LITMIR.BIZ

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when he saw Lucien.

      “Take your car and go home—sleep it off. You were too tired to visit Natalie,” he murmured, his voice deep, his gaze intensifying as he compelled the young man. “You won’t remember any of this. Oh, and Natalie doesn’t need your car anymore.” He helped the man to his feet and turned him in the direction of the four-by-four parked in the driveway.

      “Will he be okay?” Natalie asked, rising. Lucien wondered briefly at her concern.

      “He’ll be fine.” He turned to face her fully. “I appreciate your help, Natalie.”

      She gave him a harsh look as she rolled her bloodstained jacket into a tight ball. “Like I had any choice,” she muttered.

      “I just want to help my sister,” he told her quietly. It pained him that he’d had to go about it this way, but for every minute Natalie refused to help him, his sister slid closer to death.

      “We have a deal, Natalie. I’ve saved your friend, in exchange for your help. If you try to run again, I will kill him, and anyone else you call friend here in Westamoor. If you try to break our deal, I will kill everyone you’ve ever dealt with here.” He kept his expression composed when she blanched, firmed his lips when the look in her eyes changed, dulled, and defeat crept onto her face. He stifled the regret that warred with self-disgust at forcing her to his will in this way.

      Her lips curved, tinged with a sadness he wished he could remove. “Somehow, I didn’t expect anything less,” she murmured.

      Pain speared him, and he straightened his shoulders in an effort to ward it off. “Where do we start?”

      She pursed her lips and it was so obvious she hated the whole situation. “The institute. We might find something in the library.” She held up the jacket in her hand and indicated the blood splatter on her shirt. “I have to change first.”

      He nodded. “I’ll wait.”

      * * *

      Natalie unlocked her office door and stepped inside, switching on the lights as she did so. Lucien followed close behind. She pushed her spectacles up on her nose into a more comfortable position. She’d almost forgotten to wear them. Shrugging out of her coat, she draped it over the coat hook next to the door, then crossed over to her bookshelves and started scanning the titles. She made sure to keep her gloves on.

      Lucien frowned and jerked his chin in the direction of her hands. “Are you still cold?”

      “Nope, just like wearing gloves, especially when I’m handling the books.” She kept her tone clipped, trying to ward off any more questions about the gloves.

      Lucien came to stand by her side, gazing up at the wall of books. “I see some things never change,” he murmured, a slight curve to his lips. “You always loved to read.”

      She faltered at his warm tone, the indulgence of it, then continued to scan.

      “Do you remember all those hours you used to make me read to you?” he asked, folding his arms and leaning a shoulder against the shelving to look at her. “One more,” he said in a soft, singsong voice. “Always one more. One more page, one more chapter, one more story.”

      She steeled herself against the sweet memories he evoked. “Save it, Lucien. I agreed to help you. We don’t have to pretend to be friends.”

      Lucien kept his gaze on her. “I always thought we were more than friends,” he said quietly.

      Her fingers paused on a volume of Celtic mythology. She’d thought so, too, but then he’d pulled that stunt on her front path. No friend would do that to another.

      “What about wolfsbane? Did you think to try that to neutralize the toxin?” She changed the subject in an effort to distract both of them.

      “Yes. It had no effect.”

      “Hmm. What about...silver nitrate? No, wait. That wouldn’t work.” Silver was toxic to werewolves, but it was also toxic to vampires. It might work on a human, but that particular remedy would probably kill a vampire.

      She hesitated. “What about...null blood?”

      “Too risky. It could possibly work on the lycan toxin, but it would also work on her vampiric biochemistry.”

      Meaning if it nullified the werewolf’s toxin, it would also destroy anything vampiric in Vivianne. “She could wake up human...?” she suggested.

      “Or maybe not wake up at all,” Lucien pointed out. Natalie grimaced. He had a point.

      “Oooh, I didn’t realize we had a visitor,” a male voice said from the doorway.

      Natalie glanced over her shoulder, then glanced quickly back to the books. Rupert had arrived. He materialized through the door, his white hair a little scruffy, wearing his customary attire of cream-colored shirt, red bow tie and a brown cardigan. He used the hem of his shirt to rub his spectacles clean, then placed them back on his face and blinked at Lucien.

      She’d been expecting him. The institute’s resident ghost ambled further into her office and sat in one of the twin chairs opposite her desk. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

      “Look, if you want to find a vampire cure for a werewolf’s bite, then let’s just focus on that, shall we?” Her words were as much for Rupert’s benefit as Lucien’s. She pulled down a range of books on European history, pre-Troubles period, and turned toward her desk.

      Rupert’s eyebrows rose. “Did I hear you right? A werewolf cure?”

      She eyed her friend briefly as she handed Lucien one of the volumes. “Let’s go back to the very beginning.” She went to sit at her desk and opened one of the books. “The first rumors of vampiric behavior date back to the Ottoman Empire,” she said. “Let’s look through these chronicles...”

      Lucien flicked open a random page and read briefly. His eyebrow rose. “Transylvania? Isn’t that a little kitsch? Besides, isn’t that now Melania? That’s been werewolf territory for nearly seven hundred years...”

      “Hasn’t he ever read Dracula?” Rupert asked in surprise.

      Natalie’s lips curved. “Yes,” she said to her ghostly companion. She’d made Lucien read it to her when she was fourteen. She realized Lucien was looking at her in exasperation.

      “Well, if it’s just kitsch, why am I reading it?” he asked.

      Natalie blinked, realizing her blunder, then turned as though she’d been speaking to him, after all. “As I mentioned the other day, folklore is largely based on fact. I believe Transylvania is the birthplace of vampirism.”

      Lucien shot her a skeptical look and she folded her arms and leaned forward to rest them on her desk. “Think about it. Whenever you have a saturation of a certain breed, it’s either a stronghold or—”

      He finished her sentence. “They moved in and took it over.”

      She nodded. “Exactly. If Melania is a werewolf stronghold now, it’s either always been that way or they overran the vampires. Look up any reference to Vlad—”

      “Dracula?”

      “Uh, he’s not a total lost cause.” Rupert sighed and pulled a pipe out of the breast pocket of his buttoned-up shirt. Natalie ignored him.

      “Vlad Dracul was the father. We’re looking at his son, Vlad the Third. Vlad the Impaler,” she clarified.

      Lucien frowned. “Why do you think Vlad the Impaler might be of help?” He moved to sit on the chair that Rupert was occupying.

      “Wait!” She held up a hand and Lucien froze. “Uh, that one’s more comfortable,” she finished lamely, pointing to the empty seat. “The other one has a spring in it.”

      “Don’t think I’ve ever been referred to as ‘the one with the spring in it’ before,” Rupert muttered.

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