as she began to revert back to human form again. Moments later she lay curled

up

on her . side, naked, breathing hard. The changes always took a lot out of

her,

and she knew she'd have no choice but to feed again soon, but there was

something else she had to accomplish first. She stretched slowly. There was

no

longer any sign of the injuries the necromancer had inflicted upon her. The

accelerated, spell-mutated growth she'd experienced during her

transformations

had healed her supernaturally, but the strain on her body was tremendous.

She got to her feet slowly and waited for her breathing to become steady, for

her heartbeat to slow down. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in disarray.

She

was burning with fever, covered with a sheen of sweat. She picked up her

white

dress and put it on, then she pulled the lever in the wall that opened the

concealed door. She slipped out into the corridor, then ran down the steps

leading to the dungeons.

It didn't take long for Liam McMurphy to grow bored with sitting in his cab.

The

meter was still running, but he had long since given up on getting paid. He

grimaced at it with disgust and turned it off. A short distance away, he

could

see some of the other chauffeurs gathered together, having a smoke and

drinking

coffee that had been sent out to them. Being a cabbie, he didn't much feel

like

hobnobbing with the chauffeurs—they were paid more than cab-drivers and

tended

to be snobbish about it—but he could use a cup of coffee, so he opened the

door

and got out of the cab.

A couple passing by, arm in arm, out for a moonlight stroll, stared at him

strangely as he got out of the cab. He glanced down at himself, wondering if

perhaps he'd left his fly open, but everything seemed to be in order, and he

set

out toward the knot of chauffeurs standing perhaps twenty or thirty yards

away.

"Hello, lads," he said, coming up to them. "Any more of that good coffee,

then?"

They all fell silent and stared at him, giving him a onceover. "Who the devil

are you?" one of them said.

"Oh, I'm one o' your lot," Liam said. "Drove a party over in that limo over

there." He pointed back toward his cab.

"What, dressed like that?" said one of the other chauffeurs with obvious

disbelief.

"Here, how did you get in here?" another said.

Liam glanced down at himself, and men it dawned on him that he obviously

appeared to these chauffeurs the way he really looked. The spell that gave

him