LITMIR.BIZ

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blood tie was gone. Not in the way it felt when Nathan simply hid his thoughts from me. That was like a brick wall. This was…void. If the tie were a length of cord stretched between us, one end had simply gone slack.

      Nathan was dead.

      I clutched the wrought-iron rail as I edged toward the top of the stairs descending below the sidewalk. Moonlight illuminated shattered glass at the bottom. Whatever had gotten to Nathan had broken the window to get in.

      Get a weapon. Get help. My heart overrode my rational mind. I needed to get to my sire.

      I took the stairs down two at a time. Inside, the light at the back of the store flickered in its death throes. Broken, powdery fluorescent tubes littered the floor. Occasional sparks sputtered like snowflakes from broken wiring overhead.

      The tables that usually displayed tasteful arrangements of crystals and tarot cards and other New Age bric-a-brac were utterly destroyed. They lay in splinters on the ground, crushing the merchandise they’d once held. To my right, the glass case in the sales counter had been smashed. I knew Nathan kept an ax in the cupboard behind it. I moved in that direction as quietly as I could with glass crunching beneath my shoes.

      Something shuffled in the labyrinth of bookshelves behind me.

      The noise froze me for an instant as I weighed the distance to the door against the odds I’d be able to effectively defend myself with the ax. I dismissed the notion of running. I couldn’t leave Nathan behind, not if there was even the barest chance he might be saved.

      I sprinted the last few steps to the cupboard and retrieved the ax. I tried to force some courage into my stiff fingers as I gripped the handle. Whatever had broken in was still in the shop.

      The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The thing hiding in the shadows growled.

      The clock behind the counter chimed. I jumped. The creature sprang out at me.

      My head bounced off the hard floor as the thing brought me down, and nasty fireworks of pain exploded in my vision. The smell of Nathan’s blood, usually a welcome, familiar perfume, filled my nostrils with a sour tang, and I gagged. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and my muscles tensed as I tried not to vomit.

      The weight of the thing pressing down on me lifted. I opened my eyes in time to see it leap behind the counter, its noisy respirations nearly drowning out the repeated chimes of the clock.

      “Nathan?” I shrieked, barely recognizing my own voice for the panic in it. I screamed his name again. There was no answer.

      It became starkly, startlingly clear to me: Nathan couldn’t come to my aid. I was alone with this creature, and woefully unequipped to defend myself.

      A loud snarl sounded behind the counter. In a split second of sheer terror, I threw the ax that way. It hit the cash register and bounced to the floor, out of my reach.

      Alone. Woefully unequipped. And blindingly stupid.

      I didn’t have long to worry about it. The creature leaped over the countertop and tackled me. My breath escaped in a loud whoosh, and I looked up through a haze of pain at the thing holding me down.

      A man. A naked, bleeding man.

      The creature hadn’t killed Nathan. The creature was Nathan.

      His face twisted in a feral snarl. His eyes were cold and devoid of recognition. He gripped a shard of blood-drenched glass in his fist. Bloody symbols marred his arms and chest, and I realized with a fresh wave of nausea that he’d carved them into his own flesh.

      He bent his head toward me, and I turned my face. He leaned so close his breath stirred the hair at my temple, and he sniffed me. With an audible snarl he raised the glass shard high above his head.

      “Nathan, please, don’t,” I whispered, but I knew he’d never hear. This thing was not Nathan. It was a monster wearing my sire’s face.

      He brought the shard down, and I flinched as it smashed to the floor beside my head. Warm, fresh blood sprayed across my face from his torn palm, and he gripped my chin and forced me to face him. He rasped in a language I didn’t understand, and pushed away from me.

      Though I sat up quickly, he was gone before I could see him go. The only evidence that he’d been there were his bloody footprints on the stairs to the street.

      Trembling, I lifted my hand as if to reach for him. It was wet with his polluted blood. Usually, the smell of Nathan’s blood comforted me. Now, something had tainted it, and the stench made me sick. I covered my nose with the collar of my shirt as I crawled to the door. The broken glass on the floor pricked my arms, but I barely felt it.

      Like a zombie, I drifted up the stairs to the apartment, ignoring the blood dripping from my cut hands. My presence of mind returned enough for me to lock the door. Then I went to Nathan’s room and sat on the edge of his bed, clutching the cordless phone. I dialed automatically, my gaze fixed on a snag in the carpet near the edge of the runner.

      “Harrison.” Max sounded chipper on the other end of the line. I wanted to be where he was, with no knowledge of what I’d just seen.

      “It’s Carrie.” I swallowed hard, my tongue too thick for my mouth. “I need you.”

      2

       Familiar Territory

      The floor was cold, but the air was hot and too bright. Instinctively, Cyrus flinched from the sunlight touching his flesh.

      His naked, human flesh.

      How humiliating. He didn’t have the energy to rail against the indignation. Fatigue plagued his bones, and hunger gnawed his guts.

      As a vampire, he’d equated his need for blood with hunger, but it had been far more than physical desire. Blood hunger was a need for emotional fulfillment, the urge to indulge the most primal drive of his kind. To kill. To control. Human hunger was sadistic in its simplicity. Purely physical agony he hadn’t felt in centuries.

      What had happened to him?

      He winced as he sat up, his muscles screaming in protest, and he collapsed again. Around him, he could make out a cavernous darkness. Above him, a cone of sunlight streamed down, casting a circle of protection, as Dahlia would have called it. Dahlia. If she’d had anything to do with this he would rip her pretty little head off her fat shoulders, human or not. As soon as he recovered, he was certain his rage would give him strength enough to take on a whole army of vampire witches.

      There were voices in the darkness, but he couldn’t see who they belonged to. Though his vision hadn’t cleared, it was far better than it had been when he’d been dead.

      Dead. Carrie. The pain of her betrayal came back with surprising ferocity. She’d refused his love, refused his blood. Then she’d plunged a knife through his heart without conscience. He could have almost admired that, if he hadn’t been on the losing end.

      Closing his eyes, he lay on the hard, cold floor. Marble, he thought. It was funny how things were coming back to him now, piece by piece. Perhaps that was proof of a soul. Memory of past lives. Dahlia had always insisted her soul had lived several lives as assorted notorious historical figures. No, he wouldn’t start believing in a soul now. It would make the whole situation that much more ridiculous.

      Like the unpleasant stretched sensation in his lower abdomen. He hadn’t felt that in months, but the meaning came back to him effortlessly.

      “Hello?” he called to the voices in the darkness, though a crude American “Hey!” might have been more appropriate, considering what they’d done to him. “I need to go to the toilet.”

      The voices bickered quietly among themselves, growing in intensity until someone shouted and broke the tension. “Well, then you go and get her!”

      “Who?” Cyrus cried, but the noise from the darkness swallowed his words. He sincerely hoped the “her” in question wasn’t one of

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