LITMIR.BIZ

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we, and the war continues to this day.”

      “Then Max and Clifford are related to you?”

      “Distant cousins,” Clifford answered as he came back into the room from the kitchen, carrying a tray with three cups of coffee on it. “Michael is a direct descendant, so the bloodline is much stronger in him. That’s why his powers are greater.”

      Jessie’s eyes widened as she looked at Michael. “You have powers?”

      Clifford winced. “You hadn’t told her about that yet? Sorry, Michael.”

      He waved off the apology. “No, that’s all right. I was coming to it. I wouldn’t really call what I have powers. It’s more like…an edge. My reflexes are better. I can move faster than a regular human and I have more strength. And I can sense a vampire’s presence, even when I can’t see it.”

      “Sounds like powers to me,” Jessie said. “How in the world did you get them?”

      “It wasn’t through any doing of my own,” Michael said as he picked up one of the coffee cups. He took a sip and then said, “You see, my ancestor, the first one to wage war against the creatures, was a vampire himself.”

      Chapter Four

      Jessie stared at him for a moment before saying, “You’re descended from a vampire?”

      “He was a vampire,” Michael said. “I didn’t say he stayed one.”

      So far she seemed to have accepted everything he had told her with surprising ease, but he knew that deep down her natural skepticism had to be insisting that none of it was true. He could have used that skepticism to his advantage if he had just been content to lie to her and reinforce her assumption that the men in black were kidnappers. Her brain would have glossed over the inexplicable things she had seen, like a man bursting into flame and turning into dust when a wooden stake pierced his heart.

      What the human brain could not explain adequately, it made excuses for. Michael knew that.

      But for some reason that he couldn’t pinpoint, he hadn’t wanted to lie to Jessie. When he looked at her, the falsehoods wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He wanted to share the truth with her…even though he knew it was a mistake.

      Jessie raked her fingers through her long dark hair. He could tell she was struggling to work through everything he had told her. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she finally said. “You have to be dead to be a vampire, and once you’re dead, you can’t come back to life.”

      Michael shrugged. “There are different schools of thought on the subject. Some people believe that vampirism is a condition that can be cured. I’m one of them. I have to believe it, because my ancestor was cured. Cured by the love of a good woman.”

      Jessie frowned. “That’s crazy.”

      “What, the idea that love can change a person?”

      “That’s not what I meant. Although I haven’t seen a lot of evidence supporting that idea, either.”

      “Now you’re just being cynical. Anyway…” He took a deep breath. “What I meant was, he was cured by his lover, a gypsy woman who also happened to know the proper herbs and spells to use. Unfortunately, the secret died with her. But my ancestor’s time as a vampire changed him, made him stronger and faster and able to sense them, even though he was human again in all other ways. Obviously, some sort of genetic modification took place when he was infected, because he was able to pass those traits on to his offspring and they’ve continued to be passed down through the family ever since.”

      “Wait a minute,” Jessie said. “One minute you’re spouting mystical mumbo jumbo and the next you’re talking about genetic modification. Is this vampire business magic, or is it science?”

      Michael smiled. Jessie had no way of knowing that he had asked himself that very question many times over the years. Probably every member of the family had.

      “Take your pick. You can make a case either way. The truth is, even after several hundred years of studying vampires so we can fight them more effectively, we don’t really know all the details. We know that some of the folklore is true—the thing about garlic warding off a vampire, for instance, or the fact that they can’t enter a home uninvited—but whether that’s because of magic or something scientific, we just don’t know.”

      “That explains the garlic smell outside!” Jessie exclaimed in sudden realization.

      “Yes, we spray around doors and windows with an especially potent garlic derivative as an added layer of protection.” Michael made a face. “It stinks pretty bad, especially to me, because in addition to having some modified version of a few vampiric abilities, I also have some of their weaknesses, like an unusually high sensitivity to garlic and sunlight. But you saw what happened when I tossed that vampire through the doorway.”

      “He burst into flame.”

      Clifford put in, “Technically, by forcing him in, you invited him, Michael. But the garlic got him anyway. I think it’s probably an extreme allergic reaction caused by the vampirism. I hope to investigate it further someday.”

      “And when you drive a wooden stake through their hearts, they…disintegrate?” Jessie asked.

      Michael nodded. “That’s right. And we don’t know exactly why that happens, either. In most instances, since they’re usually trying to kill us at the time, it’s enough to know that it works.”

      Jessie still had questions. Michael saw disbelief stubbornly warring with acceptance in her dark, beautiful eyes. “So this whole international playboy slash business tycoon identity you’ve come up with—”

      “Makes it possible for me to go where I need to go and do what I need to do in order to carry on the fight.”

      “Yeah, well, for somebody who wants to keep what he’s really doing quiet, you sure as hell attract a lot of attention.”

      He shrugged and laughed. “The millionaire playboy bit works just fine for Batman. Anyway, because of it nobody really takes me seriously. They just see all the surface shenanigans.”

      “Except for the vampires,” Clifford said. “They know who you are, unfortunately.”

      Michael sighed. “Yes, it’s impossible to keep the enemy from finding out. I think they can sense us, just as we can sense them.”

      “So why did you really come here?” Jessie asked. “To chase after a particular vampire, or gang of vampires? This hierarchy you mentioned, maybe?”

      “That’s right.” Michael’s face settled into grim lines. Everything he had told her so far could still be laughed off as a wild joke if she tried to tell anybody else about it, but now they were getting down to some serious business. “We received some intel indicating there’s going to be a gathering of vampire clan leaders from all over the country. A summit meeting, I guess you could call it.”

      “How did you find out about that?”

      Michael nodded toward Clifford. “He hacked into their communications system.”

      “Vampires send each other e-mail to set up meetings?” Jessie sounded like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

      “They’re not a bunch of Luddites,” Michael said. “They know how to take advantage of technological advances. Some of them resist change, but most don’t.”

      “Yeah, it’s the same with my people,” Jessie said.

      Michael frowned at her. “Your people?”

      She ran her hand through her hair again and said, “I’m half Cherokee. I grew up on the reservation in Oklahoma.”

      “Oh.” That explained the coppery shade of her skin, the slightly high cheekbones, the raven-dark hair and eyes.

      “Hey,

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