By Blood We Live

I'm depressed when I get to Rome and not because the city is big and noisy and feels like LA. (My dad's people were from Calabria and they never had a good thing to say about

Romani, so I'm biased.) It's because-well, just because. But when I reach the Vatican, I feel a lot better. Now this-this is beautiful. St. Peter's. The church, the square, marble everywhere, sunlight blinding you like the flashlight of God. Even the silly little Fiats going round and round the circle like they're trapped and can't get off are nice.

He's not going to be in the basilica, I know. That's where the Pope is-that new strict guy, Benedict-and it's visiting day, dispensations, blessings, the rest. I don't even try to go through the main Vatican doorway on the opposite side. Too many tourists there too. Instead I go to a side entrance, Via Gerini, where there's no one. Construction cones, sidewalk repair, a big door with carvings on it. Why this entrance, I don't know. Just a hunch.

I know God can open any door for me that He wants to, so if my hunch is right why isn't the door opening? Maybe there'll be a mark on the right door-you know, a shadow that looks like the face of Our Lady, or the number 333, something-but before I can check the door for a sign, something starts flapping above my head and scares the shit out of me. I think it's a bat at first-that would make sense-but it's just a pigeon. No, a dove. Doves are smaller and pigeons aren't this white.

I know my employer thinks I'm slow, but a

white dove?

The idiot bird keeps flapping two feet from my head and now I see it-a twig of something in its beak. I don't want to know.

The bird flies off, stops, hovers, and waits. I'm supposed to follow, so I do.

The door it's stopped at is the third one down from mine, of course. No face of Our Lady on it, but when I step up to it, it of course clicks and swings open.

We go through the next doorway, and the next, and the next, seven doorways in all-from a library to a little museum, then another library, then an office, then an archive with messy files, then a bigger museum. Some of the rooms are empty-of people, I mean-and some aren't, and when they're not, the people, some in suits and dresses and some in clerical outfits-give me a look like, "Well, he certainly seems to know where he's going with his musical instrument. Perhaps they're having chamber music with

espresso for gli ufficiali. And of course that can't really be a pure white dove with an olive twig in its beak flapping in front of him, so everything's just fine. Buon giorno, Signore."

When the bird stops for good, hovering madly, it's a really big door and it doesn't open right off. But I know this is it-that my guy is on the other side. Whatever he's doing, he's there and I'd better get ready. He's a vampire. Maybe he's confused-maybe he doesn't want to be one any longer-but he's still got, according to the angel, superhuman strength and super-senses and the rest.

When the door opens-without the slightest sound, I note-I'm looking down this spiral staircase into a gorgeous little chapel. Sunlight is coming through the stained-glass windows, so there's got to be a courtyard or something just outside, and the frescoes on the ceiling look like real Michelangelos. Big muscles. Those steroid bodies.

The bird has flown to the ceiling and is perched on a balustrade, waiting for the big event, but that's not how I know the guy I'm looking down at is Frank. It isn't even that he's got that distinguished-gentleman look that old vampires have in the movies. It's what he's doing that tells me.

He's kneeling in front of the altar, in front of this big golden crucifix with an especially bloody Jesus, and he's very uncomfortable doing it. Even at this distance I can tell he's shaking. He's got his hands out in prayer and can barely keep them together. He's jerking like he's being electrocuted. He's got his eyes on the crucifix, and when he speaks, it's loud and his voice jerks too. It sounds confessional-the tone is right-but it's not English and it's not Italian. It may not even be Latin, and why should it be? He's been around a long time and probably knows the original.

I'm thinking the stained-glass light is playing tricks on me, but it's not. There really

is a blue light moving around his hands, his face, his pants legs-blue fire-and this, I see now, it's what's making him jerk.

He's got to be in pain. I mean, here in a chapel-in front of an altar-sunlight coming through the windows-making about the biggest confession any guy has ever made. Painful as hell, but he's doing it, and suddenly I know why she loves him. Hell,

anyone would.

Without knowing it I've unpacked my crossbow and have it up and ready. This is what God wants, so I probably get some help doing it. I'm shaking too, but go ahead and aim the thing.

I need forgiveness, too, you know, I want to tell him. You can't bank your immortal soul, no, but you do get to spend it a lot longer.