Free More Than Mortal by Mick Farren

experience, but can also invade the dreams of one of us at will, leaving us powerless to stop it. I would suggest we need the help and advice of someone who is both highly knowledgeable and unable to resist a mystery.”
    “A nosferatu?”
    “Of course.”
    “She would have to be extremely venerable but, at the same time, still retain a mental flexibility.”
    If inscrutability came in degrees, Marieko’s expression achieved an unprecedented level of bland knowingness. “It wasn’t a she I had in mind.”
    In an instant, Columbine had seen exactly where Marieko’s logic was taking them. “No!”
    “I know how you feel about Victor Renquist, my dear Columbine, but—”
    “Never!”
    “He has all the qualifications.”
    “He wouldn’t come here.”
    Destry began to warm to what Marieko had set in motion. “I think he would. If he were to find out we’d happened across something very old with a nosferatu connection, he’d be here like a shot.”
    Marieko, cross-legged on her cushion, sat even straighter. “She’s absolutely right.”
    Columbine had risen from her accustomed velvet wing chair, walked to a side table, and opened a pink-and-black art deco cigarette box. Smoking cigarettes was a habit she had picked up during her travels with Sir Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor), when he had been on his way to become the first infidel to enter the holy city of Mecca. She had convinced herself that a cigarette lent a woman a distinct extra degree of authority. The principle applied to any elevation of rank from trollop to duchess. Since all the mortal fuss about cancer and secondhand smoke, it had become an even more powerful affectation, indicating, as it did, a certain devil-may-care, risk-taking ruthlessness. On a visit to a high-rise domination bordello in Tokyo’s Roppongi district in the late 1980s, she had observed that the lace-, rubber-, and leather-clad mistress-sans all chain-smoked to stern and contemptuous effect. Right then, it wasn’t authority she needed, and, of course, her nosferatu metabolism derived no pleasure or satisfaction—or harm, for that matter—from the process. It was a device she usually reserved for human company, but, right at that moment, she needed some manual ritual, a practiced distraction to cover her confusion. Of course, Marieko was right, damn her, but the idea of actually seeing Renquist after all this time was singularly disturbing. She flicked the matching table lighter, but it refused to catch, clearly out of fuel.
    “Damn that Bolingbroke. Why can’t he keep the lighters filled?”
    Destry, who had remained standing through the conversation,
took a lighter from the pocket of the bush shirt she wore over her usual jodhpurs and tight, high hunting boots. “Come here.”
    Columbine had moved to Destry. “He needs thrashing.”
    Destry flicked the Zippo she had managed to carry across a dozen war zones. “He enjoys the attention too much.”
    Columbine had inclined her head slightly and drawn on the cigarette, at the same time holding back stray ringlets so they wouldn’t fall in the flame. “You know what would happen if Renquist came here? He’d try to turn us into the classic foursome. The male master and his three compliant concubines.”
    Destry and Marieko didn’t seem to respond quite as quickly as Columbine would have expected. “Are you two out of your minds? Are you suggesting you might enjoy such an arrangement?”
    Destry, realizing she’d been caught in a fleeting what-if reverie, quickly snapped her lighter shut and put it in her pocket. “Of course not. Would we live like this if we did?”
    Marieko smiled with deceptive sweetness. “The presence of a male would, however, be a diversion.”
    Columbine had retorted angrily. “Then why don’t you go the whole way and move in with Fenrior?”
    “Rudeness is hardly appropriate.”
    Destry closed ranks with Marieko. “Really, Columbine, after all this time, the nonsense between you