with a verve and discipline never shown on squash court or dance floor.

Always a stickler for tradition, Pierston Throckwaite favored clothing which was old-fashioned even before his arrival in Pennsylvania as William Penn's lieutenant in 1683. A high-waisted doublet emphasized his flat stomach and broad chest. Tight breeches and stockings showed his shapely buttocks and legs to advantage. Warren Ambergrise, sporting an embroidered frock coat and powdered wig, epitomized the successful Colonial solicitor as he half-assisted, half-dragged his staggering wife to their places. Denny Winstrum floated across the room on a foaming sea of ruffled taffeta, the black ostrich feathers of her Gainsborough picture hat quivering with each step. Her son Danny accompanied her, still sniffling but looking almost stately in his high-collared jacket and lace-trimmed stock. Even Mandy Adcock, usually gawky in baggy sweaters and moth-eaten skirts, glided across the floor with the grace of a grand duchess.

As with most Web functions, one's place in line depended upon seniority: polonaises and periwigs gave way to Empire gowns and Napoleonic locks, and then to high bustles and muttonchops, as the hierarchy worked its way down to the present. The last large group of Revenants to enter the chamber wore the tight suits and short skirts of the 1920s, an era when, according to older Revenants, any Gentile with the right stockbroker and bootlegger could buy his way into The Web. Only a few stragglers wore clothing of the postwar period; the last woman to enter the crypt looked pathetic in a skin-tight, black-beaded minidress.

With the family seated and the rest of The Web standing at attention, Mutchinson signaled for the mahogany doors to be closed and bolted. As his acolytes took their places behind the priest, Mutchinson gestured for all to sit. With a rustling of silks and a flurry of powder, The Web prepared for the true memorial service for Jakob Haarmann, a.k.a. James Wilmot "Jake" Herriman.

"In the beginning," intoned Mutchinson, "was the Dark." He extinguished the single candle atop the coffin with thumb and forefinger.

"And the Dark spoke to Woman and Man," responded The Web.

"To both Man and Woman spoke the Dark," continued Mutchinson. "To them He said, 'I am the True Way and Life, so come to Me. I am the Night Everlasting, the World Without End, the Life Without Death, so come to Me."

"I am the Shadow without Sun, and the Sleep without Awakening," murmured The Web.

"I am the Gentle Hand who caresses the weary Laborer at end of day."

"Who calms the Mother mourning her dead child."

"Who inspires the Warrior with dreams of pillage and conquest."

"Who fills the Unfaithful with dread, who makes them see demons and cry out, but who blesses the Faithful with peace and serenity."

"Therefore, do not believe the Giver of Light, for he is a Teller of Lies," intoned Mutchinson. "He will burn your flesh and age you, he will sear your crops and smite..."

Mutchinson paused as a loud thumping erupted from beneath the coffin lid, causing the candle to bounce up and down. Disconcerted, he stared at the box, then at Adelberta, who gestured for him to continue.

"Uh...for he is a Teller of Lies...," stammered the priest.

"He will sear your crops and smite your hine," Adelberta said distinctly, her eyes fixed on a marble cherub.

"Thank you, Addie...Adelberta." Mutchinson's voice grew bland and majestic again. "He will sear your crops and smite your hine. He will suck the marrow from your bones and the blood from your veins. He will..." The priest's voice was drowned out by louder, more insistent banging from inside the coffin. As the candle fell off the lid and rolled under a pew, he sighed. "Addie, I simply cannot work under these conditions."

Suddenly, the coffin began to rock from side to side. Mutchinson and the acolytes fell back. The Web exclaimed in surprise as the screws on one side began to pop out of the wood. Several bloody fingers appeared from within, prying open the lid. As the hand forced the coffin open, Revenants sitting in the front row rose and backed away. Adelberta stood, walked over to the coffin, and peered within.

"Jake, just what the hell do you think you're doing?" she snarled.

The lid flew off, pinning Mutchinson and the acolytes against the back wall. As pandemonium erupted, Addie's late husband sat up in the coffin, gasping for air. Jake had received his last blood transfusion over three days ago, and it showed. His normally florid skin was gray and flaccid. His eyes, sunken and bloodshot, rolled in their sockets. Sweat dripped from his face and plastered his short gray hair to his scalp, while his damp suit and shirt clung to his body. His black-and-orange Princeton tie was wrapped around his neck, like a festive garrote. Addie had wanted him to be buried as Jakob Haarmann, in silk doublet and breeches, but Jake had insisted on his new Brooks Brothers suit. He had not wanted this funeral, and he was determined to disrupt it as much as possible.

"My Lord," he wheezed, "I just made it. You almost walled me." He finally focused on Addie, and his paw-like hand gripped her arm. "Addie, I’ve changed my mind. I don't want to go to sleep."

As one, The Web began to murmur, only to be silenced by Addie's glare. Addie turned back to her disoriented husband and placed her hands gently on his shoulders.

"Now, darling," she said sweetly. "We've discussed this already. You know you need to sleep. You haven't had a decent rest since 1956. That's why you’ve been a little muddled lately. Now be a good boy and lie down." She massaged Jake’s shoulders as she pushed him back down. Suddenly, he thrust her hands away and sat up again.

"But it hasn't been 60 years!" Jake sounded like an unfairly punished child. "It's only been 36 years! I have decades left! 'Creep 60, Sleep 20', right?"

"Darling, don't be silly." Addie pressed down on Jake's shoulders, amazed that it took all her strength to keep him in the coffin. “'Creep 60, Sleep 20' is a rule of thumb, that's all. Sometimes you need a longer rest. Don't you remember how the Board decided you needed to sleep now, even though it's early? You're tired. That's why you’ve made a few little mistakes."

"Like what?" Jake glared at her, defensive.

"Like buying all those junk bonds," Addie whispered, "after we told you not to. And building the new headquarters, after we told you not to. And…"

"But Webster said it was okay!" Jake beamed as he named his scapegoat. "He told me to go ahead and buy the junk bonds and build the headquarters. He even told me to name it One Herriman Plaza! Wasn't that nice?"

"Yes, dear," Addie grunted, applying more pressure to his shoulders. "Very nice. But you see, we also told you not to listen to Webster." From the corner of her eye, she saw Throckwaite pick up the coffin lid, ready to slam it down when she gave the signal.

"Stop it!" Jake pushed her away again. "I don't want to lie down." Glancing at the crowd of Revenants, he whispered in his wife's ear, "I don't like it in there, honey. It's too dark."

"Well, what seems to be the problem here?" Warren Ambergrise's round face appeared over Jake’s shoulder like a full moon.

"No problem, Warren," Addie said, forcing herself not to scream. "Jake is a little cranky, that's all. Why don't you sit down and we'll --"

"Warren, I don't want to go to sleep." Jake whined as he clasped the lawyer's hand. "Tell her I don't want to. I want to go home and have my transfusion. I'm thirsty. Pierston," he said, catching sight of his old friend standing behind Ambergrise, "Pierston, let's go have a nice fuse and play some cribbage. Warren, wouldn't you like to play cribbage? Or backgammon?"

Pierston Throckwaite put down the coffin lid and perched on the altar. Patting his friend's shoulder, he spoke in the persuasive tones that had warmed the City Council chambers for over a century. "Look here, old man, what’s all the fuss? You're dead, that's all. You've been dead before."

"But I'm not dead..."

"Of course you're not really dead," Throckwaite reassured his friend. "It's just a figure of speech. But you haven't been feeling well and you need to rest. That's why you had to die. Don't you remember?" Jake's eyes searched Throckwaite's face, trying to find the missing memory. "You had a fatal heart attack three days ago at Moss Glen. That's what we told the mortals. Because you needed a rest and the mortals needed to think you were dead. In twenty years or so you'll be back, good as new. And with a whole new identity! Isn't that right, Addie?"

"Of course it is, Pierston." Addie smiled down on her husband. "You'll close your eyes, and next thing you know, we'll be taking off the lid and hooking up the IVs..."

"I could recover!"

"What?" asked Addie and Throckwaite together.

"I could recover. From my heart attack." Jake's eyes grew bright as he planned his resurrection. "You could say I was rushed to the hospital, and Dr. Zopf saved me in the nick of time."

Addie threw up her hands and stalked away in disgust. Warren Ambergrise and Pierston Throckwaite looked at each other, trying to determine their next step.

"Jake," Ambergrise protested, "do you know what the tax implications will be if you come back to life now?"

"I don't know and I don't care, Ambergrise," Herriman snapped. "That's why we pay you so damned much."

"Jake," Throckwaite said gently, "it won't work. Everyone in town knows you're dead. The Inquirer carried the obituary on Tuesday."

"It did?"

"It was a real nice one, Jake," Ambergrise added. "Front page, nice photo, three columns. I've got a copy here." He patted his satin britches. "Damn, left my wallet in my other trousers."

"Warren," Throckwaite hissed, "I think we can forego the obituary right now."

"Daddy," Rebecca stepped between the two men, "you're embarrassing us!" Addie glared at her older daughter, who promptly backed away and sat down next to her giggling sister. Anne's last shreds of restraint disappeared completely when Rebecca tried to duplicate the same glare on her, and she howled merrily.

"We could say it was a mistake." Jake’s face brightened again. "The Inquirer's always full of mistakes. We'll have them print a retraction. Now, let's..."

"It was not a mistake!" Addie Herriman shrieked. Jake Herriman flinched as his wife's fist slammed down on the edge of the coffin, splintering the wood. "You died on Monday, we cremated you Wednesday, we buried your ashes this morning, and they showed it on ‘Action News’ tonight!" Addie struggled to regain her composure. "So forget about coming back to life, Jake Herriman. You are dead and I do not want to hear another word out of you before 2012 AD! Is that understood?"

Jake stared at his wife defiantly and crossed his arms. "I want a drink. Gin and water. No ice."

"Fine," Addie muttered, her eyes steel gray. "I tried to reason with you, Jake, but after 300 years I should know better." Before her husband could react, she grabbed his shoulders and shoved him down, slamming his head ferociously against the edge of the coffin. "Pierston, hold his legs!" she ordered the politician, who tried to grab Herriman's flailing limbs. Addie screamed for Ambergrise and Mutchinson to take her husband's arms, while Philip Commanger and other men hurried forward. In the struggle, one of Herriman's shiny black wingtips flew off, clipping an ostrich feather from Denny Winstrum's hat on its downward trajectory. At this, Anne Herriman lost control completely, sliding from her chair onto the floor. Rebecca scowled at her younger sister, while Paul looked on impassively.

Jake Herriman was a strong man, even by Revenant standards, but he had gone without sustenance for over three days. The combined strength of his friends finally subdued him, although he continued to spit and curse at them. Once Addie was satisfied that her husband was under control, she straightened her skewed wig and retrieved her bag from under her chair.

"Don't disturb yourselves, children," she snarled as she stepped over the prone Anne. "Just sit back and enjoy the show." Paul and Rebecca remained silent, and even Anne quieted down. They knew better than to talk to their mother when she was like this.

Addie searched through her bag, retrieving two objects. As she turned back to Jake, her struggling husband saw what she held. He redoubled his efforts to escape, while his captors strained to hold him. Truly afraid, Jake began to plead with his wife.

"Addie – honey, I'm sorry. I'll be good now, I promise. You can put those away. I'll go to sleep. Please, Berta..."

Addie shook her head. "I asked you nicely, Jakob, but you wouldn't listen. You had to humiliate me in front of our friends. Now we will do things my way."

She approached her husband, a freshly carved hawthorn stake in one hand, a ballpeen hammer in the other. Its silver head gleamed atop the oak shaft as Addie stood by the coffin. Desperate, Jake tried to soften his wife's resolve in their native German.

"Berta – meine süsse Vögelein – du muss nicht es tün. Adelberta, ich bitte dich, du bist meine Weib..."

"Warren, shut him up," Addie said coldly.

Ambergrise tried to cover Jake's mouth, then snatched his hand away. "Hell, Addie!" the lawyer yelped, holding his bloody fingers. "You could have removed his dentures!"

"Stock," Addie snarled back. When the lawyer stared at her, confused, she gestured at his neck. "Give me your stock, you idiot!"

Reluctantly, the lawyer unwound the fine band of ruffled silk from his throat. Addie snatched the fabric from him. She pressed her strong fingers against Jake's cheeks, forced his jaws apart, and stuffed the stock in his mouth. Satisfied with her efforts, she turned and addressed her son.

"Paul?" The young man's head jerked up at the strident sound of his mother's voice. "Will you do this, or must I manage everything?"

Paul stared at his mother, unbelieving, as she offered him the stake and hammer. When he hesitated, Rebecca jumped up eagerly from her chair.

"Please, Mummy, let me do it for you – Paul!" With a sudden gesture, Paul shoved his sister out of the way and grabbed the tools from his mother. Addie looked at her son approvingly, while Rebecca scowled.

"Thank you, Paul," Addie said, "I'm glad someone can still act for themselves tonight."

Mother and son turned toward the coffin. Paul hesitated, not sure he could go through with this. He had not staked anyone in over a century, and he had never staked his father. Paul steeled himself and tried to avoid Jake's bulging eyes; tried to block out the desperate, muffled noises coming from his throat. He focused on the heaving chest and positioned the stake over the starched white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the pinstripe jacket.

"A little further down, Paul," his mother hissed, "or you'll miss it entirely. Do you want Rebecca to do this after all?"

Paul moved the stake an inch lower on his father's chest. He brought the silver-headed hammer around in a perfect arc and hit the top of the stake squarely. He sighed with relief as he felt fabric and flesh give way, and heard his father issue a high-pitched squeal of pain. He had sunk a good three inches of the stake cleanly into his father's chest. Paul gave thanks that he hadn't hit a rib; that always screwed up a staking. He shut his eyes as a shower of warm blood gushed from his father's violated chest, spattering his face and upper body. Blindly, he struck the stake again and again, feeling it sink deeper into the chest. His father's stifled shrieks reached a crescendo, ringing in Paul's ears like an entire slaughterhouse. The staking seemed to last an eternity, and the old fool hadn't even fed for three days!

Finally, a geyser of hot blood erupted from Jake's chest, bathing his captors as it cascaded over the sides of the coffin. Paul felt the slippery stake vibrate in his hand, and knew that he had pierced the heart. His father howled one last time, and then all noise and movement ceased. Paul kept pounding until Jake was completely still, but stopped before the stake completely penetrated the body. Again, he sighed with relief. "Sinking the boat" – driving the stake all the way through a body and into the wood of the coffin – was the ultimate Revenant faux pas.

Paul wiped the blood from his eyes. As his vision cleared, he was transfixed by his father's body. He couldn't look away from the pain-filled eyes, frozen on him; the mouth, stuffed with Ambergrise’s ruined finery, agape in an agonized rictus; the shattered chest; and the coffin half filled with blood. Will I look like that someday? he wondered.

From under his dripping wig, Paul looked up to see Ambergrise and Mutchinson, both covered with blood as well, gazing at him. "Well done, Paul," Ambergrise said. Paul shook hands with both men, feeling his father's blood lubricate their palms. Throckwaite stepped forward, wiping his bifocals on the edge of his doublet. Shielded by the lawyer and priest, he had been only lightly spattered by his old friend.

"Congratulations, Paul," Throckwaite murmured. "We're quite proud of you." Without thinking, Paul stuck his hand out. Throckwaite stared at his dripping arm, sniffed, and stepped back.

“Paul.” He turned to see his mother’s pale face, suffused with joy. She had retreated quickly enough so that no blood stained her flesh or fine gown. She dabbed his cheek with a lace handkerchief before kissing him gently. "I'm so pleased with you, dear. You did just fine. Now take everyone back to Moss Glen and give them drinks. And get out of those wet clothes. I'll see to things here."

"Addie, don't be silly," Denny Winstrum protested as she wiped down her sodden son. "You can't clean up this mess and put Jake away by yourself!"

"No, Denny." Addie's voice was firm. "I want to spend some time with my husband. Alone. Now go."

A few Revenants protested feebly, but most were ready for dry martinis after such a stressful evening. Addie shooed The Web into the tunnel, where they followed the blood-drenched Paul back to Moss Glen. She ignored the curious look Pierston Throckwaite gave her as he passed.

When the last Revenant had left the crypt, Addie bolted the door and surveyed the chaos. Jake's blood covered the walls and ceiling around the coffin, and dripped from the bas-relief surfaces of the plaques. Addie stepped gingerly around an overturned chair and retrieved her bag from the corner where it had been kicked during the struggle. She removed a long-sleeved, plastic coroner's smock which she donned over her elaborate gown, complementing it with a pair of thick rubber gloves. She was not going to get blood on her favorite dress again; not after the fortune she spent having it cleaned the last time. Suitably attired, Addie extracted the final item from her bag: a long, ivory-handled carving knife with a sharp silver blade, large enough to dismantle an ox.

Addie approached the open coffin, where her husband's staked body bobbed gently in its own blood. She placed the blade on his neck and began to cut. Then she paused, looked at him thoughtfully, and sighed.

"Oh, Jakob," she said, irritation and affection blending in her voice, "why must you make everything so difficult?"