"No!" Jimmy cried before Ellie could finish. "No, Ellie, I wasn't thinking of Maggie at all. I only thought of you."

Ellie's smile, a swift bloom across her face that melted her haughty features, made Jimmy smile back almost as a reflex. Before he knew what was happening, the body pressed against his lost its taut, strained feeling and a limpid softness took its place.

"Ellie .. ."Jimmy pleaded weakly and she laughed, the confident, self-assured laugh of a woman, not a teenaged girl.

"Give me one good reason why not," she said.

"How about a thousand?" Jimmy sighed, petting her silky, bright hair he couldn't seem to keep his hands off. "I don't want to hurt you. You deserve better than some cheap one-night stand."

"Is that all you want from me, Jimmy?"

How could he tell her that was all he'd had for the past eighteen years? That was the impenetrable barrier between him and Ellie .. .Jimmy couldn't tell her he had plenty of sex, but the last time he made love was with her mother.

"Talk to me, Jimmy," Ellie said and reached up to brush heavy locks of hair off his forehead.

Jimmy didn't know if it was that lover-like gesture or her eyes shining with such empathy and concern but Jimmy found himself confessing everything to Ellie.

"She broke my heart, "Jimmy began and knew Ellie needed no explanation of which she he meant. "After

Jay died, I was a wreck ... a drunk, half-crazed wreck. She plucked me up out of the gutter and turned my life around. She taught me to fight back, made me strong and good in a way I'd never imagined I could be. I would have laid down my life for her; I loved her so damn much. I'd never met anyone like her ... so full of life and fire. She took me in and made me her friend and lover but she never said she loved me. Do you know what that's like, to love someone with all your heart and know they don't feel the same? I tried so hard to make her love me but she wouldn't."

That's because she loved someone else," Ellie said softly and Jimmy nodded.

"Yeah," he said on a shaky breath. "That was the hell of it... she was in love with someone else. I never wanted to admit that, even to myself. But finally I had to face it and after that, I... I shut down. I was empty inside. I couldn't imagine loving someone else. I didn't ever want to feel that kind of pain again. So that's why I don't want to start anything with you, Ellie. You deserve better than me. You deserve a guy who'll love you with all his heart."

"I know about love," Ellie said and put her hand over Jimmy's heart. "Once I thought I might be in love but then I knew I wasn't."

"How did you know?" Jimmy asked, bemused by the sudden rush of jealousy he felt toward this unknown man Ellie thought she loved.

"I couldn't tell him what I am," Ellie answered and pressed down hard on his chest with her hand. "Don't you see, Jimmy? I can be myself with you. You know all my secrets and I know yours. You don't have to pretend with me and I'm not interested in anyone but you. Isn't that more than you have with any other woman?"

"Ellie ..."

Ellie reached up and put a finger over his lips. "Let me finish. You say I deserve a man who'll love me. I know you love me, Jimmy. You've told me so plenty of times. I know what you're going to say—that isn't the same as being in love with me. Well, I don't expect you to be in love with me, yet.. . even though I'm in love with you. I realized that tonight, that I've loved you for a long time without being aware of it Any time I got interested in a boy, it was because he had long hair or he was funny or he liked rock and roll. . . every boy I've ever dated reminded me of you in some way. I love you, Jimmy. I want to be with you."

Ellie took a breath but Jimmy didn't interrupt. Had she any idea she was offering him exactly what he'd always wanted, for someone to make him their center the same way he longed to give all that scorned, rejected love he'd had for Maggie to the right woman? Was it possible that woman was Ellie?

'You say I deserve better than you," she continued in that level voice that bespoke maturity far beyond her seventeen years. "First, I don't agree with that. I think you're one of the finest men I've ever known but you just don't know it. But let's say you're not as good as you could be. I know some of what you told me about my father—the awful things he's done—is true. But he's better now and that's all because of Mom. She made him a better man." Ellie ignored Jimmy's rolled eyes, disbelieving huff, and went on. "Who's to say I can't do the same for you? Let me make you love again, Jimmy."

Did Ellie have any idea what she was asking of him . . . that he let go of his hurt and make himself vulnerable by putting his heart in her hands? What if Ellie grew bored with him in a few years and dropped him? Jimmy didn't think he could survive another rejection, didn't know what he'd do if he didn't have Ellie in his life.

Wasn't that his answer right there? Jimmy loved Ellie, loved her so much he couldn't bear the thought of life without her. It wasn't Maggie that brought him back to Southampton all these years; it was Ellie. Not that Jimmy didn't care for Maggie, but it was Ellie that kept drawing him back here, Ellie with her slanting smile, bubbling over with enthusiasm about her latest design. Jimmy looked over the vista of years gone by and saw himself showing Ellie his contact sheets, respecting her insightful analysis of his pictures, her sharp eye that knew what worked and what didn't. He saw the moonlight swims and long talks ... all of that done under the guise of their unusual friendship. Now there was something different, a chance for something more enduring between them and Jimmy thought he'd be a fool if he didn't at least try and pursue it.

Jimmy put his hand over Ellie's and probed her eyes, trying to see any last-minute trepidation. "You're sure?"

Ellie's response was to stand on tiptoe, kiss him square on the lips, and wrap her strong legs around his waist.

Jimmy put one hand beneath Ellie to hold her steady and thought about nothing but his need to satisfy this wonderful girl who was offering him so much, so unthinkingly.

Jimmy felt ready to burst and knew he couldn't wait much longer. But first he had to assure himself Ellie was ready for him ... he wanted this to be as good as possible for her. He slipped his fingers inside her, groaning at the warm, dark wetness he encountered.

Suddenly Ellie's eyes widened and a strangled whimper escaped her, one of shock and need.

"Do it," Jimmy told her as she thrashed around in his arms. Jimmy started moving his fingers in a slow- motion tickle, his sure-fire technique. "Come on, honey..."

Ellie needed no further encouragement. Throwing her head back and digging her nails into his back, Ellie came screaming her pleasure, throbbing wildly around Jimmy's fingers. His last rational thought was if that were what Ellie felt like around his hand, what would it be like when she throbbed around ...

Jimmy had no idea how they wound up back on the bed with him lodged firmly inside her while his hands dug into the firm expanse of her ass to move Ellie's hips in the rhythm he craved. Now it was his turn to scream and howl as he felt Ellie climax again and followed her blindly.

"I'm thirsty," Ellie announced a few minutes later and Jimmy wearily raised his head from her breasts.

"I'll go down to the kitchen," he volunteered, reluctant to leave the comfort of the cool sheets and Ellie sprawled in contented languor, a smile of almost feline satisfaction on her face.

"Thanks, Jimmy," Ellie beamed and held out her arms. Leaning down, he kissed her as thoroughly as though he expected to be gone for days and not the ten minutes it would take him to get some drinks.

Jimmy stopped in his bedroom and threw a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in the pocket of his robe. On impulse, he went to his chest of dresser drawers and withdrew an item buried deep in the top drawer.

"Lemonade okay with you?" Jimmy asked, returning to Ellie's room with a pitcher and two tall glasses.

Ellie nodded and drank deeply, startling Jimmy when she held out her hand for the cigarette he'd just lit. "When did you start smoking?"

"A few months ago," she shrugged and impatiently gestured for a cigarette. Jimmy lit one for her, thinking he'd certainly introduced her to far darker vices than smoking this evening.

"What's going through your mind?" Jimmy inquired after they smoked in silence for a few minutes. Ellie looked happy, but she could be experiencing some compunction now that their love making was reality and not fantasy.

"I'm relieved," she said immediately and Jimmy laughed at the unexpected word.

"Why relieved, honey?"

"I thought I was frigid," Ellie told him and Jimmy wondered what kind of ass she might have been with to form that opinion. No doubt some young kid that didn't know any more about sex than she did.

Not that Ellie hadn't been wonderful . . . she'd been everything Jimmy could hope for. But he could tell by the way she moved, with unsure but instinctive passion, she wasn't that experienced. Not that Jimmy would mind teaching her ... he was just thankful she hadn't been a virgin. Maggie was going to go ballistic when she found out what happened—imagine how she'd react if Jimmy had not only slept with Ellie but had deflowered her.

He might not have taken her virginity but he had given Ellie her first climax. Jimmy wouldn't embarrass Ellie by telling her he'd known, by her astonished eyes and thousand volt smile, that the rush of feeling pulsating through her was a new and wonderful experience. Jimmy leaned back, not aware that his own pleasure at his prowess was making his mouth stretch into a foolish grin that matched the one on Ellie's face.

"What's with that dopey smile?" Ellie asked and Jimmy snuffed out his cigarette in reply, pulling a willing Ellie beneath him.

"I was just thinking there's at least three hours before sunrise and I don't want to waste them smoking."

"Me either," Ellie smiled and arched hungrily beneath him. "Let's do it again."

And they did . . . three more times with Ellie growing more relaxed and curious each time. She wanted to experiment, and Jimmy gladly took on the role of teacher, thinking her education would be one long, delightful course in sensuality.

The phone rang just as Jimmy had initiated Ellie into one of his favorite pursuits—sixty-nine. He'd just tasted her musky, bittersweet juices while he felt that velvet tongue explore his cock when the phone on Ellie's nightstand shrilled at them. At the first ring, a cold, leaden ball settled in Jimmy's stomach and he felt himself shrivel up instantaneously.

He was rolling off Ellie even before he felt a hand reach up to push him away. Jimmy threw a pillow over his face as he heard Ellie pick up the phone with a shaky hello. All the warm desire in him turned to ash. Jimmy listened as Ellie fed her mother some cock- and-bull story about why she'd taken so long to pick up the phone.

Though Jimmy was relieved at this evidence Maggie had survived her trip to Chicago, he had a fervent and futile hope he'd never have to set eyes on her again.

Not only would this be the death knell of his friendship with Maggie, Jimmy knew she was going to do her damndest to destroy him. Knowing Maggie as well as he did, Jimmy thought her mildest reaction to his sleeping with Ellie would be to crush his balls in the blender and feed them to the cats while he watched. From there, she'd work her way up to more sadistic tortures before she finally cut off his head and let him die.

'That was Mom," Ellie said unnecessarily after she hung up, her face as taut and worried as Jimmy imagined his was. "She and Daddy and Lee are coming home tomorrow night. Jimmy, I don't think we should tell everybody right away. I mean, with Charles and Mikal. .. it just isn't the right time."

"Hon, "Jimmy said and ran his hand over her petal- soft cheek, "Maggie won't need to be told . . . she's going to know what happened thirty seconds after she steps through the door tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if you already got her antenna up by how jumpy you sounded. Either we tell your mother or wait for her to guess and it won't look good if we don't have the guts to tell her we're together." Lee Winslow wouldn't exactly be jumping for joy and Jimmy refused to even speculate on Simon Baldevar's reaction. Somehow Jimmy did not think he was what that psychopathic asshole had in mind for a son-in-law.

Ellie bit her lower lip pensively. "I guess you're right. I mean, sometimes it seems like Mom knows things about me before I know them myself. But I don't want to bother her when I know she's got so much on her mind. Jimmy, what are we going to do?"

Even in his queasy apprehension, Jimmy had to smile at that "we." Pushing long, sloppy locks of his hair off his face, Jimmy turned to Ellie and took her hands. "I've been thinking about it ever since the phone rang. The way I see it, we have one chance to make this whole crazy thing work out. One.

"The problem," Jimmy continued, "is that your mother will never believe I love you. She's going to think I used you or worse, she might think this whole thing is a grudge fuck against her—my sick way of getting even with her for choosing Simon Baldevar over me. The first thing I want you to know is that's absolutely untrue. Your mother had nothing to do with what happened tonight. And I'd never have touched you if I didn't want a relationship. But Maggie will never buy that unless we do something to show her we're serious about each other."

"How do we do that?" Ellie asked.

In reply, Jimmy reached for the terry cloth robe he'd dropped on the floor and scooped out a small gray jeweler's box.

"Marry me, Ellie," he said and popped open the box to show her his mother's wedding ring, a small marquise cut diamond ring in a yellow-gold setting. Jimmy didn't find it necessary to tell Ellie he'd once presented her mother with this ring and received a firm rebuff.

'Jimmy," Ellie said, her face blank and unreadable as she stared at the ring.

Please, Jimmy prayed. Don't let her give me any of Maggie's wishy-washy I-don't-know-if-this-is-the-right- thing-to-do bullshit that amounted to No. Jimmy didn't want to get shot down again, hear that while he was perfectly acceptable as a bed partner, Ellie had no need for him otherwise.

"We can't get married now," she finally said and Jimmy's heart sank. "Not with Charles barely cold ... it wouldn't be right. We'll have to put it off, get engaged first. An engagement would show Mom we're serious about each other. But we have to let some time pass . .. out of respect."

"Engaged?" Jimmy repeated stupidly, feeling there might be some reason to continue living after all. 'You mean you want to marry me?"

"Of course I do," Ellie said and held out her left hand expectantly. Shaking like he was in the midst of the DT tremors he used to get, Jimmy finally managed to slide the ring on her ring finger.

Ellie held her hand up to the light, dazzling red and blue prisms reflecting from the diamond. "Oh, Jimmy, it's beautiful."

"You're beautiful," he said and grabbed her roughly, crushing her to him so she wouldn't see his tears, tears of gratefulness mingled with fear. Charles's decapitated head floated before him, reminding Jimmy of the threat they were all living under now.

He wouldn't let anything happen to Ellie, Jimmy vowed. He wouldn't let that sick, twisted vampire brother of hers take her from him.

"Why did you sound so surprised when I said yes?" Ellie asked, still admiring her ring.

"Ellie, look at me," Jimmy commanded and Ellie turned her eyes to him. "Do you understand what a commitment this is?"

"I thought we were past you talking to me like I'm five," she complained and rolled her eyes. "Love, fidelity, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do we part . . . yes, I understand what a commitment marriage is. What do you think—I'm going to run around on you, ask for a divorce in six months?"

"If you do I'll drown you," he said half-seriously. "It's just you're very young to get married ... or engaged."

"Mom was eighteen when she and Daddy got together," Ellie shrugged. "You were my age when you got married."

"That was a shotgun wedding," Jimmy reminded her. "I couldn't keep it in my pants and nine months later I had a son to prove that. And I don't think Amy and I would have stayed together. I would have met my responsibility to Jay but sooner or later we would have gotten divorced. We were both too young and too different to make it work. The only thing we had in common was an ignorance of birth control."

"Well, I think you and I have a lot more in common than that," Ellie countered. "We're both smart, artistic, have the same interests. We're sexually compatible ... that's a lot more than most couples have to go on. About my being young ... so what? What am I supposed to do, waste my twenties dating jerks I know don't interest me? I've already figured out what I want ... you. I'm not going to change my mind in five years or ten or a hundred."

'That bring us to the next problem," Jimmy said. "If we get married, you have to transform."

"Of course," Ellie said calmly. "Daddy already said I have to transform."

"Don't talk about him," Jimmy snapped with automatic antipathy. "Look, putting his high-handed orders aside and even what we feel for each other— are you absolutely sure you want to transform? Do you know what it means to be a vampire?"

"After seventeen years of living with them, how could I not?" Ellie asked with mild exasperation. 'Jimmy, I have to say you and Mom have been a little unrealistic about this whole thing. It never occurred to me that at some point I wasn't going to transform. Maybe this is a little earlier than I expected but that's okay. I'm going into business for myself anyway... I'll just meet my clients and design at night. I know about the rest, the blood lust and stuff... I figured you and Mom would help me cope with that. But Jimmy, think about it. What else is there for me but transformation? Did you think I was just going to finish out my mortal life and die while you all continued on? What would that make me ... some brief interlude in your lives? Don't you want me around forever? Jimmy?"

'Tired," he managed to whisper and sagged against the pillows. It was practically six o'clock—that he was awake this late into the night surprised him. Blearily, Jimmy opened one eye and saw Ellie had closed the shutters while he went downstairs—he was safe from daylight.

"Course I want you around," he slurred and felt Ellie relax next to him. "Want you forever but.. .just didn't want you ... want you unhappy ..."

"I'll be happy as long as we're together," Ellie whispered into his ear and Jimmy, with a last burst of energy, wrapped his arms around her as they drifted off together.

"We'll be together," he promised, not sure if he spoke the words aloud or he was already dreaming. "Forever."

Nine

Meghann eyes snapped open, wide and filled with terror at the excruciating pain that felt like her skin was being stretched then peeled off her body. Whimpering, she glanced down at her arms and saw they were an appalling reddish purple, liberally covered in fever blisters that burst into oozing little rivulets of pus before her eyes.

"It's all right, little one," she heard Simon say and looked up from her wounded skin to see him driving a car unknown to her, while she was huddled on the passenger seat.

"Where are we? What's wrong with me?" Meghann cried in fear at the roiling nausea ripping through her and deep chills that made her shiver uncontrollably and wrap her arms around her body even though she burned with fever. What had happened to her? Why was she so sick?

"Exposure," Simon explained and her eyes registered on him long enough to observe that his white skin was burned to the bright pink of a negligent sun- bather. "It's early for us, only six-thirty."

"Six-thirty!" Meghann exclaimed in disbelief but the digital clock on the car stereo confirmed his lunatic statement. "But it's sunnier, Simon! We shouldn't be outdoors for another hour, at least Have you gone crazy? You'll kill us both! And how in the world did you wake up so early?"

"Don't upset yourself," Simon said curtly when Meghann hunched over, retching out a thin, sour stream of blood and bile on the car's tan upholstered bottom. "You'll make it worse. I know you're in a great deal of discomfort; I'd hoped you'd sleep through our journey."

'Journey?" Meghann frowned and glanced behind her to see Lee sprawled and unconscious on the backseat. "Where are we going?"

"Midway Airport. . . my jet awaits us. You know I rise earlier than you because of my advanced age and I thought we should get back to New York as soon as possible. As to my decision to chance the sun, look outside, sweetheart."

Meghann looked up at the sky and saw nothing but heavy, black clouds pregnant with rain that beat down on the car windows in fierce, torrential gusts.

"Any doctor will tell you ultraviolet rays can filter through clouds and leave you with an even worse burn than you'd get on a sunny day," Meghann pointed out through her chattering teeth. Why did Simon look so well while the weak light of the hidden sun seemed to slip under her bones and eat her alive from the inside? Had Simon perhaps already drunk enough of Mikal's blood to be immune to the pre-twilight sun?

"Relax," Simon told her and she felt the car come to a stop. "We're here . . . you're safe now. All you need is to get indoors and feed."

Simon was right—no sooner had he lifted her from the car (Meghann was so weak she could not even wrap her arms around him as he carried her) and taken her into the haven of the Learjet's windowless private cabin than Meghann felt the pain drift away and a fathoms deep drowsiness take its place.

"Not yet, darling." Meghann felt Simon shake her awake and thrust a bottle of blood into her hands.

Meghann sniffed and came to a sluggish awareness at the copper scent emanating from the pint bottle. Blearily, she put the bottle to her lips and drank in great, thirsty gulps while Simon toweled her dry. She felt the bottle fall from her hands but she fell asleep even before the bottle's dull thud sounded as it landed on the plush carpeting.

Mommy, Mommy, help me! I need you . . .

"Ellie!" Meghann shouted, wild eyed with fear as her arms stretched out in automatic protectiveness to grab the child that called out for her.

In an instant, Simon was at her side, clutching her trembling hands. "It's all right, little one. Just a bad dream..."

"No!" Meghann insisted. 'It's Ellie ... she needs me!"

"Of course she does. And we're only an hour away from Southampton now." Simon smiled at Meghann's bewildered expression. "You do not remember getting on my plane?"

Meghann frowned, puzzling over a vaguely remembered discomfort and brief vision of sun-reddened, blistered skin. "Not really, no. Where's Lee? Is he ... did he make it through the day?"

In response, Simon took her hand and guided her to the jet's bedroom where Lee Winslow reclined on a king-sized bed decorated in plain bed sheets that he'd drenched through with perspiration.

"Lee," Meghann sighed and pushed wet, sticky hair off his brow, relieved that he was still alive and knowing there was little else she could do to ease his suffering. She poured ice water from the carafe Simon gave her over a linen cloth and ran it across Lee's face, gently bringing him into a sitting position while she coaxed him into taking a few sips of water.

"Charles," Lee moaned and Meghann's heart contracted with fresh grief. She couldn't know if Lee, in his fever, mourned for his lover or maybe he was lucky enough to be in some hallucinatory world where he and Charles still walked together.

"Come along, Meghann," Simon said and pulled her off the bed. "Lee will pull through this and we'll finish his transformation tonight. I must speak to you now."

"Mikal," Meghann said, almost glad to have something divert her from her worry over Ellie and Lee, even if it was her son's unsavory tale. Ellie . . . something was the matter with Ellie, more than the brief concern Meghann felt last night. That had been a conviction her daughter was hiding something from her, now Meghann felt her little girl was in some kind of trouble—she needed her mother.

I'm coming home, baby, Meghann thought to her and felt the anxious sensation hanging over her dissipate slightly—as though Ellie had heard her and was soothed by her mother's promise.

"Here," Simon said and shoved a thick manila file into her hands. "Read this and then we will discuss Mikal."

Meghann opened the folder and inhaled sharply at the contents. "This is an MRI scan of Mikal's brain."

"It is," Simon said and Meghann's heart sank though she felt no real surprise—not after what Mikal had done to Charles. That action was enough to convince Meghann her son was a predator without capacity for empathy or love but here was scientific evidence of Mikal's deformities.

In recent years, neurologists had proven there was an organic basis for psychopathy. The report Meghann held in her hands indicated Mikal was brain damaged, not in the sense of mental retardation but in his emotional development. Most significant were abnormalities in the structure of Mikal's amygdala. The amygdala, part of the limbic system, was central in feeling emotion. A malfunctioning amygdala could, among other things, prevent an individual from feeling fear—one of the chief characteristics of psychopaths.

"You couldn't discipline Mikal," Meghann said. It wasn't a question. "He didn't learn from punishment— no matter how severe you were or what you deprived him of." Even if Simon used physical force to discipline him, as Meghann didn't doubt for a minute he had when his attempts to mold his son were frustrated by Mikal's seeming defiance, psychopaths had extremely low electrical skin conductivity, thus reducing the capacity to experience physical sensation, be it pleasure or pain.

"That would be true in a psychopathic mortal," Simon said. "But there was one thing I could deprive Mikal of to force him into some semblance of behavior—blood."

Meghann hadn't thought of that. "So whenever he misbehaved you starved him?" No wonder Mikal hated his father. "When did you conduct these tests?" Of course Simon couldn't trust any mortal neurobiologist to conduct these tests—he'd do it himself. Simon had money and connections enough to gain access to the equipment, as well as the sharp mind of a vampire that would allow him to master any mortal science.

"When Mikal was nine. There'd been a disturbing incident and I wanted to see whether the boy was suffering from a physical malady to produce his atrocious behavior."

"What did Mikal do to disturb you?" Meghann knew Simon well enough to know a son with an astonishing capacity for evil and a disregard for conventional morality wouldn't distress him the way it did her. A psychopathic child would only become a problem when he disregarded his father's ethical standards, libertine though they might be in anyone's eyes but Lord Baldevar's.

"You know me well, little one," Simon said and leaned negligently against the arm of the couch she sat on. "That Mikal indulged his blood lust avidly and in rather creative ways did not concern me overmuch. I knew early on Mikal had little use for affection but I did not fault him for that, did not try to stubbornly press a heart on the boy as you might have done. It was plain Mikal could not feel love, but unlike you, Meghann, I can empathize with our son. Four hundred years I lived without love and my life was not some bleak hell; it was quite interesting and entertaining.

"Not," Simon said, taking Meghann's hand at her indignant glare, "as interesting or beautiful as it's become since you entered my life, but amusing all the same. I knew Mikal, detached and cold though he might be, could have everything he needed—a first- rate education, dominion over the mortals and some of our kind as well, wealth, superb strength, and the ability to walk in daylight. That was more than enough to fulfill anyone."

How could it be, Simon, Meghann thought sadly, that in all this time I haven't so much as dented your offhand assurance that there was nothing wrong with feeling you were above others and their lives were yours to do with what you wished.

"Enough," Simon snapped at Meghann's disapproving thought. "I will not have you condescending to me simply because I refused to suppress Mikal's natural instincts where his prey was concerned. As far as I am concerned, I have honored the vow I made to you at our son's birth. I did not merely train his blood lust; I also provided him with an excellent education, an appreciation for the arts, and certainly instilled in him love and respect for you, our extended family, and any beings mortal or otherwise that he might eventually befriend."

"So my son spent his childhood as a miniature serial killer," Meghann said caustically. "With you cramming in little bits of schooling and culture between kills. You're right Simon—how could I ever think you hadn't done the very best for him?"

"Don't be sarcastic, Meghann. It does not suit you. Our son was no low serial killer like those penny- dreadful dregs that titillate modern society and its penchant for violence. Mikal killed when he needed to feed and that was all—like any proper vampire that does not make itself miserable through adherence to quaint mortal laws regarding the so-called sanctity of human life."

Meghann dismissed the insult to her own decision to leave her prey alive and continued her interrogation. "So what did Mikal do at the age of nine that was so atrocious only brain damage would excuse it in your eyes?"

"Many things disturbed me before that final incident First, he's lazy," Simon said, and Meghann knew anyone with Simon's ambition and drive to succeed would indeed be disgusted by idle offspring. "No interest whatsoever in making his own way—he once had the nerve to demand a trust fund of me!"

Simon Baldevar was no miser, Meghann thought, recalling all the jewels and luxuries he'd bestowed on her over the years, but she knew he'd never hand out a lump sum of money unless he thought there'd be some gain in the long run. Mikal would have had bet- ter luck asking his father to part with his immortality instead of his gold. "Maybe Mikal had other interests beside monetary ones."

Simon made a sound that could have been a snort in someone less elegant. "Oh, he had other interests. Millions of them, all so fleeting and varied I can hardly recall most of them. One night he would be consumed by astronomy and the next night the subject would bore him unendurably and he'd make no effort to continue his studies. But as he got older, I will say this much for him—in the brief space of his infatuations, he could educate himself to a post- doctorate level on any subject. So he picked up fragments of knowledge here and there but never were there long-term interests, any need to devote himself to a subject."

"A short attention span drove you to conduct an MRI?" Meghann asked incredulously.

"Of course not... I merely attempted to discipline that. No, I decided to test him because of what he did to his pet."

"His pet? What kind of animal did you give him? Why hurt an animal when he had humans to kill?" Meghann cried.

"You are quite right," Simon said. "Mikal never did bother harming animals because humans provided more entertainment in their suffering. The boy is utterly indifferent to animals. When I said, 'pet,' Meghann, I meant a human child I procured when he was five. I thought he could learn social interaction from it..."

Meghann thought and made a mighty effort to keep her face impassive. Simon, Simon . . . if you talked this way in front of Mikal, is it any wonder what he became?

Simon gave her a look she chose to ignore and went on. "The whole purpose of the pet was to teach him the friendship and respect for mortals I knew you wanted him to feel . . . that I myself wanted him to feel, since his own twin was born mortal. So I brought him a bright, mortal child orphaned when its mother went to jail. I chose a nine-year-old boy."

"Why did you choose a child so much older than him? Was a nine year old on Mikal's intellectual level when he was five?"

"Intellectual and physical level," Simon clarified. "Our son's metabolism was nothing short of fantastic in his early years. By the age of ten, he was as developed as a fourteen-ypar-old boy."

"Is his metabolism still accelerated? What's to stop him from continuing on into old age and dying by the age of thirty?"

"Pity he will not," Simon said bitterly. "His metabolism tapered off when he reached the age of fifteen ... resembling a full-grown man in his twenties. Now Mikal is like us, Meghann—he does not age or change at all."

Interesting, Meghann thought. "So what Mikal do to his, er, pet?"

"I thought Mikal could form an alliance with the child, that they would entertain each other. At first, that was exactly what happened. Suddenly there was a playmate, someone to socialize with beside Adelaide and myself. The boys studied together and developed normal male interests. I taught them both the art of fencing and they enjoyed hunting game around the island I reared Mikal on. I was greatly encouraged because though you could not say Mikal was affectionate toward his pet, he certainly seemed to enjoy his company."

"What happened when Mikal turned nine?" Meghann asked, having some idea of the grim answer from Simon's narrowed gold eyes. She thought Mikal might have killed his "pet" because psychopaths formed only the shallowest attachments and if Mikal had been bored one night, he could as easily kill his companion for stimulation as a normal person could decide to watch television to alleviate their boredom.

"I would not believe so young a child capable of such savagery," Simon said with a distant look in his eyes, like he was reliving the incident. "It wasn't so much that he killed the boy as the motive behind the killing."

"What was his motive?" she asked, chilled by Simon's hollow tone and bleak eyes.

"Mikal is a most unnatural boy," Simon said, his mouth curling down in derision of his own child. "By the time he was nine, I did not find it necessary to constantly supervise his activities—he and his companion roamed free over the island. But it was growing close to dawn and Mikal was still unable to tolerate direct sunlight so I began to look for the boys. I found them—Mikal and what was left of the other boy—on the most remote corner of the isle. Mikal may be brilliant but he still thought like a child, that if he just hid the evidence of his crime, there would be no repercussions.

"Mikal was so engrossed with the body that he was unaware of my approach. I smelled death miles away but cloaked my presence because I wished to know why Mikal would slaughter this creature that was the closest thing to a friend he had. I soon had my answer and it was in that moment that I first wished I'd never had a son. Mikal destroyed the other boy because certain overtures Mikal made were rightfully spurned."

"Overtures," Meghann felt her face color when she realized just what overtures Mikal must have made to put that appalled, seething look on Simon's face.

"Mikal is a base sodomite," Simon said, almost spitting out the words. "The other young man . . . his pants were down around his ankles and his legs covered in blood. After the boy refused him, Mikal apparently attacked his femoral artery and then raped the hapless boy when he was too weakened by blood loss to run away. But... if that were not enough ... when I discovered Mikal, the mortal boy was long since dead but that disgusting boy was still . riding his corpse."

Though Meghann did not have Simon's aversion to homosexuals, she was sickened to hear a child of hers indulged in necrophilia.

"I yanked him off his victim and bled him almost dry," Simon said, his hawkish eyes hard and remote. "Then I threw him into the cellar for a fortnight... finally I gave in to Adelaide's pleas and ended his punishment before he could starve to death. By then, I'd had time enough to calm myself and look at the situation rationally. Perhaps the fault lay with me, bringing Mikal a male child as companion. I should have recognized that he'd need a woman nearby when his sexual nature was awakened but he did not have to attack the boy—there were plenty of mortal females on the island he could have used for his urges."

It would take someone as crazy as Mikal might be to tell Simon it did not matter that he'd bought his son a male companion—homosexuals were born, not made. Nor did Meghann think now was the right time to antagonize Simon by telling him an attraction toward men was the least of Mikal's problems.

"I decided the boy might be sick," Simon continued, oblivious of or ignoring Meghann's thoughts. "And the tests you hold bore out my theory. Since this . . . deviancy . . . wasn't entirely Mikal's fault (again Meghann kept her silence, not bothering to correct Simon to tell him nothing on Mikal's brain scan would account for his homosexuality) I forgave him. I also acknowledged that perhaps the situation grew out of his isolation so from then on I took him on trips when I had to leave the island for business."

Where exactly had Simon taken their son in his misguided attempt to change Mikal's sexual orientation—a whorehouse? Actually, Meghann thought it quite possible Mikal would have slept with women as easily as men; psychopaths usually weren't all that choosy in their many partners.

'Tell me more about him," Meghann said, changing the subject before she goaded Simon into an argument they didn't have time for. "You say he ma- lured at a dramatic pace? Is he tall and muscular . . . like you?"

"No," Simon answered. "He is tall, but quite thin and gawky in appearance. You see, he has never been able to digest any substances but blood and water so he never gained much weight. But he's strong all the same . .. stronger in some ways than us."

No wonder he doesn't empathize with us, Meghann thought. Mikal can't even enjoy our basic pleasures like fine food ... he has no idea of what it is to be human.

"I knew about Mikal's strength before you came back," Meghann said and Simon gave her a surprised look. "He was responsible for the Ballnamore massacre, wasn't he?" Ballnamore had been Alcuin's sanctuary in Ireland, the place he invited all the others that shared his desire to leave mankind in peace. After his death, Alcuin had left the place to Meghann and Charles, but to reside in the Georgian fortress meant battling every self-righteous vampire that wished to destroy Meghann for no better reason than her bearing of Simon Baldevar's children. Deciding the game wasn't worth the candle, Meghann and

Charles simply allowed their enemies to keep Ballnamore and an uneasy compromise developed, the same one Alcuin and Simon had observed for centuries—Meghann, Charles, and Ellie would keep to their corner of the world while their enemies enjoyed free reign at Ballnamore.

But eight months ago Charles was overcome with a terrible certainty that there had been some sort of catastrophe at Ballnamore. Unlike Meghann, Charles had shared a bloodline with some of the Ballnamore vampires and he'd know if they were hurt or killed.

Meghann and Charles's best attempts to clarify his premonition were thwarted by cloudy, obscure visions that explained nothing. In the end, they had no choice but to chance a confrontation and go to Ballnamore. But when they arrived there was nothing there . . . Ballnamore was deserted, an Irish ghost town. From the wide-open windows and French doors, Meghann and Charles deduced someone had invaded the sanctuary and the corpses had been reduced to ash by exposure to the morning sun. But who had the power to invade a vampire stronghold and slaughter over thirty immortals?

"A vampire with the ability to walk in daylight," Simon said, cutting into Meghann's thoughts.

Starded from her deep rumination, aching again for the departed Charles, Meghann asked, "Was Mikal acting on your orders?" At the time, Meghann and Charles believed this might be Mikal's introduction to vampairic society, carefully orchestrated by his father. Once other vampires had a taste of Mikal's power, they would make no attempt to cross him or Lord Baldevar.

With a twisted grimace, Simon shook his head. "The boy ran away a year ago ... I have no control over his actions."

Meghann absorbed that statement and all its disturbing implications. If Simon couldn't control the destructive force their son apparently was, then who would stop him?

"When did Mikal become immune to sunlight?" she ·isked, remembering the infant whose strange, fragile ryes could not even handle artificial light.

"It was a gradual change, as I expected," Simon answered. "As an infant, he built up a resistance to lamps and I was able to keep him in lighted rooms. He remained as we are . . . defenseless against the sun .. . until he was in his early adolescence. Then he reported to me that he was gradually waking up earlier .ind earlier, finally feeling nothing at sunrise."

"Does he sleep at all?" Meghann questioned.

"A few hours each day, never at night. Usually, if what he told me is the truth, he takes a brief nap between eight and ten in the morning. For some reason, lie always feels drained at that time. But even then he does not need a dark place to rest . . . merely pulling the shades provides enough darkness for him to rest. Daylight cannot destroy him. Our son can only be slaughtered, I believe, by decapitating him or removing his heart."

"He has all his power during the day?"

"No," Simon replied and Meghann felt her anxiety lessen at this evidence Mikal wasn't completely invincible. "During the day, his strength is hardly more than that of a fit mortal boy his age."

"What about his occult powers?"

"He has few to begin with," Simon said and explained further at Meghann's surprised look. "Mikal is in some ways like Elizabeth ... a puzzling mix of vampire and mortal characteristics. But whereas Elizabeth is mortal dominant with some vampiric features, Mikal is the opposite. He has a vampire's superior physical strength; his telekinetic talent is quite impressive. And certainly Mikal can mold mortals to his will. His best advantage over other immortals is that he can conceal his own thoughts completely, just as Elizabeth does. But other than that, Mikal has no vampiric abilities. He cannot summon, nor perform the simplest sorcery ... he cannot even travel the astral plane."

"Even in his soul?" Meghann asked disbelievingly for Ellie was able to meditate and then separate her soul from her body to wander the astral plane. Meghann had taught Ellie that trick when her daughter began to menstruate and could not tolerate the severe cramping. With her soul free of the chains of her pain-wracked body, Ellie felt no pain and stayed out of her body for hours at a time.

"Sometimes I wonder if our son has a soul," Simon said cryptically. "I told you the boy ran away a year ago?" At Meghann's nod, she saw Simon's jaw clench and pain darken his golden eyes before he continued. "It is because Mikal fears for his life should I catch up with him. He ran, like the coward he is under all his bullying and pathetic posturing, after I discovered Adelaide's corpse."

"Adelaide!" Meghann felt quick tears sting her eyelids, not from her own grief but at the thought of what Simon must have gone through when he discovered the woman who'd been like a mother to him for nearly five centuries had been murdered by his own son.

Knowing no words of hers would mitigate Simon's grief, Meghann embraced him, bringing her lips to his in a slow, careful caress. This was how she and Simon communicated best; it was her touch that might bring him some peace.

Simon's response was immediate: grasping her tightly and kissing her with a sweeping thoroughness that left her dizzy and breathless. It seemed Simon wanted to lake everything within her, take over her

soul completely, and Meghann willingly gave herself

to him, thinking Alcuin was right—Simon did need her. By letting Simon take her with fast, driving hunger, drink the blood he'd infused her with so long ago, Meghann was telling him she'd shoulder some of this unspeakable burden they faced—destroying their son to keep everyone else they loved safe.

For a long while, they held each other silently, the only sounds in the cabin coming from the bedroom where Lee moaned and thrashed in his delirium. Then Simon's grip eased and he tilted Meghann's chin up. 'There isn't much time left, little one. I need to tell you all you must know of our son before we land."

One Year Earlier

His ryes tightly shut, Simon used his mind to see the intruder in his room, the cold, steel glint of the would-be killer's sword glittering with obscene In brightness in the darkened bedchamber.

For the first time, Simon appreciated the quarters he'd chosen in this dank pile of stone. The castle had been constructed during the early Middle Ages, when such monuments were meant for defense first and beauty second, if at all. There were no windows in the

grim, stone chamber Simon appropriated for his day-

time rest—that meant his assassin could not simply throw open draperies or shutters to destroy the vampire he mistakenly thought was sleeping.

Simon gave no indication he was awake, keeping still as he heard the whispery sound of the silken curtains surrounding his bed being pushed back. It was only when his sword came whooshing down to separate Simon's head from his torso that Simon's hand lashed up and he grabbed the sword, easily disarming his stunned son.

"Shall I say good morning or good afternoon, Mikal?" Simon inquired casually of the young boy who stared at him with an uneasy mix of simmering resentment and cautious apprehension. This confrontation was a long time in coming, Simon knew. He'd felt Mikal's resentment of him, of his power building daily but Simon had held back, not striking Mikal until the boy came after him. "I know you are not foolish enough to try and slay me in the evening hours, are you?"

"I do not worry, Father," the thing that dared to call itself his blood replied with equal calmness. 'The sun is at its zenith . . . soon you shall tire and then I will dispose of you."

In response, Simon smashed the sword hilt against Mikal's nose. Screaming from the pain, for Mikal's body had no restorative powers during the day, the boy clutched his bleeding nose, hissing and screaming when his father grabbed him and forced him facedown into the bed.

"If my blood teeth functioned during the day, I could feed now and end your sorry existence," Simon whispered, fighting the weariness that attempted to overtake him. Mikal was right—Simon had but a few moments to disable him. "But I shall have to content myself with merely breaking the snake's back."

Simon took the sword and drove it through the small of Mikal's back, slicing neatly through the boy's left kidney. He would not decapitate Mikal for that would mean giving up forever on his chance to experience daylight.

Flopping down next to the squirming, agonized boy. Simon managed to whisper in Mikal's ear, "By the time you get that sword out and your body recovers, it will be sunset and I shall finally correct the mistake of your birth, young fool."

In a way. Simon was thankful for the vampiric slumber that descended upon him. There would be no restless tossing and turning, no tense apprehension as he waited for dusk. Instead, Simon fell into a deep, unclouded rest, waking up refreshed and ready to do battle.

As he described it later to Meghann, the battle was every bit as ferocious and vicious as Simon expected it to be. He awoke and Mikal recovered at very nearly the same moment and they attacked each other, each grasping for possession of the sword that would decapitate the other vampire.

Simon spoke honestly and without bias of Mikal's awe inspiring physical strength. The boy had, beneath his deceivingly fragile appearance of a gaunt body and underdeveloped muscles, the power of ten vampires and a psychotic rage empowering him as he pummeled and kicked, determined to best his father.

Not that Simon was any weakling, easily he sidestepped every killing blow with an agility borne from centuries of practice but he could not seem to strike any offensive thrusts to force Mikal off him and grab the sword. Soon Simon realized that he was expending himself on a futile cause. Physical might would not aid him, so Simon turned to his most formidable weapon—the daemons he'd spent centuries paying homage to so they might assist in just such a predicament as this.

"Ahriman, "Simon thundered and felt Mikal's grip on his neck tighten, making a pathetic attempt to try and strangle his father before he finished the incantation that would destroy Mikal.

°Dies mies yes-chet bene done fet Donmina Metemauz, 1 Simon whispered and thought he finally saw terror in his son's inhuman silver eyes. "I order all ye that are bound to do my bidding to appear hither and without delay. Come forth, all ye that abide in Darkness and hold in your unnatural thrall this wretched boy that attempts to do evil against his sire. Come to me at once and do as I command!"

The screaming wind that yanked Mikal off him to throw him against the hard stone wall and mad keening of a thousand unholy souls was even more than Simon could have hoped for. Momentarily bewildered, he watched his son scream helplessly at the invisible presence that pinned him to the wall and could not be moved no matter how Mikal howled and thrashed.

Simon took his time rising from the bed, choosing to shower and dress for the evening before he attended to Mikal. The daemons would not lose control of their prisoner, nor would they dare disobey Simon and attempt to take possession of Mikal for Simon had not given them permission to do that. They were only allowed to hold Mikal. After the boy was dead, Simon would give his infernal aides a few of his mortal prisoners as tribute. The daemons could possess their already lost souls, luxuriate in the feel of a human body until the frail human form collapsed under its evil burden and died.

As Simon wrapped himself in a black silk wrapper (there was no purpose to donning a suit that might be soiled by Mikal's blood), he wondered why Adelaide had not interrupted the fight she must have heard. Even assuming she'd accept Simon's decision to put Mikal down, this silence was uncharacteristic of her.

In fact, as Simon allowed his senses to travel over the castle, the only presences he could detect were his own, Mikal's, and the mortals he'd stored downstairs. Where was Adelaide?

Worried now, Simon rushed to his former nurse's chambers and felt an unfamiliar lump form in his throat as he beheld the corpse on the bed. Mikal showed no mercy or compassion, even for one who'd

reared him so tenderly. Judging by her splayed open

legs, Mikal raped Adelaide after he staked her. Swallowing his distaste, Simon gently turned her around and scowled at the small deposit of semen dripping from her anus. It was not enough Mikal practiced this unnatural perversion on men; he had to debauch a woman who'd done her best to mother him?

With great reverence, Simon removed the wooden stake from Adelaide's heart, ignoring Mikal's insane screams reverberating through the castle. Then he cleaned her body and prepared it to lie in state, dressing Adelaide in her best red silk gown and brushing her hair so it spread across her chest as a raven and white veil. Finally, Simon placed her decapitated head as it lay at a proper angle with her body.

"Rest in peace, my good nurse," Simon whispered and tenderly kissed her cold lips. "Know that I shall avenge your death immediately."

Later, Simon would carry Adelaide's body to the solar and leave the windows open so the sun might cremate her and then he would gather up her ashes, preserving them forever. But now wasn't the time to dwell on the sadness he felt at Adelaide's untimely death—he must deal with Mikal.

Grabbing the sword from his bed, Simon advanced on his prey, the only way he would allow himself to think of Mikal now. This screeching boy was no son to him, never had been. He was only one of Simon's few failures, an abominable creature that should never have been born.

But before Simon sent Mikal into the abyss he so richly deserved, he would finally drink of the Philosophers' Stone. Grabbing a thick chunk of Mikal's lank black hair, Simon forced his head back and buried his blood teeth in the exposed vein of Mikal's forcibly arched neck.

At the first swallow of his son's blood, Simon fell back, choking and sputtering before his body forced the unwanted presence out and Simon began to vomit in great, rasping heaves.

At the sickness, Simon's concentration wavered and the daemons lost their hold over Mikal. Wasting no time, Mikal hurried at his father but Simon managed to snarl, "Attack!"in Latin and the monsters rushed at Mikal.

Simon heard his son scream "No!" and he raised himself to his knees just in time to watch Mikal take a running leap through the stone wall of the castle and fall screaming the three stories to the jagged, rocky ground below. Soon enough Mikal's body healed and he pulled himself off the ground, staring up at his father with the same cool detachment in Simon's amber gaze.

"Soon, Father," Mikal finally shouted and Simon knew Mikal acknowledged the standoff between the master vampire and his preternatural offspring. Weakened by the poison blood, Simon could not attack Mikal again and Mikal was too frightened of his father's sorcery to chance another confrontation.

"Soon indeed," Simon said, not bothering to shout, as he knew Mikal could hear his quiet but emphatic utterance.

"I was too merciful tonight," Mikal yelled with all the fury of rebellious, subdued youth as he climbed aboard a speedboat he'd beached on the isle's shore, not taking his eyes off his father for one second as he made his escape. "Next time it won't be some useless old bitch I slaughter. Before I take your life, Father, it shall be Meghann and that bitch daughter of yours I tend to"

"And that was the last time I saw Mikal," Simon concluded while Meghann dressed. "Though I have followed his foolish, bloody trail around the world."

Why did he kill the Ballnamore vampires?" Meghann asked. "Why not make allies of them to help destroy you?"

"My guess is that Mikal may have approached them only to be rebuffed. After all, Mikal stands for everything those pious fools averred—complete domination of prey, indulgence of the blood lust in any manner one desires. So Mikal did as he does with every annoyance-obliterate it."

"Why does he want to kill you?" Meghann asked,

n

wondering if Mikal's antipathy for his father stemmed from something more than unresolved childhood hostility. "Does he consider you an annoyance?

" Of the worst sort," Simon said with a brief, ironic

grin."His chief reason for desiring my death, Meghann, is that he believes I am all that stands between him and complete, unquestioned rule over the entire world."

"What?" Meghann would have laughed at such idiocy if not for the dead earnestness on Simon's face.

"Lunacy, isn't it? Only the youngest and least intelligent of us entertain such mad fantasies. I told you Mikal's aims are ill conceived. He does not consider that., one, he has limited power in the day so an assassination attempt by any mortal means would kill him

and two, there is not a government in this world dial would hesitate to destroy a vampire that attempts to rule the world."

"So Mikal thinks he'll kill you and set up some sort of coup d'etat to topple every government and reign as a vampire tyrant?"

"Precisely," Simon and Meghann saw the corners of his mouth lift in derisive amusement. "Like I said, the goal is preposterous and he has laid no real ground work to make it come true. All he does is reveal himself to some mortal misfits..."

"Has he made them vampires?" Meghann cried out, terrified of an entire army of sun-resistant vampires like Mikal.

"Did you not hear what I said about Mikal's blood sickening me?" Simon said in response. "Mikal's blood is toxic, Meghann."

"But you drank it when he was a boy—you told me you drained him when you found him with that..."

"Mikal's powers hadn't fully evolved then. Drinking his blood gave me no extra power because Mikal had no resistance to sunlight then. It was only when he was full-grown that his blood became a repellant."

"So Mikal's blood is useless to us? We can't drink it?"

"I have pondered that often and this is my conclusion: Mikal is a new species of vampire, no? I confess, I feel rather foolish not to have thought of this before but apparently to receive Mikal's gifts we would have to retransform, in a sense. Vampire blood is toxic to the system unless the recipient is first drained of all their blood. Obviously, since Mikal is not a vampire the way we are, anyone that wishes to drink of him would have to first be drained and then drink his blood . . . transformation all over again. However, given Mikal's unusual strength, I would hardly recommendapproaching him in a blood-starved state. The only way we can obtain his blood is to kill him, save his blood, and then one of us shall drain the other before we dink his blood."

"You haven't answered my original question, Simon. What's to stop Mikal from draining his 'mortal misfits' and suffusing them with his blood?

" Do you become ill when you drink from me or any

other vampire, Meghann? Of course not . . . that Mikal's bood is strong enough to poison us is proof positive it would kill a mortal outright.

" Besides." Simon continued with a wolfish grin, "I happen to know he attempted transformation with miserable results—I saw the corpses and drew a small

portion of their blood to prove conclusively Mikal's blood was the toxin in their veins that killed them. But you interrupted me ... Mikal does not attempt to recruit only mortals; he has also scouted out some of my own spawn."

"Vampires you transformed? Did they accept?"

"Why would they?" Simon said with a lift of his eyebrows. "Would you prefer the iron fist of a mad despot over my relatively lax rule?"

Meghann considered that and decided Simon had a valid point. By and large, Simon Baldevar did deal fairly with his fledglings. His requirements for transformation were simple and non-negotiable ... he demanded one hundred percent of their mortal wealth and any attempt to cheat him was dealt with in harshest manner. In exchange, Simon offered his incomparable skill at transformation and a brief training period before sending the new immortals out into the world—Meghann was the only vampire Simon chose to keep by his side.

245

"So all your fledglings rejected Mikal's offer? Did he kill them out of spite?"

'Those he could find," Simon shrugged. "Most of them have lived for centuries and were able to avoid Mikal. Of course, one or two were mad enough to join my son but I shall attend to them once this sordid business with Mikal is finished."

Meghann nodded, resisting the urge to shudder when she thought of how Simon would "attend" to those vampires that betrayed him to join Mikal. "Why didn't you come to me earlier „. . when Mikal first killed Adelaide? Maybe we could have saved Charles."

"I hoped to deal with Mikal myself and spare you," Simon said simply and Meghann nodded, knowing Simon had tried to protect her from what their son was. It was pointless to point her finger and blame- Simon for Mikal's flaws. She knew pragmatic Simon Baldevar would never have instilled Mikal with this fevered mania to take over the world. That was the usual grandiose, idiotic aim of a psychopath—complete control over their environment, sublimating everyone around them to their whims.

"Did you tell Mikal anything about us?"

"Very little," Simon replied. "I imagine he learned of your whereabouts when he went to Ballnamore. No doubt he tortured the information from one of those fools and then made his first victim Charles Tarleton to taunt me twice—once to say he could slay those I've given my protection to and once to attack on the periphery of my heart, his victims gradually becoming those closest to me."

"Why did you finally come to me?" Meghann asked. "Did you ... is Mikal somewhere near Ellie now? Do you have some kind of evidence he's in New York?"

"No, little one," Simon assured her. "I arrived simply because I could no longer bear to be separated from my wife and child. I had no idea I would arrive in time for Mikal's despicable slaughter of your dear

friend. But don't worry, sweet—he won't harm anyone else. I will protect you, Elizabeth, and Lee." It

came as no surprise to Meghann that Simon omitted Jimmy Delacroix from the list of those he'd watch over.

"You do understand what needs to be done?" Simon asked her softly, his eyes almost looking regretful as they held hers.

"How will we .. stop him?" she asked, unable to say aloud that she knew Mikal had to be killed.

"What was Alcuin's plan to destroy me when I first emerged from obscurity to reclaim you?"

"I was bait," Meghann remembered. "He didn't take me back to Ballnamore because he wanted to flush you out by leaving me in the open. Alcuin knew you'd come for me and then he planned to kill you... and that's what you're going to do with Mikal! You know he's found out where we live because he sent.. because he sent that awful thing to me. You're going to lift the barrier from the house and let him enter

and then you're going to attack! But what if he strikes during the day?"

"We will sleep elsewhere during the day," Simon explained. "And return to Southampton at night. We will not have to wait long, Meghann. Mikal is impulsive and impatient... he will not be able to resist his chance to hurt you and Elizabeth."

Mehann nodded her consent to Simon's plan and they were silent when the plane descended into Gabreski Airport, the private airstrip that serviced the helicopters and private planes of the rich residents of the Hamptons.

From Gabreski, it was only a ten-minute drive to the beach house. Meghann and Simon made no attempt at conversation—he was busy driving while she attended to Lee, wrapping a blanket around him to

minimize his shock while she put a cold compress against his forehead.

Grimly, Meghann stared out the tinted window of Simon's Bentley, thinking the grim rainstorm that had followed them from Chicago matched her mood. She watched the rain pour down on the world in a thick, heavy sheet that cleared the roads of all but the most foolhardy mortal drivers and wondered if the clouds that had settled over her own mind would ever lift. For even if Mikal was destroyed before he hurt anyone else, Meghann had already lost Charles, all ready felt in her heart a galling pain at the abhorrent task ahead of her.

When they pulled up in front of the house, Simon helped Lee shuffle up the steps to the rotunda while Meghann rushed ahead of them, hands over her head in a feeble effort to avoid the rain.

Meghann shook her waterlogged hair and kicked off her dripping sandals on the porch, frowning because she couldn't feel her daughter's presence anywhere within the house. Where was Ellie? Why wasn't she greeting her parents?

Both those questions were answered when Jimmy Delacroix threw open the front door, disheveled and panicked as he grabbed Meghann and screamed "Maggie, Maggie, thank God you're back... Ellie has disappeared!"

Ten

The words were barely out of Jimmy’s mouth when Simon launched himself at Jimmy with a rumbling, wolf-like snarl, the force of his attack hurling Jimmy off his feet while Meghann stumbled backward, falling away from Jimmy’s grasping hands.

“You failed to protect my daughter, you miserable swine?” Simon roared and wrapped his hands around Jimmy’s neck, seeming determined to decapitate him by sheer brute force. “I’ll have your life for this!”

“Simon, no,” Meghann pleaded, snapping out of the miserable daze Jimmy’s words threw her into. “Don’t hurt him.”

Simon ignored her, his entire attention focused on strangling Jimmy. Meghann stared in alarm at Jimmy’s bulging, unfocused eyes and blue skin. Was it possible to suffocate a vampire?

“No!” Meghann said, putting more strength in her voice. “If you kill him, we’ll never find Ellie.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Simon snapped, not letting up one bit on the pressure he applied to Jimmy’s neck. “It is his fault entirely that she’s vanished. I ordered him to watch over her all last night and then sedate her so she’d spend the day asleep and unmolested. Somehow, he failed…unsurprising, considering what he is.”

“But he was the last one to see her alive,” Meghann said and her voice broke on that last word. What if Ellie was no longer alive? No,no!

I’d know if she were dead, Mehann thought desperately. I’d feel it. Hadn’t she heard her daughter call out to her barely an hour ago, telling Meghann she needed her? But what if Ellie had been killed since then?

“Meghann.” Simon rushed over when she began crying frightened, miserable tears. Jimmy fell to the floor, gasping for breath, while Simon embraced Meghann, crooning. “Don’t weep, we’ll find Elizabeth and bring her home safe.”

“But we need Jimmy for that,” Meghann sobbed, blowing her nose loudly in the silk handkerchief Simon gave her. “Don’t you see? We have to piece together when she disappeared and we can’t do that if you kill off the last person to see her.”

“You are correct, Meghann,” Simon said and glared over at Jimmy, now making an effort to stand while he gingerly rubbed his neck. “I shall attend to you after we find Elizabeth.”

“Fuck you,” Jimmy muttered and it was hard to say who looked more surprised, him or Simon, when Meghann screamed, “Stop it!” in a voice that shattered the beveled glass sunburst panel in the front door.

“Stop it!” she yelled again, shrill and furious. “I’m so tired of you…both of you…behaving like such goddamned children! What the hell is wrong with the two of you? Stop it, or…or get out. I mean it. You can both just get the hell out of here and I’ll…I’ll find Ellie myself.”

Simon and Jimmy both stared at her in sullen silence for several moments before Simon turned to Lee and took his arm, escorting the weak mortal inside the house. As he passed Jimmy, Simon’s mouth curled but all he said was, “We’ll be in the study,” in the same crisply authoritative voice he’d use to address a servant.

Jimmy seemed about to retort but glanced over at Meghann and nodded curtly.

“What’s the matter with Lee?” he asked Meghann as they walked into the house together.

“He’s transforming,” Meghann replied.

“Jesus!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Why the hell would he want to do that with Charles gone?”

“To defend his daughter,” Meghann said and her voice trembled.

“We’ll find her, Maggie,” Jimmy sad and pressed her hand tightly. Meghann felt the tension and fear in grip but instead of intensifying her feelings of dread, they calmed her somehow-as though she could find succor with someone as concerned for her daughter as she was. “I feel that Ellie’s okay, that nothing…bad…has happened to her. Come on, reach out with that famous Sight of yours and feel if Ellie’s all right.”

“That’s what I plan to do,” Meghann said, pleased that Jimmy was starting to think like a vampire and implored her to call upon her occult powers. “Did Ellie sleep in her old room last night?”

“Huh! Uh, yeah.”

Meghann glanced at him quizzically, and then decided that brief hesitation she heard in his voice was merely anxiety. “Then that’s the first place I’ll go, after I ask you a few questions. I know I’ll be able to pick something up on Ellie if I stand in her bedroom.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy muttered, looking rather ashen to Meghann. He must still be off-balance from Simon’s attack, she thought.

In the study, Simon didn’t even wait for Jimmy to seat himself but immediately demand, “When did you last see my daughter?”

“Right before I went to sleep,” Jimmy said, looking at Meghann instead of Simon. “A few minutes after Maggie called.”

“Did you sedate her as I requested?”

“That’s not fair,” Meghann answered before Jimmy could speak. “Even if Jimmy did force something on her, the strongest sedative we have in this house would knock her out for twelve hours at the most. She could have woken by six and left the house before Jimmy rose for the evening.”

Simon neither disputed nor conceded Meghann’s point, simply saying thoughtfully. “I do not believe she was abducted from the estate. I have no impression of a struggle. It is my belief that someone lured Elizabeth away…she left here of her own free will.”

Meghann nodded agreement, wondering who the hell could have been so persuasive after she and Simon had both pleaded with Ellie not to leave the house for any reason.

“A friend probably wouldn’t have such influence,” Simon ruminated, his thoughts running parallel to Meghann’s. That leaves only one option. Has Elizabeth any serious beaux, Meghann?”

“Mickey Hollingsworth,” she answered immediately.

“Who the hell is Mickey?” Jimmy demanded sharply and Meghann turned to him, her eyes narrowed speculatively. Why in the world should Jimmy care who Ellie dated?

“Ellie’s boyfriend,” Meghann answered, deciding the unpleasant note in Jimmy’s voice was probably some proprietary, fathering instinct; certainly he’d helped her raise Ellie almost as much as Charles and Lee had.

“You say his name in Mickey? What does he look like?” Simon demanded, with a hard, driving edge that was the closest thing to panic she’d ever heard in his voice.

“Tall,” Meghann said, cudgeling her memory for details of a boy she’d only met once. “Very tall and thin. Long black hair, wears it in a ponytail…”

“When did Elizabeth meet him?”

“Six months ago,” Meghann answered promptly and then the full impact of her response hit her. Six months ago…when Mikal had gone to Ballnamore and possibly tortured those vampires for information on where his mother and twin sister lived.

“No!” Meghann screamed, horrified and sickened to think Ellie’s first boyfriend might be…

“No!” she repeated and jabbered nervously at Simon, “I’d have recognized Mikal. His eyes…they’re still that strange silvery color, aren’t they? Mikal has blue eyes, plain old blue eyes…”

“Have you ever heard of contact lenses?” Simon questioned tonelessly, looking as disturbed as Meghann felt.

“How could I not recognize my own son?” she cried.

“Meghann,” Lee interrupted, his voice barely above a whisper. “I think I hear the computer in the den…”

Meghann cocked her ear and heard the chimes Ellie had chosen to herald the announcement of an E-mail. She rushed into the den, Simon and Jimmy following fast on her heels. The E-mail could be from Ellie.

Please, Meghann prayed as she fumbled with the mouse to open the message. Let Ellie be safe. Let her have just been thoughtless and left the house for some silly reason. I won’t even yell at her for making me worry; I just want her to be all right…

The E-mail had a video clip Meghan downloaded and then she found herself staring into the leering face of a boy known to her and Ellie as Mickey Hollingsworth but Simon immediately called Mikal.

“Maggie,” her son said affably, the camera focused entirely on his face…his face!

“How is he doing that?” Meghann said through numb, cold lips. “Vampires don’t show up on film.”

“One of his mortal characteristics,” Simon said tersely. “He has a mirror image. I’ve often wondered if the ability to cast a reflection is related to his inability to fly the astral plane.”

Meghann stared dumbly at the computer, trying and failing to find and resemblance between the sepulcher image on the screen and he endearingly awkward boy those nondescript contact lenses that his Mikal’s true nature? Certainly, he could not allow his eyes to be seen in public. People would run from him screaming in horror if they saw those flat, silver eyes that looked like two nickels welded into an unearthly pale face with a fine tracery of reddish veins marring the white surface. Meghann suspected Mikal had deliberately starved himself before making this video to appear as grotesque as possible before his mother.

The video image of Mikal spoke with malevolent cheeriness, all his comments directed to Meghan. “I hope you do not mind my informality but I simply cannot address you as ‘Mother’ or think of you as Meghann, the exalted angel perching on Father’s pedestal.”

The camera panned back to expose the room behind Mikal an Meghann screamed at the image behind him-Ellie nude, shackled hand and foot with thick steel cuffs to a dark wall, her legs spread while her head lolled on her shoulders.

“Ellie,” Meghann moaned at the sight of her daughter’s body, a hideous mass of deep purple bruises and shocking welts. Shakily, Meghann’s hands touched the computer screen, caressing it as though she could reach Ellie and provide some comfort to her child’s tortured body.

Mikal strolled over to Ellie and lewdly placed his hand between her legs but Ellie didn’t stir. Thank God, Meghann thought. Thank God her daughter had outwitted this monster by retreating to a state where nothing he did could disturb her.

But Meghann could be disturbed, especially when Mikal first flicked his tongue between his sister’s legs and then attacked her left thigh, consuming Ellie’s blood save for the slight crimson trickle that poured down her leg and gathered in an unsightly pool by her feet.

“Ellie,” Meghann cried again, and the ghastly sight of her daughter being tortured by the twisted beast that set out to lure his unsuspecting twin into incest started to fade as Meghann’s mind spun out of control. Her last thought before chaos enveloped her was that the despicable monster taunting her from the computer screen couldn’t possibly be…

“Mickey,” Ellie said, holding the hand of a pleasant but not overly handsome young man. “This is my...sister, Maggie.”

Meghann smiled ruefully at that hesitancy no one else would catch as Ellie introduced her daughter to call her sister as it was for Meghann to hear it. But the ruse was a necessity.

“Hello, Mickey,” Meghann said and shook the boy’s hand “I’ve heard so much about you. Please come inside for a few minutes.”

Did she sound too stuffy, Meghann fretted as Ellie and Mickey accompanied her into the atrium where Charles and Lee waited. God, she’d sounded so starched and pressed with that ‘I’ve heard so much about you’ business. In her own defense, she didn’t entirely have the hang of this yet, meeting and greeting her daughter’s boyfriends.

Can I really have a daughter old enough to date? Meghann reflected with some incredulity. In theory, of course, Meghann was old enough to have a great great granddaughter going on dates but Meghann couldn’t reconcile the plump bundle she’s cuddled and cooed as to the whip-slim young lady smiling at her boyfriend.

“What are your plans for tonight?” Lee questioned and Meghann smiled archly, thinking he sounded even more stilted than her.

Well, no wonder…poor Lee was the one who’d written out a prescription for the Pill after Ellie’s stammered request. This entire meeting had come about because Meghann, Lee, and Charles insisted on meeting the boy Ellie said she might not be in love with, but was serious enough about to want to pursue a sexual relationship.

“You don’t have to be in love to enjoy sex,” Meghann said during the heart-to-heart that followed Ellie’s request. She was determined not to lie or fill Elli’s head with ideals she’d never lived up to. Meghann hadn’t loved any of the men she took to her bed after she left Simon. “But at the very least, you ought to like and respect them…and make damn sure they respect you.”

Mickey certainly seemed respectful, Meghann thought, to Ellie and the rest of them. He complimented the house and exhibited polite interest in all of them.

He smiled when Ellie spoke of Lee’s many contributions to infertility treatments and asked insightful questions of him and Charles, currently engaged in enzyme synthesis work that might provide cures to people stricken with diseases like MS, but he showed the most interest in Meghann’s psychoanalytic research.

“In another century, you’d be called a witch,” Mickey said with a trace of upper-class British accent. “Seeing into men’s souls the way you do.”

“One generation’s sorcery is another’s science,” Charles said, smiling at Meghann as he filled her wine glass.

Mickey nodded and then spoke in a voice Meghann found charming. It seemed like he was always on the verge of laughter, listening to some delicious joke only he could hear. “I hope you will not think less of me, but I must confess I have a penchant for the true-crime novels written by so many of your contemporaries, Maggie. I love the way they allow you to glimpse of a dark mind.”

“I don’t think less of you at all, Mickey,” Meghann smiled. “But you must be careful with those books. There are a few gems but most of them are unspeakable trash, written quickly and with little thoughts at all.”

“Is there any book you’d recommend?” Mickey asked “I’m done with my courses at Oxford now and I’m finding it difficult to nourish my mind without aid of my schoolmasters.”

“Helter Skelter,” Meghann said after a moment’s thought. “Marvelously insightful, well-written, a brilliant account of Charles Manson and his ‘family.’”

“Wasn’t Manson somewhat unusual?” Ellie put in. “I thought psychos preferred to work alone.”

“They usually do,” Meghann said, thinking not only of mortal psychopaths but vampires. For the most part, they were lone-wolf predators. Her friendship with Charles marriage to Simon Baldevar was most unusual in their world…vampires tended to remain unattached, not wishing to share their prey with any fellow immortals nearby.

“But Manson managed to gather a nest of misfits together,” Mickey said, looking boyish in his avid interest. “How do you think he did that, Maggie? Put the instability of his family members to work for him?”

“He was intensely charismatic,” Meghann replied “Not unusual in sociopaths…they have a tendency to blend in with their surroundings, to be able to identify a persons strengths and weakness and then prey on them to suit their own warped needs.”

“So he cult leader must charm his devotees by exploiting their weaknesses and becoming sort of a father figure?”

“Something like that,” Meghann said, and then the conversation shifted, focusing on Mickey’s early graduation from Oxford.

“What are your plans now that you’ve finished school?” Lee asked and Meghann gave Charles an impish look, both of them smothering a laugh at how adult and staid Lee sounded when he grilled their daughter’s boyfriend.

Mickey grinned sheepishly and shrugged “At the moment, I’m weighing my options, which is a tactful way of saying I don’t have the foggiest notion of what to do with myself. I’ve thought of pursuing law, starting my own business…everything and nothing. Me and my Oxford degree will probably wind up inquiring earnestly whether the customers would like fries with their order.”

Everyone laughed and Meghann saw what had charmed Ellie, Mickey’s deprecating sense of humor. Meghann had to admit she liked the boy herself. He wasn’t what she’d look for in a man and she thought it unlikely he and Ellie would remain involved long, given how young they were, but he was a fine choice for her first boyfriend. Meghann grinned at Elle and Ellie smiled back, basking in her mother’s silent approval.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Charles asked the young couple. “We’re making your favorite, Ellie: fettuccine Alfredo.”

Ellie shook her head and explained, “We’re going to the movies…the show starts in about twenty minutes. Then we’re meeting some friends after.”

“No time for old folks,” Charles whispered sotto voce o Meghann, who punched him playfully in the arm.

The three of them walked Ellie and Mickey to the front door where Mickey grasped Meghann’s hand, all his twinkling humor gone, replaced by grave earnestness.

“You have a good house,” he said, meeting Meghann’s eyes squarely. “Full of love and happiness. My own parents…well, they’ve been on the outs for years and I never felt such warmth and love…no matter if you are somewhat unconventional.” Mickey was referring to the careful lie the Lee had adopted Ellie and her ‘sister’ from a biological mother that died years before and raised them with his lover. “I hope you’ll welcome me back, Maggie. I like it here.”

“Of course, Mickey,” Meghann said warmly, liking this earnest boy more and more. “You’ll always be welcome here.”

“Maggie!”

Meghann’s eyes fluttered open and she stared up at Jimmy, pulling her into a sitting position and holding a glass to her lips.

“Thank God,” Jimmy muttered as she became more alert. “I thought I’d lost you…you were out cold.”

“He tricked me,” Meghann said, sipping the absinthe to put some warmth in her ice-cold body. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it…”

“See what? Who Mikal was?”

“More than that,” Meghann said, though she was appalled that in that entire meeting neither she nor Charles had any idea they were conversing with another vampire. Mikal was so young…what would he be capable of as he matured? “I made Simon’s spell worthless…Mikal was able to get in here today and abduct Ellie.”

“What are you talkingabout?” Jimmy said and helped her over to an overstuffed easy chair. “I thought the house was barred to all vampires…”

“…that weren’t invited,” Meghann finished. “He made it all seem so innocuous, standing on the threshold to the house and grasping my hand while he asked me to make him welcome. Perfect location, perfect timing to repel any later spell. Mikal could come in here today because I, the mistress of the house, held his hand and told him he was always welcome in my home. Fuck!” Meghann screamed in frustrated self-reproach. “How could I not have the slightest idea what Mikal was? How he was manipulating me?”

“It’s done,” Jimmy said, unable to offer any kind of comfort. “What we have to concentrate on now is getting Ellie back from him, before he kills her.”

“He’s not going to kill her.” Meghann said. “Mikal is keeping her alive as bait…he wants me and Simon, all of us, to come charging after her. Then, if he succeeds in destroying us, no one stands in his way.”

Turning away from Jimmy, Meghann glanced at the blank computer screen. “Jimmy, turn the computer back on. Much as I hate it, I have to see if there’s any clue as to where Mikal is keeping Ellie. And Simon…where’s Simon? We have to start planning...”

“He’s gone…took Lee with him and vanished.”

“Gone?” Meghann asked incredulously. “What do you mean, gone? How could he leave and why would he take Lee?”

“Gone,” Jimmy snapped and Meghann saw his anger was directed at Simon, not her. “And don’t ask me where he went because I don’t have the slightest fucking idea. All I know is you started to scream and passed out and then he…I went over to you, to try and revive you, and when I looked up, he and Lee were gone.”

“How long ago did he disappear?” Meghann demanded, suddenly knowing exactly what had happened. Her brief unconscious spell hadn’t been a result of overworked nerves—Simon had reached into her mind and forced her to sleep while he went to deal with Mikal on his own.

“Three hours ago,” Jimmy said, confirming Meghann’s suspicions.

“We have to hurry,” Meghann said and rushed over to the computer, cursing when she saw the mangled hard drive, a hopeless tangle of wires and metal.

“Damn it!” She banged her hand down on the leather-paneled desk. “There was a clue in that E-mail…Simon knows where Mikal and Ellie are. He’s gone to battle Mikal but he wants me out…damn him! I won’t sit here and pace helplessly while my husband and daughter are in danger. And Lee! Why did Simon take Lee with him? He’s so sick, not even transformed…how can Lee help him against Mikal?”

Jimmy shrugged and said, “Is there some other way you can find Ellie? I mean, you’re her mother…I know there’s a link between the two of you.”

“Yes,” Meghann said, her mind buzzing furiously. “Come on.”

“Where?” Jimmy asked, sounding strangely apprehensive to Meghann.

“Ellie’s bedroom,” Meghann said, taking the oak stairs three at a time. “It has the most recent psychic impression…that’s where I’ll connect to her. Just pray we’re not too late. Simon has a three-hour head start on us. We need to hurry, Jimmy.”

Meghann paused at the door to Ellie’s room and gave Jimmy a rushed list of commands. “I need every weapon we have…the magnum and the .44, at least two bowie knives for each of us, and two axes. You get everything together so we’re ready to leave as soon as I find out where Ellie is. Go on, hurry!”

Meghann watched Jimmy’s retreating back for a moment, wondering why he suddenly looked so uncertain, and then shrugged the thoughts away as unimportant. What she needed to concentrate on was finding Ellie.

Meghann entered her daughter’s room, took in its musty odor, unmade sheets, and for one horrible moment thought Mikal had raped Ellie before he abducted her. But as Meghann concentrated on the room and its psychic residue, she discovered to her appalled, outraged dismay that Mikal wasn’t Ellie’s only lover.

Jimmy skulked around the house uneasily, gathering the weapons Maggie requested into an all-purpose black canvas duffle bag. He kept waiting for some kind of shriek when Maggie’s senses informed her of what had happened in Ellie’s room last night. It was too much to hope that Maggie, in her grief and worry, might not discover he and Ellie were lovers.

But minutes crept by with excruciating slowness and there was no furious scream, just an ominous silence. Finally Jimmy had everything they needed and no reason except cowardice to avoid going back up to Ellie’s room and confronting Maggie.

It wasn’t that he was ashamed of what he’d done, though he knew he should be. Jimmy loved Ellie, and fully intended to marry her. But he didn’t want to face Maggie now, with Ellie missing.

Ellie should be here…only she could convince Maggie that Jimmy had not taken advantage of her, like that bastard Mikal had. Jimmy felt no disgust at discovering Ellie’s first lover was her twin brother. No, that was wrong. Jimmy felt marrow deep, instinctual horror, but it was all directed at Mikal: Ellie was just his helpless victim. Jimmy wouldn’t turn Ellie away, he just wanted to find her and hold her, tell her they’d get over what her brother had done to her together.

Quit stalling, Jimmy told himself and headed for the stairs. What kind of Knight in Shining Armor was he going to be for Ellie if he couldn’t even face her mother and make her accept that he and Ellie were in love, wanted to get married?

At the base of the stairs, his eyes firmly cast on the floor; Jimmy noticed a small slip of paper lying by the front door, right underneath the mail slot. There was always a chance he was wrong but Jimmy would swear that red square with Gothic black lettering hadn’t been there when Maggie and Lee came home.

Jimmy snatched the heavy paper up and opened the front door, screaming, “Why didn’t you put it in my hand, you chickenshit motherfucker? Even your old man doesn’t sneak around like this! And Ellie told me you’re a lousy fucking lay, too!”

Jimmy’s challenge went unheeded, no psychotic young vampire popped out of the dunes to attack him. Then Jimmy glanced at the flyer in his hands and wondered if he were mistaken, if some hapless mortal solicitor that would think a crazy man lived in this house had just left this.

He’d show Maggie, Jimmy decided, get her take on it.

“Maggie,” Jimmy called as he poked his head around the half-open door leading to Ellie’s room, forgetting his apprehension in his eagerness to show her his discovery. “You’ve got to…”

That was all Jimmy got out before a hand yanked his hair and used it to fling him halfway across the room.

“What the…” Jimmy stammered before a foot connected solidly with his ribs, breaking at least two of them.

Jimmy grunted, having no time to absorb that irritating blow before a flat palm smashed into his nose, pulverizing it.

Jimmy made an effort to get up and Maggie sent him back down by kicking him in the neck, all the while screaming some inarticulate diatribe of rage. Jimmy caught only a few phases—“perverted piece of shit” and “child-chasing asshole” among them.

Shit, Maggie knew what had happened and her reaction was exactly what Jimmy had predicted to Ellie, right down focusing the brunt of her assault on his testicles.

“Listen to me,” Jimmy grunted, making a grab for her hair to pull Maggie off him.

“Listen to you?” she spat and he felt real fear at the white-hot fury blazing in her eyes, turning them to green glass. “Listen to some…some sneaky, sleazy, lowlife that hits on an innocent child? I’ll kill you, you sonofabitch, I’ll kill you!

“No,” she suddenly contradicted herself and hopped off him, though not before giving him two stinging slaps, back and front handed, across the face.

“I won’t kill you at all,” she said in a nasty purr that chilled Jimmy. “I’ll tell Simon what you’ve done and let him decide the best way to destroy you.”

Now Jimmy knew how betrayed and angry Maggie was…if she’d willingly hand him over to Lord Baldevar.

“You don’t understand,” Jimmy said, knowing he was pleading for his life.

“You’re right,” Maggie snapped, looking at him like he was a loathsome crust she’d found on the heel of her shoe. “I don’t understand and I don’t want to understand. I never want to understand the workings of your sick, twisted mind—you’re as bad as Mikal. Worse, because I trusted you…I thought you were my friend, an Ellie’s as well. I never thought you’d…you’d use my child, an innocent girl that’s loved you all her life, to settle whatever score you think you’ve got with me and Simon.”

“I didn’t use her!” Jimmy screamed, insulted and hurting more from Maggie’s dismissal of him than any of her physical blows. “I love Ellie. I love her and we’re going to be married.”

If he thought that statement would win him any points, that hope was brutally dashed when Maggie burst into cutting, sardonic laughter that made her sound exactly like her Simon Baldevar.

“You think I’d let Ellie marry you?” Maggie asked, sounding like she’d bless the union of Ellie and an open sewer before she gave her daughter to Jimmy. “I will find her. Jimmy, and save her and when I do, believe me she’s going to do better than you. I won’t let Ellie ruin her life and devote herself to some pathetic, emotional cripple. What is it, Jimmy? Instead of me, now you want Ellie to hold your hand through eternity because you’re too weak to make it on your own? Booze or a girl…Jimmy always needs some crutch to get him through the night.”

“You fucking poisonous bitch,” Jimmy said, past shame and well into fury that matched that of the woman glaring down at him.

With that comment, Maggie lunged at him but this time Jimmy threw her off and then held out the bowie knife he had at the small of his back before she could attack him again. “You’re going to listen to me, Maggie.”

“Or what?” she laughed humorlessly. “Think you’ll win Ellie over by killing her mother?”

“I don’t want to kill you, Maggie,” Jimmy said, not entirely truthfully. “I just want you to listen to me and I’m holding this knife out to keep you off me while I speak my piece.”

“I have no interest in anything you have to say.” Purposefully, Maggie turned her back on him. “You’re dead to me, Jimmy Delacroix. Now get the hell out of my house and don’t ever come back.”

Jimmy didn’t move one step toward the door. “What the hell would you know about love? How dare you condemn me and Ellie after hooking up with Simon Beldevar?”

“There is no you and Ellie, you fucking child-molesting creep,” Maggie snarled, whirling around. “I don’t want my daughter having anything to do with you.”

“Well, she wants to have something to do with me just like I want her,” Jimmy said and brandished his knife again when Maggie’s hands curled into claws.

“We love each other…in a good, positive way. Not that you’d understand anything like…I don’t have to drink her blood to get it up.”

“Get it up?” Maggie retorted, now looking sickened, as well as outraged. “You think I want to hear about you getting your dick hard for Ellie? You sick, twisted fuck…when she was a baby, you wanted to be her daddy and now you want to be her…Jesus, I don’t know what!”

“Her husband,” Jimmy said firmly, trying to meet Maggie’s eyes but she wouldn’t even look at him. “And not because I need someone to hold my hand…what a cheap shot that was. Like you don’t need Simon Baldevar to chase after you when you lose your mind and take off without a thought for anyone but yourself. If you’d stayed put last night, Ellie might be here now!”

Maggie’s face crumpled and Jimmy saw all the fight go out of her. She slumped against the picture window and when Jimmy saw her mouth and eyes fractionally scrunching up and down, he knew she was trying not to cry.

“Jesus, Maggie,” Jimmy said and tossed his knife to the floor. He didn’t go over to her, not because he feared more fighting but because he thought he wasn’t worthy to comfort her. Talk about cheap shots…how could he say something so vile to Maggie when she was so worried about Ellie? “I’m sorry. I never should have said that. You’re a vampire, too. None of us could have done anything to protect Ellie during the day…it doesn’t matter where you were.”

Maggie said nothing and Jimmy plowed on, determined to make her understand what happened. “It’s not what you think, Maggie. Ellie…I never would have touched her if I didn’t love her, if I didn’t think we could have a relationship.”

“She’s so young,” Maggie said but her words lacked the heat of a few minutes ago.

“Aren’t you three hundred years younger than Baldevar?”

Maggie shrugged. “More or less. But Simon wasn’t around when I was growing up. My mother didn’t count him as an honorary father.”

“Lee is Ellie’s father,” Jimmy said, discounting Lord Baldevar completely. “You know that. After I knew it was over between us, I didn’t spend that much time here. Certainly not enough to be a father.”

“But how can you see Ellie that way?” Maggie asked, looking genuinely perplexed.

“I don’t know,” Jimmy shrugged. “I have no answer except that it started last night…when I came back. Ellie was an adult, no longer your baby. What can I say, Maggie? She’s everything I want…smart and tough and talented…like you.

“Not that I want her to replace you,” Jimmy said quickly. “Sure, Elli’s a little like you..you’re her mother. But she’s different..we’re different. I always depended on you, Maggie. But with Ellie…it’s like we depend on each other. We complement each other. I can see us together years from now, helping and supporting each other. I don’t need her to hold my hand, Maggie. I want to hold hers, I want to find her and comfort her and help her get over Mikal. She and I…we have something between us, something magical I can’t explain.”

Maggie looked up at that, seeming surprised and no longer angry. She gave Jimmy a sad smile. “That’s what love is, Jimmy. A special bond only the two of you understand, something that can’t be presented to or analyzed by anyone else. Maybe now you’ll understand my feelings toward Simon a little better.”

Jimmy would always think Maggie was selling herself short as far as Baldevar was concerned, but she was right, he did understand. He understood what it was to care about someone so much you’d defy every convention, kick over every obstacle just to be with them.

“So it’s okay? Jimmy asked.

Maggie gave him a wary glance and shook her head. “I don’t know, Jimmy. I need time to think about this and I certainly need to talk to Ellie. I want to hear from her that she feels the same way, that she’s ready for the kind of commitment you want. But I…I don’t think you’re using her or that this is something cheap and tawdry. Just give me time, Jimmy.”

Jimmy nodded. “Will you let me help you find her?”

Maggie laughed bitterly and gestured to the empty room. “I don’t exactly have an army at my side. I need all the help I can get.”

“Then look at this.” Jimmy took the red-and-black card out of his back pocket and handed it to Maggie.

Maggie glanced at it only a minute before her eyes widened and she whispered, “The address.”

“What about it?” Jimmy frowned and glanced over her shoulder.

“Don’t you remember?” Maggie whirled around to face him. “16 Shelter Rock Road…it’s the house where Simon took me after he killed Alcuin! The house where we conceived the twins.”

“The house where he tortured me,” Jimmy whispered, his legs suddenly wobbly. He sat down on the bed, remembering Simon Baldevar’s trap as though he’d fallen into ityesterday. The sadistic, jealous vampire had no use for Maggie’s moratl lover so he lured Jimmy to the house and then put him through hell to pay Jimmy back for laying his hands on who he thought of as his woman.

“You said you’d gotten rid of the house!” Jimmy cried, shuddering when he thought that Ellie might be wearing the same shackles that had imprisoned Jimmy, that Mikal might be tormenting her in the same spot where his father had once tried to kill Jimmy. “You said you sold it out from under Baldevar when he kidnapped me!”

“I did,” Maggie said and explained. “Last night, when I ran off…I needed to feed. I found some kid and he told me all about this cool Goth club opening in Manhasset. This must be it.” Maggie contemptuously flicked the invitation to a place unimaginatively called Immortal Light. “Rather Freudian title, that. Would you care to guess what Mikal’s planning to do there, what sick fantasies he’s going to enact? According to my little friend, the main charm of this sick, decadent place is that you pay the admission by stuffing it into the body cavity of a disemboweled corpse. Naturally the kid thinks the body is going to be wax, but we know better than that. Don’t we, Jimmy?”

“Baldevar,” Jimmy said, seeing his own horrorstruck certainly reflected in Maggie’s eyes. “Mikal thinks he’s going to kill his father and then stuff him over the front door of his club.”

Maggie nodded grimly. “We have to stop them. I just pray Simon had his own preparations to make before he set off for the house. We have to get there before Simon confronts Mikal.”

“Why?” Jimmy asked, sensing that though he and Maggie were united as long as Ellie was missing, she might feel differently toward him after this was resolved. “I hate to say it but Baldevar can handle anyone. No one wins against him…not even Alcuin, who you told me had four centuries on him.”

“Alcuin visited me last night,” Maggie said. “He told me I couldn’t let Simon confront Mikal on his own…that he’d die…him, Ellie, and Lee!”

Jimmy could care less if Simon Baldevar died but with him gone, there’d be nothing standing in the way of Mikal killing Ellie and Lee if he and Maggie arrived too late to save them.

Jimmy had no idea why Lee Winslow was involved in this anyway, why Simon had spirited him away. Why would Simon Baldevar confront this son with no one to help him but a sickly, transforming mortal? It just didn’t make any sense, Jimmy thought as he and Maggie set off forte house where Lord Baldevar had set everything happening tonight in motion eighteen years ago.

Eleven

Simon guided the car off of the Sunrise Highway and drove into the Pine Barrens, a vast area near Southampton comprised of marshes and swamps surrounded by skeletal, burnt stumps of trees that leered out from the darkness like gnarled sentinels when lightning illuminated the car’s path.

Simon was glad of the fierce storm raging outside. No mortal hikers or park rangers would brave the steady downpour and hurricane-like gusts of wind to interrupt Simon’s ritual at any crucial point.

Simon cut the engine and turned to Lee Winslow, semi-conscious and shivering uncontrollably, Simon put his hand on the mortal’s wrist, registering the clammy skin and weak, thread pulse with some alarm. It was just as he’d thought—Lee’s older body was having grave difficulty withstanding the shock of transformation.

“Dr. Winslow,” Simon said, grasping the mortal’s wrist tightly and infusing him with some of his own strength. Simon imagined his power as a circuit rushing through Lee’s bloodstream, healing all in its path, and soon Lee sat up, looking around in a dazed manner as his fever abated for the first time that night.

“Ellie,” Lee muttered, sitting up in alarm and then slumping back down from dizziness. “I heard Meghann screaming…what has Mikal done to Ellie?”

“Try to remain calm,” Simon said. “Panic will weaken you. Mikal has abducted Elizabeth to force a confrontation with me. He thinks I’m going to foolishly blunder into whatever trap he’s set.”

“Oh, God,” Lee sighed, his waxen, pale skin turning whiter with fear. “Simon, what’s he going to do to her?”

“He won’t kill her,” Simon said shortly, leaving the rest unsaid. Mikal had no choice but to keep his sister alive because he knew Simon wouldn’t chase after a corpse but that did not mean the twisted, venal boy would not spend every drop of jealous, resentful energy on his helpless twin, visiting frightful tortures upon her. Simon could not only hope that no matter how mutilated Elizabeth was when they found her, she still had life enough within her to undergo transformation. Simon knew immortality was likely the only way to heal his daughter after Mikal was through with her. “Not if we find him soon.”

“We?” Lee said. “Where are Meghann and Jimmy?”

“Meghann is at home where she belongs,” Simon answered, ignoring the reference to Jimmy Delacroix. Pity he’d already been transformed or Simon would have used him for the ritual. Then Delacroix would serve a purpose for once. “It is bad enough Elizabeth’s been hurt. I will not endanger Meghann by exposing her to battle. I enchanted her so she would sleep until his is over.

“You want to attack Mikal with me at your side?” Lee Winslow was intelligent enough to know he, as an utter novice, would not be of great aid to Simon.

“I want your immortal body,” Simon said, choosing his words carefully. “But to use you means putting you at great risk.”

“I’ve known all along there’s a risk of death with transformation,” Lee said. “I still want to try…I have to help Ellie.”

“I plan to do a great deal more than transform you this evening, Doctor,” Simon said, determined to make full disclosure before starting the ceremony. “I will use your new, invincible body in ways you cannot imagine. You will not be aware of what I am doing because you, the mind and soul behind your physical body, will not be here.”

“Simon, you’re speaking in riddles. Tell me what you mean. If my soul isn’t in my body, where will it be?”

“I do not know,” Simon said candidly. “No magus has ever figured out where he soul of a possessed body vanishes to.”

“Possessed,” Lee said and Simon saw real fear enter the mortal’s eyes, though he didn’t appear ready to cry off Simon’s proposal. “Simon, are you planning to put some…daemon in me?”

“That would be foolhardy, not to say dangerous in the extreme, for no daemon with a body all its own would heed my wishes. An immortal body is all those creatures want—why should it obey me when I have no more to offer? You shall be possessed but not by such a terrible entity as that…merely a force with the power to assist me when I face down Mikal.”

“Will this force take me over forever?” lee asked quietly and Simon saw the trepidation behind the seemingly calm tone.

“No possession lasts forever,” Simon explained. “The force I plan to invoke would not try and force you from your body as a daemon would. But it is possible you could die when I perform the ceremony or your body could be mortally wounded when I confront Mikal. Finally, it is possible that when I release the entity from your form, your soul will simply not be able to find its way back. You may remain wherever you are.”

Lee nodded and said steadily, “Do whatever you need to save Ellie, Simon.”

Simon nodded and helped Lee out of the car, feeling almost humbled by the other man’s quiet courage. There’d been no turmoil in his mind. Lee Winslow handed over his life with no thought but for saving Elizabeth. How fortunate his daughter was to have this man for her foster father. If lee didn’t survive tonight, Simon would make certain his sacrifice was not unheralded—he would tell Meghann and Elizabeth that Lee Winslow had died a hero’s death.

He would also make certain Mikal paid for all he’d put his family through. Meghann would never fully recover from Charles Tarleton’s death or those ghatl images of Elizabeth so hurt and mutilated—they were branded inot her heart and mind forever. Mikal would pay dearly for the hurt he’d caused Meghann, taking the life of so good a man as Charles Tarleton, and putting into jeopardy this equally good man, Lee Winslow.

Simon took Lee’s hand again, grasping it in a firm handshake that was as much salute as possible farewell. “You are a fine man, Lee”

“So are you, Simon,” Lee said softly. “I was so scared of you at first. You seemed so…cold, but you were a different person altogether with Meghann. I’ll never forget the way you stroked her hair and held her close to you while you fed her your blood. And I’ve seen the way you do your best to protect Meghan and Ellie. I know if…something happens to me tonight, you’ll keep them safe.”

“You have my word,” Simon told him, reflecting that this was the first true friend he’d had since John Dee, Elizabeth I’s renowned astrologist, died. Strange that Lee Winslow’s homosexuality had never bothered Simon when he usually despised sodomites—his

own son included. But there was so much to admire about Lee that it had never been difficult to overlook his one character flaw.

Simon pushed dripping strands of hair off his face and wiped his eyes clear of the pouring rain—there was no more time to speak. In tonight's ceremony, time was of paramount importance. Lee Winslow's transformation must take place between midnight and one am. The first hour of the new day was the only suitable time for the conjuration Simon planned.

It was now eleven o'clock. Simon used his blood teeth to open the vein in his wrist and held out his bleeding hand to Lee. Understanding Simon's intention, Lee raised Simon's wounded wrist and drank the vampire's blood to complete his transformation.

The first swallow affected Lee like a jolt of electricity. His entire body shuddered and his eyes rolled into the back of his head before he crumpled to the muddy, water logged earth. Simon pulled a sheet from the trunk and laid Lee on it, securely tying his hands to one of the pine stumps behind him. Any i transforming mortal had to be restrained lest they hurt themselves.

Simon knelt beside Lee and examined him. He was now in the second stage of transformation, characterized by convulsions, fever, and vomiting. As the vampire blood coursed through his system, Lee's body underwent a radical and extremely painful change. Skin, muscles, bone, organs, blood . . . not one part of the body was unaffected.

From experience, Simon knew this stage of transformation could take anywhere from several hours to a fortnight. His own transformation took more than two weeks but Simon suspected that was because no vampire watched over the process: he'd transformed by stealing a vampire's blood and then John

Dee did what he could to assist Simon. Tonight Simon planned to rush the process along so Lee's transformation would be completed at the same moment Simon was ready to invoke.

The crucial moment in transformation came when the physical metamorphosis began to taper off and the semi-transformed mortal regained awareness. Many could not handle the shocking process and lost their minds. The vampire guiding them had to keep a firm hold over his fledgling's psyche, guide them through the pain and terror to complete transformation.

I am here, Lee. Simon spoke into the mortal's delir- ium-laden mind. I am your master now. Come to me and the pain will lose its grip. Find me, reach out to me.

He felt a tremulous, hesitant touch in his mind and knew Lee was hanging on. Simon didn't worry that this strong-willed man would lose his mind, but he did worry his frail, mortal heart might give out if transformation wasn't accomplished quickly.

Simon pulled a large suitcase from the trunk, filled with objects he'd packed in anticipation of finding Mikal. First, he removed a small packet of sulfur and used it to cast a counter-clockwise circle that included himself, Lee, and the tree he was tied to. A few inches beneath that circle, he made another sulfuric circle the exact diameter of the outer circle. The rain poured down and melted the sulfur until it almost blended into the soil but that did not bother Simon— a thunderstorm provided powerful energy that would aid him tonight.

But it did mean he had to work quickly to activate the circle. Simon burned a red candle, guarding the flame from the rain with his hands. When the wax began to run, Simon used the wax to write the names Agla and El between the outer and inner rim of the two circles.

The red candle and names corresponded to the Fourth Pentacle of Mars, which provided power in war and Simon considered himself at war with his son.

Next, Simon drew the Fourth Pentacle a few inches from Lee with dirt he'd taken from the North End graveyard, the oldest cemetery on Long Island. Simon laid Lee Winslow on the pentacle, making sure his head faced east, in the direction of the rising sun. Lee's limbs were arranged with the arms and legs in cruciform position to later invite the spirit Simon needed to rise from the dead.

Now the magic could begin. First, Simon consecrated the circle, speaking in the Latin tongue as he'd done since he was a mortal magus. "By the holy, terrible, and ineffable name IAH, at which the whole world doth tremble, I beseech thy confidence and grace, that all discord and strife fly from this circle and you bless and sanctify my humble assembly this evening. Amen."

At the close of his prayer, the sulfuric outline burst into flames no earthly rain could douse. The blue- white fire burned bright, impervious to the rain that drenched Simon's clothes and poured down his face. The fire almost seemed a holographic image, emitting warmth but layered with a transparency that reminded Simon of his own image when he looked into a mirror.

Pleased that his circle was activated and no unwelcome infernal visitors could enter and try to force themselves upon Lee's body, Simon went to the tree Lee was tied to and tore off a limb, consecrating it as his magic rod for the evening by attaching steel caps to each end and magnetizing it with a lodestone. Next, he used his blood teeth to bite off a circle of bark in the center of the stump and place a small, perfect ruby in the hole.

Now a small offering had to be made. Simon withdrew several stone philters and a gold plate from the suitcase. Onto the plate, he poured a small bit of wine, mastic, sweet oil, and virgin's blood from one of the captives he'd used to feed Mikal. Placing the offering at Lee's right hand, Simon said, "O high and powerful beings, may this sacrifice be pleasing and acceptable to thee that you may bestow your favor upon my work this night."

Simon glanced at Lee and saw the moment of transformation was at hand. Awareness was creeping back into his expression and sharp, ivory blood teeth emerged from his gum to cut open his lower lip—Lee Winslow now had a vampire's body. Holding the rod up to the thundering sky, Simon roared, "By virtue of He who created all things and reigns eternal, I conjure and command that ye bring the spirit of the slain vampire, Alcuin, Bishop of Kent, to answer my demands and come unto me. I, Lord Simon Baldevar, as thy killer, order ye, Alcuin, into this new immortal form I have provided. In the great name of God, Tetragrammaton, I say arise, arise from your sleep and come do my bidding else suffer everlasting torment. I charge and command thee, Alcuin, to awaken. Awake, awake, awake!"

Simon's deep voice rumbled through the desolate area as he held the pine rod up to the heavens and then touched Lee's heart with the magnetized tip.

Lee's eyes widened, as if with great surprise, and then clouded over, becoming utterly vacant for a moment before they darkened and changed. Now the eyes staring up at Simon were those of a much older soul than Lee Winslow, reflecting wisdom it had taken centuries to obtain and the same self-righteous piety that always annoyed Simon unendurably on the few occasions he'd confronted Alcuin.

How Simon wished he could have called upon any soul but this pompous prelate he despised. Charles Tarleton would be a fine ally by his side but his soul, dead so short a time, was in a state of transition now and it would be near impossible to bring him into a new body so soon after his death. There were other dead immortals Simon could have called upon but none of them had Alcuin's powers. Prejudiced though he was, Simon was forced to admit his enemy was one of the most formidable sorcerers he'd ever encountered. Simon had no idea how many vampires had joined Mikal's futile quest but none of them would be able to stand against his and Alcuin's combined power. Now he had to see if Alcuin would assist him, if the love he had for Meghann were stronger than the enmity he felt toward Simon.

Alcuin sat up, blinking eyes that were not his and marveling on what it was to hear sound again, to feel sensations like cold rain landing on skin to make it pucker up into gooseflesh.

"Uncle." Alcuin heard an icy voice and saw Simon Baldevar glaring down at him, holding a hunting dagger with the sharp point poised to attack the throat of the body he inhabited. "I have summoned you to do my bidding. I do hope you not force my hand to strike Lee Winslow's body in defense against any attack from you. Think how it would hurt Meghann to lose her friend."

"You do not need that weapon, Nephew," Alcuin said, surprised that the voice he spoke with had his own earthly timber, his queer accent that stemmed from the old English. He'd thought he'd sound like Lee Winslow .. . how very strange all this was, to use another's vocal cords and yet sound like yourself!

"Of course I don't," Simon said and hard gold eyes appraised Alcuin thoroughly before he resheathed the dagger. "You will provide assistance this evening, not only because I have summoned you, but out of love for Meghann."

That last sentence was spat out and Alcuin flinched when he felt the rage that lurked beneath his nephew's customary, imperturbable expression. "I do love Meghann. She is the daughter I never had. Why does that anger you so?"

Simon laughed humorlessly and gave him a dark glare. "I did not transform Meghann to provide you with a child, my dearest uncle. You cost us forty years with your meddling ways."

"You cost yourself forty years with Meghann," Alcuin said pointedly, "with your brutalizing, cruel ways." Alcuin would never forget his first meeting with Meghann, how the poor, hurting child had wrung his heart dry with the way she held her head high despite her misery and begged him to teach her to resist the blood lust Simon inflicted on her.

At the time, Alcuin could not begin to comprehend why Simon chose this wholesome girl for his consort, unless he was satisfying some perverse need to twist that indomitable core of goodness in her. It was decades before Alcuin learned, to his great shock, that Simon Baldevar loved Meghann for the same reasons he did—that he too cherished her bright spirit and had no desire to break it.

So why did Simon treat her so abominably that she ran from him and sought sanctuary with Alcuin? Alcuin snapped the bonds holding Lee's hands to the pine stump and continued to gaze quietly at the fierce gold eyes glowering down at him.

"Here," Simon said and tossed a dark bottle at him. "I knew you would balk at taking prey so drink this before you starve the body I've provided."

Alcuin drank the blood without savoring it as other vampires did, for he'd mortified his sense of taste when he was a mortal priest so he would not overly enjoy food and drink.

Alcuin fed with quick, economic motions, feeling great pity and some admiration for Simon Baldevar. Had he known from the beginning that Meghann was the end of his cold, callous existence? How it must have frightened Simon to love her and know that love made him vulnerable, made him need someone for the first time in four hundred years. How he'd fought against his love for Meghann, hurting her before she could hurt him because he didn't know how to trust her, how to let her into his heart completely.

"What a maudlin, insipid fool you are," Simon said contemptuously and Alcuin started, realizing he could not conceal his thoughts while he occupied this newly transformed body. "In Meghann's words, Uncle, please do not waste time 'psychoanalyzing' me. There is a great deal we must do and I do not know how long you'll remain in Lee's body."

A slight lift in Simon's voice made his last statement a question and Alcuin smothered a smile when he thought how difficult it was for Lord Baldevar to admit ignorance on any subject.

"I cannot be certain either, Nephew," Alcuin replied, not wanting to antagonize Simon. If he'd never known before, tonight would have proven to Alcuin just how much Simon loved Meghann and Elizabeth, that he'd call upon his deadly enemy to help him keep them safe. "My guess is your spell cannot possibly last beyond sunrise. The body feels strong now but I think it will weaken the longer I remain in it."

Simon nodded and handed Alcuin a broadsword from the trunk, eyeing him suspiciously for a few minutes before something in Alcuin's expression convinced him he would not attempt an attack against him.

"You know Mikal abducted Elizabeth?" Simon asked as he closed the circle, giving proper obeisance to the spirits that aided him before the sulphuric fire extinguished.

"I felt Meghann's pain," Alcuin answered, a hint of reproach in his tone. "She should be by your side."

"Women have no place in battle," Simon said curtly and gathered up his rain-soaked supplies, tossing them back into the trunk. The storm was letting up, the rain no longer pelting the two vampires but falling down on them as a gentle mist. "Meghann is safe."

"She'd be safer with you, Nephew. Now she'll blunder into this melee on her own ... I feel she's awakened from your spell. You couldn't enchant her, transform Lee, and invoke me simultaneously—something had to give and it was your hold on Meghann."

Simon's gaze turned inward and Alcuin knew he was meditating on the link between him and Meghann, master vampire and fledgling, husband and wife. Simon must have felt her alertness for his hawk eyes narrowed and he muttered a smothered oath before he hurried to the driver's side of the car and put the keys in the ignition.

"Hurry," Simon ordered and gestured to the passenger seat. "We can still dispose of Mikal before Meghann arrives."

'There is business between us first, Simon," Alcuin said quietly, making no move to enter the car.

Simon heaved an exasperated sigh and left the car out of gear. "What business could that be, Priest? We are enemies, it is true, but I thought surely one as holy as you could put aside his hostilities to rescue an innocent like my daughter."

"Your daughter is an innocent, that is true. But have you forgotten the thousands of innocents you killed and debauched over the centuries? If you can love Elizabeth, can you not feel compassion and pity enough for mortals that you will finally leave them in peace?"

Simon's lips curled in a frightful grimace and for a moment Alcuin thought Simon would spring at him. But he only snarled, "You opportunistic, self-serving mealy-mouthed fool! Do you think to hold my daughter as the ransom to finally convert your great enemy to your insipid ways? Go to hell, Priest!"

Alcuin saw Simon was moments away from exorcising him from Lee Winslow's body and spoke quickly. "I would never refuse to help someone is such dire circumstances as your daughter. I make no demands of you, Simon Baldevar. I am only asking that you consider a different way, a way that would end the last bit of strife between you and Meghann, for you know very well the guilt that tears at her when she takes mortal lives to satisfy the blood lust. Think how happy you would make Meghann if together you both taught Elizabeth to drink without slaughtering her prey. Simon, you have reveled in the agony of your prey for more than four hundred years and taught your son to take pleasure in pain. Isn't it enough now? Can't you even consider letting go of your hate?"

"I can consider ripping out your tongue before I must endure another word of this sentimental homily," Simon snapped and Alcuin knew he hadn't reached him. Perhaps Meghann and Elizabeth might someday pierce the cold armor around Simon's heart so that he'd put aside his sadistic, vicious ways once and for all. "Now if you plan to help me rescue Meghann's daughter, get in the car and stop wasting precious time or I shall take my chances with Lee Winslow at my side."

Alcuin entered the car quietly, not wanting to antagonize Simon any further for it would be nothing short of disastrous if Simon had to face his son alone.

Twelve

Mikal Baldevar sat in his office, gazing moodily into a round mirror on his smoked, opalescent glass desk. Normally he felt very happy and smug in this haven he'd designed for himself but tonight his mood was so low the sleek, ultra-modern room with its chrome-plated steel and aluminum furniture, glass walls and curving mirrored panels went unnoticed as he focused all his unhappy attention on his reflection.

It just wasn't fair to be so plain, Mikal thought glumly, especially considering his genes. What he wouldn't give for his father's striking handsomeness, with those haunting gold eyes and sharp cheekbones. Then there was Meghann with her flaming hair and mermaid eyes, accentuated by dramatically fair skin. With parents like that, it was a cruel twist of fate for nothing better to be staring back at Mikal from the mirror than blade-thin features, an uninspired line of colorless lips, a beaky nose and too high forehead crowned by lusterless black hair.

It was as though his twin, Elizabeth, had stolen his share of beauty while they occupied Meghann's womb, leaving Mikal with nothing while she took all the best their parents had to offer. Surely Elizabeth, with her jade eyes, long, curving body, and fluffy brown curls was exactly what Father expected beautiful swans like himself and Meghann to produce, while he reacted with disdain to his ugly duckling son.

Mikal's lower lip jutted out in a childish pout and he glared at the mirror until the glass shattered. Then he picked up a shard and idly started carving up his bare arms in pentagrams and geometric designs, watching his mutilated flesh and lacerated tendons heal instantaneously.

It had never failed to disgust Father when he came upon Mikal carving up his own flesh ... earning him yet another visit to the cellar and blood deprivation. Then again, so many things that Mikal enjoyed appalled Father. He was not supposed to take men for sex, scar his own skin or reveal himself to the mortals.

That last codicil annoyed Mikal more than all the others. It was bad enough to confine himself to women when Father was around and leave his skin alone but why did he have to hide from the weak mortals? Why did he have to wear the specially made contacts that hid his snake eyes instead of launching himself into a thick crowd of humans, laughing at their shock, glorying in their mass terror as he flaunted his superior strength? But no, Father said such thoughts were the province of the mad. Father's argument was that the mortals outnumbered them and had the daylight edge—even over Mikal, who had little strength to defend himself during the day. That was why vampires must skulk about in secrecy.

Well, Mikal was working hard (grinding his teeth when he remembered Father's many lectures about his supposed laziness) on eliminating that daylight advantage and soon he'd be ready to let the world know of his existence.

Mikal's glass shard reached an unyielding hardness and he looked down at his forearm, seeing he'd cut himself down to the bone. He pulled the glass away and watched the ghasdy wound close up, feeling no pain as usual.

As a boy, Mikal had been very curious about pain ... the pain he caused the animals he caught on the island, the pain of his prey as his fangs ripped into their flesh. He wanted to know why the mortals cried so when their flesh bruised and the blood ran from grisly wounds. After all, Mikal watched blood flow from his own body with no feeling but indifference. What did pain feel like? Mikal never knew any pain— even on the occasions he deliberately broke his bones, there was naught but a mild irritation before the bone knotted up and healed. Sometimes he felt an uncomfortable sort of pulling and dreadful nausea when Father saw fit to deprive him of the blood, but Mikal had no idea what pain was . . . his skin seemed immune to any kind of feeling but that of sexual stimuli. It wasn't until Father rammed that sword into the small of his back and left him to suffer the long, dreary hours until sunset that Mikal finally understood pain and loathed it almost as much as he loathed the creature that inflicted it.

Mikal's lips curled into a vicious snarl that would have cracked the mirror had he not already done so and he let out a low growl of rage when he thought of Father besting him so easily, even in the sunlight. The old vampire hadn't even looked surprised to see Mikal leaning over him, much less scared. To the contrary, Father seemed to welcome the intrusion to his resting place and the opportunity to humiliate his son before killing him.

Roaring his displeasure now, Mikal stood up and flung the heavy bronze and glass desk across the room, red faced and trembling as renewed hate for his father washed over him. He hated Father... hated him, hated him, hated him! He hated him for his cool poise and the ironic distance at which he kept his disappointing offspring, for never once displaying the uneasy fear Mikal inspired in all others—even other vampires.

Well, Mikal had a way to break Father's cool spirit once and for all now. Grabbing a fresh shard from the mirror, Mikal turned to the black glass wall on his left and the occupant that hadn't stirred at all during his fit. . . his badly beaten, much raped, shackled sister, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was barely recognizable as the wildcat that screamed vicious curses at Mikal and his human assistants hours before, desperately trying to appear angry instead of frightened while they beat her, but Mikal had systematically drained the fight from his twin sister until she appeared as she did now, unconscious and beaten almost to pulp. In some areas where he'd broken her bones, like her fingers, the skin was taking on a puffy, blackish-purple hue that Mikal thought could turn into gangrene if she lived long enough to develop blood poisoning from her untreated wounds. But she couldn't die just yet; she must be a living presence when Father arrived so Mikal forced himself to break off the torture lest it become too much for her puny, mortal body.

Mikal admired the contrast of Elizabeth's colorful injuries against the dark backdrop of the wall. He'd inherited some of Father's drawing ability; perhaps he'd paint his dying sister's last moments. After all, her corpse would soon grow too fetid to hang in his office forever. He'd use bright acrylics to capture the vivid grotesquery of Elizabeth's green and yellow bruises, the brilliant crimson splashes of blood and he'd accentuate the model's shocking condition against a black canvas for maximum contrast.

"Sister," Mikal said and walked over to tickle her slumping chin. "What I should really attempt to capture is your expression when I unmasked myself." How satisfying it had been, after nearly a year of laboring to be the fawning boyfriend litde Ellie Winslow wanted, to watch Elizabeth open the door for him at the beach house and scream when she saw his true silver eyes instead of the tame blue contacts he wore in the mortal world.

He had to give his sister credit, though. She did not faint or plead when she realized who he was—rather she aimed her knee directly at his genitals and attempted to run up the stairs behind her. It had been easy to catch her, even with an aching crotch that didn't heal immediately in daylight. But Elizabeth did put up enough fight for Mikal to wind up chloroforming her to subdue her and bring her to his lair, where he immediately began her torture, wanting her to wake up to pain and humiliation.

Mikal started to harden when he thought of Elizabeth's body thrashing from side to side, making a futile effort to dodge his blows and blink back the tears of pain and embarrassment when he and his apprentices took her in any manner they desired. Father and Meghann would die, absolutely die when they saw what Mikal had done to their precious, sheltered daughter. Speaking of which . . .

"We must make you more presentable, dear Sister," Mikal purred at her, his anger forgotten as he began designing an elaborate vigil from the Legementon on her flat stomach. How very ironic, to desecrate his sister's body with symbols from Father's treasured text of Black Magic.

Mikal sliced through Elizabeth's skin, smiling at the blood path that followed the jagged edge of glass, forever damaging his sister's flawless—but mortal, and therefore vulnerable—white skin. He licked at the scarlet river flowing down her legs, reflecting that his twin's blood had a potency other mortals lacked— there was a tinge of the dark, heady taste of a vampire in her, a legacy from their parents.

"What exactly are you, lover?" Mikal inquired of the mute girl. "Not a vampire and not a human ... a misfit, then, just like your brother. If you were merely human, you couldn't continue to dodge my tender ministrations or those of my drones."

Mikal felt his good mood begin to crumble, as Elizabeth remained unresponsive. The sly bitch had escaped him a mere hour after her torture began. One minute her green eyes were glazed over with pain and terror, the next they were cloudy and lifeless. For one anxious moment, Mikal thought he'd killed her but he found her pulse easily enough. Elizabeth, mere mortal though she was, had managed to escape ... in her soul, at any rate. Now Mikal had the equivalent of a waxen dummy in his clutches—no fun at all.

"She is still on the astral plane?"

Annoyed, Mikal turned from his sister and stared at the intruder—a vampire with a delicate, almost ethereal beauty of long, silver-blond tresses that flowed past her hips, deep-set eyes of a rare turquoise color and full, pouting red lips.

"Do you think Father will appreciate my handiwork, Gabrielle?" Mikal said in greeting, gesturing with the bloodied shard to the wound on Elizabeth's abdomen. "He always was a patron of the arts, no?"

Gabrielle gave Elizabeth's mutilated body a disinterested glance before she grasped Mikal's wrist and licked the dripping red shard in his hand clean. "Simon will consider the wounds a fleeting nuisance—something that transformation can heal easily."

"But she is not transformed now," Mikal argued, thinking his sister would never transform—he planned to murder the entire family before dawn. "Any scars she has now she'll carry for eternity."

Gabrielle shook her head at him and sprawled her voluptuous body on a Corbusier chaise of black leather mounted on a contoured tubular frame, making it look like a long, lazy S. With her bright eyes, Gabrielle was the only touch of color within the chrome and glass room . . . Mikal had little use for the bright wood fixtures and vivid colors Father so enjoyed.

Giving him a seductive pout, Gabrielle pulled her navy silk dress down to reveal a satiny, flawless white breast, pursing her lips at Mikal's indifference. "When I was young and mortal, some brute of a marquise branded me with his family's crest. The mark obscured my nipple but it vanished after Simon transformed me. Also, a tooth I had pulled grew back a month after transformation."

Mikal could hardly miss the way Gabrielle's voice caressed his father's name, informing him that she was still enamored of the charismatic vampire despite the fact that she'd chosen to betray him by aligning herself with Mikal. He knew the reason for the defection, but bored with torture of his catatonic victim, decided to work on Gabrielle instead.

"Why did Father transform you?" Mikal asked to begin the diatribe.

As he expected, the gem-bright blue eyes darkened and the luscious red mouth flattened into an unattractive grimace. "We met in 1789 ... I was a courtesan servicing only the highest caste of the French court, your father a wealthy foreigner some duke entertained by bringing him to me.

"Simon didn't make himself known to me immediately. At first, he was simply another debauched patron though his tastes were a bit... darker ... than any I'd encountered before."

Mikal grinned, thinking of his father's quaint, old- fashioned ideals toward women. It was perfectly all right to amuse yourself with bad girls, but you must cherish the good girl, the one you made your wife. What a conservative creature Father was at heart. . . playing at romantic love by abandoning a life rich with perverted fantasy and orgiastic excess to embrace monogamy with a naive virgin! Mikal was certain that Meghann was never asked to allow other women to take her or exposed to the sadistic bacchanals that Gabrielle claimed Father used to adore. How could Father not be bored out of his mind with Meghann, Mikal wondered as he listened to Gabrielle.

"I noticed that I always awakened tired and drawn after a night with him but I blamed that on your father's demanding ways. Then one night he allowed me to see his blood teeth and explained he'd drunk from me for months but mesmerized me so I'd forget the experience. Now, though, he was willing to initiate me into his life ... make me the immortal hunter of mortals he was."

"Why?" Mikal asked, thinking he might have respected the man his father used to be before he ruined himself by falling in love with prim little Meghann who would ultimately be his ruination. Gabrielle's stories painted a picture of a warlord, a creature that grabbed every opportunity and used it to expand his power—Mikal wanted to know how he'd done that throughout the centuries. Once Mikal knew Father's secrets, he could use them for his own advantage.

Gabrielle gave him a wanton smile, her breast still exposed for his viewing . . . once a whore, always a whore, Mikal supposed. "Simon explained that he'd read my thoughts—knew I'd been quite helpful to the crown in disposing of several wealthy nobles, receiving a high fee for my services, as well as my discretion. Simon said he expected me to perform the same duties for him, only now my quarry would be vampires.

"He told me all about that sanctimonious fool, Alcuin, how he kept trying to destroy Simon because he enjoyed killing his prey," Gabrielle continued, telling her story with obvious relish. "The old bishop kept about him a company of men as celibate as he was ... at least before he made your mother and Charles Tar- leton his apprentices. Simon intended for me to seduce Alcuin's guards. He said once he taught me the arts of mesmerism, those wizened creatures would become helpless clay in my hands. How right your father was . .. without exception, every one of them fell into my bed, at least until Alcuin got wise to my plan and revealed my identity to the rest of his followers."

Mikal shook his head in admiration for Father .. . using a vampire whore to lure his enemies and then cut their heads off while they sported themselves with her was brilliant. The beauty of the plan was his father's decision to use a vampire as bait—a mortal woman could not deceive immortals and Gabrielle had the strength to help Father subdue their victims. "Why didn't Father use this trick on the great Alcuin instead of waiting until the close of the twentieth century to dispose of his nemesis?"

Gabrielle's smile thinned until it almost vanished entirely. 'The vampire priest had no interest in sex . . . Simon said it would be futile to even try to destroy Alcuin by using a woman."

"But Father did destroy Alcuin by using a woman," Mikal said, deliberately antagonizing Gabrielle. "Meghann."

"Meghann!" Gabrielle spat, her reaction to his mother's name all Mikal could have hoped for. Her delicate nostrils quivered with outrage and her angelic face took on a mottled red, jealous cast. "Do you know your father never asked one thing of that. . . that creature? Everyone else served him in some way ... I had to prostitute myself before all his foes to deserve immortality, others served Simon for decades before he transformed them, and still others had to give him all their earthly holdings. But Meghann .. . your father gave her his blood, his wealth, his protection . . . his love, all in exchange for her staying by his side."

In other words, Mikal thought as Gabrielle continued ranting, Father bestowed upon Meghann all the things he denied you.

"And he did not use Meghann to slaughter Alcuin ... he simply had to slay the priest to get his hands on Meghann. Though why he wanted her, I have no idea ... Simon should have killed the bitch when he killed Alcuin!" Gabrielle finished and Mikal noticed her long nails digging into the chair's expensive leather cushion.

"If Father killed Meghann, I would not have been born," Mikal reminded her. "And stop destroying my furniture .. . Father paid good money for it." Mikal grinned smugly, remembering how he'd raided one of Father's safety deposit boxes in London and absconded with more than five million dollars to start his new life.

"Simon could have used Meghann for his brood mare and then disposed of her after she gave birth," Gabrielle replied, looking sulky and petulant as she removed her offending claws from the leather seat. "Bearing children .. . that is all that plain, simpering bitch was good for. I never understood what Simon saw in her."

"Meghann is hardly plain," Mikal pointed out, enjoying Gabrielle's poisonous glare. "She may not be as beautiful as you, but. . . perhaps Father has a penchant for redheads." Yes, indeed, Father had a penchant for luscious redheads with voluptuous bodies and a simmering passion that lurked beneath that moralistic, goody-goody exterior. Having met Meghann, Mikal appreciated Father's taste. "I plan to sample her charms myself."

Mikal complimented himself on managing to star- de as jaded a creature as this centuries old whore that looked at him askance. "She is your mother!"

"So?" Mikal raised his eyebrows. "You cannot tell me you would give a damn what I do with Meghann."

"You promised I could kill her!"

"Yes, yes," Mikal said impatiendy, sure Father would kill his double-dealing vampire mistress long before Meghann arrived at the estate. Mikal only kept her around because he hoped fighting another vampire would weaken Father before Mikal attacked him. Pity he'd only been able to recruit Gabrielle, that all those other sniveling, cowardly creatures were too frightened of Father to take him on. Well, Mikal had plans for all those that refused him—oh, did he have plans for them!—once Father was dead.

"Think about it, Gabrielle. First, I cripple Father when he sees that." Mikal pointed carelessly at Elizabeth, pale and bleeding behind him. 'Then Meghann arrives and sees Father about to die ... I want that bastard alive when she comes here. I want him to watch her beg me not to kill him. I want him to writhe on the floor, helpless to stop me when I order her to strip, when Meghann begs me to spare her husband and daughter. I want him to scream for mercy when she lets me mount her to keep them alive, when I take her, my precious mother, in front of Father..

Gabrielle came forward and dropped to her knees before the vast bulge in Mikal's jeans. She tore his pants off and brought him to a rapid climax. Normally, Miked preferred men for fellatio, enjoying their instinctive knowledge for pleasuring a cock, but Gabrielle's mouth and tongue was by far the most expert Mikal had ever encountered in a female. Perhaps some of her consummate skill was learned in Father's bed. If that was the case, Mikal could barely wait to have Meghann before him.

One thing Mikal was certain of... Meghann's chief charm for Father lay in her purity, a wholesomeness of spirit that even blood lust could not dim. What a pleasure it would be to turn Father's Madonna into his disowned son's whore before Father's dying eyes. With that gratifying thought, Mikal climaxed into Gabrielle's eager, waiting mouth.

"Raping Meghann when Simon is helpless to stop you ... how diabolical. You are indeed your father's boy," Gabrielle praised him, stepping behind him to gaze at the unconscious Elizabeth thoughtfully. "Why don't you find her soul and force her back here? I'm sure her cries would do a great deal to unnerve him if he loves this girl as much as you claim he does."

"Travel the astral plane so Father's devils can claim me?" Mikal said, hoping the withering scorn in his voice hid his uncertainty. He didn't want Gabrielle or any of his army knowing he could not travel the astral plane, that he was weaker than Father in some ways, despite his ability to walk in daylight.

Of course, Gabrielle couldn't read Mikal's superior mind but she too must have been thinking of his unique talent for she asked, "When do I drink your blood and defeat the sun?"

"Did you not say I am my father's son?" Mikal questioned. 'You must earn my blood, as you earned his.

First, you help me kill him and Meghann and then we greet the new day—together."

Gabrielle nodded and then cocked her head at the same moment Mikal looked toward the door with interest. A few minutes later, there was a deferential knock and Mikal called out, "Enter."

A young boy came into the room, fussily groomed and painted to resemble his conception of a vampire, all graveyard chic obviously influenced by the movies and comic books of the fifties and sixties; a style that was quite different from the silver-studded, leather- bedecked, black trench coat style of some of Mikal's other acolytes. As Mikal inspected the white pancake that smothered the mortal's natural skin tone, black stained lips, frilly lace cravat and sweeping red velvet cape, he praised himself once more for choosing these "Goth" mortals to carry out his plans.

At first, Mikal had wavered between the mentally unbalanced outcasts that yearned to be "children of the night" and the Aryans, those seething, vicious mortals of Caucasian descent that lived only to hate those they considered to be lesser races.

The Aryans attracted Mikal because many of them already belonged to militias where they'd already been trained in warfare, thus providing Mikal with a well-trained, psychotic army when he revealed himself and made his demands on the mortal world. Too, the white supremacists were so well-versed in hatred, so abused and despised for most of their lives that Mikal knew they would rush to embrace a creature such as himself that promised them the chance to make all those they considered inferior bow down in fear of them. Also, it did not hurt that Mikal, thanks to his British father, was the embodiment of their Aryan ideal with his Anglo-Saxon heritage. He would feed their hate, inveigle them to his side through transformation. As vampires, they could conduct tortures they'd never dreamed of on the "mongrel" mortals that currently treated them with withering contempt.

Unfortunately, the Aryans (American ones at any rate) proved disappointing when Mikal finally encountered them. Much of his approval stemmed from the venomous rhetoric posted on the Internet, that miraculous tool that kept Mikal from complete boredom during his isolated upbringing on the Scots island where Father imprisoned him.

Finally escaping Father's rigid control, Mikal headed to the States with the highest expectations and infiltrated a small white-power militia in the Midwest, but he only needed a few days in the commune to see these slow-wits wouldn't serve his purpose at all. The Aryans, like loyal but not overly intelligent bulldogs, committed great acts of violence only at the behest of their firmly established superiors and Mikal could see it would be an uphill struggle to redirect their slavish devotion toward him.

Too, he soon discovered the neo-Nazi (why anyone would choose to revere a government that lost face before the entire world was beyond Mikal) values the white supremacists embraced clashed with his own debauched path. The mortals that beat their women regularly and overwhelmingly preferred the company of their racist male friends reacted to Mikal's propositions as though he'd suggested they drink rat poison! In many ways, their furrowed brows, hoarsely croaked obscenities and swinging fists reminded Mikal of the appalled disgust Father displayed when he discovered his son's bisexuality.

Of course, Father had been able to bully Mikal into abandoning the diverting pastime but his Aryan victims lacked Father's strength and were unable to repel him. Then again, by the end none of his strapping companions seemed to want to repel him ... in an amazingly short time, their squeals of outrage turned into grunts of desire as Mikal forced himself on them. He probably could have kept them as lovers for an indefinite period but preferred to drain them of their blood while they squirmed beneath him.

But most shocking of all, Mikal couldn't use the Aryans because his very existence was an affront to their simple, Christian ideology . . . they actually thought him some monster like the amusing creatures on their televisions and movie screens! It was nothing short of amazing that in this day and age humans actually thought to defeat a vampire by thrusting into his face that annoying stick of wood with the suffering Christ on it. The whole experience only proved mortals were as stupid as Father always claimed they were. Piqued beyond measure, Mikal slaughtered the entire camp of Aryans and set fire to their miserable compound before setting off to find mortals eager to carry out his bidding.

He soon encountered the Goths, young mortals that for the most part longed to escape their monotonous lives by becoming vampires—or their concept of a vampire. Granted, the vast majority of Goths were simply indulging in a harmless fantasy but others were obsessed to the point of madness . . . these were the mortals Mikal revealed himself to. How they rejoiced when he displayed his blood teeth and fed before them, making a special production of snarling and growling while he tore into his prey with theatrical savagery. All Mikal had to do was let these special mortals witness his feedings, perform a few simple telekinetic tricks, tell them the story of his batde for supremacy with Father that sounded just like one of their beloved role-playing games, and they fell at his feet, devoting their entire lives to Mikal in exchange for the blood that would make them vampires.

Mikal was not making empty promises to his mortal coterie; he fully intended to transform them and all the other chosen that would be drawn into his club. He'd patiently weed through the thrill seekers and merely curious, selecting those that wanted the power behind the makeup and extravagant clothing, mortals that recognized the great strength that came with the ability to defy death and knew how to wield it against the rest of the world.

The whole process would take time; Mikal recognized that he'd have to be patient. Contrary to Father's belief that Mikal had no more thought behind his plans than the poor lunatic mortals that waved imaginary swords in asylums and called themselves Napoleon, Mikal had planned his strategy meticulously. He knew he could not take over the world in the course of one mortal lifetime. True dominance would not be achieved for centuries—it would be a slow, gradual elevation of power. Mikal would start with his club, select and train his army. Then, when there were vampires enough that shared Mikal's resistance to sunlight, they would make their first bid for power . . . take over New York City, perhaps. If Mikal had wealth, the weapons arsenal he planned to obtain from poverty stricken nations, and an immortal force with superhuman strength, mortal governments would have no choice but to give in to his demands. Mikal would start small, taking only a minor territory and expanding his empire over centuries until finally, he and only he, ruled this world he'd been born into.

"Master," the boy said and his slightly raised tone informed Mikal the mortal must have been trying to gain his attention for long moments now. Shaking away the last remnants of his pleasant daydream, Mikal turned to the kneeling mortal.

"You may reward yourself," Mikal said with the grand loftiness of a medieval liege lord and gestured to Elizabeth. The ghoulishly costumed mortal arose from his knees and hurried over to Elizabeth, sucking with great gusto at the still bleeding wound on her torso. Idly, Mikal wondered what possible pleasure mortals drew from drinking blood but what did he care as long as it kept his minions docile?

Finally, the mortal boy (Mikal never bothered to remember their names) raised his bloodstained mouth from Elizabeth and turned to Mikal, kneeling as all mortals were bade to do when they spoke to him. "I have done your bidding, my lord."

How these vampiric mortals loved to use arcane language! They'd be so disappointed to encounter a being like Father, who far preferred the language of high finance to the Renaissance English he'd spoken in his mortal youth or Meghann, with her distincdy New York accent discussing pennant races and psychology instead of clans and coffins. "My mother received the invitation?"

"Your mother did not pick it up, Master," the boy said. "There was another vampire there ... at least, I think he was a vampire."

"Another vampire?" Mikal frowned. Who could this immortal be—Mikal had killed her best friend, Charles. Could Meghann have transformed Lee, Elizabeth's surrogate parent?

"What did he look like?" Gabrielle questioned and the sharp light flashing in her eyes told Mikal she knew exacdy who this friend of Meghann's was.

"He had brown hair and blue eyes," the mortal reported and Mikal saw the pulse in his throat quicken when he stared at Gabrielle's half-naked form. "I think he was in his early thirties and he was . . . loud."

"Loud mouthed?" Gabrielle said with amusement. "Crude, perhaps?"

"Yes," the boy nodded, eager to please.

"It is Jimmy Delacroix," Gabrielle informed Mikal.

"Who is Jimmy Delacroix?"

Gabrielle's turquoise eyes widened with astonishment. "Simon never told you of Meghann's lover?"

"Meghann had a lover?" Mikal echoed disbelievingly. Adelaide had told him of some separation between Meghann and Father but she'd never said anything about Meghann taking other men while she was away from Father. Frankly, Mikal was surprised that Father still desired her after she allowed others to despoil her.

"A mortal she trained to kill off your father's allies during the day," Gabrielle clarified and Mikal gave her his full, fascinated attention—perhaps Meghann wasn't his father's simpering plaything after all. "Simon allowed her ... and the rest of us ... to think he was dead for forty years. You know Meghann escaped your father by putting a stake in his heart—no? Well, that is a tale for another time. Suffice it to say the ungrateful bitch attacked your father thirteen years after he transformed her and sought sanctuary with his great enemy, Alcuin. When Simon challenged Alcuin to regain Meghann and his power, he took care of Jimmy at the same time."

"Tried to kill him?"

"That would have been too merciful," Gabrielle smirked. "No, Simon transformed the fool... turned him into a mindless, bloodthirsty savage. Obviously, Simon meant to present Meghann with the ruined creature and have her kill her own lover out of pity. But she healed the man instead and made him a true immortal... no one knows how."

Meghann had talents Mikal had never guessed at . . . and a nerve to defy Father he found electrifying. It was a shame he had to kill her. Before he did though, he'd have to ask her why she went from being Father's enemy to his willing consort once more and subsequent mother to his children.

"Is this Delacroix still her lover?" If he was, Mikal's plans were ruined ... Father wouldn't run to save an unfaithful whore or the daughter she bore him.

"Delacroix isn't involved with Meghann." It was the mortal that said this and Gabrielle and Mikal both turned speculative eyes toward him at the unsolicited comment

The boy reddened and gulped nervously. "It's just... he, uh ... Jimmy. He, um, seemed ... attached to... to her." The mortal pointed hesitantly at Elizabeth.

Mikal's eyes narrowed into silver slits. "What did this Jimmy Delacroix say to make you think he has some attachment to my sister?"

"Master, please!" The boy's lips trembled and he looked at Mikal with great apprehension.

Mikal put a comradely arm around the mortal's shoulders, pulling him close and speaking benevolently. "Don't worry ... I won't harm you if this Delacroix said something abusive toward me. Just speak and don't make me waste time looking into your mind or I'll have to put you on the wall with my sister."

The boy whimpered and then said hurriedly, "He ... he called you a 'chickenshit motherfucker' and then said that. . . that your sister . . . called you, a, .. . lousy lay."

Even Gabrielle backed away at the livid, pulsating rage that overtook Mikal. With a bellow that shattered the mirrored panels and glass walls, Mikal launched himself on his unconscious sister, wrapping his hands around her throat as if to force the insulting words out of her.

"What the hell would you know about sex, you whey-faced, passive bitch?!" he screamed while Elizabeth's vacant eyes started to bulge from their sockets. "All you ever did was lie there with your legs spread while I did all the work!"

"Mikal..." Gabrielle said nervously and he turned on her furiously.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Now the marble ceiling was showing cracks and the floor beneath them trembled. Still, Mikal carried on, not sure why he was so angry—whether it was Elizabeth's derisive comments about his prowess or that she'd cheated him again, taking a lover before he killed her. Of course Jimmy Delacroix was Elizabeth's lover—with who else but her lover would she have a frank, sexual discussion? The little whore . . . Elizabeth was supposed to die as a receptacle for her brother's lust but she'd offered herself to someone else—another vampire at that

Mikal would never be sure how much time went by as he beat Elizabeth, fists smashing through her teeth, destroying her fine nose, slamming through her jaw. By God, she'd wake up before he was through with her . . . Mikal would make Elizabeth wake up, make her see all he'd done to make her the ugly child, the hideous thing no one wanted to look at or acknowledge as their own ...

"No!" Mikal yelled when he felt her heartbeat weaken. Spitefully, he kicked Elizabeth, shattering her rib cage. "You won't die on me . . . not yet." He couldn't lose control like this ... it would make him the reckless fool Father always accused him of being.

Mikal glared at his toppled desk, and soon the top drawer shot open, displaying a cattle prod that shot into his waiting hand.

"I bet you don't just lie there for Jimmy Delacroix," Mikal snarled at Elizabeth. The other mortal huddled by Gabrielle, no longer needing makeup to look bloodless and horrified. Gabrielle, on the other hand, did not appear scared, but uneasy and exasperated.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I want Elizabeth to jump for me like she did for Delacroix." Mikal slid the cattle prod into his sister's vagina and turned it on to full strength, watching her body convulse so strongly her manacles came off the wall and she slid to the floor.

"Enough," Gabrielle said when Mikal stooped down to recharge the prod dangling at an obscene angle from his sister's body. "Where are your wits? Your father is here!"

All the senseless rage drained from him as Mikal felt the presence he should have been alerted to long before Gabrielle told him of it. Father was here and making no effort to conceal his presence as he stormed into the house.

"Not alone," Mikal said and demanded of Gabrielle, "Is it Delacroix with him? I know it isn't Meghann. I've been around her; I'd recognize her aura."

Gabrielle frowned, blue eyes darkening to almost black as she concentrated. "I don't understand ... it's an old soul but I sense a newly transformed being. What trick is your father up to?"

"Who cares?" Mikal said mournfully, grieving not for the mortals downstairs that Father and his unknown friend were dispatching so easily but for the destruction of his meticulously decorated quarters. The sleek glass furniture, elegant mirrors, and steel trappings ... all parts of a style Father abhorred . . . all that splendor was to surround Mikal when Father was lured into this room. Now he'd destroyed the room in a temper—the same temper that was the i «a son Father,never gave him nice things and insisted on Spartan quarters for his son.

"Look at this," Mikal said in a voice suspiciously close to a whine and extended his arms to encompass the cork insulation behind his ruined glass walls, the debris surrounding them. "Now he'll laugh at me."

For a moment Gabrielle looked startled but then her expression cleared and she smiled reassuringly. Her hand reached out to stroke his shoulder but then she remembered Mikal hated being touched unless he was copulating and even then only on his cock.

"Your father will have no chance to laugh if you attack quickly and forcefully. First, we must figure out the identity of his companion . . . whether he is a threat. Your father's reputation precedes him. There are many who would jump at this chance to gain his favor."

That wasn't the impression Mikal had. As far as he knew, Father put his trust only in Adelaide, Meghann, Charles Tarleton and the mortal Lee . . . that must be it! He'd transformed Lee Winslow. Mikal almost laughed, thinking he had indeed depleted his father's forces if he must rely on a brand-new immortal to help him fight Mikal and Gabrielle, a vampire with centuries of power behind her.

"He is no one important," Mikal said and rapidly began making plans. So what if Father murdered the mortals . . . Mikal could always get more to replace them. Killing off the humans didn't get Father any closer to Elizabeth . . . for that prize, he must go through his son and ex-mistress.