Shadows

""The deeper the dark, the truer the sight."" That's the theme that propels--or, drags along--this sluggish contemporary tale about the long-standing association between vampires and witches. Selene Weiss, high priestess of a Wiccan cult, loves Jamey Whistler, a charismatic vampire whose estranged, blood-drinking father sends Aldo Striescu, a Romanian vampire hit man (a vampire and an assassin of vampires) to annihilate the couple. Since Aldo's sadistic techniques pay off as much in sexual pleasure as profit, he is a relentless and vicious pursuer. From California to London to Manhattan to Santa Luz, Selene contacts friends from various subcultures (motorcycle gangs, witch cults) to help her elude the fiend and save her lover. Things get complicated when Aldo grabs Selene's niece as bait. For a vampire, Jamey seems a bit dull-witted, but this novel is less about the power of vampires than it is about the power of women, in particular the power of the crone, a woman past menopause who can see the future. One such crone delivers to Selene a forecast of death and betrayal, and she must face a disturbing clash between her powers and her heart. Nasaw (The World on Blood) fills in slow moments with lots of scenes of Wiccan initiation and of females tapping into their eroticism for wisdom and vision--a PC brand of fictional witching that's high-spirited and pleasant enough, but hardly exciting or new. (Oct.)