By Blood We Live

First-Class luggage was on G Deck, at the bow. The gangways were sufficiently wide to get the trunk up at least as far as the C Deck cargo well. I was striding forward along a corridor still largely deserted-crewmembers sleep whenever they can, the lazy bastards-when the heavy beat of the engines ceased.

Silence and utter stillness, for the first time since we'd lain at Queenstown, filled the ship, seeming louder than any thunder.

I wasn't the only one to find the silence more disturbing than impact with thousands of tons of ice. Doors began opening along the corridor, men and women-most of them young and all of them tousled from sleep-emerged. "What is it?" "Why're we stopped?"

"Hit an iceberg," I said. I pulled a roll of banknotes from the pocket of my tuxedo jacket, and added, "I'll need assistance getting my trunk from the First-Class hold. It contains papers that I cannot risk having soaked." I could have carried the trunk by myself, of course, but if seen doing so I could kiss good-by any chance of remaining unnoticed, unquestioned, or uninvestigated for the rest of the trip.

"I'm sorry, Lord Sandridge." Fourth Officer Boxhall appeared behind me, uniformed and worried-looking. "We may need the crew to stand by and help with the mailroom, if the water comes up onto the Orlop Deck. If you'll return to your stateroom, I'll have a man come there the moment we know one can be spared. At the moment there doesn't seem to be much damage, but we should know more within half-an-hour."

I could have told him there was water pouring into what sounded like several of the water-tight compartments down below, but reasoned he'd have the truth very shortly. One of the stewardesses was looking closely at me, a thick-chinned, fair-haired Yorkshire girl whom I'd seen more than once in conversation with Miss Paxton. She moved off swiftly down the corridor, slipping between the growing gaggles of crewmen. So much for any hope of waiting in my stateroom.

Still, I thought, midnight was only ten minutes off. If there were crewmen hauling sacks of mail out of the way of floodwaters in the First-Class cargo hold, I'd be able to divert their attention from me while I rescued the trunk myself.

Or killed Miss Paxton.

And by long before sunrise, I reflected as I strode toward the stair, I'd know whether I was going on another vessel, or staying hidden in some sun-proof, locked nook on the

Titanic while repairs were effected. With any luck I'd be able to get an immigrant or two in the confusion as well.

Miss Paxton would be up on B Deck, headed for my stateroom. On C Deck some of the Swedes and Armenians from steerage were still laughing and playing with chunks of the ice that had been scraped off the iceberg. On the B Deck promenade a few people were prowling about, dressed in their coats and their thickest sweaters; a young man in evening-clothes showed me a piece of ice, then dropped it in his highball: "Saw the thing go past. Bloody amazing!"

"You don't think there's been any damage to the ship?" asked an elderly lady, doddering by on the arm of her superannuated spouse.

"Good Lord, no. God himself couldn't sink this ship."

Simon would have crossed himself, vampire or no.

If I ever find myself in a similar situation again-God forbid!-I will do so, too.

By this time I realized-and the UnDead are more sensitive to such matters than the living-that the deck under my feet was just slightly out of true. With all that water in the compartments below that didn't surprise or upset me. I climbed to the Marconi shack on the Boat Deck-the room where the telegraphers sat pecking frantically at their electric keys. "We've sent word to the

Californian, but she hasn't replied," said one of the young men, when I asked. "Probably turned off his set and went to bed. Bastard nearly blew my ears off earlier tonight, when I was trying to deal with the passenger messages. The Carpathian's about sixty miles south of us. She'll be here in four or five hours, to take the passengers off."

Four hours would put its arrival in darkness, I reflected as I made my way toward my own stateroom and what I hoped would be a rendezvous with my pursuer. Five hours, at dawn.

Which meant that the moment Miss Paxton was safely out of the way I would have to get that trunk, one way or another. And be where I could get into it come first light. Never, I vowed, would I travel again if I could help it: it was just one damn complication after another.

I could scent Miss Paxton's dusting-powder as I entered the corridor leading to my stateroom. The scent was strong, but she was nowhere in sight. In the other cabins I heard the murmur of voices-a woman complained about having to go out on deck in the cold, which was prodigious-but there was certainly neither panic nor concern. I took a few steps along the corridor, listening, sniffing.

She was in my stateroom.

Of course. She'd got the maid to let her in.

This would be easier than I'd thought.