Candle in the Shadows of Time
Mary Chamberlain

	To a vampire, the dark is all-important. Blood and darkness are the two requisites for existence: one for sustenance, the other for a hunting ground, for camouflage from one’s prey, as a setting for the experiencing of all delightful sensations –  from the remorseless thrill of a carefully planned hunt to the pleasure of listening to a symphonic masterpiece –  and for something glorious in and of itself. And also, sometimes the most essential thing, for a shelter and refuge.
	Nevertheless, some darknesses are less of a refuge than others.

	Nick Knight had known that fact well for almost the entirety of his nearly eight hundred years of existence. He turned restlessly on the bed in his cavernous loft apartment, mired in a nightmare of confusing images. A woman with glossy dark hair, dead in his arms with blood trickling down her pale perfect throat. Another’s doing, not his, but he had been unable to keep her safe from danger. A man with ancient eyes and a sardonic smile, holding a cup of green stone from which poured a foul crimson stream; then the same man again, but with the eyes glowing and the smile become a bestial snarl. And yet again, but the face this time was black from burns, and the eyes, no longer those of a demon, were filled with shocked disbelief. Fire licked at the edges of all the images, swallowing the man/fiend, the dead woman, even the red effluent from the cup, and beyond that was a final blackness. No safe haven in which to escape from the flames, but something massive and final – death even to an immortal.
	With a roar of denial in his throat and a sheen of bloody sweat breaking out on his forehead, Nick came awake.
	For a moment he stared around the room in bewilderment, still half in that world of portentous images. Then, with an impatient snarl, he pushed aside the tangled black satin sheet and headed downstairs.
	Crossing the living room, he grabbed up the remote control from the coffee table and raised the heavy shutters that had sealed out the daylight. Outside, the sky was a deep indigo, with a line of pink still visible over the skyscrapers of downtown Toronto. As Nick watched, even that ebbed, deepening into midnight blue, while the lights in the office towers glittered like jewels in the comforting dark.
	A surly smile crossed his face. His nightmare had been just that, a nightmare. Lacroix, with his demon’s eyes and constant mockery of what Nick was struggling to become, was gone – dispatched to hell by Nick’s own hand. He didn’t feel triumphant about it as he had expected that he would, but there was a sense of relief, of knowing that nobody was looking over his shoulder, ready with an acid comment at the very least or waiting to snatch up and destroy something or someone that Nick held precious, all for the avowed purpose of guiding him back to his true nature.
	A shower and a glass of cow’s blood, bland though it was, completely banished the fading nightmare visions. By the time he was in the car driving to work, he had succeeded in forgetting them completely. He carefully tuned the radio in the ancient blue-green Cadillac to a spot on the opposite end of the dial from CERK, finding a station that was playing ‘Summertime’, from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Minor-key and mournful though it was, Nick was nevertheless in a mood to enjoy the haunting melody without having it fuel a bout of depression or self-recrimination – emotions towards which he was sometimes disastrously prone. At the moment, driving with the Caddy’s top down, he felt almost as if he were absorbing energy from the vibrant summer night itself. And yet he had to maintain a certain caution; it would be all too easy to allow the vampire to rise within him, especially on a night like this which was made for hunting – when, in times past, he would have hunted without much thought for anything other than his prey. The girl in the sporty BMW convertible that pulled up beside him as he waited at a red light, for instance. Her honey-coloured hair brushed her bare shoulders; her full lips –  so full that they had to be a collagen job if Nick had ever seen one, but inviting all the same –  were set in a sensual little pout. Music with a thumping bass beat and no discernible melody poured from the  car’s speakers, drowning out Summertime, and she tapped her hand on the steering wheel in time to the rhythm. She appeared to be completely unaware of him, but Nick had seen her give him a careful once-over as the BMW drew up to the light. In times past, again, this would have been his prey, as soon as a smile and a semi-plausible reason could have drawn her into the shadows.
	To his horror, Nick suddenly felt his fangs aching to drop into place. He gripped the Caddy’s wheel tightly, willing himself to retain his human visage.
	The light changed, the BMW roared ahead, the moment was gone.
	Nick drew in a deep breath and blew it out again in a heavy sigh. The vampire in him always seemed to be so damned close to the surface; and yet he had managed to overcome the temptation, let the moment pass, as he had so many others. As the Caddy glided down the street, he allowed himself to feel a small sense of triumph. If willpower counted for anything in his battle to become human again, he might yet be able to win.
	‘Summertime’ had come to an end; the radio station – obviously on a Gershwin kick – had moved into the sprightly opening movement of the Concerto in F. Nick arrived at the 27th Precinct without further incident.
	Obviously, music was in the air. He had just sat down at his desk in the squad room when his partner entered jauntily, singing only partially under his breath. “Hot August night, and the leaves hangin’ down and the grass on the ground smellin’ sweet . . .”
	Nick ran a hand over his mouth, not sure whether to be annoyed or amused at Schanke’s ebullience, not to mention his off-key rendition of Neil Diamond.
	He still wasn’t completely past his resentment at having a partner foisted off on him, let alone an obnoxious souvlaki-eating cigarette smoker who never missed an opportunity to rib Nick about his wardrobe, his car, or his hotshot reputation in the department. Yet despite their initial animosity, Nick was beginning to suspect that Don Schanke just might be a diamond in the rough. But he certainly wasn’t about to let him know that.
	“ . . . Move up the road to the outside of town and the sound of that good gospel beat . . . “ Schanke landed in the chair opposite Nick’s. “Classic rock. Can’t beat it, huh?” he said to the room at large. The room at large looked at him bemusedly and shook its collective head.
	“Evening, Nicky-boy,” said Schanke expansively. “I gotta tell you, this night shift thing isn’t bad. Not bad at all. Stay inside in the air conditioning all day, come out at night like a jungle animal emerging from its lair, hitting the streets with all the other predators . . .”
	Someone snorted. Schanke swivelled around to glare at the offender, but met with only lowered eyes and turned backs.
	“I take it Myra’s stepmother has arrived, then,” said Nick without looking up from the pile of papers in which he’d abruptly become engrossed.
	Schanke deflated. “Well . . . yeah. Talk about predators . . .”
	“If you’re done serenading the bullpen, Schanke, I’ve got a new case for the two of you,” said Captain Stonetree, appearing by Nick’s desk and slapping a manila file folder down on top of the rest of the paperwork. Schanke made a grab for it, but Nick easily beat him to it and began to peruse the contents. “A teenage girl?” he frowned, suddenly thinking of the girl in the BMW and feeling slightly unsettled.
	Stonetree nodded. “Man walking his dog found her in a ravine near Yonge and St. Clair and called it in about half an hour ago. If you two – shake your booties – you might get there ahead of the coroner.”
	“‘Booties’?” Schanke mouthed at Nick, and got no response other than a slightly lifted eyebrow. “Disco is not classic rock, Captain,” he called to Stonetree’s by now retreating back.
	The captain shrugged.
	“Philistine,” muttered Schanke.

	“‘It’s Love, Brother Love’s, hey, Brother Love’s travelling salvation show . . .”
	For the first time Nick found himself almost missing Lacroix. A Nightcrawler monologue would have been almost guaranteed to have shut Schanke up, or at least put an end to his bad Neil Diamond imitation.
	“Have you ever noticed,” said his partner, suddenly breaking off the impromptu and unappreciated concert, “how many minivans there are on the road these days?”
	They were stopped at a red light. Looking around the cluster of vehicles waiting with them, Nick counted two vans. “What about it?”
	“Myra thinks we should get one.” Suddenly Schanke was sounding almost gloomy. “Of course, her stepmother put her up to it. But she told me tonight that we could all go places together so much more comfortably in one of those things. Especially family trips.”
	“She’s probably right,” said Nick, only half listening, his mind more on the crime scene awaiting them.
	“That’s not the point! We’ve already got two cars. Myra’s little econobox, and mine. Myra sure isn’t going to give up hers. She’ll say she needs it for running errands, because of course the van will use too much gas.”
	“So get rid of yours.”
	That earned him an acid glare. “I can’t believe you of all people, you with the pet Caddy, would say that! That car isn’t just a way to carry home the groceries. It’s a symbol of – of male independence. It’s the last bastion of me, Don Schanke, homicide cop, a guy who’s as tough as any of that scum on the streets, who can shoot straight and smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and party with the best of ‘em. Not Don Schanke, breadwinner, mortgage holder, and owner of a house with a leak in the basement and brand new frilly lavender curtains in the bathroom.” 
	“Frilly lavender curtains?” repeated Nick in disbelief.
	“Yeah, Myra wanted to do some redecorating before her stepmother got here.” Schanke stared at the traffic. “There’s three more of those damned vans. I swear they travel in packs.”
	Nick was still contemplating the image of his partner in a setting that included frilly lavender curtains as he made a right turn onto St. Clair and then onto the side street just before the bridge crossing the ravine. The west side of the street was lined with expensive condominium buildings. On the opposite side a paved pathway led down into the ravine. Both sides of the street were parked up with police cars and assorted other official vehicles. Nick neatly manoeuvred the Caddy into one of the few remaining spots, noting Natalie’s car already parked across the street. Without thinking about it, his heart lifted slightly.
	He and Schanke followed the tarmac pathway into the trees, then found a set of wooden steps descending to a dirt path. At the bottom of the ravine ran a narrow, sluggish trickle of dark water, a small tributary of the Don. The path stayed several yards away from the water, leading north towards the concrete and iron span that carried St. Clair Avenue.
	“Looks like the party’s thataway,” said Schanke unnecessarily, setting off towards the lights and activity underneath the bridge. This was followed almost immediately by a muffled yelp of pain and a curse as he stumbled in the darkness. “Why don’t they set up a few of those lights over here, so people can see where they’re going? What do they think we are, bats?”
	Nick ignored him, looking around curiously, easily avoiding the tree root that his partner had tripped over. It amazed him that places like this could exist in the centre of the city. Except for a sprinkling of lights along the top of the ravine and the muted traffic noise, they could be in the depths of the countryside. With his vampire-acute hearing and night vision, he could sense a number of small animals all around them, no doubt disturbed by all the unaccustomed noise and bustle. A predator – human or otherwise – could hunt freely down here.
	He shook off the thoughts and drifted after Schanke, passing him without difficulty where they had to leave the path and descend the side of the ravine again to the edge of the water. Pausing to find his footing, Schanke glared at his partner’s receding leather-clad back. Then he wondered why Knight was even bothering to wear a leather jacket on a night when everyone else was in shirtsleeves.
	“Need some help, Schanke?” offered a voice from below him.
	Schanke gritted his teeth. Not only could his partner skip around the place like a mountain goat without breaking a sweat while continuing to look like something off the pages of GQ, he had to rub it in, too. Then again, if he didn’t, that might be evidence of possible saintliness, which would be even worse to deal with. “Just taking a moment to admire the view,” he said as caustically as possible.
	Below him, Nick paused at the edge of the ring of brilliant light to try to make some sense of the scene. With all the purposeful activity going on, it would have been hard to spot the actual corpse if his eyes hadn’t gone straight to the figure of the coroner, kneeling on the ground several yards away. She had her back to him, but even so he felt again that odd lift to his heart.
	As he came closer, he heard her say briskly, “Looks like just a single shot,” and then she looked up and saw Nick standing by her shoulder.
	“Hello, stranger,” she said with a friendly smile, then added, sotto voce, “I’ve been meaning to call you. I’ll have a new concoction ready for you by the end of the week.”
	He made a face. “Don’t rush on my account. I haven’t managed to finish the last one yet.”
	He wasn’t looking at her, but he just knew she was rolling her eyes. She got to her feet, giving him room to get a good look at the corpse.
	Schanke had finally arrived. “All right, what’ve we got?” he asked loudly.
	Nick glanced up at him. “Well, Schank, it ain’t Brother Love’s travelling salvation show.” He returned to his examination of the body, leaving his partner to his own devices.
	The girl lying in the undergrowth by the edge of the water was curled up as if she’d simply lain down there for a quick nap. She had black hair with vivid red streaks in it, and wide-open, staring blue-gray eyes. Both the black and the red hair colouring had partly grown out, with mousy brown roots showing clearly. She looked as if she was maybe seventeen. She was wearing a bright fuchsia-coloured cotton tank top, jeans and a jean jacket, and a pair of expensive but well-worn running shoes. There were rings on several fingers, one of which was set with a small stone that appeared to be a genuine opal. 
	So theft probably hadn’t been a motive. Nor could he see, from a cursory look, any signs of rape or other assault. There was just the one, small, fatal hole in the back of the denim jacket. From experience far, far greater than Natalie’s, he knew she had been dead for probably about a day.
	He heard Schanke say, “So who found the body?” and the officer in charge of the scene start to answer him with something about a passing jogger and his dog, and then in a sudden extra gleam of light – probably the reflection of someone’s flashlight on the water – he saw something sparkle around the girl’s neck. Curious for some reason, he took out a pen and ran it around the inside of the collar of the jean jacket until he had hooked the fine necklace. It snagged on the girl’s top, then came free. He pulled it forward to examine it more closely.
	The chain itself was discoloured gold-tone, intrinsically worthless. But what caught and held Nick’s attention – indeed, made his almost motionless heart take an extra beat – was the pendant attached to the chain. He gently tugged it further into the light.
	“No,” he breathed. Not this. Not again.
	The conversations around him, the sound of the investigative team going about their work, all faded into a background buzz as he stared at the tiny object. Surely it wasn’t possible for this accursed thing to have surfaced again, after so much time. But here it was – and with it came another death.
	He glanced quickly around, feeling as if he had been staring at the necklace for hours, but knowing that it had in reality only been the span of a few mortal heartbeats. Schanke, now flailing at mosquitoes, was still talking to the officer in charge. Everyone else was carrying on with their own jobs, oblivious to the fact that the entire world of someone right in their midst had just experienced a shattering jolt. Even Natalie, standing a few feet away with her assistants discussing the logistics of getting the girl’s body up the hillside, seemed to have noticed nothing amiss.
	He looked down again. He was tightly clutching the pendant in one hand. Had anyone seen the necklace? Had Nat?
	It didn’t matter. He had to take that chance.
	One quick yank and the cheap necklace snapped. He hastily stuffed both chain and pendant in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.
	“Hey, partner,” said Schanke loudly. “These damned bugs seem to think I’m a five-course banquet all laid out for them. What say we go talk to the guy who found the body? I’m being sucked dry here.”
	Oh, Schanke, if only you knew, he thought, even as he exchanged amused glances with Nat. Getting to his feet, he said offhandedly, “You go ahead, Schanke. I’ll tough it out down here awhile longer.”
	His partner glared at him but didn’t linger for any snappy retorts. Nick watched as he trailed away into the darkness, cursing the presence of bugs and the absence of light.
	“Well, I’m done here,” announced Natalie, moving aside so that a team with a stretcher could move the body. “I’ll see you later, Nick.”
	“Right,” he said, meeting her eyes guilelessly, glad that he’d had so many centuries’ practice at dissembling. Even so, he thought Natalie gave him a rather questioning look. Maybe she was aware after all that something odd had happened. But he maintained his bland expression and she left without saying anything more, following the stretcher carrying the girl’s body.
	Nick prowled around the site for a while longer, but he was unable to focus on the job. Eventually he returned to the Caddy to find Schanke waiting for him, morosely scratching at mosquito bites.
	“So what did the jogger have to say?” he asked, starting the engine.
	“Not much. He’s coming into the station to give his official statement, but basically he was out for his daily run with his dog, lets dog off leash a ways back, dog finds body, jogger nearly tosses his cookies.”
	“He goes jogging in the dark?”
	“Well, he says it wasn’t dark when he started out, and he comes this way every day so he knows the path. So, any theories? Was the girl killed down there, or was she dumped?” There was a pause. “Nick!”
	“Dumped,” Nick answered succinctly.
	Schanke waited, but Nick didn’t elaborate. He was apparently concentrating on driving, but Schanke had the feeling that his partner wasn’t paying any more attention to the road than he was to him. “Yo! Golden boy!”
	That got him a look of annoyance, at least.
	“Care to share your great deductive reasoning with me, or do I have to wait till I see our report?”
	“There wasn’t enough mud in the treads of her shoes. And she was too well hidden in that undergrowth. It doesn’t look as if she was molested, sexually or otherwise. Just one clean shot. Maybe she saw something she wasn’t meant to see, or knew something she shouldn’t have.” The words came out tersely. He hadn’t meant to sound that way, but the girl’s chain and pendant felt as if they were burning a hole in his pocket. He needed the shift to be over, he needed to get away by himself to think about what this might mean.
	Schanke rolled his eyes. A man-eating mother-in-law at home and a weird, uncommunicative partner at work. Life was just grand. He was trying, really trying, to make this partnership thing work. He knew he had a high-maintenance personality, and he had to admit that crashing Nick’s precious Caddy hadn’t exactly been the ideal way to start a working relationship. But he figured that he’d proven himself since as someone who had more than just wool between the ears when it came to detective work. It was just so damned frustrating, wondering if and when his so-called partner would open up and let him in, just a little.
	Glancing at the still, shuttered profile in the streetlights, it looked to Schanke as if that wasn’t going to happen for a long, long time.

	There was more than a hint of dawn in the sky when the Caddy nosed into its garage. Several moments later the door of the old freight elevator opened at the level of the loft apartment. Nick stepped out, still sober and preoccupied.
	Daylight was beginning to show at the tall windows. The gentle cooing of the building’s resident pigeon colony filled the loft, mixed with the sound of early traffic. Moving with slow deliberation, Nick crossed to the coffee table, picked up the remote, and closed the steel shutters, sealing the loft into its accustomed darkness. The pigeons flew away with a clatter of wings.
	Finding his way in the dark with no difficulty, he lit several candles, then went to the refrigerator and removed a half-empty bottle of cow’s blood. He took the time to find a glass and drank it slowly, almost as if the liquid was worth savouring. He replaced the bottle in the fridge and rinsed the glass clean.
	Then and only then did he remove his jacket. He hung it on the coat rack by the door and felt in the pocket for the necklace. He sat down at the dining table and placed the necklace in front of him, where the light from one of the candles shone directly on it.
	The chain didn’t interest him. He separated it from the pendant and pushed it to one side.
	Outwardly, there was nothing unusual about the pendant either. It was in the shape of a tiny candle, about two inches long, with a crudely faceted sliver of ruby for a flame. The candle itself was fashioned of solid gold. There was a fine golden wire around the ruby, so that the thing could be hung from a chain, the way the dead girl had worn it. It was heavy for its size. And it was old. Very old.
	He turned it over. On the back was a tiny inscription, worn to the point of being illegible. Nick’s eyesight could have deciphered it, but he knew what it said without needing to read it. ‘Por illuminer les ténèbrus’. Even the French was old, the language of his mortal life. To light the darkness.
	How appropriate it seemed now – how needy he was, after all these centuries spent in a darkness of the soul as well as the physical state of being unable to walk in the sunlight, for something that so much as hinted at a way of returning to a state of grace. And yet, when he’d first laid eyes on the thing, he was embracing wholeheartedly his new existence as a vampire, trying to quash the last pangs of a mortal conscience. He would have scoffed at the idea of going back to the life he had shed almost without a thought, thoroughly bedazzled by Janette’s seduction and Lacroix’s velvet-clad promises of glorious, never-ending life.
	They had still been in Paris then, himself, Janette, and Lacroix. It was only a few months after the two vampires had brought Nicholas de Brabant into their darkness, and he was still discovering and glorying in new-found strengths and abilities. For instance, it was now midway through January of 1229, still several weeks shy of Candlemas when plowing ought to begin in the fields, and a most bitter, unforgiving winter it was. It seemed that everyone, even those who could afford fur-lined cloaks and sturdy boots and plenty of firewood, was perpetually shivering. Probably even King Louis in his new palace was never warm. Beggars in their rags died by the dozen; indeed, Nicholas could feel no remorse at taking their blood, since chances were slim that many of the wretches who lived in the streets and alleyways would survive to the spring. And yet he himself was never cold, no matter how bitterly the wind blew or how much snow or rain fell. Indeed, Lacroix often had to caution him about wearing his woollen cloak, since a man walking in this weather in only tunic and hose was bound to draw attention.
	Nicholas had begun to weary somewhat of Lacroix’s constant supervision. He had been a grown man in mortal life, independent and self-reliant. He had needed Lacroix’s tutelage when he was first brought across, to learn how to survive in this new existence. But now he considered that he had learned everything that Lacroix had to teach him, and the fact that his master still refused to let him stray far from his side was becoming increasingly irksome.
	Now, though, he had a chance to be free of the jesses he seemed to constantly wear, if only for a few nights. Lacroix had gone away. The elder vampire had not seen fit to impart either his destination or his purpose to Nicholas, although he suspected that he had done so to Janette. He also suspected that Janette had been instructed to keep a close watch on him, to make sure he didn’t stray from the bounds that Lacroix had set. However, when they had hunted together the previous night, their meal had turned out to be a pair of drunken sots who had barely been able to stagger out of the tavern. In consequence, the vampires had imbibed a copious amount of cheap wine along with the blood. When Nicholas awoke that evening, Janette was still soundly sleeping.
	He had briefly considered waiting for her, then decided that he couldn’t miss the opportunity for a little freedom, no matter how brief. He dressed and hurried from their lodgings before Janette had begun to stir.
	Being alone in the night was an intriguing feeling. He flew a short ways for the sheer joy of it, dropping silently into an alleyway to investigate a possible source of a meal. But the prostitute that he stalked for several moments lost her appeal when she pushed back her ragged hood and gave him what was undoubtedly meant as a seductive smile. Formed by an almost toothless mouth in a skeletal, pockmarked face, it was more of a rictus. Nicholas shook his head and walked on.
	He had come to the Grand Pont, largest of the bridges across the Seine, the haunt of moneychangers and goldsmiths. Nicholas was amazed that any of the shops would be open on such a cold winter’s night, but perhaps the smiths thought that the glow of their stoves and forges would provide sufficient attraction to potential customers. A small but lively crowd had indeed gathered around any of the stalls that were still open for business. Nicholas paused by the first such stall that he came to, hunger momentarily overcome by a sudden impulse to buy a gift for Janette. Even if Lacroix never found out about his night of solitary hunting, Janette’s anxiety over what their master might do if he discovered that the fledgling had slipped away from her watchful gaze for a few hours was bound to be far worse than any punishment Lacroix was likely to mete out. Nicholas, while not prepared to give up this one night of unexpected freedom in order to allay that anxiety, still was quite willing to mollify her if at all possible. One of his chief delights now was giving her things. And anyway, her fears would all be on her own behalf; Janette, Nicholas blithely believed, knew perfectly well that he could take care of himself.
	He made his way through the small knot of people in front of the stall to examine the wares, spread out on a cloth-draped trestle table under the watchful eye of the goldsmith’s brawny assistant. The smith himself, sensing a likely customer, bustled forward. “Good evening, Messire. What may I help you with?” Although he already a shrewd notion, given which items Nicholas was surveying. “Is it a gift for a lady you’re wanting?”
	Nicholas smiled. “Perhaps.”
	There were brooch-pins and buckles, necklaces and rings and amulets, and one little gold and enamel reliquary with an ornate cross on it, which he moved away from as unobtrusively as possible. He picked up a delicate filigree necklet set with blood-red garnets.
	“You have an eye for quality, Messire,” said the smith. “That is some of my finest work. Your lady would certainly appreciate it.”
	“How much?”
	“One golden livre, Messire. An excellent bargain, I assure you.”
	A livre! Nicholas growled in frustration, knowing that his purse contained only a paltry assortment of coppers and a few silver pennies. While Lacroix ensured that his fledglings did not lack for shelter or decent clothing, Nicholas’ only source of ready money was what his victims carried on them. Since his hunting recently had been mainly restricted to freezing drunkards and beggars, his purse was miserably thin.
	“Perhaps this instead, Messire?” The smith held up a gilt cross on a long chain. “Twenty silver deniers, your lady will – “
	Nicholas shied away with an angry oath, nearly knocking over the woman behind him and barely managing not to fling up a hand to shield himself from the sight of the thing. Recovering himself, and ignoring the curious looks being cast in his direction–  not least from the goldsmith – he returned to the table, determined now to find something. His eye fell on a golden amulet in the shape of a small candle, with a blood-coloured ruby for a flame encircled by a slender gold loop. It was plainer than most of the smith’s other wares, and yet well-crafted. He noticed the inscription on it with amusement, even though it was so tiny that unaided mortal eyes would have been unable to read it at all. ‘To light the darkness’ – hardly appropriate for Janette, who treasured the darkness both within and around her. And yet, she might like it.
	“How much for this?”
	“Forty deniers,” answered the smith, beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong about this customer after all. “The stone is a genuine ruby.”
	Nicholas pulled forth a few coins, put them in the palm of the astonished goldsmith, folded the man’s fingers around them, and stared into his eyes. “I have paid you a fair price.”
	“A fair price,” repeated the smith numbly.
	“Thank you.” Nicholas smiled, took the piece of jewellery and pushed his way out of the crowd of spectators. He strolled along the bridge, highly pleased with himself, watching the crowds with a predator’s eye. There was a fine choice tonight of potential victims, unlike the past several weeks when it had been too cold for almost anyone to be abroad but those who had no place to go.
	There was a troop of jongleurs performing by torchlight. Their strength and suppleness and youthful energy were tantalizing. Or the occupant of the closed litter that went past, heavily guarded by several men at arms. A taste of wealth and privilege would be a welcome change. Or perhaps the innocence of one in a group of gawking country people, plainly but warmly dressed, likely pilgrims bound for St. Genevieve. Two knights wearing chain mail beneath their mantles rode by astride magnificent destriers, with an aura of arrogance like second cloaks about them. Nicholas’ lip turned up in a slight sneer as he watched them. They both had a cross embroidered on their mantles, signifying that they were members of the militia Christi – Christ’s soldiery – that they had gone to the Holy Land on crusade. Well, Nicholas had done just as they had, and had found no reason to be so proud of it. His fangs began to ache, and he fell in behind them. Arrogant fools, who no doubt thought they were invincible, vested with the authority of temporal rank and wealth and blessed by the Church into the bargain. He was definitely of a mind to show them that a power existed that could make a mockery of theirs.
	He had followed them almost back into the Cité when he was hailed by a voice behind him. “Nicholas! Hunting on your own finally, are you?”
	He turned in irritation and saw a young man lounging nearby, regarding him with an insolent stare. His clothes – cloak, capuchon, tunic and all – were as patched and threadbare as a beggar’s, and yet he appeared not to notice the cold. He had lank dark hair and a pox-scarred face that ought to have been sallow, but it was as pale as Nicholas’ own,
	Nicholas knew him only as Jehan, a fellow fledgling. He had met him a handful of times before, only once in company with his master, a tall, forbidding figure who had not deigned to speak to anyone present but Lacroix, and who had been addressed by him as Etienne de Bruyère. Jehan obviously enjoyed a far greater freedom than did Nicholas, and it was plainly only Lacroix’s presence at each of their encounters that had prevented him from trying to rub Nicholas’ nose in that fact. Lacroix had never said anything directly about the relationship between de Bruyère and his fledgling, but it was obvious that he disapproved of the leniency granted to the younger vampire.
	Nicholas’ considered opinion of the other fledgling was that he was an ignorant lout, and he was quite ready to shove the other’s taunts back down his grimy throat at the least provocation.
	However, it appeared that tonight Jehan was actually happy to see him. He draped a companionable arm across Nicholas’ shoulders. “Finally slipped the leash, did you? Good for you. I knew you’d succeed sooner or later.”
	Nicholas stiffened, at both the unwanted embrace and the patronizing words, and shrugged off Jehan’s arm. “What is it you want?”
	“Why, only to share an evening’s hunting with you, and maybe some entertainment, as well. I know where to find some much more tender fare than a pair of Crusader knights. They’re chancy quarry for young ones such as us, Nicholas. I’m surprised Lacroix didn’t tell you that, with all his prating.”
	Nicholas looked at him contemptuously. “I can take the pair of them. Go back to your easy game, and leave me to mine.”
	“Now, now, don’t be so prickly. I’m offering you a chance to fatten your purse, as well as a surety of something tasty before the night’s through. Indulge yourself, Messire de Brabant. You can always track down your Crusaders later.”
	At the mention of fattening his purse, Nicholas wondered if Jehan had seen him at the goldsmith’s stall. It was impossible to tell anything from the other vampire’s mud-coloured eyes. Still, the idea of enriching himself, especially if it involved no great effort on his part, was tempting. “What are you planning?” he asked grudgingly.
	“A simple game of passe-dix, nothing more.” Jehan’s hand emerged from the folds of his cloak and rattled some dice invitingly.
	Nicholas unbent somewhat. He had always had more than his fair share of luck at dice. Maybe it could be profitable to spend a few hours in Jehan’s company, even if he was obnoxious.
	“Come along,” said Jehan briskly. “I know just the place for us.”

	Before two more hours had passed, Nicholas was bitterly regretting changing his mind about hunting the two knights.
	Jehan had led them to a squalid tavern behind the street of butchers, near to the gaunt prison of the Grand Chatelet. The stench of offal overlaying that of heavy smoke, cheap wine, and unwashed bodies made it even more unpleasant than most others of its kind. Nicholas would have avoided it even in his darkest days as a mortal, when he had returned to Paris following his time spent in the Holy Land on crusade, filled with bitterness and disillusionment, and none too fastidious about his companions and surroundings.
	Nevertheless, it seemed to be a good place for a game of dice, and one of the serving girls wasn’t entirely displeasing to look at. The weather had changed for the worse outside, and men came crowding in for warmth. Jehan had soon gathered a group of four or five like-minded mortal gamblers, and now they sat close to the tavern’s smoking fire with a jug of wine on the table, playing reasonably amicably.
	Nicholas had had his usual luck at the beginning, quickly amassing a small horde of deniers, oboles and half-oboles. Eventually he was also the richer by one threadbare cloak. Its former owner, deciding that he didn’t want to chance losing any more garments on such a cold night, quit the table.
	“Here,” called Nicholas, tossing the cloak after him. He didn’t need even the one he had, much less two, and the other man’s was probably vermin-infested to boot. “Keep it to lose another night.”
	The man caught it with a sour look and disappeared through the door.
	“Ever the gallant,” murmured Jehan.
	Nicholas shot him a hard look. “Your roll.”
	After that, his luck seemed to desert him. Whenever the pot was in Jehan’s keeping, it seemed the dice always came up with lowest numbers. Nicholas’ pile of coins dwindled swiftly. One by one the mortals dropped out of the game. Nicholas was getting restless, and hungry; he became unable to think of little else but appeasing that hunger.
	“Enough of this,” he said abruptly, when he had less money remaining than what he’d started with. “Jehan, it’s past time to eat.” He half rose from the table.
	“Really, Messire de Brabant, I had thought you would be a more gracious loser,” replied the other vampire with a bland smile.
	Just for an instant Nicholas felt his eyes beginning to grow golden with anger. Then he shrugged and stood the rest of the way. “I’m not responsible for what you think of me.”
	“Oh, come, Nicholas. One more toss, eh? I can’t believe you’re that hungry. You must learn some restraint – I’m surprised Lacroix hasn’t taught you that. Oh, now, don’t take offense – I meant no harm. Come, one more roll of the dice, and winner take all. It’s well known that Lacroix is wealthy, I’m sure you must have something yet to wager.”
	“Why are you so anxious to win a handful of pennies? Does your own father not welcome you into his home, and you must pay for lodgings or live in an alley?”
	“Oh, my father welcomes me, never fear, although he doesn’t force me to share his company, unlike some others I know. No, I simply enjoy a game of chance, just like you. Come, Nicholas, relax. One more throw.”
	Nicholas barely managed to suppress the snarl that rose to his lips. He was weary of Jehan and weary of the foul tavern. He wanted to be out and hunting in the cold dark air, and if he had missed his chance at the two Crusader knights, then at least he could seek out a more appetizing quarry than anything likely to go stumbling out of this place.
	Still – the notion of winning back all his money, plus Jehan’s, was tempting. But he had only a scant few copper oboles left to put up, unless he followed the example of the first man to leave the game and tossed in his cloak. But he had no desire to return to Janette with any of his clothes missing, should he lose the game.
	He sat down again. “What have you got,” he said carelessly, pulling out the little golden candle, “that can match this?”
	Jehan reached out a hand wonderingly to touch the shining object. Nicholas pulled it away sharply. “Come now, let’s see what you have, or I’m off.”
	For the first time that evening Jehan appeared to be considering something seriously. At length he fumbled within the depths of his soiled tunic and pulled over his head a fine gold chain from which hung a ring. He unfastened the chain, slipped the ring off and laid it down on the table next to the amulet.
	Nicholas eyed the piece of jewellery in swiftly-guarded astonishment. It was a signet ring, and his keen eyesight could distinguish the de Bruyère crest. So Jehan’s master must value his indolent fledgling a good deal.
	Jehan caught his look of surprise, and met it with a raised eyebrow and a coolly amused smile.
	The word must have spread that a more than usually interesting game was in progress. The mortals who had been playing earlier still surrounded the table, along with a fair number of other spectators. Nicholas suddenly felt somewhat self-conscious. “Your roll,” he said curtly.
	“Ah no, Messire de Brabant. After you, I insist.’
	Nicholas grabbed the dice, shook them briefly, and spilled them on the table. Ten. Not hopeless, but certainly beatable.
	“A peasant and two emperors,” said Jehan, sweeping the dice towards him and scooping them up with a flourish. Nicholas watched the movements with narrowed eyes. “Let’s see if I can do better than that.”
	He rattled the dice in his hand and tossed them on the table. “Three handsome viceroys - fifteen. Better luck next time, Nicholas. Perhaps I might even give you a chance to win back this little trinket.”
	He reached out a hand to pick up the gold candle. Nicholas’ own hand shot out and seized his wrist in a crushing grip.
	“I’m sure I would win everything back,” he said in a harsh, clear voice, “if I used your dice.”
	A hush fell over the spectators, followed by murmuring which swiftly increased in volume as men perceived that a new entertainment might be at hand. Nicholas ignored them all.
	“Are you saying that I cheated, de Brabant?” demanded Jehan, affronted.
	“I know that you did. You there, hand me over that cup of wine.”
	The owner of the cup hastened to give it to him without a murmur, even though it was still full. No one in the crowd would have dared to argue with him at that point. Only the other vampire appeared ready for a confrontation.
	Keeping his grip on Jehan, Nicholas dropped the dice into the wine. One floated on the surface; the other two slowly rotated and sank to the bottom of the cup. There was a collective gasp at the sight.
	Nicholas and Jehan remained glaring at each other. “Come, let’s try it with the dice that I threw,” said Nicholas. “Of course, I’ll have to shake them out of your louse-infested clothing first.”
	Jehan hissed in fury. With a sudden violent jerk, combined with a vicious kick at Nicholas’ shins under the table that would have broken a mortal man’s legs, he managed to pull free. In an instant the two vampires were both on their feet with the table between them. Jehan’s eyes were glowing green-gold and a rumbling growl erupted from his chest. The spectators fell back with cries of fear at the sight of the fiend, several of the more quick-witted amongst the group crossing themselves fervently.
	“Do you still think you’re better than me, Crusader?” taunted Jehan. “Purer? Holier? You’re none of those things. You never were. And I will knock you into a pulp and drink your coddled, knightly blood.”
	Despite Lacroix’s frequent admonishments never to reveal his nature to mortals, Nicholas knew that he now looked much as Jehan did. Growling, he picked up the heavy table and tossed it aside as if it weighed nothing at all.
	“Come ahead, Jehan, and try!”
	The tavern emptied as the patrons fled into the street, crying out to the passersby about the two demons. A few remained, more stalwart or else too drunk to move, plus one unfortunate who had been in the way of the table. Neither vampire took any notice. Snarling, Jehan launched himself at Nicholas, in a movement far too fast for any of the mortals to follow. Just as quickly Nicholas parried the attack, caught the other vampire and flung him against the wall, so hard that the entire tavern swayed with the impact. Undaunted, Jehan came on again, but slightly more warily now. The two vampires circled one another, feinting and counterfeinting, every move that Jehan made competently matched by Nicholas, until Jehan lost his footing in a pool of spilled wine and crashed inelegantly to the floor. Nicholas paused, and Jehan shot from the floor like an arrow in flight and hurtled into his legs. Nicholas tumbled over top of him and, when he lunged to his feet again, found himself confronted by a grinning Jehan wielding a torch he had managed to snatch from its sconce just outside the door.
	“Come along now, Messire de Brabant, let’s see how eager you are to play with fire!”
	Nicholas responded by hefting the long bench on which he had sat while playing dice – a solid piece of furniture which no mortal man could easily have lifted unaided, let alone raise over his head as Nicholas did then – and heaved it at Jehan. The other vampire flew out of its path but dropped the torch, which landed harmlessly on the dirt floor. Nicholas shot towards the ceiling in pursuit, caught a corner of Jehan’s filthy cloak, and grappled with him in midair. Jehan snarled and hissed in fury, and Nicholas, lost in the vampire’s rage, did likewise. They were both oblivious to anything but their own lust to kill – until a single word penetrated even that.
	“Enough!”
	The word blazed into Nicholas’ mind with the strength and clarity of a trumpet  blast and seemed to reverberate like thunder in the mountains. Instinctively he disengaged from his opponent and settled to the ground, drawing in deep heaving breaths while the red haze of vampire vision dissipated from his eyes, searching for the source of the voice. He would not have been surprised if the entire miserable tavern came crashing to the ground from the force of it.
	A woman! Nicholas stared in total disbelief. How could a woman possess a voice with such power and command? And yet there was no doubt, now that his mind was clear again, that it had been a woman who had spoken. And a woman stood before him now, almost as tall as he was, with the hood of a sable-lined cloak thrown back to reveal a pale, pristine face framed by unbound black hair. The bones of that face were delicate, the skin over them almost translucent, and yet there was no suggestion of daintiness or weakness about it; Nicholas knew, even before her bloodless lips parted in a snarl that revealed the largest, sharpest fangs he had ever yet beheld in a vampire, that it would be more than his life was worth to defy her. He took a step back and bumped into Jehan, who was also staring at the woman, as dumbstruck as Nicholas.
	The vampiress had not come alone. Two male vampires, tall bulky figures wrapped in voluminous cloaks, were occupied in slaughtering all the mortals in the tavern. Obviously curiosity had gotten the better of many of those who had originally fled or those who had disbelieved the tale about demons, and, unnoticed by Nicholas, a small crowd had gathered to marvel at the sight of his struggle with Jehan. Now they were paying horribly for that indulgence. Moving with incredible speed, the two vampires tore into the group of mortals like wolves in a sheepfold, killing indiscriminately, one with a knife, the other simply snapping the neck of anyone he encountered. Those who tried to run for the door were dragged back into the slaughterhouse. Appalled, Nicholas moved to interfere, ignoring the woman’s snarl and her one small hand raised in an imperious gesture. Instantly he was flung six feet through the air, to land with a crash across the table he himself had flung aside earlier. Dazed, and still not comprehending who these strange vampires were, he remained where he was until there were only the dead and the undead left in the tavern.
	With a growl directed at her two companions, the woman seized Jehan’s arm. One of the men caught the collar of Nicholas’ mantle, and the two fledglings were hauled into the street as the third member of the hellish trio picked up the torch Jehan had dropped, rekindled it in the hearth, and tossed it in the spilled wine. Two cresset lamps followed it, and the vampires were barely outside before the tavern was completely alight.
	Nicholas struggled and swore, infuriated at his treatment as well as by the mass murder that he had just witnessed, until his captor offhandedly dealt him a massive blow over one ear that nearly rendered him senseless. People were rushing toward the blaze with buckets of water, and in the panic the group of vampires slipped away unnoticed.
	Once they were well away from the commotion, they halted in a dark, narrow alleyway, where the ground underfoot was slick with half-frozen mud and unnameable filth. The wind had risen since Nicholas had first ventured out that evening, and now a nasty mixture of snow and ice fell from the lowering sky. An emaciated dog was their only witness, and it crept away, whining, at their arrival.
	The two young vampires were dropped unceremoniously in the muck underfoot. Jehan remained where he was, staring up fearfully at their captors, but Nicholas immediately scrambled to his feet. He knew now he was in danger, but he intended to find out why. And he saw nothing to be gained from staying on his backside in the filth of the alley.
	“Who are you?” he demanded, his eyes flaring green-gold. “Why did you kill all those people?”
	The elder vampires exchanged glances. It was the woman who finally spoke. “Did Lucien Lacroix not tell you about the Code? If not, his teaching is grievously at fault.” She glanced down at Jehan. “See, even this child of de Bruyère knows about us.”
	Nicholas was startled by their mention of his master. Obviously, then, they knew who he was, which gave them an even greater advantage. Nevertheless, he looked the woman directly in the eye, refusing to be intimidated. Let Jehan stay where he was, Nicholas was damned if he would grovel in the dirt too.
	However, he thought it prudent to moderate his tone slightly. “Lacroix needs to teach me nothing. But I would like an explanation from you, madame, for your actions.”
	Incredibly, the woman began to smile. But it was a slow, cruel smile, as chilling as the sleet now falling on them. “Well, well, a young fighting cock. Nicholas de Brabant, you are either very brave or very foolish, I don’t know which.” Her smile vanished. “And I have no interest in finding out. If you will not obey the Code, you are a menace to us all. That is all the explanation you will get from me.”
	She glanced down at Jehan. “If you seek more answers, then let this one be sufficient.”
	Jehan crawled backwards with a whimper of fear, trying to press himself into the solid wall of the alley. While Nicholas stared in utter disbelief, the woman reached down and picked him up with no more effort than if he had been a puppy. Jehan flailed helplessly, his entreaties muffled against the woman’s white, delicate, merciless hand. Her grip shifted and tightened, and Jehan’s last scream broke off in a hideous gurgling noise as she tore his head from his shoulders.
	Nicholas leaped back to avoid being splashed by the obscene red fountain gushing from Jehan’s summarily truncated body. His legs barely supported him. The woman let what remained of Jehan drop back to the ground, then, to Nicholas’ profound horror, tossed the head to land at his feet.
	“End of lesson, my young fighting cock,” she said, and suddenly she was standing directly behind him, one bloody hand on his shoulder.
	Nicholas only had time to feel the first inkling of fear on his own behalf, when the driving sleet was whipped into a brief whirlwind by the precipitant arrival of yet another vampire. “Stop!” cried the newcomer.
	The woman hissed warningly. “You come too late, Lacroix. Your fledgling has flouted the Code and allowed mortals to see him as he truly is. You, at least, know the penalty.”
	“Stop – please,” repeated Lacroix. There was an unfamiliar tone in his voice. It sounded to Nicholas almost as if his master, who had always seemed all-powerful, was pleading. “My son did not know the full consequences of his folly. My teaching has been remiss.”
	The grip on Nicholas’ shoulder eased slightly. “Are you saying, then, that the fault is yours?”
	Lacroix, his head bowed, nodded.
	“Well, well,” said the woman thoughtfully. “Altruism is certainly an unusual trait amongst our kind.”
	“I am simply asking that the blame be placed where it is due,” Lacroix replied with dignity. Even distracted as he was, Nicholas could sense his master’s irritation at being accused of that particular virtue. “I won’t deny that Nicholas de Brabant has acted foolishly tonight, but he would not have done so had he known that he was inviting the wrath of the Enforcers. Please, release him. I give you my word that there will be no more of these – indiscretions.”
	The two male vampires shared an uneasy glance, as if they had never before heard such a request, and doubted that any good could come of granting it. The woman, however, appeared to be considering Lacroix’s appeal. Nicholas, although he had a dozen questions bursting for utterance, held his tongue after a single scorching glare from Lacroix, which promised further horrors if he tried to interfere.
	The woman was drawing breath to reply when the air in the alley was disturbed yet again. Jehan’s master had arrived.
	The vampiress said briskly, “Lucien Lacroix arrived in time to plead for his ignorant fledgling. I fear that it’s too late for yours, de Bruyère. In any case, he well knew the penalty for what he had done.”
	Etienne de Bruyère, as grim and forbidding as ever, spared them no more than a glance before kneeling by his son’s headless body. He remained there, somehow fierce in his very quiet and stillness, even when long tendrils of smoke started to curl upwards from Jehan’s remains as they began their transmutation into ashes.
	“Come,” said the woman to Lacroix. “We may as well discuss this protégé of yours in more congenial surroundings.”
	Lacroix bowed, then seized Nicholas by the shoulder as the woman finally relinquished him.  If his tone towards the vampiress had been conciliatory, with Nicholas it was as harsh and unforgiving as granite. “Go back to Janette. Stay with her and don’t stir outside until I return.”
	“But Lacroix – “	
	”Go!” said his maker, emphasizing the command with a growl that reverberated in the narrow alley. His eyes were a hellfire crimson. He gave Nicholas a hard shove past the trio of vampires.
	Nicholas recovered his balance and flexed his legs to take flight. He glanced back just as he did so, and saw Lacroix reach a compassionate hand towards de Bruyère’s shoulder. The face of the other vampire was streaked with bloody tears.
	Of Jehan there was nothing left but a mound of ash which was quickly being blown apart by the winter wind.

	Lacroix had taken lodgings for the three of them in a townhouse owned by a minor nobleman, who preferred to oversee his manor near Marseilles during the winter rather than stay in his draughty Paris home. Nicholas alighted in the frozen remains of the kitchen garden and opened the heavy oaken door into the rear of the house. He could sense Janette somewhere inside, but she made no effort to acknowledge his presence. That was unusual. She could hardly be asleep; dawn was still several hours away – even though the night already seemed to have gone on forever – and after all, she had slept late into evening before. He sighed. That could only mean that she was angry with him. So, as well as making his peace with Lacroix when their maker returned, he would have to do the same with Janette.
	Somehow, he didn’t think that that would be too difficult.
	He passed the storeroom and the unused kitchen, emerging into the hall. Still the house was silent except for the creak of timber and the occasional bang of a loose shutter upstairs. The fireplace was bare. Next to it, in the corner, something was huddled in the rushes on the floor.
	“Janette!”
	Nicholas flew across the room, suddenly realizing with cold dread that he had been wrong in supposing that she was simply ignoring him. He knelt beside her, trying to gather her into his arms, but she cried out when he touched her. “Janette! Janette, what’s wrong? What did he do to you?”
	“Go away, Nicolas,” she croaked, in a tone totally unlike her normal voice.
	Ignoring her order, he pulled off his mantle and wrapped her in it, then tenderly lifted her and carried her upstairs to their bedchamber, where he laid her on the bed and spread a blanket over her. He closed the shutters and latched them firmly, then found tinder and lit the candles. Then he returned to the bedside and knelt beside it, taking one of her hands in his and touching his lips to it. She watched him with darkened eyes in a face that bore all too clearly the marks of Lacroix’s anger.
	“Janette, why? Why did he do this?”
	“Why do you think?” she replied bitterly. “I was supposed to watch over you, and then he came back, and I couldn’t even tell him where you’d gone – “
	After what had already happened that night, he could hardly protest that he didn’t need anyone to watch over him. There was only one thing he could do that would be of any help to Janette right now, and at the same time show her how truly grieved he was by what Lacroix had done to her. As gently as he could, he cradled her in his arms, despite her cry of pain that tore at his heart. Bowing his head, he sank his teeth into his own flesh, so that it bled freely. Then he pressed his open wrist to her mouth.
	After a moment’s resistance, she lapped at his offering, then her fangs descended and she greedily tore her way into the vein. Nicholas hissed in rapture. This was a different sensation from anything he had yet experienced in his brief life as a vampire. Janette had drunk from him many times, but now he felt an unaccustomed tenderness in the giving, in addition to the sensuality of it that could never be entirely absent. There was no craving to bite in return, he simply wanted to hold and soothe her until she was healed.
	He felt that he was willing to stay there until she had drained every drop of blood in his body, but Janette came to her senses and released his arm before she had taken a dangerous amount. She lay languorously in his arms for a while longer while he stroked and kissed her hair and shoulders, then with a sigh pulled away and sat up to face him.
	“Oh, Nicolas . . . the Enforcers. No wonder Lacroix was so upset.”
	“Who are they?” he demanded. “What right did that woman have to kill Jehan like that?”
	“Best let Lacroix explain it to you, mon cher. He ought to have done it before this.” Privately she wondered if the reason Lacroix, normally a very thorough teacher, had not done so was because he didn’t want to admit to Nicolas that there were any beings more powerful than he. Would Lacroix be so petty? Or was this simply another of those lessons which he seemed to be withholding from his newest creation? Whatever the reason, Janette’s lover, her gallant golden knight, had been put in danger. Was still in danger, no matter what the outcome of Lacroix’s meeting with the Enforcers proved to be. Even if Lacroix managed to deflect their wrath from Nicolas, he would want to exact his own pound of flesh in turn. Janette was devoted to her master, but she had no illusions about him.
	“Janette, she ripped his head off with no more thought than wringing the neck of a chicken! What kind of person can do something like that?”
	“The Enforcers can. They are much more powerful than most vampires, and they make it their business to enforce the Code and protect our kind from human discovery.”
	“But we are so much stronger than humans. They are our prey, after all.”
	“Even we have our weaknesses. If you ever see a mob of determined hunters, you will know just how important it is for us to remain in the shadows. But wait for Lacroix to explain it all to you; he owes you that much.” Assuming that Lacroix ever returned from the meeting with the Enforcers; there was a good chance that he might not. “In the meantime, mon amour, you must rest. Come to bed.”
	“Janette, I can’t just – “
	”You can, and you will,” she cut him off, with surprising vehemence. Then she smiled and reached up to lay a finger across his lips. “Don’t argue. Lacroix told you to stay with me. I think that this time you had best do as he says.”
	He still looked as if he wanted to demand answers to his questions, but in the end he shrugged, smiled, and shed his filthy clothing to climb in under the blanket beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and guided her head to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. Janette knew, with an inward sigh, that despite everything that had happened tonight, at least part of his endearing innocence was still intact. He felt no dread at the prospect of Lacroix’s return.
	Janette, wise in their master’s ways, knew better. But she forced herself to remain soft and pliant in his arms, so that they could each take comfort from one another. When a surly dawn finally arrived, they were both completely sunk in oblivion. 

	Evening came, and there was still no sign of Lacroix. After exacting a firm promise from Nicholas that he would stay in the house no matter what, Janette went on a swift hunt, returning within an hour with a hopelessly mesmerized victim for them to share. A young saddlemaker’s apprentice, cast out from his employment for stealing, and therefore with no prospects before him but a life of petty crime – really, said Janette coaxingly (since Nicholas was indulging in another of his bouts of mortal conscience, no doubt an after-effect of last night’s events) it was a mercy to kill him now, and probably a benefit to mankind in general. In the end she won out – a rare occurrence when he was in one of those moods - and they made quick work of the boy.
	Just as they were finishing their meal, the crash of the front door opening and a rush of bitterly cold air heralded the return of Lacroix.
	Janette immediately backed several paces away, leaving Nicholas holding the drained body of their prey. He lowered it to the floor, straightened up and said calmly, “Lacroix, I’m glad to see you.”
	“Are you, indeed.” Lacroix surveyed him without expression, then snapped, “Janette, get rid of that body. Make yourself scarce.’
	“Lacroix, please . . . Father, he didn’t know – “
	”Go!” he said, his voice like a whip cracking.
	She gave Nicholas a despairing look, then obediently picked up the body of the erstwhile apprentice and vanished through the door into the garden. Nicholas and Lacroix were left to stand staring at each other.
	It was obvious that Lacroix’s meeting with the Enforcers had not been an amicable one. Nicholas waited for him to speak, hoping that this deference might help to allay his anger.
	Small hope. When his master finally broke the silence, there was absolutely no sign of a thaw in his icy demeanour. “It seems that I have been negligent in some aspects of your instruction. I did tell you, did I not, never to reveal your true nature to mortals?”
	In spite of his knowledge that he was treading on very thin ice, Nicholas didn’t care for the suggestion of condescension in the phrasing of Lacroix’s question. He stood straight and answered shortly, “Yes.”
	“Did it not occur to you that there are very good reasons for that? Would you care to have a mob of frightened, vengeance-seeking mortals invade your home by day, when you are vulnerable? Would you like to see that happen to Janette? To me?”
	“Of course not!”
	“Then never do such a thing again! That is the sole reason for the Code. That is the sole reason for the existence of the Enforcers – to protect us from the foolish ones of our own kind. Their methods are harsh, but necessary.”
	The lecture seemed to be over, but Lacroix still fixed Nicholas with that icy glare.
	“It was suggested by the Enforcers that possibly my teaching has not been at fault, simply that you were either very foolish, or very headstrong. I know all your faults, Nicholas, and they are many, but sheer stupidity isn’t one of them.” Obstinacy, wilfulness, misplaced gallantry, occasionally an unlooked-for naïveté, but Lacroix knew that his son was hardly a fool. No fool could have survived what this man had survived in the so-called Holy Land, although Lacroix had always reserved judgement on his reasons for going there in the first place; but that was ground best left unharrowed for the time being. “However, I see now a troubling tendency towards disobedience,” he continued, moving closer. Instinctively, Nicholas retreated a step.
	“I should not like any of the Enforcers to think that I was being too lenient with you, Nicholas. This is the last lesson I intend to teach you. I hope you learn it well.”
	As swiftly as a panther striking, he seized Nicholas by the arm and pulled him from the hall and into the kitchen. There was a trap door in the floor leading to the cellar. Lacroix heaved it open and propelled Nicholas through.
	He landed hard on the earthen floor but immediately jumped to his feet, waiting warily for Lacroix. His master followed in a moment, carrying a candle holder with a lit tallow candle and a length of stout rope.
	Slowly and deliberately, he set the candle on the floor, then strode towards Nicholas with the rope. Nicholas had no intention of tamely submitting to whatever it was that Lacroix was planning and fought as hard as he could when Lacroix seized his arms, but it was no use. With little difficulty Lacroix bound his wrists in front of him. There were several large hooks fixed to the ceiling, intended for hanging animal carcasses. Lacroix tossed the free end of the rope over one of them and fastened Nicholas securely to it. His feet brushed the floor, but only just.
	Nicholas glared at Lacroix, incensed both by the unexpected assault and the indignity of his uncomfortable position, but not yet truly afraid. The rope was strong, but he knew he could break it. If his master thought he could leave him to dangle here like a side of beef, then he would find that he had severely underestimated his creation.
	Lacroix stood back and resumed his lecture.
	“Nicholas, I have told you that you are immortal now, and nearly omnipotent. You do, however, still have several limitations; there are a few things that are lethal to you, even now. Sunlight you already know about.” Indeed, it was one of the first things he had warned his new fledgling of, but Nicholas, ever one to learn things the hard way, had naturally insisted on finding it out for himself. A sorry sight he had been then, but glad of Lacroix’s comfort, which was something.
	 “You’ve just had a graphic demonstration of decapitation. And now I’m going to teach you a third.”
	From somewhere within the folds of his heavy mantle, he produced  a long thin object which at Nicholas’ first glance was so innocuous as to be laughable. A kitchen broom? Was Lacroix going to tickle him to death with it?
	Lacroix laid the broom across his knee and neatly snapped off the end, leaving him with a jagged length of wood.
	“Most likely the Enforcers didn’t have one of these at hand last night,” he said conversationally, surveying his impromptu weapon. “But I do assure you, Nicholas, that a wooden stake is just as effective for killing vampires as tearing our heads from our shoulders, even if it is somewhat less – spectacular.”
	Comprehension finally dawned on Nicholas as Lacroix advanced on him, eyes glowing malevolently. “Lacroix, no! You wouldn’t – “
	”Goodbye, Nicholas.” His master raised the stake and in one sinewy thrust plunged it straight through his body.
	Nicholas’ shriek rattled the timbers in the house above.
	Lacroix stood back and coolly watched his son’s agonized thrashing. Satisfied that both the rope and hook would hold, he picked up the candle and left the cellar, ignoring Nicholas’ almost mindless entreaties to remove the stake and stop the pain.
	Even with the trap door back in place, the noise level was considerable. Lacroix smiled slightly. No doubt the sounds from the cellar would become tiresome eventually, but right at the moment he could almost say they were music to his ears, the sound of Nicholas learning two very salutary lessons: never to do anything that might bring the Enforcers down on him, and never to disobey Lacroix.

	Nicholas had no idea how long he spent struggling in a mad frenzy to free himself from the hook, the rope, the stake, before his strength gave out. Neither did he know how long he screamed for, before his throat tore and his own blood began to flow from his mouth, mingling with the blood tears of pain and fury that were streaming down his face. The screams gave way to whispered curses, then stopped altogether. Finally he hung mute and still in the darkness and simply waited to die.
	It was the first taste he’d had of his master’s unmitigated rage. He had known Lacroix could be cruel, but he had always felt himself to be his master’s favoured, cherished creation, safe from the worst of that cruelty. He knew Lacroix was a predator by nature and by desire, but he had not thought of him as a being who took pleasure in torture - especially that of his own son. Yet here he was, abandoned to as miserable a fate as any he had seen in the Crusades.
	It wasn’t just the dying that was hideously painful, it was also being left to twist and dangle like a fish on a line. He clenched his teeth on the few small sounds of pain he was still making, drawing his pride around himself like a sorry cloak, taking an infinitesimal comfort from the fact that he could deprive Lacroix of the satisfaction of hearing that much – if Lacroix was still listening.
	The effort cost him the last of his strength. Gratefully, he slipped into oblivion.

	He began to wonder if he might, after all, have gone to heaven. Suspended in a soft warm cocoon, faint candlelight against closed eyelids, Janette’s voice speaking. And most important of all, a cessation of the pain.
	Janette, in heaven? Not in any Christian heaven, certainly. Heaven was not for Janette, nor for him.
	Then where was he?
	With a monumental effort, he opened his eyes and looked, uncomprehendingly, at his own bedchamber.
	In pure reflexive startlement he sat bolt upright, and was rewarded with a horrible tearing sensation in his midsection. He hissed in surprise and pain, and in an instant a sturdy earthenware goblet was pressed to his lips, full of a sweet, heady, familiar liquid. He gulped the entire contents and, with a bloody trickle running down his chin, reached greedily for the source, which was leaning over him.
	“Gently, gently, my chevalier,” chided Janette, pushing him back into the pillows. It didn’t require much effort on her part, Nicholas felt as if he had all the strength of a newborn kitten.
	“Janette?” he whispered, then, finding that he had a voice again – somewhat raspy, but his own – he said, more strongly, “What happened? I thought he’d killed me.” He reached up to trace the outline of her face and lips, still not quite believing.
	“Oh, Nicolas, why must you keep provoking him?” said Janette with a sigh. “He didn’t want to be so harsh, but disobedience is something he will never, ever tolerate. And I hope you heeded that lesson, because I never want to go through that again,” she added quickly, trying to douse the flicker of anger she could see already in his expression.
	She succeeded, at least momentarily. He gave her a self-conscious smile, picked up her one hand that still lay pressed on his chest and kissed it apologetically. Then a stronger urge took over and he turned the hand over, his lips questing up to her wrist.
	“Oh, Nicolas, you are a greedy one, aren’t you,” said Janette, but with no sign of disapproval. “Here, wait. Wait, I said!” Sitting on the edge of the bed, she gathered him in her arms, supporting his head against her shoulder and allowing him free access to her slender neck. “There, my golden knight, drink,” she murmured.
	Without hesitation he bit into the vein, suckling thirstily, seeking and finding a comfort he hadn’t known he had even wanted. It was a blissful, honeyed sensation that both eased him and gave him strength, even more exquisite than when he had healed Janette.
	He lost himself in the ecstasy, and eventually Janette had to gently but firmly disengage herself. “No more, Nicolas. Not now.”
	He sat up and embraced her in turn, kissing her lips. She tasted her own blood there and felt his rising ardour, but reluctantly pushed his away. Holding his face lightly between her hands, she said quietly, “Lacroix is waiting.”
	Those three words acted like a bucket of cold water on Nicholas. He nodded slowly and rose from the bed, gingerly examining his chest. There was a livid mark where the stake had penetrated, but otherwise he was completely healed.
	Janette had already bathed the grime of the cellar from him and laid out fresh clothing. Moving cautiously – there were still a few twinges if he bent down or stretched – he pulled on braies and hose, tunic and boots. Janette settled his good surcoat on his shoulders, combed his hair, clucked disapprovingly over the stubble on his chin before deciding it was best not to waste time shaving, and accompanied him to the stairs. Obviously their master’s edict that she should make herself scarce during Lacroix’s dealings with his son was still in force. She gave him a feather-light kiss on the cheek but remained where she was.
	It seemed a long, lonely journey down the stairs and across the hall. A fire leaped and crackled in the fireplace, in front of which were normally set several high-backed chairs. Now all but one had been moved away, and Lacroix sat in that one as if it were a throne, his back to the stairs, elbows on the arms of the chair and fingers steepled before him.
	“Come here, Nicholas,” he said without turning, as Nicholas hesitated several paces away from him.
	Trying to summon up the angry pride that had helped sustain him during his ordeal in the cellar, Nicholas did as he was bidden, coming to stand in front of the chair. Lacroix’s eyes flicked over him once, briefly and disinterestedly, before returning to the contemplation of his hands.
	It was a game, a contest, to see who could outwait the other, and Nicholas knew it was one he could never win. No point, at the moment, to even try. Trying to keep his tone deferential, he said, “Here I am, Lacroix. What is it you want of me?”
	Even then, Lacroix kept him waiting for a considerable length of time before finally surveying him with expressionless, hooded eyes. “Simply to see if you have learned the lesson I set for you.”
	“Lesson?” repeated Nicholas angrily, deference forgotten. “You tried to kill me!”
	“I did not ‘try’ to kill you,” said Lacroix, unperturbed. “If I had wanted you dead, then you would be nothing more than a small pile of ash right at the moment. One thing I must confess I failed to mention to you: a wooden stake will indeed kill one of our kind, but it must go straight through the heart. Anywhere else, and it will simply cause exquisite agony until it is removed.”
	Nicholas stared at him, unable to speak. His mind was trying to encompass the enormity of what Lacroix had done to him. He had thought, dangling from that damned hook in the cellar, that he had known the worst of it, but even then he hadn’t. Lacroix, his teacher and mentor, whom he had trusted and respected, had left him there in agony, not to kill him, but simply to teach him a lesson. To let him think he was about to die, when all the while he was simply awaiting the moment when it pleased his master to release him. And at the end of it all, Lacroix mocked him for his gullibility and took away from him the one thing he’d thought to take comfort in: the knowledge that he’d survived the worst Lacroix could do to him.
	If he had had a stake in his hand right then, he would have gladly run the elder vampire through with it.
	“Nicholas,” Lacroix was saying reasonably, “I did not do what I did on a whim. As a mortal, you were a grown man. As a vampire, you are but an inexperienced fledgling, and you have to learn the ways of our kind, what are the transgressions and why, and what are the penalties. I simply tried to make you realize the importance of obeying the Code, and of doing nothing to attract the attention of the those who enforce it. If it has also taught you the folly of attempting to disobey me, then that’s all to the good. I will admit that it was a harsh lesson, but it was for your own benefit in the end.” He paused, then said, in a tone that indicated he was expecting a prompt answer, “Well, Nicholas? Do you agree?”
	“Yes,” Nicholas replied dully, hardly aware of what he was saying.
	“You have an excellent memory. Twenty years from now, or two hundred, or even two thousand, you will remember exactly what I’ve just said to you. I don’t want to find that tomorrow you appear to have forgotten it.”
	“No,” said Nicholas.
	“Then go now,” said Lacroix, suddenly the kindly father. “Find Janette and go hunting. This matter is over – unless you make it necessary to bring it up again.”

	Life – or unlife, as Nicholas, with a spurt of dark humour, supposed that he should consider his current state – went on as it had done before his fateful meeting with Jehan. Nicholas was more than content with his vampire existence. He hunted, he fed, constantly exploring and marvelling at his increased strength and heightened senses, the ability to hear a whisper from across a crowded street or to see in the dark with vision superior to a cat’s. The sound of a heart beating fascinated him, and he sometimes needlessly prolonged a hunt, much to Janette’s annoyance, for the sheer pleasure of hearing - of being able to hear - that entrancing sound, especially as it grew faster and louder in fear. He adored flying; at times he felt it was Lacroix’s supreme gift to him. Immortality, to one who was still young even by human reckoning, seemed a poor second compared to the incomparable  sensations of skimming over the Paris rooftops or racing the clouds tearing across the face of the moon on a stormy night. And he and Janette indulged in wild sexual games that he would hardly even have dared contemplate as a mortal, still less been physically capable of. He knew Lacroix watched them sometimes, and that knowledge drove both him and Janette, utterly shameless, to new extremes. Everything was a thrill, an addictive, sensual sport, and he embraced it all wholeheartedly. Only occasionally, in moments when he felt as if he were emerging from a drugged haze, did he feel disgust at what he had become, and remorse for what was already a long string of victims, struck down to feed his unquenchable lust for blood. He remembered the remnants of his family and the few close friends he had made amongst his fellow crusaders, and shrank from the revulsion they would surely feel for the unnatural creature he was now.
	He knew these moods galled Lacroix, and he did his best to stifle them in case his master decided to make them the subject of another lesson. After the last one he had made it a policy to be as dutiful to Lacroix as possible, not wanting him to guess that, as an object lesson in obedience, it had failed utterly. It had, however, taught Nicholas to be very wary of his master.
	But the one thing that rankled most was the fact that Lacroix still was not prepared to give him anywhere near the degree of freedom and independence he allowed Janette, who sometimes disappeared for nights on end, to return without arousing comment. Janette shared her body and blood with Lacroix as well as with Nicholas; if she had done anything to warrant his disapproval, there would have been no way to hide it. And if he had punished her for it, then Nicholas would have known. But Janette remained utterly carefree, on her own account at least. She sympathized with Nicholas, but counselled patience.
	“After all, you have eternity to outwait him,” she pointed out.
	He didn’t think he could wait quite that long.
	Candlemas came and went, and winter grudgingly gave way to a gloomy wet spring. A month or more after the encounter with the Enforcers, Nicholas awoke one night to find the house empty. Lacroix and Janette had gone hunting together. Perversely, his first feeling was one of resentment, that they had not wanted to include him; then he realized his good fortune. Almost immediately he was soaring through the Paris sky, joyfully intent on a night’s solitary hunting.
	He was in no hurry to make a kill. It was a clear night, the moon nearly full, and it was exhilarating simply to fly against it while sensing all the heartbeats in the city below. All those weakling mortals, blissfully unaware that above them was a silent, skilled predator, who wore the face of a human being but was truly a creature from the uttermost depths of their nightmares, and who was merely biding his time before closing in for the kill.
	The church bells had already rung for Matins, at midnight, when he finally came to earth again in an alleyway behind the stables of some nobleman, close to the Seine. Inside the building he could hear, in addition to the snorting and rustling of some of the beasts, a louder rustling and occasional giggle that indicated more activity in the straw then a few restless horses. Nicholas’ lips curved in a fanged smile, anticipating the challenge of taking two hapless victims at once.
	The only entrance to the stable from the alley was a single door, barred firmly from inside. In the span of a few mortal heartbeats he was over the roof and slipping through the open doorway to the loft. The two lovers had felt no need for candle or lamp, and didn’t see him until he had swooped down on them, plucking them from the straw and gripping one tightly in each arm. He drank from the man first, easily restraining the woman one-handed and muffling her screams against his shoulder. By the time the man’s lifeless body dropped back to the straw, her blood was exquisite with her terror. He held her in a mockery of a lover’s embrace and savoured every drop.
	It wasn’t until her corpse landed on the floor next to her erstwhile lover’s that he realized another vampire had joined him.
	The newcomer was watching him from the deep shadows by the door, visible only as a vague shape and a pair of glowing amber eyes. Nicholas hissed angrily. Who was this one and why was he standing there watching, when quite obviously all the prey here had already been disposed of?
	The horse in the stall closest to the door kicked shatteringly at the partition and whinnied. The stranger came closer to Nicholas, and he finally recognized Etienne de Bruyère, the vampire master who had arrived too late to save his son from the Enforcers. Nicholas’ elation at accomplishing the double kill vanished, to be replaced by trepidation.
	What did de Bruyère want with him? Was he seeking retribution because Nicholas had provoked the quarrel which resulted in Jehan’s death, and had survived while Jehan had not? Nicholas knew he would stand little more chance against de Bruyère than he had against the Enforcers. If he had to suffer this vampire’s wrath as well as Lacroix’s, he would almost prefer to look for a stake and impale himself right now. 
	He dropped his aggressive stance and backed away a step, watching the other vampire warily.
	When de Bruyère finally spoke his voice was deep and gravelly, as if not often used. “Get rid of those two and come with me. I have something of yours.”
	When Nicholas merely stared at him in astonishment, he raised a scornful eyebrow, in a gesture as eloquent as any of Lacroix’s. “Well? Lucien did teach you to hide your kills, did he not?”
	Nicholas roughly gathered up the two bloodless corpses and flew from the stable, with de Bruyère behind him. The horses stamped and neighed in alarm, but by the time a groom arrived to find what was upsetting them the two vampires were long gone.
	He dropped the bodies in the Seine several miles downstream from the city, then flew after de Bruyère to a house above a butcher’s shop in the Rue du Grand Chatelet, close by the tavern where he and Jehan had met with the Enforcers. De Bruyère hadn’t spoken since leaving the stable; he hadn’t even looked to see if the younger vampire had followed him after disposing of the mortals. Nicholas’ sense of trepidation hadn’t decreased at all by the time the two vampires flew through the attic window of the house and alighted in a dark, low-ceilinged room.
	Lusty snoring coming from the floor below indicated that the other occupants of the house were sound sleepers. De Bruyère lit a candle and Nicholas glanced around, trying to disguise his astonishment at the appearance of the small chamber. It was empty save for a pile of moth-eaten blankets in one corner and a plain, age-darkened wooden chest, with the solitary candle in a pricket holder balanced on the lid. Every surface was covered in a thick layer of dust; the corners were festooned with cobwebs. It made Lacroix’s home seen palatial by comparison. Nicholas was puzzled. De Bruyère had the look of someone who was accustomed to better than this.
	“Our kind has little need of mortal possessions,” said the other vampire. Nicholas jumped. Had de Bruyère read his mind, the way Lacroix seemed uncannily able to do?
	“Messire de Bruyère,” he said, awkwardly and in a rush, “I greatly regret what happened to Jehan.”
	The older vampire turned away, placing the candle on the floor and raising the lid of the chest. With his back to Nicholas, he replied coolly, “No doubt you do, since you narrowly avoided the same fate.”
	It wasn’t the response Nicholas had been expecting. His first impulse was to make an angry retort, protesting his sincerity, but there were odd vibrations in the tiny room, notes of an emotion unspoken but so strong that they resonated like the strings of a harp. Etienne de Bruyère, for all his impassive demeanour, was still grieving for his fledgling. Nicholas bit back what he had been about to say, and bowed his head.
	De Bruyère turned back to him with something in his hand. “I believe this belonged to you. You’d better have it back.” He opened his hand and revealed the little golden candle charm with its ruby flame. Nicholas extended his own hand, almost unwillingly, and de Bruyère dropped the piece of jewellery into his palm.
	Nicholas began to stutter something by way of thanks, feeling even more uncomfortable. If this had been left when Jehan’s body turned to ash, it must have been the only thing. If de Bruyère wanted to keep it as a memento, he certainly had no objection.
	“Foolish fledgling,” the older vampire hissed, his eyes suddenly glowing golden. “I do not give you this trinket as a gift. It is to remind you for the rest of your existence of my son and the part you played in his destruction. I need nothing to remind me. Now go!”
	Nicholas knew it was useless to protest that Jehan had been just as much to blame for his death as he himself had been. Considering Jehan’s fate and de Bruyère’s grief, it seemed far too petty to attempt to defend himself in any case. His hand closed on the candle and he flew from the room.

	Several hours later, when the night began to give way to a clear dawn, Etienne de Bruyère went to the roof of the dilapidated house. The rising sun found him there shortly afterwards. In a few minutes the only thing remaining on the roof was a small pile of ashes, which were soon dispersed by a gentle spring breeze.

	“Nicholas, you can come out now,” said a low voice six inches from his ear.
	As quietly as he could, Nicholas began to shift aside the mound of household possessions that covered him. Blankets, rugs, wall hangings, pots and jars, a chest of clothes, even a large bundle containing precious window glass that someone had wrapped with infinite care – he began to think there was no end to the sheer amount of goods belonging to the Coulombe family. And he was concealed in only one of six similarly laden carts which had left Paris two days ago, bound for the family manor near Dijon in Burgundy. It was an admirable arrangement for a vampire who wanted to travel while staying hidden from all eyes.
	All, that was, except those belonging to Madeleine Coulombe, who stood staring at him as he finally emerged from the back of the covered cart, clearly ready to burst into laughter at his tousled appearance. He forestalled her by sweeping her into his arms and pressing a kiss on her dark hair. She turned her face up to him, eyes sparkling mischievously, obviously expecting something a little less chaste. Nicholas was happy to oblige her, but took care to release her before the call of her blood became overpowering.
	She straightened his tunic and reached up to smooth down his hair. “Are you all right in that cart? I was afraid you might not be able to breathe.”
	“I slept as if it were the finest feather bed in the whole of France,” he assured her truthfully.
	She looked as if she didn’t quite believe him, but picked up something from the ground nearby and pressed it into his hands. It was a wooden bowl filled with spicy stew, with chunks of bread sitting on top. “I know it’s not much, but it’s all I could get, I had to hide it under my cloak. I wanted to bring you some of the wine, but I didn’t think I could hide that as well. But there’s a stream over that way, where the willows are.”
	“You’ve brought me more than enough. Did anyone notice?”
	“Only Margrete, and she won’t tell. But I can’t stay long. Father doesn’t want me wandering in the dark alone.” She made an exasperated face, then smiled and stroked his hair again, her hand brushing down his cheek. “If he knew about you, he would have a fit and fall down dead – or else bundle me off to the first convent he could find. A wanted man, hiding in one of his own wagons, and romancing his daughter – “
	”Then we had better make sure he doesn’t find out, for everyone’s sake,” said Nicholas firmly. He gave her another kiss, then pushed her away. “Now go, before anyone comes looking for you! And thank you for the food.”
	She went, unwilling but obedient, and Nicholas dumped out the contents of the bowl on the ground a discreet distance from the carts. Some wild animal would enjoy a good meal tonight. He found the stream, stripped off and plunged in, washing away the dust of the cart, heedless of the fact that the nearby mortals were all well wrapped in cloaks and blankets to ward off the chill of the early spring evening. Then he sat by the water’s edge, watching the flickering campfires of the Coulombe family and their retinue, and wondered if this could really be the start of a new life of freedom.
	He had returned home from Etienne de Bruyère’s dusty attic with the candle charm still clutched tightly in his hand. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. After all, he had originally bought it as a gift for Janette, but even without de Bruyère’s parting words he felt that it was hardly an appropriate choice now. Although he resented de Bruyère’s insinuation that he was to blame for Jehan’s death, somehow he couldn’t bring himself to simply toss it in the Seine or drop it in a beggar’s bowl. In the end, he had simply put it away in the wooden chest that held his few possessions and closed the lid on it.
	Lacroix, of course, had known that something was bothering him, even though he had denied it. It seemed that his master did not consider him entitled to the privacy of his own thoughts, if Lacroix wanted to know them. He simply seized the young vampire, flung him down to sprawl ignominiously across the oak table in the hall, and sank his fangs into his throat. Nicholas at first struggled instinctively, then forced himself to keep still and passive. After all, he had done nothing shameful or dangerous, nothing that Lacroix could conceivably want to punish him for. Better to have the intrusion over with as quickly as possible.
	Communication between them, when Lacroix took him like that, was always strictly one-way. When his master finally released him and dismissed him to Janette’s care, his face was a blank mask. Nicholas had no idea what the elder vampire had gleaned from his blood.
	Over the next several nights the idea began to take root in his mind that now might be the time to sever his ties with his vampire family.
	Oh, not with Janette. He wouldn’t tell her where he was going, or even that he was leaving – the memory of what Lacroix had done to her the last time Nicholas had gone astray was still searingly fresh in his mind – but he was confident that if he reached a safe place and sent her word, she would follow him. But Lacroix – his master had shown him and taught him so many new delights that would have repelled him less than a year ago. Nicholas was grateful. But even a sense of filial obligation wasn’t sufficient for him to accept Lacroix’s right to administer any more lessons such as the one he had given that night in the cellar. Nor did he care for Lacroix’s propensity for casually extracting Nicholas’ blood, and with it, his most secret thoughts and desires.
	He knew there was some form of link between the three of them, and that Lacroix was far more adept at using and manipulating it than he was. But surely, if he concentrated hard enough, he could at least prevent his master from knowing his precise whereabouts. And hopefully, if he could put sufficient distance between them, the power of that link would dwindle.
	But he still had no concrete plans for escape the night that he met Madeleine Coulombe.
	Originally, she was to have been his night’s meal. He had seen her leaving St. Genevieve after Compline, attended by an older woman and a manservant. Impatient with them, she had walked slightly ahead, and nothing would have been simpler than drawing her into a dark alley and taking to the air, consuming his prey at leisure while her servants searched frantically. And yet he found he couldn’t do it.
	Perhaps it was because, in the instant that his eyes actually met hers, he saw something in them that reminded him of his mortal sister. There was no physical resemblance; Madeleine was taller, and dark where Fleur was fair. But, preoccupied as she was with her own thoughts, there was a familiar energy and resolve about her. Her eyes were wide and innocent. And she hadn’t been afraid of him.
	By the time the two servants came up to them, Madeleine had been persuaded that she had slipped in the mud of the street, and the blond stranger had prevented her from falling. He gallantly offered to escort her home – after all, there were so many ruffians in the streets of Paris. By the time they reached her family’s house – an imposing timber dwelling, larger than the one where Nicholas was living – he had learned her name and the fact that her father owned a manor several days’ journey to the southeast of Paris, to which the family would shortly be returning, now that the plowing season had begun.
	Two nights later he contrived to meet her near the church again. She appeared quite happy to see him; the older female servant, whom Nicholas guessed to be her former nurse, was less so. In fact, she quite obviously disapproved completely of Nicholas’ presence. It was easy to deduce the reason. Madeleine Coulombe, pretty and good-tempered and belonging to a wealthy family, was eminently marriageable, to someone of her own rank. Unknown men who appeared mysteriously out of the night, no matter how handsome or gallant, were an impediment to the family plans, and were to be actively discouraged, if not driven away like stray dogs. But Nicholas liked Madeleine and refused to be discouraged, even when her guard had been increased to three men at arms by their third meeting. He even felt a bit sorry for her, when he found out that she was to be married that summer to the elderly lord of a nearby manor. That was the way things were done and he had never thought much of it before. But it did seem a pity that Madeleine with her bright youthful spirits should be handed over like a pawn in a game of petty politics to a man three times her age, whom she had barely even seen.
	It was no surprise to Nicholas, who was complacently aware of the favourable effect he usually had on women, and was not above occasionally using it to his own advantage, that Madeleine fancied that she was falling in love with him. Even when he dropped dark hints about having been unjustly accused of beating and robbing a man in a tavern, and therefore needing to get away from Paris as soon as possible . . .
	He couldn’t tell if she really believed him, but he did know that it suited both their purposes when he was hidden in one of the heavily-laden carts when it left Paris for the Coulombe manor several days later. He had taken nothing with him except the clothes on his back, a purse containing exactly six oboles, and, for reasons even he himself didn’t understand, the little golden candle.
	Now, two days’ journey lay between himself and Paris. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. He tilted his head, listening to the subdued voices as the mortals settled down for the night. It was probably wisest to stay with the Coulombe family all the way to Dijon, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do about Madeleine. It had become obvious that she expected him to save her from the fate of marrying her intended husband. She had done so much for him that she deserved an explanation for why he would have to abandon her – but a plausible explanation was beyond him. He could hardly tell her the truth. Probably the best thing, when the time came, was simply to slip away into the night. No tears, no protestations, no recriminations. It was hardly honourable, but it seemed better than telling her an outright lie. Yet one more facet of his new existence that he found unpalatable – it seemed impossible to have aught to do with mortals but use them, one way or another.
	But he still was fond of Madeleine; she still reminded him of Fleur. If he had been the mortal man he was passing himself off as, he would have been tempted to carry her off and rescue her from her unwanted marriage.
	He cocked his head again, listening to the night sounds around him. The Coulombe camp was mostly asleep by now, except for the men at arms left on guard. Last night they had stopped at a busy inn; tonight, according to Madeleine, they had intended to as well, but obviously something had happened to delay them – a broken wheel, a lame horse – while Nicholas slept. Whatever the cause, the Coulombes’ misfortune was his gain. The family and their servants were the only mortals within miles. It was an ideal opportunity to test his resolve not to drink blood on the journey.
	He had made the decision as the wagon jounced its way out of Paris on the muddy road. It was just possible that the less blood he consumed, the less emotion he would radiate through the mental link with his family, making it more difficult – he hoped – for Lacroix to track him. Another reason was that he simply needed to test his own limits. There had never been a reason to deny himself feeding before – Lacroix had always encouraged him to hunt, even commanded it. He had told Nicholas that he would never be able to survive without the blood; that his vampire nature demanded that he feed, and on that one precious substance only. He had also told him that wooden stakes were deadly, and only later revealed that that had been but a half-truth. Were there other half-truths amongst Lacroix’s teachings? Could the bloodlust be controlled, with sufficient willpower? Nicholas possessed a growing determination to find out if he could really keep the vampire in check. He had no desire to return to mortality, but this was something he needed to know about himself.
	He considered that he had already made a fair start. The inn where they had spent the first night of the journey had been full to the point that a number of travellers were forced to sleep in the stable if they wanted a roof over their heads, so half a dozen of the Coulombe servants stayed with the family’s possessions to guard against thievery. Rather than risk being seen, Nicholas had stayed in the cart. It had been an uncomfortable night. More than once he had started to rise in response to the siren call of those six hearts so close by, but each time he had forced himself to remain where he was. When the sun rose, his hunger abated and he fell asleep once again.
	He had accomplished that much, surely he could get through this night as well, with so many fewer temptations. He sat by the water’s edge and breathed deeply, as if he could derive sustenance from the night air itself. He concentrated on the sound of his own breathing, trying to block out those other sounds from the camp.
	What would Madeleine’s blood taste like?
	Don’t even think it!
	Would it be fresh and fiery? Or sweet like spring flowers? What would she be like, as he took her?
	He looked around wildly. Where was this demon voice coming from?
	If it was the last thing he did, he wasn’t going to give in to it. He tugged his clothing on and took to the air, flying as fast and as far away from the camp as he could. Better to leave right now, without a word, than to risk hurting her because he couldn’t control himself.
	He came back just before sunrise, so weak he could barely crawl into the cart. Terror of the impending dawn lent him sufficient strength to burrow back into his nest, where he lay curled into a tight fetal position. The pain of hunger was almost as bad as having the stake run through him. It was far worse than mortal starvation. It was hunger and thirst combined, and it set every nerve in his body on fire. Nevertheless, as he heard the sounds of the camp stirring and making ready for the day’s journey, he tried to think rationally.
	He had seen men in the East addicted to opium. If they could no longer get the drug they craved, they suffered incredibly, just as he was doing now. But in the end, some of them had recovered. So would he. He could do this. Perhaps one more day’s sleep was all he needed to break free of the cravings.
	The sun rose higher and the cart resumed its slow, uncomfortable journey. Somewhere in the midst of the entourage was Madeleine, riding the roan palfrey she was so proud of. In his mind’s eye Nicholas painted a picture of the two of them in the sun together, riding side by side. The pain abated somewhat, and he slept.
	But by nightfall it was even worse. He lurched from the cart, not even caring who might see him. Only the fact that he could barely stand made him turn and lean against the wooden side of the cart, hiding his fangs and glowing eyes. This was impossible. Lacroix had been right. He would never be able to overcome his vampire nature. He didn’t have the strength.
	No, damn it! He would do this! He would not admit defeat and go crawling back to Lacroix. One more night. Surely, if he could get through this, he could get through anything. He took a deep sobbing breath and held it. The wooden frame of the cart began to splinter under the grip of his hands. He straightened with a startled hiss of pain.
	“Sir, are you all right? Do you need any help?”
	The voice behind him almost made him jump. He had been so focussed on controlling himself that he hadn’t even noticed the mortal’s approach. He spun around, to be confronted by a stout woman with a lined face, dressed in a gown of coarse brown stuff.
	At the sight of his face, she began to stumble backwards, eyes huge, mouth open and ready to scream. He sprang forward and caught her before she could do more than draw breath, spun her around and pulled her against him, one arm holding her tightly in place, the other covering her mouth and tilting her head back. The frantic, uneven hammering of her heart was so loud in his ears that it drowned out all other sound. He reared his head back to strike.
	“Nicholas! Nicholas, what are you doing?”
	With a growl of frustration, he turned again, to see Madeleine standing there, her face going white at the appalling sight of her would-be lover. In the torchlight she could clearly see his fangs and his eyes like glowing embers. He could only see her in shades of pulsating red.
	She stood still, frozen in place by fear and incomprehension. In the span of a mortal heartbeat Nicholas lunged for her, dropping the body of the old woman, and sank his fangs into her neck.
	Such terror, engendering such absolute bliss . . . how could he have thought to survive without it? Her blood was nectar. He drank, savouring the sweetness of the fear, wanting more and more and more . . . until, finally, there was no more.
	As her heartbeat faltered and faded, sanity returned in a cold rush. He sank to the ground with a groan, rocking her body gently. Now it was the silence, the absence of heartbeats, that was deafening him.
	Her hair was dressed with a circlet of fresh meadow flowers. It had been pushed askew. He straightened it, kissed her hair, and continued to hold her and rock her. 
	He had broken faith with her and with himself. He had thought he had sufficient resolve and strength of will not to harm her – but in the final trial he had been found wanting. Now he felt utterly lost – a knight without sword or armour or horse, wandering in a wilderness.
	“Well, Nicholas. I see I need not have worried that you would somehow starve to death on this fruitless quest of yours.”
	He lifted his head and there, inevitably it seemed, was Lacroix, leaning casually against one of the carts as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
	He lowered his eyes again, still holding Madeleine protectively.
	Lacroix sighed impatiently at his continued silence. “Why are you grieving? She’s a beauty, I’ll admit that, but there are others out there even finer. Certainly she was an excellent choice, far better than this one – “ He stirred the body of the old woman with his foot. “She appears to have expired from sheer terror. Wasteful, my dear Nicholas – very wasteful.”
	There was still no reply from his anguished fledgling. With a sigh, Lacroix knelt and took Nicholas’ chin in his hand, forcing him to look directly at Lacroix. “Or can it be,” he said softly, “that you’re mourning something more than this fair maiden’s death? Something within yourself, perhaps? Some fallacious notion of being able to control your own nature? Nicholas, you hold yourself to such high standards. That is the legacy of having been a true chevalier, I suppose.”
	Nicholas stared at him, his attention caught against his will. Lacroix did not sound angry, or derisive, or even patronizing. Instead, he seemed to be truly sympathetic.
	“You can’t fight the bloodlust, my child. As mortals must breathe to live, so must we consume blood. They kill a deer or slaughter a pig without a qualm, in order to eat; with us it is just the same.”
	“How can it be,” said Nicholas dully, “when a human is so much more than a deer or a pig?”
	“It is,” said Lacroix firmly, “because it must be. It is an immutable fact of nature. The sun rises, the sun sets; trees and flowers bloom in the spring and die back in the fall; the wolf will always hunt the deer, and we will always crave the blood of mortals. Now come.” He rose, put a hand under Nicholas’ elbow and gently tugged him to his feet, still holding Madeleine, but for the first time becoming aware of his surroundings.
	They were in a dark corner of the courtyard of what seemed to be a prosperous manor house, with a thatch-roofed stable behind them along with a smaller outbuilding, a dairy from the smell of it, from which the old woman must have come. The Coulombe wagons were pushed close to the walls. Through a gap between two of them they could see the front of the house itself, a substantial stone building with a wooden solar above. Surely they could not have reached the Coulombes’ manor already; this must be just another stop on the journey. There were torches flaring in the courtyard and what seemed to be an unusual amount of activity – groups of household servants and peasants from the fields, laughing and talking boisterously, while children ran about underfoot. From within the house came more laughter and the sound of singing. It appeared as if the lord of the manor was holding a feast for all and sundry. That would explain the flowers in Madeleine’s hair and her gown of spring-green silk, whose bodice was now marred with drops of blood.
	“A local saint’s day, I believe,” said Lacroix. “St. Bonne, if I’m not mistaken. I’m certainly no expert on hagiography, but as I recall she was a young and innocent virgin who was martyred for her faith by marauding barbarians. Really, Nicholas, I must congratulate you on your sense of occasion. The irony is almost delicious enough to eat.”
	Nicholas said nothing. Lacroix sighed and rolled his eyes. “Put her down. This once I’ll spare your delicate sensibilities and deal with these two myself. There is a small wood about two miles from here. I’ll meet you there.”
	Nicholas gently laid Madeleine’s body on the ground but remained staring down at her.
	“Go, Nicholas,” said Lacroix, not impatiently, but with a warning tone to his voice which implied that the state of grace wouldn’t last long.
	Nicholas looked around helplessly. There was nothing he could do but obey Lacroix’s command. He could hardly bring Madeleine back to life.
	He had wanted to know his strength and his own limits; and now he had a bitter answer.

	Lacroix took him to Avignon.
	He was unsure about the wisdom of this course of action, since the mistral was still blowing, and who knew what effect the maddening wind might have on the despondent Nicholas. But it was well on into spring now, the mistral was softening, and perhaps the taste of more fiery southern blood would do the younger vampire good. Besides, Lacroix had always felt an attachment to the coastal area, the old Roman Gallia Narbonnensis.
	He told Nicholas that Janette had chosen to remain in Paris, distressed and angry over his defection. There was a good possibility that the thought of reclaiming Janette’s affection would act as an additional spur to Nicholas’ recovery. But for the time being, he wanted to keep a very close and undistracted eye on his newest creation, in order to nip any signs of further aberrant behaviour very firmly in the bud.
	He played the role of stern but loving paterfamilias to perfection, yet he noted with secret satisfaction the way that Nicholas unconsciously braced himself every time Lacroix came close, as if still expecting him to mete out some form of punishment for his escapade. Fear or respect, Lacroix had never cared which of the two anyone felt for him, so long as it resulted in total obedience. And yet fear did not make a good garnish for Nicholas’ blood when he took it, as even Nicholas himself now acknowledged that he had the right to do. He hadn’t chosen the crusader knight as a son simply to make a spineless minion of him - although he would crush Nicholas’ heart and spirit without mercy before he allowed him to be sucked down, like a man in quicksand, by the pangs of a wretched mortal conscience. 
	Until such time as he could be certain which way Nicholas’ emotional pendulum was about to swing – whether he would gladly return to his family, or whether some degree of correction would eventually be required to make him realize the advantages of his existence – Lacroix was content, this once, to bide his time.
	Nicholas, for his part, had no illusions that Lacroix’s apparent benevolence stemmed from any sympathy over Madeleine’s death. But he wondered if his master might feel just the slightest degree of compassion for someone who had just crashed so hard and so painfully into the limits of his own self control. It was difficult to tell, even from Lacroix’s blood, which he had allowed Nicholas to take freely since the night of the feast of St. Bonne. Even his master’s largesse was quite often not what it seemed.
	Lacroix never let him hunt alone now. Nicholas assumed it was because his master wanted to ensure that he didn’t bolt again; he had no idea that Lacroix was carefully watching for signs of discontent and instability much more subtle than that. Their usual haunt was the Ile de la Barthelasse, a wooded hunting reserve below the Pont St-Bénézet, home to prostitutes and minor criminals of all sorts. Lacroix was pleased to see that Nicholas had lost none of his skills at hunting following his misadventure; he killed efficiently and disposed of his prey discreetly. The swift, almost business-like manner in which he took his victims, however, gave Lacroix pause; Nicholas was killing strictly for survival now, not for the thrill of the hunt, both of which were equally important in Lacroix’s opinion. But so long as he killed without hesitation, nothing could be too far wrong with him. His former delight in the chase, savouring his victims’ terror, was sure to return in time. Lacroix knew he was seeing yet another facet of Nicholas’ nature; he was coming to realize that the erstwhile Crusader was a far more intriguing bundle of contradictions than he had first suspected. Nicholas had the soul of a wandering troubadour, staunch and idealistic, spouting moony-eyed poetry about romantic love – ha!  What a ridiculous notion that was! – and yet Lacroix could just as easily imagine him as a character in one of the fabliaux recited by a wandering jongleur, a lusty young lad who cuckolded some doddering old man with a smile that invited the entire world to smile with him.
	There was precious little laughter about Nicholas during their stay in Avignon, however.
	One night they finished their hunting just as the bells of Notre Dame des Doms rang for Lauds. On a sudden impulse Lacroix brought them to the square by the cathedral. All vampires felt a revulsion for these buildings, but especially those who had shared Nicholas’ particular moral bent during their mortal lives. Perhaps experiencing the sensation of being repelled by a holy place, almost as if church and vampire were two magnets of opposite poles, would help to make Nicholas understand and accept that he was truly a damned creature, and having accepted it, realize that he might as well enjoy it.
	Lacroix was by no means comfortable this close to a house of God either, but he chose to assume the role of pedagogue, strolling about with his hands clasped behind his back, as if lecturing Nicholas about classical architecture was his sole aim in coming here.
	“How prepotent the Roman ideas were, that this church was built in this style hundreds of years after the Empire fell! Do you see the similarities to a classical temple, Nicholas? Those columns could have come from the Pantheon . . . the design of acanthus leaves there, a bit crude perhaps, but reasonably close to the original . . . that pediment is strictly classical – no, that’s a pediment, above the door. I do wish you’d pay attention, Nicholas. Is something ailing you?”
	Nicholas was staring at the cathedral with huge anguished eyes. “Why did you bring me here, Lacroix?”
	“Why, we were practically on the doorstep, and it seemed an excellent opportunity to familiarize you with some of the principles of – “
	”To show me how far I’ve fallen, you mean,” Nicholas interrupted bitterly. “To prove how utterly damned I am, that I can’t even stand in front of a place like this without feeling God’s revulsion for creatures like us.”
	After a pause, Lacroix said in a voice like silk, “ Well, yes, that too.”
	Nicholas was beginning to tremble. Lacroix took a forceful grip on his shoulders. “Nicholas, have you no comprehension of the corruption of the church, of the men and their ideals who built this place? If ‘creatures like us’ are damned, we’re in good company. What about the Cathars, to take but one example among many? That was within living memory of most of men and women in this city. Surely you recall the crusade against them, instigated by the Pope himself? They were attempting to return to the pure, simple faith of the early Church. A commendable view, you might think, but heretical to the modern Church of Rome, which coincidentally may not have approved of their stand against such things as church tithes and the taking of feudal oaths. And so they were massacred, hundreds of men, women, and children, in a church of all places. Burned to a crisp – such a waste. The place isn’t far from here, if you’d care to see it. Why, you can probably still smell the smoke.”
	Nicholas said nothing. He looked wretched. Lacroix continued scathingly, “Is that not enough to convince you of the falsity of this precious Church of yours, where such acts are not only committed, but condoned? I could quote you more examples if you like, many more. What point is there in keeping faith with a deity that allows the innocent to be persecuted in his name?” He released Nicholas and said more gently, “This religion is not for you any longer. Leave it behind, like a child’s bauble. You have no need of it.”
	Still gazing at the church, Nicholas said softly, “The ones who killed the Cathars, and the ones who sanctioned the killing, were no more than human. But if the true power of God is simply that of fallible, corrupt mankind, why does the cross still burn us?”
	He knew then that he’d gone too far. Lacroix’s eyes flared red. He seized Nicholas again, by the throat this time, and hurled him across the square to land with bone-shattering force against the stones of the cathedral itself. While the younger vampire was still making feeble attempts to rise, Lacroix alighted in front of him and seized him again, hauling him up and holding him against the cathedral wall. Nicholas’ head spun and his stomach churned with combined fear of Lacroix and the building whose rough stonework was now digging into his back.
	“Enough of this,” hissed Lacroix. “I have no intention of debating theology with you all night. If there is indeed a God, and a Christ whose cross burns us, he is nothing to us! And neither are Jupiter, Mithras, Amen-Ra, or any of the rest! Beings who live forever have no need to fear perdition.” He tightened his grip. “And if you persist in pining after this God of yours, remember what I told you the night you killed Madeleine Coulombe. We are immutable; we are what we are. It is pointless to wish for God’s grace, because you will only be miserable for eternity. I know you still wonder why I didn’t punish you for running away. It was because I knew you’d finally realized something - that you can’t escape your own nature. The price you paid for that knowledge was a deeper pain than any I could have inflicted on you. Your nature and your God are mutually exclusive. It’s too late for you now, Nicholas. You’ve already turned your back to that light, and you were quick enough to do so.
	“You will never escape what you are. And you will never escape me. And I say that I will hear no more of this matter, or I may yet send you to take your chances with St. Peter.” His glowing eyes were now scant inches from Nicholas’ blue ones. “I didn’t kill you before, Nicholas, but never think that I won’t, if you disobey me in this.”
	He opened his hand and Nicholas fell with a thud to the pavement. He remained at Lacroix’s feet, afraid to move, until Lacroix turned with an impatient swirl of his rich woollen mantle and strode away. Halfway across the square he stopped, obviously waiting.
	Unwilling to risk another red-eyed glare, and desperate to get away from the holy building, Nicholas scrambled to his feet and hurried after him.

	All that day Nicholas was unable to sleep. He lay next to Lacroix, who kept one arm stretched across the younger vampire’s chest as if to reinforce his declaration that Nicholas would never escape him. Lacroix appeared to sleep soundly, and yet Nicholas stared at the ceiling above him and listened as the church bells rang for Prime, then Tierce, and on and on until Vespers, when Lacroix began to stir.
	Eyes cast appropriately down, Nicholas asked permission to leave for an hour or so. Lacroix eyed him as if searching for signs of latent insurgency, then magnanimously consented.
	He went to the Pont St-Bénézet. Standing in the centre of the stone span, with the stars glittering like miniature fires above and the spring-swollen Rhône rushing below, he reached into the purse at his belt and pulled out the little candle charm.
	He had bought it as a gift, but it had never reached its intended recipient. It had been taken from him by a cheater, who had shortly thereafter died a horrible death. It had been taken and kept by a dour, grieving man, and returned to him in a spirit of bitterness. He had had it with him when he killed an innocent girl and shattered his belief in his own strength of will. And now this latest dissension with Lacroix, which was so bitter, and concerned something so fundamental, that he could see no end to it.
	To light the darkness, the inscription read; far from doing that, so many things that had seemed plain to him before were now obscured.
	Nicholas had never placed too much credence in the power of relics, charms, or amulets; he had scarcely more faith even than Lacroix in the provenance, authenticity and miraculous powers claimed for fragments of the True Cross or Christ’s crown of thorns. He knew the little candle precisely for what it was: a piece of metal and a chip of stone. Not something that was imbued with a supernatural ability to dog the owner’s steps with ill luck.
	And yet, and yet . . .
	Etienne de Bruyère had charged him with keeping the candle in order to remember Jehan and that vampire’s death. Had he also meant it to remind Nicholas of other deaths he had caused? That was hardly likely; he doubted that de Bruyère concerned himself with the deaths of mortals any more than Lacroix did. Perhaps, this was a charge that someone else was seeking to lay on him?
	He told himself that that was arrant nonsense.
	Nevertheless, he knew he could never be comfortable so long as the thing remained in his possession. He opened his hand and let the little candle drop into the river.

	In the loft, one of the wax tapers on the piano began to gutter, then flared up. The sudden brightness woke Nick from his reverie.
	He looked around, momentarily disoriented by the twentieth-century surroundings, then rose from the table, extinguished the candles, and went upstairs to bed.

	He arrived at the station that night to find that Missing Persons had identified the girl found in the ravine.
	“Lesley Jane Middleton,” said Schanke from the desk opposite Nick’s, leafing through the information they had on the victim. “Just turned sixteen when she ran away from home a year ago.”
	“Where’s home?” asked Nick.
	“Uh . . . Bayfield, Ontario. It’s a little resort type place on Lake Huron. Says here her father owns an antique shop there. No record, all the kids she hung around with checked out. She cleaned out her savings account one morning, bought a bus ticket for Toronto, and nobody’s seen her since.”
	“Have her parents been notified?”
	“They’re at the morgue right now.” Schanke shook his head. “Man, I can’t even imagine how tough that must be.”
	Nick nodded in silent agreement. He knew Schanke had a little daughter, far younger than Lesley Middleton, but even so this must be hitting close to home. It was a pain Nick could only guess at, but the guess was searing enough.
	But when the girl’s parents arrived at the station he found it surprisingly difficult to feel much sympathy for them, at least for the father. Byron Middleton was in his fifties, small and spare in build but slackening in middle age. With his faintly British accent, tweed jacket, and neatly trimmed salt and pepper goatee, he looked as if he would have been far more at home in an office in some ivy-covered Oxbridge college than in a police station having to discuss his dead daughter. He had an abrasive manner that conveyed clear distaste for the situation and for the people who he apparently considered to be nothing more than overpaid public servants, namely everyone involved in the investigation. If his attitude was meant to hide grief over his daughter, it was very effective camouflage.
	Sharon Middleton was fourteen years his junior, yet appeared to be almost older than her husband as she sat next to him in an interrogation room. She looked drained of strength, energy, even colour, and didn’t seem to notice the tears that still occasionally overflowed from her reddened eyes, drying them with an automatic gesture. Yet even sitting still with Byron’s arm resting awkwardly around her shoulders, she drew everyone’s attention more than her husband. It was quite obvious that her grief was genuine and profound.
	The age difference between husband and wife caused Nick to wonder if this was a second marriage for one or both of them. Maybe Lesley wasn’t Byron Middleton’s flesh and blood daughter? On the surface, the man didn’t look like a good candidate for an understanding parent for a teenage girl. He wondered if there might have been a fair amount of friction in their relationship – enough to cause Lesley to run away from home, maybe?
	“I’m Detective Schanke, and this is Detective Knight,” Schanke was saying. “We’re the ones in charge of your daughter’s case. We’re both very sorry about what’s happened.” Nick murmured a sympathetic echo.
	“Are there any leads?” demanded Middleton. “Do you have any suspects?”
	Nick could tell Schanke was taken aback by the man’s brusqueness, but he remained calm and professionally polite. Nick’s own hackles had begun to rise, but he firmly quelled his irritation. He reminded himself that there were plenty of different ways of dealing with grief.
	“Not as yet,” said Schanke. “We have teams canvassing the homes in the area for anyone who might have seen something.”
	“I understand that where Lesley was found was a pretty isolated area,” said Middleton. “How likely is it that anyone actually saw what happened?”
	“Not very,” admitted Schanke. “But someone coming home late may very well have noticed a car parked there, or a person climbing in or out of the ravine, and give us a place to start. The ravine is heavily wooded, but it’s still in the middle of the city. You’d be surprised how much people actually notice.’
	Middleton snorted. “If that’s all you have to go on, it doesn’t sound very hopeful. People in this city never notice anything beyond the ends of their own noses. If you’re going to earn your salaries by sitting back and waiting for witnesses to come forward, our daughter’s death is going to wind up as just another unsolved case.”
	Still staring blindly at the floor, Sharon Middleton put a hand on her husband’s arm and murmured an automatic, “Byron, please.”
	“We have to keep after these people, Sharon. Remember what happened the last time.”
	“Last time?” said Schanke, puzzled.
	“I’m surprised you don’t have that in your file, Detective – then again, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by a total lack of communication in the police department. Ten years ago I had a shop in Toronto. On Bayview near Manor Road. There was a break-in and several extremely valuable pieces were stolen. In all this time you’ve never managed to find the thieves. You’ll have to excuse me,” he said truculently, “if I don’t have too much faith in the Toronto police force. You couldn’t stop someone from robbing my store and you couldn’t stop some lunatic from running around on the street with a gun and killing my daughter. Hell, you couldn’t even find her for an entire year!”
	“Byron, this isn’t helping anything,” whispered his wife.
	He subsided with ill grace and one last barb. “They have to know we’re keeping an eye on them.”
	Mrs. Middleton finally spoke up on her own behalf. Looking up at Schanke, she said in a low, uneven voice, “Lesley wears a – “ She paused to clear her throat. “She wore a necklace with a pendant. It looked like a little candle ,made of gold, with a ruby in it. There was something in French written on the back. She’s had it for years. She always called it her lucky charm. She must have taken it with her when she left home, but it wasn’t with her things at the morgue. Have you seen it?”
	Her voice was nearly inaudible by the time she finished, and the last words came out almost like a plea. Nick had been immobile before, sitting silently next to Schanke, but now he felt as if he had been turned to stone. Schanke glanced at him with one eyebrow raised quizzically, but when he got no response, said, “I don’t remember it being listed with her effects, but I’ll have someone double check.”
	“It was a priceless antique,” said Middleton, staring sullenly at the wall. “It was probably the first thing she sold when she ran out of money.”
	“She wouldn’t have sold it,” his wife replied, apparently goaded into anger at last by his surliness. “It was the single most precious thing in the world to her. My first husband – Lesley’s father – gave it to her shortly before he died,” she explained, staring directly at the detectives with her chin in the air, even as her voice cracked and the tears started flowing again. “Byron’s always resented the fact that Lesley has remained so attached to the memory of her real father. Although I don’t see why he should, because he never really cared much about her.”
	“Sharon!” said Middleton, looking appalled.
	She rounded on him. “It’s true! You never wanted a child around to disturb you and your dusty antiques and your nice well-ordered life. You put up a good front all these years, but you never really cared, did you? You thought she ran away from home because she was a bad kid who was running wild. Maybe she finally decided that you just wouldn’t give a damn!”
	“Sharon!” said Middleton again. All the colour had washed out of his face. He tried to grasp her hands, and there was a brief struggle before the strength that had allowed her to flare up was gone as suddenly as it had come. She subsided, weeping, on her husband’s shoulder.
	“I tried to do the right thing,” said Middleton over her head, in a voice that had lost all its aggrieved attitude. It was impossible to tell whether he was talking to Nick and Schanke, to his wife, or to himself. “I always tried. I just couldn’t seem to get it right, no matter what I did.”
	For a moment the room was silent except for Sharon Middleton’s sobbing. Schanke, embarrassed, cast a glance in Nick’s direction hoping for some support, but his partner was still doing a stoneface imitation. He looked as if he wasn’t even aware that there was an hysterically sobbing woman in the room at all. Schanke was strongly tempted to give his ankle a sharp kick just to break him out of his trance.
	Middleton managed to fish out a handkerchief from his pocket and made an attempt to dry his wife’s eyes. Schanke said quietly, “Why don’t you take your wife home, sir, and the both of you try to get some rest. Where are you staying?”
	Still appearing to be in somewhat of a daze himself, Middleton gave him the name of their hotel, then tried to get his wife to her feet. The storm seemed to be abating but with it went all her strength. Schanke helped him support her in the slow passage through the station and out to the parking lot, where he held open the door of the Middletons’ cream-coloured Jaguar Sovereign. Nick trailed behind them.
	As soon as the car had pulled out of the lot, Schanke turned on him angrily. “Thanks a lot for your help in there, partner!”
	Nick started, completely returning at last from whatever alternate plane of reality he had apparently been visiting. “You seemed to be doing okay without me.”
	“I could have used some support when he was trying to make us feel like a bunch of bungling, inept flatfeet, and instead I got the feeling that you’d just left the room! Dammit, Nick, I’m trying to make this partner thing work, but stuff like that doesn’t make it any easier!”
	“Sorry,” muttered Nick, abashed, knowing that everything Schanke had said was perfectly true. “I was thinking about something else.”
	“Yeah, well, I hope it was some brilliant lead in this case.” Schanke stormed back into the station, not bothering to wait for Nick.
	Things remained somewhat strained for the rest of the night, during which they sifted through what little information they had so far. Lesley had been killed by a single shot in the back from a .22 calibre handgun, fired at very close range. There were no fingerprints on the body, and no evidence of assault, sexual or otherwise. Although there had been no sign of the necklace her mother had described, she had been wearing a 14 carat gold and opal ring, along with two others that were sterling silver. All of it added up to a professional hit. But who would want to assassinate a street kid?
	There was no news from the teams canvassing the area around the ravine. Other officers had been checking out various youth hostels and shelters, trying to find anyone who might have seen Lesley in the past few days. So far they had nothing to report either.
	It crossed Nick’s mind that if some of this effort had been expended earlier, when the girl had first been reported missing, then they wouldn’t have to be hunting for her killer now.
	He looked up the old report of the break-in at Middleton’s antique shop. He had apparently moved to Bayfield not long afterwards, probably looking for a less crime-ridden place to run his business. Several items had been taken – small, easily portable things, jewellery and silverware. A professional gang who had performed several similar jobs in the northeastern U.S. was suspected, but no arrests had ever been made and the stolen articles had never been recovered.
	But what was really on his mind, as he appeared to busy himself with the paperwork surrounding the murder, was the worry that someone else at the crime scene had noticed the chain around the girl’s neck, and would wonder where it had gone. It could well have shown up in the photographs. He was fairly certain that the collar of Lesley’s jean jacket had covered most of it, but still . . . He hadn’t really thought that through at the time, being overcome with a frenzy to get the thing into his possession and out of sight. But his impulsive action could have some serious ramifications.
	And yet, he was still convinced that he had followed the only course he could. The amulet had dogged him like a recurring nightmare through his entire existence. Always, it had brought death. Maybe this time he could destroy it once and for all – if only he could be sure that that was the wisest thing to do.
	His unusual diligence to their paperwork caused the chill in Schanke’s attitude toward him to thaw somewhat. At the end of their shift they walked out to the parking lot together. Their two cars were parked in adjacent spots, Nick’s gleaming vintage Caddy and Schanke’s battered Chevy, which was merely old as opposed to vintage, and scarred from what Schanke had described as a close encounter with his daughter’s bicycle.
	They murmured their goodnights, Schanke’s accompanied by a jaw-cracking yawn, and climbed into their respective vehicles. The Cadillac for once started without protest, but over the muted rumble of its engine Nick could clearly hear the rasping cough of the other car not quite catching. Eventually it stuttered into life, then, just as Nick imagined his partner starting to heave a sigh of relief, it died again.
	Schanke thumped the steering wheel with both hands in frustration, got out and came around to Nick’s window. Nick rolled it down and inquired, “Is the last bastion of Schankiness starting to crumble?”
	“Very funny. Any chance you could give me a boost?”
	Nick glanced around. Not for season’s tickets to the Leafs was he about to allow anyone, especially Schanke, to get their fingers on any essential part of his car – he’d only just finished dealing with the repairs from the time his partner had crashed it. But the city was still asleep, they were an hour away from the dawn. “Why don’t I just give you a lift home?”
	“Would you? That’s great, Nick. I’d appreciate that.”
	Nick leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. Schanke scrambled in. “Man, Myra’s going to have a field day with this. She’s never going to stop yapping about getting a minivan now. Minivan, shminivan.”
	“Which way?” asked Nick patiently.
	“Head for the Parkway. Did you see that car of Middleton’s?”
	“What about it?”
	“That’s what I want. A nice, classy, understated car. Leather upholstery.”
	Nick snorted. Schanke glared at him indignantly. “I know, they cost a bit more than what I could get for a trade-in, but hey, you never know when you might win the lottery. And when I do, that’s what I’m gonna get. A brand-new Jag. Black. That’s classy.”
	“Well, that’s fine, Schank,” said Nick without taking his eyes from the road. “It’s always good to have firm plans for money you’ll probably never have. And I’ve got to say that if anyone asked me for the name of someone I knew who personified subtle, understated class – it wouldn’t be you.”
	“Well, thank you very much, partner. Just for that, if I ever do get this car, I know who I’m not going to let drive it. As a matter of fact – “ Schanke’s eyes took on a faraway gleam “ – maybe I’ll even have a chauffeur.”
	“Yeah, right. Donald G. Schanke, employer of servants. That’ll be the day.’
	“Why not? What’s the difference between that and having a cleaning lady? I’ve seen your loft, Knight, and it’s pretty dust-free. You don’t strike me as the type to go running around with a vacuum cleaner and waving a duster. Besides, you can’t tell me you’ve never thought about what you’d do if you won the lottery.”
	To Nick, a couple of million dollars was fairly inconsequential, but he could hardly tell Schanke that. After a moment’s consideration he said, “I’d buy a new set of tires for the Caddy, and give the rest away. I’ve got enough money to get by on. Who wants all the publicity?”
	“You – a philanthropist?” hooted Schanke in disbelief. But then he remembered the way Nick had interacted with those street kids while they had been working on that bizarre murder and theft at the museum, and paused to wonder if maybe it wasn’t such a farfetched idea after all.
	They carried on in the same light-hearted, trivial vein until Schanke had directed them to his home. Nick had been taken aback by the solid unpretentious older house in a quiet midtown neighbourhood, almost within walking distance of his own loft. For some reason he had pegged Schanke as a suburbanite, with a house set in a row of identical boxes on what had been a farmer’s field a year or so ago. There was a light on in the broad porch and a dark-haired figure wrapped in a dressing gown waiting behind the screen door.
	“Well, here’s Chateau Schanke,” said his partner, opening the Caddy’s door. “Looks like Myra’s up already. She hasn’t gotten used to this night shift yet. Come on in and have a cup of coffee. I can guarantee her mother won’t be awake.”
	Nick glanced in the direction of the eastern horizon, which was starting to lighten. “Thanks, but maybe some other time.”
	“Oh yeah, the sun allergy thing. I gotta tell you, Nick, I still think that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of. Well, thanks for the lift. See you tonight.” He got out and slammed the door behind him, causing Nick to wonder if Schanke’s neighbours were any more used to him working nights than his wife. Pulling out his sunglasses and sliding them on, he saw Schanke give his wife a quick greeting kiss, then the front door closed.
	Ten minutes later he was standing in his own loft, looking out the windows toward the steadily brightening eastern sky. It was nearly time for what had become almost a daily ritual: waiting for the sunrise, waiting to see how long he could last until he had to admit defeat and close the steel shutters before the sunlight – dazzling his eyes, even on an overcast day – could sear him. He knew that it was a pointless thing to do; an exercise in frustration at best, or the trigger for another bout of self-loathing and melancholy. Sometimes the act of sealing himself into the darkness again set off an anger so great that all he wanted to do was break or kill something, and more than one bottle of cow’s blood had gone sailing across the room to smash against the brick walls when it had been unable to soothe his ungovernable emotions.
	That, fortunately, didn’t happen often. He knew perfectly well how much such an action resembled nothing more than a childish tantrum. But then, no child had ever had to contend with the violent, inhuman urges which sometimes threatened to consume him.
	He had been tired, weary to the bone, of fighting these urges, of trying not to succumb to the bloodlust and hunger that were the hallmarks of the vampire. He had sworn not to kill again to satisfy it. But the effort of keeping that vow continually whittled away at his precious store of self-control, so that by the time he had walked into the middle of that robbery almost a year ago now, the sensation of being blasted into oblivion by the pipe bomb was almost a welcome one.
	Then came Natalie Lambert, with her offer to help him regain his humanity and her belief in him as something other than a murdering monster. And his job with the Toronto police, working to stop other murderers. And now the hint of friendship with his new partner. There certainly hadn’t been anything profound in what they had talked about on the drive home that morning; it was nothing more than trivial, inane banter, the dregs of a long night. But it was the kind of thing two ordinary mortals would have done.
	The combination of those three things heartened him, gave him a feeling that there might indeed be light – however faint and flickering – at the end of the tunnel. When he finally had to close the shutters he did so with little more than a twinge of regret and a weary anticipation of a good sleep.
	Until he turned and saw the little gold amulet, still lying on the table where he had left it the morning before, and the weight of grief and guilt it represented came crashing down on him to destroy the shining bubble of his fragile new-found contentment.

	Nicholas was late.
	In the tall house built of dark ancient stone, facing down a narrow, steeply sloping cobbled lane, the shutters were tightly closed over all but one window. Not to seal out the night like its neighbours, but to guard against the light of day. And that light was not far off, now. Already some of the more conscientious cocks in the town had begun to crow, and sensitive ears could catch the sound of a few shutters being opened.
	Lucien Lacroix pulled aside a long curtain of heavy crimson silk which covered the single open window in the house, and regarded the faintly lightening sky above and the empty street below with equal irritation. Where was Nicholas? Was the fool intending to fry in the sunrise this morning? Of course not, he answered himself almost immediately. Even Nicholas would hardly be so insouciant about his own safety. But if he didn’t return in the next few minutes, he would have to seek shelter elsewhere for the day.
	Just as church bells had begun to ring for Prime, Lacroix saw movement in the street. A furtive figure, bundled in a hooded cloak, was hastening up the cobbles toward the house, keeping well into the pools of darkness which remained in front of the buildings on the south side of the lane. A moment later Lacroix could hear the door opening below. His features still creased in irritation, he went to confront his son.
	“I am indeed grateful that you decided to honour me with your presence this morning,” he said glacially.
	Nicholas, in the act of shedding his cloak and heavy boots, looked unwontedly cheerful, and as if he cared not a wit for Lacroix’s crossness. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding in the least penitent. “I had pressing matters to attend to.” He raked his fingers through hair which looked decidedly windblown, flung himself into one of the deep leather chairs in the hall, and smiled brilliantly up at Lacroix.
	Lacroix was intrigued by this sea change in his son’s mood. This was the first time Nicholas had seemed happy since before he and Janette had had some sort of ridiculous lovers’ spat, which had culminated in Janette raking his face with her nails. In fact, Nicholas had come within a hair’s breadth of losing an eye. Although Lacroix had chosen not to interfere in their quarrel – indeed, for a while it had lent further piquancy to domestic life – he didn’t care to be surrounded by sulking offspring, which, he knew, would be the inevitable consequence if those two were left to their own devices.         Accordingly he had left an aggrieved Janette in Paris, still her happiest hunting ground, and taken himself off to Italy with a brooding Nicholas in tow. They had travelled in a leisurely fashion until reaching Umbria, not far to the north of Rome, where they heard tales of the curious town of Perugia. Ensconced at the top of a steep winding road, looking out over the Umbrian plain and the Tiber River on its journey to Rome, its inhabitants were noted both for their religious zeal and their propensity towards violence and murder. Indeed, Lacroix was assured that it was in that very town, within living memory of the oldest citizens, that Pope Benedict XI had died after eating a dish of poisoned figs; apparently it was a known fact that many Perugians dabbled in the making of aquetta, a deadly poison, the way other men would make a barrel or two of wine or raise a few chickens. Making allowances for his source – a loquacious, well-wined mortal in a tavern in Orvieto, who had no idea of the true nature of the man seated across the table from him – Lacroix decided that Perugia might be worth a visit. Shortly thereafter they had moved into the gaunt old house, although Lacroix had been rather disappointed that they hadn’t yet witnessed scores of poisoning victims writhing in the streets, or citizens casually stabbing or bludgeoning one another at the drop of a hat.
	Nicholas, however, appeared to have found something that piqued his interest here. Lacroix was still fascinated, after a hundred and seventy-five years, by all the facets of his protégé; even his melancholia was appealing in a way, being like a layer of ash, beneath which astute prodding could reveal fiery embers. But the effort of that prodding had been growing wearisome lately, and Lacroix had begun to feel a touch of something, which in a mortal might be termed indigestion, at the moroseness in Nicholas’ blood. Surely the six months they had been gone from Paris ought to have been sufficient to effect some change in this most mercurial of vampires, but there had been little evidence of that so far. Therefore, Lacroix applauded whatever had caused his son’s new buoyancy of spirits.
	Unless – he shivered at the thought – it was yet another woman, which, Nicholas being Nicholas, it was very likely to be . . .
	“Am I to know what these matters were, that were apparently so weighty that you risked getting burned to a cinder to deal with them?”
	“Of course,“ answered Nicholas, arms spread wide across the back of the chair in an attitude of careless abandon, but he was interrupted by a wide weary yawn. Lacroix frowned at the unconcealed view of teeth and tongue, practically right down Nicholas’ gullet, that was thus presented; he sometimes wondered if the mortal Nicholas had been taught any manners at all.
	“It was a horse,” said Nicholas at last, the glint in his eye betraying the fact that he knew perfectly well how his gaucheness irritated Lacroix, and that he was in a mood to tease. This day definitely held promise.
	“And how did you come by this beast?” asked Lacroix, still attempting to appear stern, although he suspected that Nicholas wasn’t deceived in the least.
	“I was hunting. There were two mercenary knights crossing the plain. I decided to take one.”
	“Did the other see?” demanded Lacroix.
	Nicholas waved a deprecatory hand. “The other saw his friend deciding not to continue on to Rome, but rather to turn back for Ravenna.”
	“Ravenna,” said Lacroix ominously, “is a very long way from here. Is it likely the man would have decided to do such a thing, after coming so far?”
	“All the better if it’s far away. No one will come looking in Perugia for his possessions.”
	“Which you took.”
	“Well, I could hardly leave everything lying in the middle of the road, could I? I was stabling the horse, that’s why I came late. You must see him tonight . . . “ The sentence trailed off into another immense yawn, which Lacroix was quite certain was merely an annoying habit from mortal life – and one, moreover, that Nicholas sometimes indulged in purely for effect – and then the younger vampire was suddenly and irrevocably asleep.
	He was awake well before nightfall, and as soon as the sun had descended sufficiently to be tolerable he and Lacroix were on their way to see this paragon of equines. Lacroix personally thought this newfound obsession ridiculous, but preferable by far to Nicholas being smitten with a mortal woman. There were still plenty of townspeople about, and so they made their way on foot through the stony, narrow, circuitous lanes and alleys that comprised the town’s street system. Nicholas kept a subtle half-step behind Lacroix’s shoulder, and whenever they came to a passageway that was too narrow for them to walk abreast stepped back and allowed the older vampire to precede him. That was as it ought to be, but normally Nicholas needed frequent reminders as to his rightful place in the scheme of things. Lacroix immediately considered the likelihood that Nicholas was simply attempting to butter him up before asking to retain possession of the horse, and knew that he should nip any such notions firmly in the bud. Creatures of their kind, who often had to travel swiftly and by stealth, could not afford to have expensive chattels which might draw attention and be awkward to dispose of. His son knew that perfectly well.
	And yet, it might be worth it in this case, if it put a stop to Nicholas’ brooding.
	The stable Nicholas had picked for his precious steed was, naturally enough, close by the massive gate that was the sole entrance to the town. The younger vampire disappeared inside, while Lacroix waited in a pool of shadows at the gateway. So still was he, wrapped in his black cloak, that he might have been one of the stones he stood beside; few passersby noticed him at all, and those that did found themselves inexplicably giving him a wide berth. Lacroix smiled inwardly. That too was as it ought to be.
	His fingertips brushed along the surface of the stones next to him. They had been laid here over fourteen centuries ago, in the time of Caesar Augustus. The huge black foundation blocks were even older than that. Lacroix was unimpressed. Stones would crumble to dust, untold generations of mortals would pass away, and he would still he here, as eternal as the moon.
	The ringing of horse’s hooves on stone heralded Nicholas’ eventual reappearance. Lacroix turned around to see his son emerging from the dark doorway of the stable leading a saddled horse. Lacroix looked, and had to own that the horse was magnificent. It was a stallion, sixteen hands high or more, in colour a bright blood bay – most appropriate. The glossy coat rippled over prominent muscles and sturdy bone, the neck was massive and cresty, and the head was heavy but refined, with large eyes half-obscured by the luxuriant black forelock. Pure Iberian, Lacroix guessed, watching the high movement as the horse pawed the cobbles and snorted loudly. 
	Nicholas, wearing a wide grin of delight, patted the sleek neck and then sprang into the saddle without bothering with the stirrup. “We’re going down for a run on the plain. Come watch.”
	Lacroix followed as the stallion edged through the crowd around the great gates, which were half-closed now in the dusk and would soon be shut and barred for the night. Nicholas would have to do some fast talking, or fast hypnotizing, in order to get the stallion back in its stable before daybreak; but that was what he had undoubtedly done the night before. By whatever method, he excelled at persuasion.
	The stallion moved cautiously down the steep road, with an occasional toss of the head or prancing step as a manifestation of  its high spirits. Nicholas restrained the animal with a sure hand. Like a black shadow, Lacroix drifted down the hill in their wake.
	They reached the level plain, Nicholas loosed the reins and leaned forward, and the stallion was off in a thundering gallop. Lacroix watched them go. He could easily have flown at a pace that matched the animal’s, but he had to admit that there was a certain pleasure to be had from watching as horse and rider streaked across the ground in the light of the rising full moon. The horse was a splendid beast, and Nicholas rode him magnificently. Lacroix knew perfectly well that he himself, in his mortal days, had been a competent horseman, well able to stay on and coerce his mounts into carrying him where he needed to go, but he had never bothered to cultivate any great elegance in the saddle, or attain any sympathy with the creatures he rode. He strongly doubted that Nicholas had ever bothered either; in his case it all just came naturally. He rode like a centaur, glorying in the stallion’s speed and strength as if it were his own.
	At length they returned to where Lacroix stood. The horse pawed the ground and shifted restlessly, and Nicholas still wore an idiot grin of delight. “Well, what do you think of him?” he said proudly, slapping the stallion’s damp neck.
	“Very nice,” allowed Lacroix, refusing in principle to wax enthusiastic over anything that had a mortal lifespan. “I suppose it will do no harm to keep the beast so long as we stay here, but you know you will have to give him up when we move on. Fortunately, easy come, easy go, as they say.”
	Nicholas frowned. “I wasn’t seeking your permission, Lacroix.”
	“What a good thing I wasn’t giving it, then,” Lacroix replied acidly. At Nicholas’ deepening scowl – why must he turn everything into a confrontation? – he added, “You know perfectly well that it is folly for creatures such as we to indulge in ostentatious displays of wealth. It’s all very well to keep an animal like that here in Perugia, where everyone will assume that you stole it and probably treat such larceny as a matter of course, but what about when we move on? What if someone remembers the horse, and wonders what befell that itinerant knight of yours? What if someone becomes curious about what manner of man only rides his horse in the night?”
	Unexpectedly, Nicholas grinned. “Why, then they become supper.”
	Did Lacroix not possess such rigid self-control, his mouth would have fallen open. Was this really Nicholas, the vampire who was too often afflicted with a conscience, and often at the most inopportune moments, speaking? He began to think that never in all eternity would he be able to predict what his maddeningly volatile, changeable son would think, do, or say next.
	“Why are you always so cautious?” Nicholas was asking. “What’s the point of being a vampire if one has to be constantly watching over one’s shoulder? They’re weaker than us.”
	“Because if one doesn’t keep a constant watch,” said Lacroix drily, “one may very soon see a point – a very sharp wooden point, bound straight for one’s heart. Although I have sometimes felt that a good staking would improve you out of all recognition, Nicholas, I confess I should be loathe to lose you in such a manner. You’re no longer a fledgling, I hope I need not instruct you in this point all over again. Now, it would be a shame to waste this glorious moonlight without a good hunt. Will you come with me?”
	Nicholas shook his head. “I’ll ride a while longer. I’ll see you at dawn.”
	“Very well.” Lacroix vanished amidst a rush of displaced air. The stallion shied violently and bolted for several strides before Nicholas was able to regain control and calm him down.
	Still smiling, he turned the horse and rode southward, past Perugia on its hilltop, towards a nearby farming hamlet which boasted a small inn. The knight that had been the stallion’s previous owner would never have reached there on his journey to Rome, so no one would remember seeing the blood bay horse. Travellers were generally better prey than men and women settled in their own homes amongst their families; there were fewer people left behind to ask questions. Lacroix had taught him that years and years ago; although he sometimes chose to disregard his master’s words, he never forgot them.
	But sometimes, he just couldn’t resist teasing.
	Hours later, replete, he turned the stallion back towards Perugia. The gates were firmly shut, but the guards were quite accustomed to individuals who needed to slip in and out of the town at unusual hours, and accepted Nicholas’ discreet payment of a silver coin matter-of-factly. The grooms had long since gone to bed, so Nicholas unsaddled and watered the stallion himself and left him munching hay in his stall.
	As he put away the saddle he saw the saddlebags that had also belonged to his last night’s victim, lying on the floor nearby. He hadn’t yet had a chance to inspect them. There might be money in there, or something he could sell that would pay for the stallion’s keep. He despised himself on the occasions that he helped himself to his victims’ purses. The dregs of his conscience, shaped by the standards of his upbringing as the scion of nobility – albeit minor – found it easier to accommodate being a blood-drinking killer than a common thief, and he salved that conscience by frequently giving alms to beggars. Even so, he chafed at the occasional feeling of being a pauper, dependent on Lacroix for his  material wants. His master, in keeping with his creed of remaining inconspicuous, had always discouraged both Nicholas and Janette from accumulating much in the way of funds by whatever means, although Nicholas suspected it was more likely due to Lacroix’s desire to control his offspring than for reasons of circumspection. Certainly Lacroix himself never seemed to lack for ready money. In fact, he heavily subsidized Janette’s wardrobe, indulging her in the purchase of luxurious silks and velvets – a display of ostentatious wealth if Nicholas had ever seen one. And yet Janette was rarely admonished for her extravagance. 
	Nicholas sighed at the thought of her. Her brilliant blue eyes, her seductive walk and voice, her cool yet moist lips and skilful hands – even though one of those same hands had laid his face open. He missed her dreadfully. It had never occurred to him to resent the comparative freedom she had been granted. She was different from him, that was all.
	He leaned against the doorway of the harness room and saw her face in his mind’s eye, as it reflected all her many moods. Janette could carry a grudge eternally, but she had never stayed angry with him for long. They would return to Paris soon, and he would no doubt have to get down on his knees and beg her forgiveness both for his prolonged absence and his part in their original quarrel, and she would pretend to mull it over for a time, but they both knew it was a foregone conclusion that she would take him back – all the more quickly if he could find some trinket with which to appease her. And after that would come night after night of purest pleasure. Nicholas adored Janette; she stirred him as no woman ever had when he had been mortal. But he also felt that he had a shrewd idea of his own worth to her.
	And speaking of worth . . . Nicholas bent again to the saddlebags.
	He sensed the slightly rapid heartbeat before he even heard the rustle in the straw of approaching footsteps or the soft voice that called from the dimly lit stable, “Signore Nicholas?”
	He reared up, eyes golden, and moved soundlessly back to the doorway of the harness room. The person groping their way through the stable stopped with a gasp at his sudden appearance. “Signore Nicholas? Is that you?”
	He stepped forward into the light cast by the single lantern, eyes returned to mortal blue. “Beatrice. What are you doing here at this hour?”
	Beatrice Scolazzi was the daughter of a Perugia tavern keeper. She was plump and swarthy, with pocked skin but surprisingly good teeth. She was also a born flirt, with all the inhibitions of a kitten, and her one tenet in life seemed to be that one ought to enjoy it to the fullest. Nicholas had encountered the same type of woman in his mortal life, and it was one which met with his wholehearted approval. He had patronized her father’s tavern several times, as much for the sight of her as for the wine she served, and knew perfectly well that she would gladly jump into his bed at the slightest hint of an invitation.
	Her fine teeth flashed in a pretty smile. “Why, I came to see if it was true.”
	“If what was true?”
	“That you’ve just bought a fine new horse. Giulio at the gate said you were out riding on the plain.”
	“So,” said Nicholas with mock severity, “it was just the horse you wanted to see, and not me?”
	“Oh no, you mistake me, signore! I did hope I might find you here, so I could ask you, since you didn’t come to the tavern tonight . . .” She was much closer by now, laughing up at him while pretending to glance demurely through her lashes.
	“And I suppose you never thought it likely I would be here alone?” he asked, still pretending harshness.
	“The idea never occurred to me, signore.”
	He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Well, there you are. The bay horse in the last stall.”
	“Oh, signore, he’s lovely!” She spared a glance for the horse, then turned back to him, pressing up against his chest. “Such a magnificent beast.”
	“I’m glad you think so.”
	“Oh, I do,” she assured him fervently. “I love nothing better than a strong, handsome creature.” She laced her hands behind his head, drawing him down to kiss her.
	Her heartbeat thudded enticingly in his ears. But he had fed well that night, and was able to shut out its siren call. He let her draw him deeper into the kiss, although he could only think how pallid it seemed, compared to what he really wanted from her.
	When she started to work busily at the lacings at the front of his doublet, he pulled away from her and captured her hands firmly with his own. “I thank you, Beatrice, but it’s very, very late. Shouldn’t you be at home in your own bed?”
	“I would much rather be in yours, signore,” she giggled.
	Not for long, you wouldn’t, thought Nicholas. Aloud he said, “Beatrice, you may not be tired, but I most certainly am, and I would make indifferent company. Come. I’ll see you to your home.” He slung the saddlebags over his shoulder – he would sort through them later, but probably best not to leave them lying here – blew out the horn lantern, and escorted her from the stable. He hurried her somewhat, because dawn wasn’t far off now, and he had no intention of being chased indoors by the sun two mornings in a row.
	“Perhaps I will see you tonight, signore, when you have rested?” she asked when they had arrived at the shuttered tavern.
	“Perhaps,” he agreed.
	After she had gone inside, he took a quick glance around, then took to the air.
	He found Lacroix waiting in the hall of their home, staring meditatively into the fire which flickered in the massive stone fireplace. The older vampire had shed his doublet, hose and cote-hardie in favour of a long robe of plain but sumptuous black velvet and a pair of soft leather slippers. Taking his ease in one of the deep armchairs by the fire, he looked much like a typical mortal householder of the wealthier variety about to retire for the night, but for the fact that few mortals had such pale skin and eyes of such a cold crystalline blue.
	Those eyes regarded him fairly amiably as he dumped the saddlebags and pulled off his cloak and boots. “Good hunting tonight, my son?”
	“Good enough.” Nicholas sank into the twin to Lacroix’s chair with a contented sigh, feeling his eyelids begin to grow very, very heavy. Having lived as a vampire for less than two hundred years, he still found it difficult to stay awake much past sunrise.
	“Time to be abed.” It might have been an invitation, it might have been a command. Nicholas chose to take it as a simple statement of fact, and shook his head. “Not quite yet.” He stirred the saddlebags with one foot.
	Lacroix nodded and rose. “I shall see you at sunset, then.”
	Nicholas nodded, eyes half closed. The contents of the saddlebags scarcely seemed important now, compared with the prospect of fourteen hours of oblivion. After all, when he had been a mortal knight, he certainly hadn’t carried much in the way of material possessions.
	Eventually, however, he leaned down, hefted the leather bags, unfastened the buckles securing them and dumped the contents in a quick slovenly heap on the floor. It was as he had expected. A knife, a coarse linen shirt, a piece of cloth wrapped around some bread and dried meat – he hastily pushed that aside – some scraps of leather, and, more to the point, a slim pouch that clinked promisingly. He upended it. A paltry few copper coins fell into his needy hand, along with something small that flashed with gold in the firelight. Curious, he picked the thing up to examine it more closely - and felt his quiescent heart heave in his chest in shock.
	Glittering in his palm lay the gold and ruby candle that he had dropped into the Rhône from the Pont St-Bénézet, nearly two hundred years ago.
	He sat staring at the little gold trinket while his mind spun frantically. Jehan, Etienne de Bruyère, and now this nameless knight whose blood he had drunk and whose possessions he had taken for himself – the list of lives ended unnaturally, of those who had come into contact with the amulet, was still lengthening. Had there been other deaths while it had been out of his possession? Or had whatever evil influence the thing wielded waned without him? Was it possible it had somehow sought him out, or been sent to him?
	The hand holding the amulet shook slightly as the thought came to him that it might be following him, and he hastily set it down on top of the other contents of the saddlebag.
	No, he told himself, with a sternness worthy of Lacroix. That was a ridiculous and morbid notion. The amulet was what it was, a scrap of metal and stone. A hint of a grim smile flickered on his lips as he recalled telling himself the same thing just before he dropped the amulet in the river.
	True, it was difficult to believe that it was simply due to coincidence that he had just held in his hand something that had been swallowed by the Rhône hundreds of miles away and nearly two centuries ago; but it wasn’t impossible. The river had been in spring flood; the thing could have been washed ashore and left there as the floods receded, then picked up and passed from traveller to traveller until it reached the man he had killed one night ago.  It was farfetched, but better to believe in random chance than that it had somehow been guided in its course.
	He felt rather than heard a disturbance in the air in the room as Lacroix suddenly reappeared beside him.
	“What is wrong, my son?” he asked quietly.
	“I thought you were asleep,” said Nicholas, affecting surprise.
	“So I was. But your transports, Nicholas, whether of joy or anguish, are sufficient to wake the dead. What has upset you so?”
	“Nothing,” answered Nicholas automatically, then, when Lacroix’s unwavering gaze pinned him ruthlessly, added, “nothing that need concern you.”
	“Indeed,” said Lacroix drily. “Well, my rest was disturbed, and that is sufficient reason for me to be concerned.” He looked down at the little candle, glittering amongst the drab leather and linen, and picked it up, frowning. “So small a thing to cause such distress. Where did it come from?”
	Nicholas shrugged. “It was in the man’s purse.”
	He knew that answer came perilously close to insolence, a transgression for which Lacroix was wont to chastise him severely. But perhaps the elder vampire was still too charmed by his earlier good spirits. He let the amulet fall back to the floor, saying merely, “Then perhaps it should be returned to the purse and tossed into the Tiber, or given to a beggar. You have no need of it.”
	Nicholas nodded.
	“Now come to bed. I’ve no intention of leaving you to sit here brooding for the rest of the day. But throw out that food first; it stinks.” Lacroix cast a baleful eye towards the offending morsels of bread and meat.
	Thankful to have escaped with such a mild lecture, Nicholas rose to obey.

	That night he and Lacroix again went their separate ways to hunt. Nicholas turned his steps towards the tavern kept by Beatrice’s father. He had no intention of seeking out his prey there – one had to be extremely discreet in an isolated town like this one – but he enjoyed starting his night with the sight of a pretty face.
	Beatrice came bustling over as soon as she saw him entering the smoky, low-ceilinged room. “Signore Nicholas, you honour us again with your presence here. Red wine?”
	“Yes, thank you, Beatrice.” Swiftly she brought him a cup of wine. It was still young and rough-edged and almost unpalatable, but he could hardly stay and drink nothing. He withdrew to a place in the corner and sipped at the wine, watching Beatrice as she hurried to and fro serving other patrons. Once or twice, as the room grew more crowded, other men tried to sit down at his table, but a single harsh look was sufficient to discourage them. Better for him to be solitary until after he had fed, and he should be about that quickly, before anyone in here began to seem too appetizing.
	Beatrice came over as he was making for the door. “Was everything to your satisfaction, signore?” she asked with a provocative smile.
	“Very much so,” he replied gallantly.
	“Are you off to ride your beautiful stallion again, then?” At his nod, she said saucily, “So, I’m to lose you to a horse, am I?” Then she added, sotto voce, “I’d hoped that you were feeling well rested tonight, signore.”
	He laughed at that, dropped a fleeting kiss on her thick dark hair, and left the tavern.
	His smile swiftly faded as he made his way through the warren of streets and alleys towards the stable. While it was gratifying to know that Beatrice could be his for no more than the crook of a finger – like many another girl in his mortal days – any dalliance with her would be brief, and likely to have only one ending. And in any case she was no Janette. And he had less pleasant matters on his mind. He had the gold candle to think about. He had left it carefully wrapped and concealed amongst his paltry possessions, but still it weighed on his mind.
	He emerged onto the Corso, the widest street in Perugia. Instead of turning toward the town gates, he went the other way, to where the Corso ended at a wall with a sheer drop beyond that of a thousand feet. He stood for a while thoughtfully regarding the rocks at the bottom.
	It would be easy enough to toss the thing over. But would simply throwing it away be enough to ensure that it would never find him again? It would be better to melt it down and destroy it completely. Perhaps he could find a goldsmith who would do that for him.
	Until then, if he guarded it carefully and tried to keep his own appetites under a tight rein, perhaps there would be no more tragedies associated with it, aside from the fate of his necessary prey. No, not even that, he vowed suddenly. He had fed well for the last two nights, he could do without until tomorrow night, when he would return to the Scolazzi tavern and ask Beatrice about jewellers in the town. Even a blacksmith would do; if any of the grooms were still at the stable, he could find a name from them.
	Feeling better for his resolve, he turned back down the Corso to the stable. It was deserted. He frowned in annoyance, then set about grooming and saddling the blood bay stallion for their nightly ride.
	The horse was fresh from being in his stall all day, and it took all Nicholas’ patient and skilful handling to get them down the steep road without mishap. Once at the bottom he let the horse run to its heart’s content, galloping flat out for a mile or more before slowing to a more decorous pace. Perhaps, thought Nicholas wistfully, just this once Lacroix would allow him to keep something when they moved on, or at least when they left Perugia and returned to Paris. After all, at least the horse was something practical, unlike the chests full of costly gowns which Janette was wont to accumulate. Maybe, if he could keep on Lacroix’s good side . . . it would be difficult, though. He and Lacroix so often disagreed, and the old Roman had a keen nose for any attempts at currying favour.
	Two hours before dawn he was rubbing the horse down in its stall when Lacroix arrived, with a complacent air which suggested a satisfying hunt. Fortunately he didn’t question Nicholas about his night’s activities, or lack thereof. Nicholas finished with the stallion and they walked together to their home.
	Lacroix opened the massive door, took one step inside and stopped so abruptly that only the reflexes of a vampire prevented Nicholas from bumping into him. Lacroix tilted his head as if listening, his eyes flaring gold. “Someone has been here,” he hissed. “A mortal has been in this house while we were gone. Can you not smell it?”
	Nicholas pushed past him into the centre of the hall, turning about and scenting the air, his own eyes amber with rage at the thought of their domain being invaded. At first he could smell nothing, but then, turning in the direction of the stairs which led to the upper floors, he caught the faintest trace of blood.
	He mounted the stairs slowly, still questing, and followed the scent into a disused chamber at the back of the house. One of the heavy shutters at the window was unbarred and slightly ajar. He crossed the room in a rush and pushed open the shutter. Due to the rising ground on which the house sat it wasn’t much of a drop for an agile man. There was blood on the rough stone of the window sill: not much, probably the result of a scrape as the intruder departed.
	He touched a finger to one of the dark blotches on the stone. It had thickened, but not crusted completely – they must not have missed the man by more than a few minutes. He sniffed at the blood now on his fingertip. His fangs had dropped without him even being aware.
	It smelled familiar, yet not known at all, like a stranger’s face seen several times in a crowd. He knew he had never tasted this person’s blood, and yet there was something about it that he recognized. He closed his eyes, concentrating.
	“Well?” said Lacroix impatiently from the doorway. “Do you know who it is?”
	Nicholas’ eyes snapped open. “Beatrice.”
	“Who?”
	“Her father keeps a tavern a few streets away. But this isn’t Beatrice’s blood, it’s someone close to her. A man.”
	“Does this strumpet have a brother?”
	“I don’t know,” said Nicholas harshly. “But I’ll find out tonight.’
	They searched the house carefully. Every occupied room had been plundered; at least two, if not three, robbers had been there in the night. Most of their gold was gone, although Lacroix had sequestered a purse with a few coins in a crevice behind a loose stone, and the thieves had overlooked that. Lacroix’s black velvet robe had been taken as well – although not ostentatious, it had been costly – along with some silver candlestick holders and plate, which had been in the house when they took it over. And the amulet was gone.
	Finally they stood in the centre of the great hall again, both their eyes glowing a malevolent red as they contemplated the trespass.
	“There is nothing to be done until nightfall,” said Lacroix chillingly. “But then we will find them, no matter where they have gone to ground. Do you know, Nicholas, I find myself hoping that there are more of these miserable robbers than just one apiece. One can never get enough of the taste of exquisite terror.”

	As soon as it was dark, Nicholas went directly to the Scolazzi tavern. Beatrice served him again, but not, he thought, with quite so much alacrity as she had shown the night before. Too, her heart rate increased even more than it usually did when she came close to him. But she still smiled brightly at him and gave him the usual generous view down the straining, low-necked bodice of her gown as she leaned down to place the wine cup on his table.
	He caught her hand as she let go of the cup and pulled her down again to whisper seductively in her ear, “Beatrice, I find that my horse is lame and can’t leave his stall. Yet I’m still of a mind to go riding tonight.”
	“Indeed, signore?”
	“I thought you might be able to suggest some other pleasant activity.”
	She giggled. “Well, signore, I can certainly think of one thing.”
	“I’d hoped you’d say that. Meet me at the stable as soon as you can.” He nuzzled her hair, then released her. She scuttled off to serve her other customers, but turned to give him a beaming smile. He raised his wine cup in a sort of half-salute, then drained it and left the tavern.
	That was all it would take, he knew. She would follow him to the stable.
	And she did, slipping through the stable door a few minutes after midnight. “Signore Nicholas?” she called warily into the darkness.
	Nicholas silently appeared at her back, wrapping both arms around her from behind. She jumped and shrieked, but he muffled the sound by clamping one hand full across her mouth. Her heart was racing. Lacroix had been right, he thought; even the smell of terror was intoxicating, let alone the taste.
	He kissed her shoulder and felt her relax slightly. “Don’t worry,” he said caressingly. “I’ll be gentle with you.” The hand dropped from her mouth to wrench her gown from her shoulders. The fabric tore with a shockingly loud sound in the quiet stable.
	“Signore!” she protested, trying to pull free. “Please–  I’ll take it off, just let me – “
	”No.” He brushed his lips down the exposed flesh with exquisite slowness. She gasped and shuddered in both pleasure and fear. Then he nipped her sharply, just to get a taste.
	Oh, the terror was there, all right. So was the guilt. So Beatrice had known about the robbery. 
	He was briefly sorry for that; but he was still angrier for having been deceived.
	“So it was your brother,” he said in a voice that was deeper and rougher than usual, “that broke into my home last night.”
	“Signore!” She began to struggle in earnest. “I didn’t know it was your home they were planning to rob. Mother of God, I swear I didn’t know!”
	“But you told them,” he said, continuing to savour the scent and the feel of her flesh beneath his hands and lips, even though she was now stiff with resistance. It was only a travesty of tenderness, and she knew it.  “They knew which house to go to. They knew both myself and my companion would be gone.”
	“Everyone knows! Everyone knows the two of you only go out at night and are home before the sun rises!”
	“Perhaps they only know,” he suggested in the same deep voice, “because you told them.” He gathered her back into his arms in a merciless embrace, feeling the fear build deliciously. “I hope that at least they gave you something for your help,” he remarked.
	“No, nothing! I wanted nothing for what I did! They promised to pay me, but when they offered me some of the gold, I couldn’t take it. Let me go, I’ll talk to them, make them give it all back . . . “
	”I think not,” he hissed in her ear. “What I’m about to take from you is worth much more than any gold.”
	She gave a wail of terror, even as she continued to struggle with all her strength. He put his hand over her mouth again, hauling her head back hard, scraping her throat with his fangs, letting the anticipation build just a little bit more; there was an art to it, knowing just how far to go before the thundering heart was terrorized into abrupt stillness. “Oh, Beatrice, I am going to enjoy you,” he breathed.
	At the last minute she managed to turn just enough to glimpse his face, and he distinctly heard against his hand: “Holy Mary, what – “
	He struck.
	By the dark gods, it was glorious. His being was flooded with the strength of her emotion even as his mouth was filled with her blood, and he consumed it all greedily: the precious fluid, the essence of her being, the beauty of her fear. He drank without pausing until there was nothing left.
	He dropped her body to the straw and staggered momentarily, like a drunken man. He could feel a thin trickle of blood on his chin and swept it up with one finger, intent on not letting a single drop escape.
	And then he staggered again, as something crashed into him from behind and nearly knocked him flat. It was a man, a very young man, who yelled at him, “Murdering fiend! You killed my sister!” He brandished, with no very great skill, a wickedly long dagger. Skilled or no, he would have succeeded in hacking a good chunk out of Nicholas’ face, had the vampire not easily dodged.
	So this was the robber himself. Obviously he had come late to defend his sister, and had no idea what he was facing, or he would have brought a crucifix instead of a knife. In another mood, Nicholas might have been amused or even touched by such gallantry, like one tiny dog snapping at an angry bull; but right now he was nothing but a beast that only desired to gorge itself yet again. He growled, the sound pervading the stable with chilling menace, so that all the horses stirred and snorted fearfully. His attacker crossed himself, backing away a step as anger began to give way to fear.
	“Stop that,” hissed Nicholas, and lunged for him. The would-be avenger had time for nothing more than a squeak of terror before the vampire’s teeth were sunk in his throat.
	The young man – boy – was not nearly as satisfying as his sister, his fear not having had time to reach its peak.  Nevertheless, Nicholas drained him completely before allowing his body to fall near Beatrice’s cooling corpse.
	He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Now he definitely felt intoxicated - but on a surfeit of emotion, not alcohol. It was a delightful sensation, and he savoured it.
	There was a rush of air at the door – it now stood wide, presumably flung open by his latest victim – and then Lacroix stood beside him. Nicholas regarded him with a drunken, crimson grin. “I was right, Lacroix,” he said, waving a hand at the two bodies on the floor. “I would have saved one for you, but I just couldn’t wait.”
	He felt a sudden tingle of apprehension, wondering if his master was about to chastise him for his greed. After all, Lacroix had wanted to drink the blood of the thieves as much if not more than Nicholas had done. But it seemed the elder vampire had something else in mind. He surveyed Nicholas, bloody-faced, blood on his clothing, still red-eyed and caught up in his lust, and smiled.
	“I know, my son. That is as it should be.”
	He turned and thrust forward yet another mortal. This one was still alive and unharmed, but the blankly staring eyes indicated that he was completely under Lacroix’s hypnotic influence. He was older and taller than the youth on the floor, dressed in ragged clothing but with an incongruously fine pair of boots on his feet. Nicholas growled low in his throat. The boots were his own, stolen from his bedchamber.
	“It really was very indiscreet of him,” commented Lacroix, following Nicholas’ gaze. “Would you care to extract the price of his crime for both of us?”
	Nicholas didn’t understand why Lacroix was offering him this opportunity instead of seizing it for himself, but he didn’t pause to question. He pulled the man forward and, under his master’s avid gaze, turned him with deliberate slowness, pulled the man’s collar aside and let his fangs graze down the side of his neck.
	But the blood no longer called to him. He was too sated.
	He looked up at Lacroix, wary of his displeasure if he rejected the gift, but Lacroix was still gazing at him benevolently.  “I’m sorry. I can’t, not now. It’s too much.” Then he grinned. “Why not take him home and put him in the larder for tomorrow?”

	After disposing of Beatrice and her brother, they took the third partner in crime back to the house, locking him securely in a dank windowless chamber in the cellar, which might have been provided for that very purpose. Before they left him in the dark, Lacroix took the bulging purse from his belt. Upstairs in the hall, he spilled out the contents on a table, revealing a dozen or more gold coins and the candle charm.
	“As I said, very indiscreet,” remarked Lacroix. “Did he think he could start slinging all this money about without attracting attention?” He caused the coins to disappear within his own purse. “This is yours, I believe.” He handed the little candle to Nicholas.
	Nicholas stared at it, not sure whether to be relieved or dismayed. Even when he thought it had become someone else’s burden, it still dogged him. And now he had forsworn his oath and killed again, with far more brutality than his norm.
	With Lacroix’s curious eye on him, he schooled himself to appear unmoved. He tucked the amulet away inside his shirt and went to clean the blood from himself before climbing wearily into bed. 

	He knew there was something dreadfully wrong when Lacroix shook him awake and he saw the thin line of daylight still showing around the heavy shutters.
	“We have more unwelcome visitors,” Lacroix told him.
	Nicholas propped himself up on one elbow and listened. Senses numbed by sleep and daylight, he could only hear what seemed to be the everyday sounds of the town going about its daily business. He groaned and subsided back to the bed, attempting to bury his face in the pillow.
	Lacroix shook him so hard that his head snapped on his shoulders like a whip, and bade him listen again. Nicholas did so, more awake this time. He became aware of an odd, malevolent quality to the noise outside. It sounded like a crowd of people in the street, almost like a mob.
	“What are they doing?” he asked.
	Lacroix shrugged. “I can only surmise that friends of our guests from the previous night have decided to entertain us. Perhaps the chit from the tavern told someone that she was going to meet you at the stable, and they assume that you’ve had a hand in her disappearance. It hardly matters. I think we’ve overstayed our welcome here.”
	Nicholas couldn’t believe that his master was about to flee from what might be no more than a group of adolescent ruffians. But something about the noise from the street fretted at his nerves. No one, even a vampire, cares for the sound of the hunt at their heels. And it seemed to be growing in volume, as if more people were joining in. He got out of bed and dressed hastily.
	“At least the house is stone,” he said, tugging on his boots. “They won’t be able to fire it.”
	The words were barely out of his mouth when there was a loud crash from below, as if something heavy had just been thrown against one of the shutters.
	“Come,” said Lacroix. “It should take nothing less than a battering ram to break through, but we had better make sure that everything is secure.”
	Nicholas took one side of the house and Lacroix the other. Every shutter was barred, and the massive doors were bolted in addition. Lacroix had tied the bars in place on every window through which any more potential thieves might have thought to gain entrance. They were as well prepared for a siege as most castles.
	Standing in the great hall, the two vampires eyed the front door warily. “It should hold,” said Lacroix. “We may yet get through this day without being invaded by that pack, but as soon as night comes we must be away from here.”
	Nicholas nodded, listening to the howling outside. The epithets being shouted denounced them for a variety of sins ranging from horse stealing to practising the black arts and made his fangs itch with a desire to drain them all, but he quelled the rising anger. As long as the crowd was hurling nothing more than words, they were safe. And there would never be any proof of his part in the demise of Beatrice and her brother.
	“It seems they take us for devil worshippers,” said Lacroix ironically. “They might just as well accuse us of being Christians. At least they – “
	He broke off as a new noise drew their attention. It was a rhythmic crashing against the front wall of the house, well away from the main door, as if a ram was being used against the wall itself.
	“What – “ began Nicholas, but Lacroix suddenly darted to the front corner of the hall, tearing down the tapestry hanging there. “The porta del mortuccio! Come, help me bar it!”
	Nicholas stared in blank incomprehension for an instant, then rushed to Lacroix’s aid. The rough plaster on the wall was already shivering as whatever the crowd was using for a ram struck the door concealed behind it. Nicholas had completely forgotten about the old porta del mortuccio, the door of the dead, so-called because its sole use was to permit passage of the coffins of any deceased occupants of the house. According to Lacroix, there was an old superstition in the town, predating even the Romans, that if death in the form of a coffin was allowed to enter through the main door, it would enter there again; hence the existence of these secondary doors in some of the larger houses in the town, whose occupants could afford to indulge themselves in such a belief. Evidently the current owner of this house didn’t hold with it, because the old door had been sealed over.
	They smashed through the plaster and the flimsy mud-brick wall behind it and into a short passageway thick with dust and cobwebs. The old door at the end was quivering in its frame at each blow from the battering ram. Despite the two sturdy bars across it the wood had already begun to splinter.
	“The table!” said Lacroix, and they hurriedly lifted the massive table in the hall and shoved it into place against the door. They brought the chairs as well, and the chest and large cupboard, which were all the moveable furnishings that the room boasted. As a temporary barricade it was well enough, but Nicholas knew it wouldn’t hold off the mob for more than a few minutes.
	They were about to ransack the upper rooms for more heavy items when the door gave a rending crack and the tip of the makeshift battering ram, a heavy wagon tongue padded with leather, protruded into the small passageway. The shouting from outside, now triumphant, suddenly doubled in volume. Axes appeared in the opening as men began to hack at what was left of the door.
	Nicholas, appalled by the sight of the bright noon sunlight pouring through the gaping hole, drew back into the hall. Lacroix, snarling, braved the light to pick up the first man to make it through the gap and fling him violently back into his fellows. There was a scream and the smell of spilled blood as the man’s body interrupted the downward stroke of someone’s axe, followed by a momentary pause in the hostilities.
	But the mob was not about to tamely subside. Several more, swords and knives drawn, rushed the barricade. Lacroix shattered two of the weapons across his knee, but as he moved the sunlight, reflecting off the metal, caught him full in the eyes. He dropped the blades with a roar of pain.
	Two of the invaders, one still armed, got past him into the hall, only to be confronted by a red-eyed, snarling Nicholas, who picked them both up and dashed their heads together with a loud crunch. A third was still wielding a wickedly long dagger, which he plunged directly into Lacroix’s stomach. Lacroix was driven a step further into the sunlight.
	He managed to twist and look directly into the jeering face of his attacker. The man’s triumphant expression turned to one of pasty fear as he suddenly stared at a demon’s visage, a demon which should be dying in agony, but which only straightened with a low growling sound that reverberated in the passageway and reached for his would-be assassin with lightning speed. The man’s scream was cut off as Lacroix, now safely out of the light, sank his fangs into his throat.
	There seemed to be a new reluctance amongst the mob to be in the vanguard now. Lacroix swiftly drained his victim and dropped him to the floor, but the look on his face indicated that the meal hadn’t appeased him in the least.
	“Come, mon fils,” he said shortly. “They’ll be back soon, and I would guess the next thing they’ll try is fire. The walls won’t burn, but enough other things will to make it extremely uncomfortable. It’s time we were off.”
	Nicholas looked at him as if he thought him suddenly deranged. “Off to where?”
	“Did you never check for escape routes? Really, Nicholas, I had thought you a better tactician than that. Let this be a lesson to you, then.” Lacroix led the way down the narrow stairs and into the dark chill of the cellar. “I’d hoped not to have to use this, but it seems we have little choice.”
	Nicholas stopped. “What about our second thief?” The door to the cell in which they had locked the man was a few feet away.
	Lacroix nodded. “Good thinking.” He unbolted the door, finding the man with ease even in the blackness. The wretch had awoken from Lacroix’s spell at some point and was cowering in the corner of his tiny prison, whimpering in fear. Lacroix seized him, twisted his head aside and unceremoniously drained him.
	“What are you doing?” shouted Nicholas.
	Lacroix swallowed the last few mouthfuls before letting the empty corpse fall to the dirt floor. “Oh, I do apologize, Nicholas,” he said silkily. “That one was meant to be yours, wasn’t it?”
	“I didn’t intend for you to kill him,” Nicholas replied angrily. “I only meant that we couldn’t leave him trapped here if they fire the house.”
	“My, such a change of sentiments,” mocked Lacroix. “Quite the weathervane you are. As I recall, it was your idea to put the man here in the first place, for your later enjoyment. And may I also remind you that he did break into our home.”
	“Where is this escape route of yours?” snapped Nicholas. “If we’re going, we’d better go now.” There was never any point in arguing such things with his master. It was too late now, anyway.
	Lacroix’s nostrils flared as he caught the first taint of smoke and heard renewed shouting from upstairs. “I do believe you’re right. Come along.”
	He led the way through a cavernous wine cellar, whose empty racks were festooned with cobwebs. Against the far wall sat a massive wooden chest, thick with dust and equally festooned. Lacroix heaved the chest aside and pulled up a trap door which lay beneath it, vanishing into the lightless space below. Nicholas followed, pulling the trap closed behind him.
	They were in what turned out to be a tunnel. It had apparently been hewn from solid rock, and its makers had obviously not built it any wider or higher than was absolutely necessary to allow the passage of a single man. Nicholas felt absurdly like an earthworm as he made his way as quickly as possible after Lacroix, his shoulders scraping the walls, his head striking the ceiling if he raised himself more than a few inches from his stomach. And all the time he was uneasily aware of the tons of living rock pressing down on top of them. He desperately wished there was enough room to take flight, but knew that he would only smash into the walls of the tunnel if he tried. He suddenly wondered if Lacroix, with twelve hundred years’ more experience at flying than he, might be able to navigate the passage and was only holding back on his account.
	The thought made him crawl even faster until he actually bumped into the soles of Lacroix’s boots. “Really, Nicholas, do be more careful,” chided the elder vampire.
	“Sorry,” muttered Nicholas.
	But it seemed that they had at long last reached the end of the tunnel. Lacroix was pressing upward on the ceiling, and another trap door creaked open, letting in what seemed like blinding light and a draught of fresh air. Nicholas reflexively gasped for breath.
	Something was wrong. He knew it even before he had followed Lacroix into the room above, where the feeling of dread suddenly grew so intense that he nearly bolted back into the tunnel. He spun around, taking in the small stone-flagged room with its vaulted ceiling, the tablets on the walls inscribed with names and dates, the whole dimly lit by a cresset lamp at one end, suspended above –  
	– an altar, with a wooden cross mounted on the wall behind.
	They were in the crypt of a church.
	He clamped down on his panic, trying to turn it into anger instead. “Lacroix, why did you bring us here?” he demanded. “A church, of all places! Wouldn’t you say this is rather like jumping from the frying pan into the fire?”
	“I would say it’s a vast improvement over being burned to a cinder by the mob invading our house, which is certainly what would have happened had we stayed,” Lacroix replied coolly. “Calm down, Nicholas, it will only be for a few hours.”
	“But I – “ He broke off at the sound of a voice in the church above, coming clearly down through the stairway in one corner. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,” it intoned.
	Nicholas stared at Lacroix in horror. “They’re celebrating Mass!”
	“So it would seem. I must say, it’s highly inconsiderate of these Christians to hold their performances at an hour when creatures of other persuasions simply want to go to sleep. And such an execrable accent – the man must have learned his Latin among the Huns.”
	Nicholas reeled towards the trap door. “I can’t stay here. I’m going back.”
	Lacroix grabbed him. “Nicholas, you can’t! It will be an inferno back there. Everything but the walls will burn. You must stay here.” But Nicholas was struggling mindlessly, no longer capable of listening. Lacroix backhanded him hard, twice, across the face, and finally got his attention.
	“Calm yourself,” he said, as soothingly as he could. “You are strong enough to withstand this. It will pass in a short time. As soon as darkness comes, we’ll be free of this place.”
	Nicholas nodded. Lacroix released him and he walked, almost tottering, to one of the squat pillars from which the roof vaulting sprang, and slumped to the ground with the rough stone between himself and the altar. Lacroix came and sat beside him. Nicholas’ brow was covered in bloody sweat and he was trembling slightly, although he was making a creditable effort to keep his fear under control. Lacroix put a comforting hand on his shoulder and Nicholas seized it like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. In spite of his confident words, the elder vampire knew that it was still a long time until sunset. By then, Nicholas’ strength might be sapped entirely by the aura of the crucifix - Lacroix could feel the power of its inimical stare even through the sturdy pillar – and the holy things in the church above. It was worse for Nicholas than for himself, he knew; not only was his son a comparative fledgling, but all these nonsensical trappings of religion had been meaningful and comforting for him once, so that now he was struggling with the double burden of guilt and debilitation. Not that Lacroix was immune from the effect himself. It was only by reflecting crossly on the barbaric Latin of the priest as the man droned his way through the interminable ritual that he was able to maintain some form of detachment.
	Nicholas stayed quivering but silent through the prayers and chants, through invocations to a long list of angels, saints and apostles, through an apparently infinite variety of pleas for mercy; then suddenly he sat straight. Under Lacroix’s horrified gaze, he lunged to his feet and began to mumble, along with the priest in the church above: “Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentum . . .”
	“Nicholas!”
	“Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum . . .”
	“Nicholas!”
	Nicholas’ eyes were tightly closed, but bloody tears leaked from between the lids as he continued in his mindless incantation which must surely only be making his suffering worse. Lacroix shook him and slapped him in an effort to get his attention, to no avail. Finally he put both arms around him and drew him back down to rest on the floor, holding him protectively. Nicholas clung to him with a surprising fierceness. But it was not until the credo came to a final “Amen” that he stopped mouthing the well-remembered phrases.
	They remained that way through the rest of the liturgy. Only once more did Nicholas speak, whispering part of the Pater Noster. But “Sed libera nos a malo” – deliver us from evil – caused him to fall silent again with a sound that might have been a choke or might have been a whimper. Lacroix embraced him even more tightly and brushed his lips against Nicholas’ hair. “Soon, mon petit, it will be over soon.”
	And then, with a Requiescant in pace -- rest in peace, a Mass for the dead, then? How appropriate –  and a last Deo gratias, it finally was. There was nothing but the sounds of the unseen worshippers filing out of the church.
	They waited several hours more, and then Lacroix knew that at last it was safe to leave.
	He couldn’t rouse Nicholas. The younger vampire was completely insensible, and nothing Lacroix could do restored him to any form of consciousness. Lacroix tried to lift him in his arms, but found that the church had leached away too much of his own strength. The best he could do was put his arms around Nicholas’ chest and half-support, half-drag him to the narrow stairs in the corner of the crypt. They led, naturally, to the church itself. In order to gain their freedom, there would be a final gauntlet to run.
	Lacroix had so little strength left after hauling Nicholas up the stairs that he dropped to the floor at the top. But he couldn’t rest here. If he did, under the malignant gaze of Christ on a gilded crucifix behind the high altar and the statue of a Madonna whose expression was simpering and yet somehow baleful, he might never get up again, and he and Nicholas would be left to the mercies of the priest.
	He got to his knees and reached out for the collar of Nicholas’s shirt. Now he could do no more than crawl. Well, if he had to leave this place on his knees, then so be it. But the power of the holy things still wouldn’t win. He would not surrender, and he would not give up Nicholas to them. He crawled down the aisle, tugging Nicholas after him. His hands and knees were raw by the time he reached the door at the far end, but there was a victorious snarl on his face as he pushed it open and made his way out into the darkness.

	“You will have to sell it,” said Lacroix in an iron voice.
	“I can’t,” whispered Nicholas.
	“You must. It’s the only thing of value we possess. You may live like a savage if you choose, but I will not.” Lacroix gestured around at the rough cave that had been their shelter since escaping from Perugia. “It’s time to return to Paris. I insist on a modicum of comfort during the journey. And Janette may not be inclined to receive you with open arms if you arrive looking as if you had slept in a haystack every day for the last month. Now I am going to find some supper, and I suggest you find a way to convert that trinket into something more useful.” Then he was gone.
	He was right, of course. Nicholas looked ruefully at the amulet in his hand. He had never taken it out of his pocket after finding it in the thief’s purse, and it had been the only thing of value, aside from the clothes on their backs, that they had managed to bring with them when they escaped from the house. While it would be perfectly possible to make their way back to Paris with no money whatsoever, having some gold definitely made travelling easier. And Lacroix, like Nicholas, preferred not to stoop to the level of a common thief.
	The damned amulet. Now three more deaths had occurred because of it – Beatrice, her brother, and his accomplice. Not to mention the ones that had died – he wasn’t sure how many – in the attack on the house, which had most likely been brought about by someone discovering the deaths of the two Scolazzis, and linking them to Nicholas and Lacroix. And all this after he had sworn to refrain from killing while the candle was in his possession.
	He had planned on melting the thing down and destroying it, but it appeared that he would not be allowed that luxury now. But in truth, what did it matter? He just wanted to be rid of it. If he could gain something in the process, so much the better. And besides, he was tired, both in  body and mind, and wanted nothing more than to return to Paris and Janette as quickly as possible.
	There was a town not far off. It wasn’t as large as Perugia, but it boasted several taverns, in one of which Nicholas found a goldsmith who examined the amulet, agreed that the workmanship was superior, and offered him a reasonable price for it. Nicholas watched the golden candle disappear into the other man’s purse with a sense of unmitigated relief.
	Clutching the goldsmith’s coins in his hand, he fled into the night air.

	It had all happened six hundred years ago, but the emotions – his panic in the church and shame at being unable to control it, joy in the thundering gallop of the stallion across the moonlit Umbrian plain, the fierce, orgasmic pleasure in the taking and draining of the traitorous Beatrice – burned as brightly as if it had been yesterday, causing him to sleep restlessly and to awake with a sheen of bloodsweat on his forehead.
	He felt dull-witted and generally out of sorts, and spent longer than usual in the shower, making sure that all physical signs left by the vivid memories were washed away. By the time he was dressed and had downed two glasses of steer’s blood, he was feeling almost normal again.
	As he was settling his shoulder holster in place, he suddenly experienced a faint, brief tingling sensation in his mind. He froze in place, a slight snarl on his lips, questing with all his senses. Another vampire was somewhere nearby.
	There was nobody else in the loft. In the blink of a mortal eye he was on the rooftop, but that too was deserted. The other, whoever it was – and it was no one he recognized – was gone.
	After a moment he returned to the loft, frowning. He didn’t care for the idea of being watched by another vampire. It might be related somehow to the amulet – although no other member of the community had ever shown any interest in it – or it might have something to do with Lacroix’s death. Ever since he had run his creator through with that improvised stake, he had been half-expecting a visit from the Enforcers. Then again, that tribe had never been known for their subtlety; if they wanted to see him, they would simply walk in – probably breaking down the door in the process – rather than hanging around in the shadows.
	Whatever was going on, he didn’t like it. When he left for work, he tucked the amulet into his pocket, just in case.
	The drive to the station with the Caddy’s top down, immersed in all the sounds and smells of a summer night in the city, invigorated him. He walked into the precinct with his usual confident step, finally feeling ready for whatever the night might bring him. 
	He was a few minutes early for change of shift, and the hallway in from the parking lot was deserted. One of the fluorescent tubes overhead was burned out, leaving it half in darkness. Halfway along, he stopped dead. There it was again – the other vampire.
	“Who’s there?” he called softly.
	A shadow moved on the wall, so briefly that if he hadn’t known better he might have thought it was only his imagination, and there was a soft rush of air as the stranger took flight. Snarling, Nick prepared to follow, when two of the detectives from the evening shift came around the corner from the locker room.
	“Hey, Nick! Something wrong?” asked one of them.
	“I just wish they’d fix the lights around here, that’s all,” he prevaricated.
	“Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath. There’s probably only enough money in the budget to replace one light bulb a year in this place.” The two men passed him, heading for the outside door. “Have a good night.”
	“Thanks. You too,” replied Nick, continuing on in the direction of the bullpen. There was no point in trying to pursue the other vampire now. But as soon as he could he would pay a visit to the Raven and see if Janette knew if anyone was looking for him.
	There was a fax waiting on his desk from Natalie with the results of the Middleton autopsy. There wasn’t much to add to what she had already deduced from her initial examination. Lesley Middleton had died from a single shot in the back, fired at close range from a .22 calibre gun, and she had been killed approximately twenty hours before her body had been found, which made TOD about two AM of the same day. There were no signs of sexual assault, and the dirt on her shoes didn’t match the soil samples taken from the area. Which meant, as Nick had already surmised, that she had most likely been killed elsewhere, then dumped in the ravine by someone who mistakenly figured that no one else ever came that way.
	So what could a seventeen-year-old runaway have known, or seen, that had gotten her killed?
	By the time Schanke checked in, complaining loudly about the dearth of cabs in the city while attempting to cram half of a Polish sausage on a bun into his mouth, he was beginning to think he might have part of the answer.
	He hung up the phone, pushed off from the edge of the desk, and grabbed his partner’s arm, spinning Schanke back in the direction of the door. “Nice of you to drop in, Schank. Come on, we’ve got places to go and people to see.”
	“What?” demanded Schanke around a mouthful of sausage. Nick plucked the rest of the foul-smelling thing from his fingers and tossed it in a nearby garbage can, ignoring Schanke’s yelp of protest. “Hey! That was my supper!”
	“Eat on your break,” Nick told him unsympathetically. “You’re not indulging your taste in fine dining in the Caddy. I’d say we could take your car instead, but we probably wouldn’t get out of the parking lot.’
	“You’re a cruel man, Nick,” muttered Schanke, but he was talking to his partner’s back. He had to hurry to catch up.
	“So where are we going in such a big rush?” he asked as the Caddy pulled out of the parking lot.
	“To see the girlfriend of one of Toronto’s fine upstanding drug dealers.”
	“And this has to do with . . .?”
	Nick looked at him in surprise. “The Middleton case, of course.”
	“Oh. Of course,” echoed Schanke. “That explains everything.”
	“You know, Schank, you’re going to have to get used to sleeping during the day if you want to work night shift. You sound pretty out of it.”
	“Sleep? Are you kidding? With the mother in law from hell staying in my house? She wanted to go out looking at minivans this afternoon. I swear, if I hear another word about minivans from either her or Myra I just may have to start divorce proceedings. But this sleeping during the day, I gotta admit it’s hard. It’s just not natural. How do you cope, anyhow? Earplugs? Blackout curtains?”
	“It’s never been a problem,” said Nick, keeping his eyes on the road.
	“Huh. You’re lucky. So tell me about this lead in the Middleton case. God knows we need one.”
	“Some girl came into the station this afternoon claiming that her ex-boyfriend is trying to kill her. She was afraid to give his name because she says he’s a big-time drug dealer, a really nasty piece of work, but apparently she thinks he may have hired someone to kill her. But because she refused to tell anyone who he is, we couldn’t do much for her.”
	“How does she think we’re going to protect her when she won’t tell us what to look out for? We’re not hired bodyguards,” said Schanke, looking longingly at a hot dog stand almost within arm’s reach from where the Caddy was stopped at a red light. Nick tromped on the gas pedal as soon as the light changed, and Schanke sat back with a martyred expression on his face. “So what does this have to do with our case?”
	“According to the people who talked to her this afternoon, she’s almost a dead ringer for Lesley Middleton.”
	“You’re thinking a case of mistaken identity?”
	“Could be. I know it seems farfetched, but it’s worth checking out. It doesn’t look like the canvass teams around the ravine have turned up anything yet. I just called the girl now, and she’s willing to talk to us.”
	He parked the Caddy on Gerrard half a block east of Yonge and they walked around the corner to a nearby pizza place. Schanke promptly headed for the order counter, while Nick headed further into the seating area.
	One look at the girl sitting alone at a table in the back corner, fingers steadily tearing an empty styrofoam coffee cup into pieces, and the idea of their murder victim being killed by someone who had mistaken her for someone else suddenly seemed much more plausible. The girl waiting for them was almost a dead ringer for Lesley Middleton, down to the red streaks in her too-black hair.

	“And you have no idea who your boyfriend was talking to?” asked Schanke.
	“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected him. She was still almost as jumpy as a wild deer, either because she thought she was making a fool of herself, or through fear of retribution from someone for talking to the cops. About the only concrete fact they’d managed to get out of her so far was her name, Joanna Kasperczak. “The only thing I heard for sure was ‘She’s still alive’. Then he swore at whoever it was and hung up. I don’t know for sure that he was talking about me, but I could tell he was surprised to see me. He looked at me like he’d just seen a ghost.” Nick had bought her a second cup of coffee and, having drained it like a hard-core caffeine junkie, she was now shredding that one as well, staring at it as if it was her one link to reality.
	“And you’re sure someone’s been following you for a few days?” he asked.
	“Uh huh. I never got a good look at him – I mean, I probably couldn’t pick the guy out of a lineup or anything.” She finally looked up from the mutilated coffee cup. “This sounds really stupid.”
	“Actually, it’s making a lot of sense,” said Nick. He pulled a 4x6 of Lesley Middleton, a copy of the picture that had been on her missing persons report, from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and showed it to Joanna. “Have you ever seen this girl before?”
	She looked at the photo. “Oh yeah, that’s my twin. I mean, we’re not related or anything, but I’ve seen her around here a few times. All my friends called her that. I think she just lives on the street.”
	“Not any more, she doesn’t,” said Nick quietly. “Her body was found two nights ago in a ravine. She’d been shot in the back.”
	“Shot?” echoed Joanna in puzzlement. Then, as Nick’s meaning sank in, the colour rushed out of her face. The half-demolished cup was knocked to the floor. “Oh, my God,” she said, horrified. “Do you think she was killed because of me? Because someone thought she was me?”
	“It’s a possibility,” Nick told her. “She wasn’t raped, she wasn’t robbed. It was done at close range, so it was deliberate, not some random drive-by shooting.”
	“Oh, my God,” repeated Joanna. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh God, I can’t believe it. It’s so stupid! I wouldn’t have told anyone! I don’t care what he did – I mean, I did care, but it’s not such a big deal, it’s not worth murdering anyone for. I’d never have gone to you guys except that I was scared, and he was the one who made me scared! I’d never have gone just to tell.”
	“Tell what, Joanna?” asked Schanke. “What did he do?”
	“He sold drugs. Crack, XTC, just about anything. To anyone. But he’s not really bad. I mean, he doesn’t get into fights with people. He doesn’t rob banks or anything.”
	That was a leap of illogic that neither Nick nor Schanke could fathom. Nick said, “Maybe he was just angry that you left him.”
	Joanna ducked her head. “I don’t think he ever cared that much,” she muttered.
	Schanke cleared his throat. “Are you staying on your own, Joanna?”
	“I moved in with a girlfriend three days ago.”
	“I think maybe you’d better come with us,” suggested Nick. “We’ll find you someplace safer, at least until after we’ve had a talk with your boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Can you tell us where we could find him? And it would be useful if we had a name.”
	“I can tell you where to look,” she said. “I mean, he lives in Scarborough, in one of those high rises near Markham and Eglinton. But he can be pretty hard to find sometimes.”

	It took them the rest of the night, but at the third packed, smoky after hours club they tried, they finally succeeded in tracking down Martin Tobin. Their quarry wasn’t too co-operative, and during the ride back downtown in the Caddy volubly expressed his opinions on the subject of cops in general and Nick and Schanke in particular, as well as their parents and wives. His vocabulary seemed to include few words longer than four letters. Nick tuned him out, while at the same time wondering just how tough Tobin really was behind that belligerent facade. The pounding of the man’s heart, along with his rapid breathing, indicated that he was fairly frightened. For some reason he struck Nick as nothing more than a drug lord wannabe, and possibly one who was a few bricks short of a load as well. He doubted Tobin was involved in anything serious enough to warrant killing someone to cover his tracks, but maybe he might think of the ability to casually say that he had offed his old girlfriend as perverted proof of his being bad to the bone, a kind of status symbol in the shady world in which he wanted to be a major player.
	And that would make a vampire’s killing to survive seem almost socially acceptable in comparison.
	In any case, when they reached the station it was just in time to hand Tobin over to the incoming day shift to interview.
	He hadn’t had a chance to contact Janette, and now it was far too late to drop in at the Raven without being forced to spend the rest of the day there. The case of the mysterious vampire stalker would just have to be put on hold until the evening.
	There was a message from Natalie asking him to call her at work. The sun would be up in another fifteen minutes or so. He made the call from his cell phone as he pushed the Caddy well over the city speed limit on the way home.
	“Hi,” she said cheerfully. “I assume my fax on the Middleton autopsy arrived safely.”
	“It did, thanks.”
	“Are you on your way home? You sound like you’re on your cell phone.”
	“Yes, and yes,” answered Nick, running his second red light in six blocks.
	“Would you mind if I came over to your place tonight to draw some more blood samples? I’ve used up all of the last one and I want to try some hormone assays.”
	Nick grinned to himself. “I think my hormones are pretty scrambled by human standards, but you’re welcome to the blood. When will I see you?”
	“Well, I don’t want to show up on your doorstep before you’ve had time for your morning coffee. Say around ten o’clock?”
	“That’s fine. See you then.” He put the cell phone away and ran his third red light.

	The door to the Caddy’s garage creaked open just as the first daylight reached the water tank on the roof of the building. Nick took the elevator up, half expecting to find that he had a visitor, but the loft was empty. There was no sign that anyone had gotten in, or tried to get in, during the night.
	He closed the shutters, put the amulet away in the small box where he kept his keys and watch – feeling a sense of relief as the lid closed and he didn’t have to look at it any longer – and drank down a glass of cow’s blood. Then, knowing Natalie was bound to ask how he was faring with her latest concoction, he reluctantly pulled the plastic container from the back of the fridge and poured a scant thimbleful into a fresh glass. Holding it up to the overhead kitchen light, he scrutinized it carefully, as if it were evidence at a crime scene. It was a glistening, oleaginous fluid, faintly pink in colour, and it looked completely revolting. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he tossed it down his throat.
	As soon as the stuff hit his stomach, it nearly came right back up again. He clung to the edge of the sink until the need to vomit had passed, then poured what was left in  the container down the sink, chasing it away thoroughly with plenty of water. At least he could now say in all honesty that he’d tried it.
	He lit the candles atop the piano and sat down to play. It was good to have the instrument out of storage again. As the pensive notes of a Chopin nocturne rippled out and the candlelight flickered on the brick walls, an image began to form in his mind of candlelight on walls that were smooth and painted white instead, a different piano, a different player.

	The note sounded horribly flat; the player stumbled, continued gamely on, then with a final, mortal conflict between left and right hands, trailed off in confusion.
	“The F should have been sharp, Miss Crawford,” corrected Nicholas as patiently as he could, although the young woman’s repeated mangling of what was a fairly simple piece ground at his nerves. “Remember the key change. And don’t rush; the piece is meant to be played lento, slowly. It’s not a cavalry charge. Try it again, from the beginning.”
	“Yes, Mr. Braithwaite,” said the girl with a strident giggle that was as grating as her perpetual forgetting of the existence of the instrument’s black keys. Nicholas sometimes wondered if he should simply transpose every piece of music she owned into the key of C major, and strike out anything smaller than a quarter note while he was at it. It would be a great deal of work, and the girl would never learn to play properly; but then, she was obviously never going to learn anyway, and it might be worth it for any increase in harmony.
	Blithely disregarding his admonishments once again, Miss Crawford attacked the delicate nocturne with an air reminiscent of a man beating his way through a jungle with a machete. Nicholas schooled himself not to wince; these piano lessons had been going on for nearly three months now, and he was actually becoming rather proficient at maintaining an impassive face as his pupil butchered piece after piece of music.
	Miss Crawford finally brought the piece to a crashing close and announced, “Miss Forrester is learning to play the harp. We thought we would practise a duet together for her mother’s next party.”
	Nicholas repressed a shudder at the idea of this girl playing in public, and said, hoping he could nip this fiasco in the bud, “Harp and piano are a rather difficult combination. Unless both players are extremely proficient, it’s been my experience that the piano will drown out the more delicate instrument. I know of very little music for the two of them together.”
	“Then perhaps,” said Miss Crawford, undismayed, “you could compose something for us – something entirely new.” She wriggled in a most peculiar manner on the piano stool in what Nicholas supposed was an attempt to appear coquettish, and batted her eyelashes at him.
	“I . . . will give it some thought,” he temporized. “In the meantime, you must work some more on this nocturne, and on the sonatina as well. Just remember – lento, lento. Try to feel the spirit of the music.”
	“I’ll practise every day,” she promised.
	The housekeeper, who had been performing the office of chaperone, rose from her seat in the corner and fetched him his coat and hat, then ushered him out the door and into the damp March evening.
	Strolling down the Paragon, across Lansdowne Road and into George Street - his usual route back to his own lodgings, avoiding as much as possible the sight of the Abbey – Nicholas smiled wryly as he thought of Miss Crawford, her piano lessons, and the strange circumstances which kept him here in Bath.
	It had been over thirty years since he and Lacroix had gone to visit Francesca du Montaigne at her home in Avignon. Nicholas had been the cause of her death there, and had fled from the chateau the night she died, knowing that Lacroix was likely to be highly displeased with his actions, and that there would be small use in trying to convince his master of the wickedness of Francesca’s crimes. In the years that followed he had managed, for the most part, to stay out of Lacroix’s reach. Keeping his own company for a change, answerable to no one, had been blessedly peaceful; but to his surprise, the interlude had also been somewhat lonely. And, of course, he missed Janette.
	He had travelled constantly, trying to keep ahead of Lacroix. That meant that it was difficult to get at his money, which was being faithfully looked after by Feliks Twist, and entailed a fair amount of rough living. He had come to London a year ago, but an uneasy feeling one night that Lacroix wasn’t far off caused him to abandon his Whitechapel lodgings and move to Bath, for no more reason than that it was a large enough town for a cautious, discreet vampire to conceal himself, but hopefully too small to be of interest to Lacroix.
	He rather liked Bath, with its streets and crescents lined with dignified buildings made of soft golden stone, and its air of self-important bustle. It wasn’t a vast, teeming, exciting city like London or Paris; nor did it want to be. The inhabitants had little interest in such hurly-burly, except at a safe distance; they were absorbed by their own concerns, their own concerts, balls, and parties, and many of them by their regimen of bathing in the famous hot pools, or at least drinking the prescribed number of glasses of water per day. He had seen some genuine invalids, but by and large people seemed to come here in search of fashionable society and genteel amusement.
	At a concert at the Assembly Rooms one evening, following the performance of a well-known pianist, he heard a strident female voice at his elbow say, in adoring tones, “Oh, how I wish I could play like that!”
	He half-turned towards the speaker, although her remark had obviously been directed not at him but at her male companion, seated on her other side, and who looked to be three quarters asleep. He beheld a young woman of perhaps eighteen or nineteen, with a freckled complexion, thin reddish hair which she had obviously attempted to curl, and unfortunately large, protuberant teeth.
	Her only piece of jewellery, suspended from a thin chain around her throat, was a little golden candle with a ruby flame.
	He must have made some sound, because the girl turned to find him staring at her in shock. “Are you quite well, sir?” she asked, rather uneasily.
	Nicholas recovered himself sufficiently to apologize, but after that the girl seemed to feel that witnessing his momentary indisposition was as good as being introduced, and chattered to him until the music began again.
	By the end of the evening he had learned – or had had poured into his ear – that her name was Florence Crawford and her somnolent companion was her brother James. He was a student at Oxford, a fact which Florence seemed to be extremely proud of, although if the young man’s insipid manner and round dough-like face were anything to go by Nicholas judged that higher scholarship was completely wasted on him. Their widowed father was serving in His Majesty’s Navy, currently aboard a ship ‘somewhere in the East’, and had accumulated sufficient money in his profession to allow his two vapid offspring to spend the winter in Bath in modest comfort. He had found her necklace, she said, patting it, in his travels; she thought it was quite old.
	Although further association with Miss Crawford was the last thing Nicholas wanted - it was quite obvious that she was sure, from the way he had stared at her, that he was attracted to her, and she found the idea enchanting  - he wanted to get a closer look at the amulet. He tried to tell himself that this surely wasn’t the same one, coming back to haunt him yet again, and after so many centuries. It was merely something similar. After all, the chances of two identical pieces of jewellery being made were probably far higher than that the accursed thing should keep coming back to him. He knew it; but he couldn’t believe it.
	He could have easily stolen the thing from her home, or even simply hypnotized her into handing it over, but he didn’t want to do it that way. And, given his present straitened circumstances, he couldn’t even offer to buy it. Accordingly, by the time they parted company in the street outside the Assembly Rooms, he had let it be known that he was a music teacher who would be willing to take on a new pupil, and Miss Crawford had eagerly taken the not-so-subtle hint.
	Now, three months later, Nicholas was gloomily regretting his decision. Miss Crawford’s lessons were a weekly torment, and he had never caught sight of the golden candle again. He wondered how long it would be before the deaths began again. Civilized, aristocratic Bath seemed an unlikely setting for the events that had played out in Paris and Perugia, but he was fatalistically sure that it would all happen the way it had before.
	Crossing Gay Street, he was suddenly drawn from his introspection as a closed carriage with the arms of some titled owner on the door, drawn by two beautifully matched chestnut horses, clattered past mere inches from him. He jumped out of the way, but still his stockings and breeches were spattered with filthy water as the equipage splashed through a large puddle.
	Nicholas’ curses died on his lips as he became aware of a familiar tingling sensation. He stared after the carriage, and as it turned a corner he caught a glimpse of one of the passengers - a dark-haired woman with flawless skin the colour of alabaster.
	Janette!
	Without thought he hurried after the carriage. The streets were crowded with people on their way to various entertainments, and it was easy to keep the vehicle in sight. It halted a few minutes later in front of a row of handsome houses at the top of Milsom Street. Nicholas watched as Janette descended from the carriage with all her usual grace and turned to wait for the other passenger, an elderly man who took her arm as they went slowly up the short walk to the front door of one of the houses. It looked more as though Janette was supporting him than as if he were escorting her. Nicholas watched in puzzlement as the door was opened to admit them by a waiting servant, and Janette and the old man disappeared inside.
	After a few moments Janette came back out, alone, and made her way towards the waiting carriage. She had a faintly amused smile on her lips which hardly flickered as Nicholas appeared in front of her, indicating that she had been well aware of his presence.
	“Bon soir, Nicolas,” she said calmly.
	“Janette, what’s going on? Who was that?”
	“And it’s very pleasant to see you again as well, mon cher, after so long. Thirty-six  years, I believe, although one might think from your casual manner that it was only last night.”
	“Janette, you must know how I’ve – “
	”Thank you for saying how well I’m looking,” she said, sailing on over his awkward attempt at amending his gaffe. “I wish I could say the same for you. Nicolas, your breeches, your stockings – have you been walking through a farmyard?” She clucked her tongue in mock dismay. “And that coat is really quite passé.”
	He ducked his head and then looked up at her with an abashed smile. The smile was his trump card; although there was never anything in the least calculated about it, he knew that for some reason it would almost always get him whatever he wanted – from a woman, anyway. And what he wanted right now was to know why Janette was riding about in a carriage with a mortal, who had not quite appeared to be a friend, or even a social acquaintance. If anything, the brief glimpse he had gotten of the two of them seemed to indicate something more business-like.
	“Thank you for the fashion critique. And I would welcome the first opportunity to show you how very much I’ve missed you. But in the meantime, may I ask who that man was?”
	“Certainly you may ask.”
	“Very well then. Who is he?”
	“I can’t tell you, I’m afraid.”
	“Janette!”
	“I simply said you might ask, not that I would answer. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have several matters to attend to tonight.” She took another step toward the carriage, where a carefully unseeing servant was holding the door for her.
	“Is Lacroix here?” Nicholas asked abruptly.
	“But of course. We have been in Bath for some time now. Longer than you, mon cher.”
	“Then why – “
	”Why haven’t we sought you out? We’ve been busy, Nicolas. The world doesn’t entirely revolve around you, you know. And in any case, Lacroix had no great desire to lay eyes on you after that little contretemps in Avignon.”
	Eyes, no, but Nicholas was quite sure that Lacroix did have a great desire to lay both fists and boots on him after Francesca’s death.
	“Not that I could really see what all the fuss was about, myself,” Janette was continuing briskly. “I never really cared for the Comtesse du Montaigne. Such red hair.”
	Nicholas suppressed a smile. No, he could well imagine that Janette and Francesca would have borne little affection for one another. Certainly two such possessive, strong-willed seductresses could never have existed comfortably together in one household.
	“Well, it has been so nice to see you again, Nicolas – or, should I say, Mr. Braithwaite,” said Janette. They had reached the carriage, and she put one foot on the step, gathering up her skirts with a delicate silk-gloved hand, an unconscious gesture that made his heart ache with its familiarity - she was so close and yet so determinedly far away. “Perhaps we will meet again soon.”
	“Wait! Janette – “ He stopped, took a deep unnecessary breath, and said, “I want to see Lacroix.”
	“See Lacroix!” she echoed, apparently in astonishment. “Nicolas, I told you, he’s quite busy. You must make an appointment.”
	He stared at her, dumfounded. She produced a card from her small bag and handed it to him. “Call there tomorrow – oh dear, not tomorrow. Perhaps Thursday. Yes, come Thursday, at nine o’clock. I believe he can fit you in then. Goodnight, Mr. Braithwaite.”
	She was in the carriage with a flurry of skirts and the discreet flash of sheer silk stockings, the servant slammed the door, and the horses set off at a smart trot. Nicholas was left on the sidewalk staring after her.
	His first impulse was to follow her, get her in private, and insist that she stop playing games with him – didn’t she realize how hard it had been to be separated from her for so long? And since when did he, the favoured if prodigal son, require an appointment to see Lacroix?
	Then common sense prevailed. Not for the first time, Janette hadn’t fallen for his winning smile, and he knew enough to leave it at that for now. To follow her would only be to risk provoking her formidable anger. He glanced down at the card in his hand, which he had unconsciously already crumpled, and smoothed it out, to read, ‘M. Lucien Lacroix, 14 Laura Place, Bath’.
	In spite of himself, he began to smile. Two things he was certain of - that Janette intended to make him pay for his protracted absence, and that both she and Lacroix knew that curiosity might well accomplish what pursuit had failed to do, and bring him willingly back into their company.
	At first he’d had no intention of waiting until Thursday, three nights after his encounter with Janette, to call at Laura Place. But, on reflection, he realized that just because Lacroix had apparently decided on a different tactic to return his protégé to him, it didn’t necessarily mean that the elder vampire intended to welcome him with open arms. It might behoove him to act like a dutiful son and arrive at the appointed time. Besides, although he felt he had already humbled himself by asking for this meeting, he preferred to salvage such dignity as he could by not appearing overeager, and possibly risking being turned away like an unwelcome peddler.
	Accordingly on Thursday evening he washed, shaved, and dressed with especial care in his squalid lodging. He had taken a small room on the top floor of a house in Westgate Buildings, hardly one of Bath’s more aristocratic addresses. In a grander establishment his room would have been the servants’ quarters. Due to his more than usually peripatetic life since Avignon he had retained very little in the way of personal possessions, so he needed nothing larger, and it had the great advantage that the windows were tiny. In any case it was an improvement on the noisome place in London which he had shared with rats and roaches, which in its turn had been marginally better than a pile of mouldy straw or a burrow in the dirt, both of which had sometimes formed his accommodations in the past.
	He had explained to the landlady that he was excessively sensitive to sunlight and therefore never went out until after dark. It was obvious that she thought he simply spent his nights drinking and gambling and was in no condition to rise at a normal hour. But since she was glad to take money for a room that no one else wanted, and it suited Nicholas for her to believe her own private opinion about his habits, the arrangement worked quite well.
	Laura Place, in contrast, was one of the most elegant streets in all of Bath. He paused on the sidewalk and studied the impressive facade of number fourteen, but it looked no different from any of its neighbours; there was nothing to indicate the unusual nature of its occupants. He went up and knocked at the black-painted door.
	It was opened by a footman – a mortal – in faultless livery. “Yes, sir?”
	“Nicholas Braithwaite, to see Lucien Lacroix.”
	The footman stood aside with a bow. “Please come inside, sir, and I will see if Monsieur Lacroix is disengaged.”
	Nicholas was ushered into a large drawing room, well lit and expensively furnished, with heavy burgundy-coloured draperies concealing the large windows. Light from the fire in the white marble fireplace reflected off brilliantly polished furniture, silver candelabra, and more marble in the form of statuary. Nicholas snorted to himself. Obviously Lacroix was no longer reluctant to display his wealth, something for which he had frequently censured his protégé in the past.
	Janette came through a door on the far side of the room. Nicholas caught just a glimpse of a smaller shadowy room beyond, before she closed the door again and came towards him. She looked delectable in a gown of rich plum-coloured muslin, with a neckline which was a scant half-inch higher than risqué. Her hair was done in a convoluted arrangement of curls and ringlets. The mere sight of her in the soft candlelight, after so many years, was enough to send a powerful jolt of desire through him.
	“Nicolas! How very glad I am to see you here. I was worried that you might decide not to come after all.”
	He leaned forward to kiss her lips, but she quickly extended her hand for him to kiss instead, which he did with his best Parisian manner and little more than a wry smile. Oh, she was still intending to have her revenge, all right.
	“I was under the impression that this was to be more of an appointment than a social visit.”
	“Well, yes, but even so I thought that some matter might have suddenly arisen which made it unfortunately necessary for you to leave Bath as soon as possible.”
	“When I’ve only just found you here?” he said gallantly.
	“My presence was never sufficient to keep you before, if you really wanted to be gone,” she replied acidly.
	It was a wounding remark, and it was obvious from the look on his face that he felt the sting. He looked down at his hands. His right thumb had unconsciously begun to rub a pattern in his left palm. He forced himself to separate his hands. “I haven’t stayed away from you for so long of my own choice, Janette,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t think there would be enough left of me for you, or for anyone, if I came back to Lacroix after Avignon.”
	“I know, Nicolas, I know,” sighed Janette. “And you may have been right. But still - you were gone a long, long time.”
	“And I missed you every day of it.” He smiled hesitantly at her. She took a step towards him, beginning to smile as well, when a voice from behind her said drily, “This is all very entertaining, but my time is limited. Did you wish to see me or not, Nicholas?”
	Standing in the doorway through which Janette had emerged was his master. Dressed in an impeccable black frock coat, silk waistcoat, white breeches and silk stockings, the familiar silver sword pin in his snowy cravat,  and shoes with indubitably silver buckles –  as opposed to the pinchbeck of Nicholas’ own – he was the epitome of restrained good taste, a worthy lord of his elegant house. His blue eyes, fixed on Nicholas, were as icy as ever, but at least they showed no more than a mortal impatience.
	Nicholas hesitated.
	“Oh, do come in,” he said testily. “I’ve no intention of running you through with a stake. At least, not here.” He held the door wide, and Nicholas, with a backward glance at Janette, warily preceded him into the next room.
	This too was furnished in obviously expensive but refined taste. It was a gentleman’s study, painted and panelled in dark colours, with several bookcases which reached to the ceiling, all full of books. Either Lacroix had suddenly discovered a taste for reading and had bought up the entire stock of some bookseller, or he had simply taken the house complete with all its contents.
	There was an imposing mahogany desk, two deep leather armchairs and a small table in front of another marble fireplace, and a chaise longue. By way of artwork there were several sketches of a classical-looking Rome. As in the drawing room, the windows were covered by heavy dark drapes.
	“Well?” said Lacroix, after a minute of increasingly tense silence had gone by. “What did you wish to see me about?”
	Nicholas actually had no idea at all why he had told Janette that he wanted to see the elder vampire. He didn’t really want to see him at all; he just wanted some reassurance, which he could never – would never – ask for, that after three and a half decades he hadn’t been forgotten. Of course, being forgotten by Lacroix was probably the safest thing for him; but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted.
	“Well?” repeated Lacroix.
	“What are you doing here in Bath?” he finally blurted out.
	Lacroix raised one eyebrow. “Really, Nicholas, if you think Janette and I came here in pursuit of you, you flatter yourself. I am here for the purpose of performing scientific experimentation, and for relieving some of humanity’s ills.”
	Nicholas could only stare at this totally unexpected and completely preposterous statement. One corner of Lacroix’s mouth quirked upward.
	“As far as Bath is concerned, Janette and I are minor French aristocrats who have found the current political climate in that country not to our liking, and have come here to escape from all that ridiculous revolutionary nonsense. Liberté, egalité, fraternité, and so forth. I do hope I haven’t offended you, Nicholas; I suppose you might harbour sympathy for such notions, in spite of being part of the ancien regime yourself.”
	“I thought you said your time was limited,” said Nicholas coldly. He was not going to be goaded into a discussion of politics.
	Lacroix gave him an amused glance. “Very well. In order to help maintain myself and my lovely cousin, Mademoiselle du Charme, in our former style of living, I have decided to help a few members – a select few – of Bath’s most exclusive society in their quest to improve their physical health, by a scientifically formulated method of removing excess blood.”
	“You? A barber surgeon?”
	Lacroix appeared affronted. “No mere barber surgeon, I assure you. I spent many years in France perfecting my techniques, so I can say with authority exactly how much blood needs to be let in order to help any given malady - taking into account the age and physique of the individual concerned, of course. At least, that’s what I tell my patients. Fortunately, no one has ever inquired just how many years I’ve spent investigating this, or asked for references - they’re all pathetically grateful for any help I can offer them.”
	“And how do you explain all the ‘patients’ that expire under your care?”
	“No one has expired, Nicholas. I only take a little at a time, from a large number. You see, I’ve decided to take a leaf out of your book, so to speak, and try to fit in with the mortal world to a greater extent – until I grow bored, that is. This is a rather amusing pastime, seeing just how much nonsense I can make these fools happily swallow. And for all I know, I may actually have done a few of them some good. That man you saw Janette escorting home on Monday, for instance. I’ve treated him three times now, and he says his gout is much improved.”
	Nicholas shook his head. Of all the reasons that Lacroix might have had for coming to Bath, this was surely the most unbelievable.
	“Come see my credentials,” said the other vampire. He took a small key from his watch fob and unlocked a large mahogany case on a side table, raising the lid so that Nicholas could see the contents. Nicholas stared in amazement at the fearsome assortment of gleaming lancets displayed on a velvet-lined tray, and almost began to laugh.
	“Purely for effect, of course,” said Lacroix, closing the case. “I would never stoop to using mechanical aids. But you see, to a certain type of mind, it would seem that it must take considerable time and interest to amass a collection like that. And that speaks of the dedicated, moneyed enthusiast, not some leech of dubious methods and morals.”
	“To a certain type of mind,” Nicholas echoed.
	“Naturally Mademoiselle du Charme and myself select our clients very carefully. Not everyone is likely to benefit from the treatment.”
	“Of course not.”
	There was a brief silence, then Lacroix said in a slightly chilling voice, “Speaking of fitting in with the mortal world, I’ve heard that you’re currently passing yourself off as a piano teacher to a young lady. Still enamoured of that particular muse, are we? I had thought you might have lost your interest in music after the death of that violinist, Faussaire, Fouchet . . .”
	“Faubert,” corrected Nicholas, even though he knew that Lacroix must remember every detail of their stay at the Chateau du Montaigne. He braced himself for Lacroix’s long-delayed retribution.
	But Lacroix, it seemed, had other concerns. “I do hope,” he said warningly, “that this isn’t going to turn out to be another Amalia, or whatever her name was. Sipping over and over from one sweet, beautiful mortal until you have taken every drop she can give you is in itself a charming thing, but not for you, Nicholas. Your ridiculous conscience will inevitably make such a liaison more pain than pleasure.”
	Nicholas was in too much of a hurry to deny any such intention, to wonder that Lacroix still cared about what might cause him pain.
	Janette opened the door a crack and announced, “Lady Deverell is here for her appointment, Lacroix. She’s waiting in the yellow drawing room.” Janette’s smile had a familiar sharp glitter to it.
	“I’ll be there shortly,” promised Lacroix, and Janette withdrew. “One must never be waiting for one’s patients; it implies that one actually needs them. Would you care to come and observe, Nicholas? Perhaps you could pick up some pointers, so to speak.”
	Nicholas had already seen and heard quite enough to think about without watching Lacroix’s medical technique. He declined the invitation.
	“In that case, I’ll have one of the footmen show you out. Such a pleasure to see you again, Nicholas; I do hope our paths will cross again in Bath.”
	And on that polite, puzzling note, Nicholas was ushered back out to Laura Place. The door clicked firmly shut behind him.

	It was too much.
	The meeting with Janette and Lacroix, odd and inconclusive though it had been, had re-ignited all the desires of the vampire. It had been nearly forty years since he had had any but the most fleeting contact with his own kind. Surrounded as he was now by the formal elegance of Bath, by people who at least wished to appear rational and cultured, even if most of them were no more so than people of any other time and place, he had tried to suppress it, feeling more unhappy with his state than he had ever done before. He had been even more discriminating than usual in his choice of prey: a pickpocket whom he had seen stealing the purse of an elderly invalid; a tavern owner in a market town several miles from Bath who had attempted to force himself on a young barmaid; and others of that ilk. He tried to see it as a sort of dispensation of justice as much as a satisfaction of his base cravings. But now he walked mindlessly through the streets of Bath, keeping his head bent so that no one could see his shameful struggle – the struggle to control the overwhelming desire to seize the nearest mortal and drain every living drop of blood from his or her body. He bit his lip, tasted his own blood, and knew only desperation and hunger there. He stopped and closed his eyes, certain that they must be glowing.
	“Are you well, sir?” asked a solicitous voice from close by. He opened his eyes and saw a pleasant-looking elderly couple standing in front of him. It was the woman who had spoken.
	“Shall we call a chair for you?” added the man, putting a hand under his elbow as if to support him.
	With a snarl Nicholas tore free, leaving them standing staring after him as he fled up the street.
	A narrow unlit passageway opened up on his right and he turned into it, preparing to take flight somewhere, anywhere, that he could get away from all these mortals and regain control of himself. A sound from further down the passage caused him to freeze into predatory stillness.
	It was the rustling of cloth that had caught his attention, followed by a loud hiccup, a drunken oath, and then unsteady footsteps wavering towards him.
	The mortal’s heartbeat was loud in his ears, drowning out everything else. Nicholas launched himself at his prey, tearing away the man’s linen cravat and sinking his fangs into the soft flesh underneath before the sot had anything more than the faintest conception of what was happening.
	He drank in a frenzy, like a parched man in a desert, and didn’t realize until it was  far too late that the soft, fair-haired husk he was now embracing was James Crawford, Florence’s brother.

	The last thing in the world Nicholas wanted to do was return to the Crawford home for Florence’s weekly piano lesson. But he received no message from her requesting him not to come, and so he set out dismally for the Paragon the following Monday evening, fully prepared to find the house in a general uproar. He was certain that no one could know that James had been murdered; he had taken good care to hide the body well. But it had been the better part of a week now since his disappearance. Surely that would be causing his sister considerable alarm.
	But Miss Crawford welcomed him as if nothing whatsoever was wrong, and seemed to be no more distracted than usual. She rattled through last week’s nocturne and blushed with pleasure when he said that it was obvious she had been practising. And indeed, the speed of her playing had increased greatly, although her accuracy very little, and her sensitivity to the music not at all. But in any case she could hardly have been spending all her time worrying over her brother.
	Her concern this week was mercifully no longer the proposed harp duet but a ball on Friday at the Upper Rooms, to which she and James had been invited. “Such a pity James had to go back to Oxford. He dearly loves to dance.”
	“Oxford?” repeated Nicholas.
	“Oh yes, he left last week. I told you, did I not, that he is a student there? I fear he had been sadly neglecting his studies staying away so long. I know Papa will be disappointed if he doesn’t do well this year. But you know, Mr. Braithwaite – “ here she leaned confidentially towards him “ – I shouldn’t say this, but I think the real reason he went back was because he owed money here. Poor James is unlucky, yet he still likes to gamble as much as any young man. I feared he might soon be in real trouble, and that would break Papa’s heart if he found out. So, I was just as glad when he told me Thursday he was going back to school, and go he did. And I must go alone to this ball. Well, not alone alone of course; goodness, can you imagine the scandal if I did? I wish I were that daring, although of course it would be terribly improper. I shall be going with the Forresters; and anyway James always teases me about my dancing. I am having a new gown made. Only muslin, of course; but very pretty. How I wish it could be silk . . . oh, forgive me, Mr. Braithwaite; I suppose gentlemen are not much interested in new gowns. Shall I see you at the ball?”
	Nicholas had barely heard a word of the torrent after realizing that she had no idea what had really happened to her brother. On being asked a direct question, he managed to collect himself sufficiently to reply that yes, he was planning to attend; and out of guilt, shame, and distraction, he asked her for two dances.
	After that he listened to her play the sonatina, which, flustered by the unexpectedly easy acquisition of a dance partner, she botched even more than usual, but he didn’t bother to attempt much correction. Then, mercifully, the hour’s session was over and he could make his escape.
	His first reaction, relief that Florence was spared knowing about her brother’s fate, was short-lived. He didn’t imagine that James had been much of a correspondent, and Florence likely wouldn’t have expected to hear from him any time soon; and possibly his friends at Oxford would think he was still in Bath. His disappearance might go undetected for some time yet. But sooner or later it would come to light, and then all her grief would simply have been delayed. Why had he given in to the vampire that night? Why couldn’t he have been stronger? Had Lacroix managed to affect him somehow during their brief meeting? His master had both influenced and coerced him many times over the centuries into acts which he had later greatly regretted, but Lacroix had not killed James Crawford. It was Nicholas de Brabant alone who had given way to his base instincts. True, he might not have done so had he not just been in the company of other vampires; but he should have been stronger. To have missed others of his kind, to have felt incomplete without them, to the extent that the brief encounter at Lacroix’s home – seeing, hearing, scenting them, yet not tasting them, even though he hadn’t realized at the time that that was what he desperately wanted – had driven him to destroy some poor wretch who had had the misfortune to blunder into his path, was despicable. Fortitude had been seared into him during his time in the Holy Land as a mortal soldier; he should have been able to withstand this.
	Had it been anyone else, someone else’s brother, husband, lover, or wife or daughter, it would still have tormented him. But it shouldn’t have been Crawford. Had Nicholas not seen Florence wearing the amulet at the concert, he would probably have left Bath long before this. But he had seen it, and had stayed, and James Crawford had become his one victim amongst all the hundreds of people in the streets of Bath that night.
	In as black and anguished a mood as he had been following Crawford’s death, he stalked up the rise of the Paragon, not even noticing where he was going until he had arrived at the top of Beacon Hill and could climb no further. He stopped and looked back over the town.
	He was shivering, but it was hardly due to the effect of the thin March wind that was rustling the branches just beginning to bud. He wanted . . . he wanted . . . he could hardly give a name to it, it was a thing so great, so complex. Horrifying, and yet magnificent. Completion, fulfilment, an end to the loneliness he had been feeling, and yet repellent in that killing was an inextricable part of it.
	He shuddered again, and choked back the groan that was rising from his throat. He felt sickened by himself for having reached this state of need, and yet he only knew one way out of it.
	A brief stronger wind whipped through the nearby branches, and a soft silky voice inquired, “Is something ailing you tonight, Nicolas?”
	She stepped forward out of the darkness like an answer to an unvoiced prayer. “Janette?” he asked in disbelief, as if it could have been anyone else.
	“Mais certainement, mon cher. Were you expecting another? Because if so, I’ll just go away and leave you alone.”
	“No! Don’t go. I wasn’t expecting anyone at all. I’m glad you’re here. I was–  “ he found he couldn’t quite meet her eyes  “ – a bit lonely, that’s all.”
	“Ah. And nothing more than that?”
	He looked at her defiantly. “No.”
	“And because you are lonely, I am missing a charming concert with a positively delectable Italian tenor.”
	“I didn’t ask you to come,” he replied stiffly.
	“Ask, no, but someone had to do something about you. To those with ears to hear, the streets of Bath fairly ring with your despair. Your . . . need.”
	He turned away. To find himself so out of control was shameful enough, without finding that others were aware of it. But then, he should have expected it. And he ought to be glad that Lacroix had not come himself, to humiliate him further by making him beg for what he so desperately wanted.
	Janette came up behind him, trailing one hand down his shoulder, her breath cool in his ear. “Mon pauvre Nicolas. Is it really so bad, then?”
	“Janette, I killed a man four nights ago.”
	“So did I. And quite tasty he was, too. What has that to do with anything?”
	“I couldn’t control myself! I couldn’t say, ‘this one doesn’t deserve to die’, or, ‘this one will be missed; best not to take him’. I was hungry, and I killed. I couldn’t stop.”
	Janette’s fingers began to gently twine in his hair. He took a deep breath and went on, “It was because of you, Janette. You and Lacroix both. I hadn’t seen you for so long, and it was as if I’d forgotten how intense and powerful the lust can be. And suddenly after leaving your home, it all came back, all at once.”
	“I am so sorry if I made you unhappy.” And she was, but she also exulted in the knowledge that she could drive him to such desperation. Her fingers continued to comb very softly through his hair.
	“It wasn’t your fault. How could it be? I was too weak, that’s all, and someone died who shouldn’t have.”
	“Nicolas, we are predators, not arbiters of who deserves to die and who does not! We take what we wish, when we wish it, and for no other reason. We kill for survival and for sport, and the morality of it has no more to do with us than it does with the wolf as it chooses a deer from the herd.” She had told him that countless times before, and yet he always managed to bring fresh conviction to his side of the argument. It was one of his more infuriating traits.
	Now she said softly, “My poor Nicolas. It seems to be your fate that you feel  suffering, as well as joy, twice as intensely as anyone else. You have felt the one for too long; shall I help you to feel the other now?”
	He spun around to face her, eyes flaring red. “No games, Janette,” he rasped. “I can’t play any more games right now.”
	Her eyes had changed to mirror his own. “Then stop talking,” she hissed at him, “and come here.”
	Just as he was sinking his fangs into her throat, she felt an instant’s hesitation. Should she have tormented him a bit longer before granting him forgiveness? Insisted that he go down on his knees and beg before she released him from his terrible need?
	No, she decided, he had suffered enough. And she was not Lacroix, to insist on repentance and abasement; to try would be to risk that he would find the strength to walk away.
	And in any case, she thought, tearing his cravat away and driving her own fangs home in his neck, Nicolas was simply far too delicious to wait any longer for.

	Nicholas generally enjoyed balls and dancing, even the cool, formal figures that were currently in vogue, but he had arrived at the Upper Rooms on Friday evening with very little expectation of having a good time. So far, that expectation had been met completely.
	Miss Crawford had arrived before him, and he was barely in the door before she had claimed him for the promised two dances. The music seemed to drag on interminably while he attempted to look as if he were listening politely to her endless chatter, which seemed to be mainly concerned with gowns, shoes, and hair arrangements. Then the sight of an obese, superannuated colonel and his elegant young wife caused her to branch off into speculation about the other people in the room, few of whom he knew, and even fewer of whom he had any interest in. His only reward for nearly an hour of tedium was the sight of the little gold candle, now affixed to a bracelet on her wrist. So she still had it; and after all this time, he still couldn’t see an honourable way to part her from it.
	When the second dance ended he fetched her a dish of sorbet and escaped thankfully to the upper gallery, where he stood leaning on the railing, moodily watching the dancers below.
	“Good evening, Nicholas,” said Lacroix’s voice in his ear.
	He turned and saw the elder vampire, accompanied by Janette. Janette smiled at him seraphically; Lacroix appeared to be examining him as if he were some form of scientific specimen. Nicholas stared back, hoping Lacroix hadn’t noticed the remains of bloodstains on the collar of his one and only coat, knowing that he appeared in shabby contrast to the other two in their finery. Well, what of it? They had all been in much worse states in the past, and no doubt would be again.
	“Your condescension in appearing in a place like this astounds me,” he said, and regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them. Just because Lacroix hadn’t yet pounded him to a pulp didn’t mean that he still wasn’t contemplating it; Nicholas still had no idea of his intentions. Best not to antagonize him unnecessarily.
	Lacroix, however, had apparently taken no offense. “Janette wished to show off her new gown–  “ and indeed Janette was resplendent in a confection of lace and dark blue silk “ – and I came out of a desire to see my pre – my patients, that is, in their natural habitat. I can see three of them from here, as a matter of fact. They all seem to be quite healthy. I do believe Janette’s and my treatment is doing them good. You really ought to consider joining us, Nicholas. It might keep you sufficiently in check to prevent any more of these unseemly lapses in self control.”
	Nicholas glowered at him, but thought again of the thin ice he was still treading on and refrained from making a sharp retort. Janette broke the tension by exclaiming brightly, “Look, there she is!”
	“Who, my dear?” inquired Lacroix avuncularly.
	“The little girl down there in the pale yellow dress. Nicolas’s new paramour.”
	Nicholas’ jaw dropped slightly and he stared at Janette in horror. Florence had come into sight below them, her strident voice easily discernable to vampire ears above the babble in the room as she and Miss Forrester discussed and dissected various gowns. Nicholas even caught an arch remark from the other girl about Mr. Braithwaite finding Florence’s charms set off to perfection in her ‘lovely new muslin’.
	He stared at the polished floor, wishing it would open and swallow him. There was a tickle of amusement through his link with Janette. He looked up and glared at her; she gave him a look brimming with innocence. Or course, after they had shared blood four nights ago, she knew all about Florence, and what she meant – or didn’t mean – to Nicholas. 
	Lacroix, however, was obviously not privy to Janette’s little joke. He was not amused, especially when Florence happened to glance up, catch sight of Nicholas, and flutter her fingers at him in a coy little wave, accompanied by a simpering smile. Nicholas bowed slightly in acknowledgment, keeping his face averted from Lacroix. He hoped his master wouldn’t notice his inner mirth at the expression of bewildered distaste on the elder’s face. Lacroix looked as someone might who had expected to be given a pearl and instead was presented with a dead oyster.
	Lacroix reached out, took Nicholas’ chin in his hand, and turned his face so that Lacroix could pin him with his gaze. He released him then, but not before giving a swift, painful squeeze with his fingers. “Nicholas,” he said in a deceptively pleasant tone, “I always thought that no matter what your other shortcomings might be, you had excellent taste in female pulchritude, even if you placed no value on native wit. What has possessed you to take up with a girl like that?”
	Perversely, at Lacroix’s words Nicholas felt indignation rising up in him on Florence’s behalf. True, she was loud-voiced and feather-headed, and could make no claim to prettiness, but she didn’t deserve such disparagement.
	He kept his voice low but his tone scathing. “I admit she’s no beauty, and no great intellectual – although I hadn’t realized that was a prerequisite of yours – but she has a kind heart.”
	“Kind to small fluffy things and handsome young music teachers,” Lacroix replied acerbically. “To half-wit vampires, I doubt.” This last was said in no more than a whisper, too soft for even their closest neighbours in the crowded gallery to overhear. But it reached Nicholas’ ears plainly.
	“But even the half-wit which you sometimes appear to be,” continued Lacroix in the same whisper, “would need more reason than simple kindness to befriend that woman. What does she have that you want?”
	“Money,” said Nicholas flatly. “I’m rather short of funds at the moment, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. She pays me to give her piano lessons.”
	Lacroix eyed him contemptuously. “I’m sure you can do better than that. However, since you don’t wish to tell me the truth, I shall simply find it out another way.” He turned and began making his way down the crowded staircase toward the main floor. “Come along, Nicholas, I would appreciate an introduction to your charming pupil.”
	Nicholas hurried after him in dismay. “No, wait! Lacroix . . .”
	But Lacroix continued as if he hadn’t heard. Nicholas turned and shot a venomous look at Janette. “See what you’ve started,” he hissed.
	Janette was unrepentant. “This ball was so boring. I had to do something to relieve the tedium.”
	Lacroix reached the ground floor and made a beeline for Florence. She was standing by one of the tall windows, temporarily deserted by her companion, gazing longingly at some of the more extravagant gowns and jewels on display while absently devouring  another sorbet. She nearly dropped both dish and spoon when Lacroix came up to her and bowed deeply.
	“Forgive me, dear lady, for being so forward,” he said in a honeyed voice. “Please permit me the liberty of introducing myself. I am Lucien Lacroix, your most humble servant. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance.”
	Florence was too overcome by this sudden onslaught of gallantry to do more than squeak out a faint “Oh!”. Nicholas arrived and rescued her. “Miss Crawford, this is Monsieur Lacroix, a –  er – practitioner of the medical arts. Monsieur Lacroix, Miss Florence Crawford.”
	Lacroix caught Florence’s right hand. She did drop her sorbet spoon this time but was totally oblivious to the clatter of it hitting the floor as Lacroix brought her hand up and brushed it with his lips, in the finest Continental manner. Her eyes were fixed on Lacroix’s face, but Nicholas saw his master’s gaze alight on the amulet dangling from her bracelet. At first he felt a brief puzzlement through their link, then recognition, and finally a sense of wariness.
	He forestalled any further action on Lacroix’s part by putting a hand on Florence’s shoulder and saying clearly, “The next dance is about to begin, Miss Crawford. May I have the pleasure?”
	“Oh – oh, of course – so very nice to meet you, Monsieur Lacroix,” said Florence, all blushes and confusion. “Perhaps we shall see each other again.”
	“I rather doubt it, actually,” Lacroix replied urbanely. “I fear I am something of a recluse. But all the same, I am so very glad to have made your acquaintance.”
	Nicholas fairly dragged her away. As the movements of the dance allowed, he cast several surreptitious glances back at Lacroix. The elder vampire stood regarding him with a very thoughtful look for quite some time; then he was gone. Nicholas saw nothing of the other two vampires for the rest of the evening.

	The summons came the following evening, in the form of a note delivered to the landlady requesting Nicholas’ presence at the house in Laura Place that night. He was only surprised that Lacroix had bothered with the formality of a note.
	He was admitted to number fourteen by the same footman he had seen on his previous visit. The servant led him through to Lacroix’s study and tapped on the closed door, announcing Mr. Braithwaite. Lacroix’s voice bade him enter. Nicholas went in, and the footman silently closed the door behind him.
	Lacroix was seated at the mahogany desk with several large sheets of paper spread out in front of him which, to Nicholas’ puzzlement, appeared to be large-scale maps of Bath. He made no acknowledgment of Nicholas’ presence, continuing his perusal of the papers as if he were still alone in the room. The fire crackled in the marble fireplace, a clock ticked on the mantel; aside from those small noises the house was almost silent. Nicholas recognized Lacroix’s favoured pastime of testing the limits of his patience. This time, he vowed, he would win, if he had to stand there for the rest of the night. After all, Lacroix was the one who had sent for him, and here he was: the next move was up to the other man. Accordingly he stayed where he was by the door, as still and silent as the furniture, nothing more than another shadow in the room.
	Finally Lacroix pushed his chair back, looked up and said abruptly, as though Nicholas hadn’t been standing there for some considerable time, “I’m glad of one thing at least, that you’re not falling in love again.” The sardonicism in his voice put quotation marks around the word ‘love’. “Your affairs of the heart have sometimes been entertaining, but a liaison with Miss Crawford would have been unutterably tedious.”
	Still Nicholas waited, as if to say, “And was this all you called me here to say?”
	“Tell me one thing, Nicholas. Why do you want that little golden gaud back so badly, considering what happened in Perugia?”
	Nicholas’ eyes shifted briefly away. It was only a minuscule movement, but it was sufficient to break the illusion of remoteness. He had known Lacroix would ask this, and he still hadn’t been able to prepare a satisfactory answer.
	Finally he settled for saying, “It was mine once. I paid for it, and I want it back.” The notion of reclaiming one’s own property would hopefully strike a chord with the elder vampire, even if he suspected the simplicity of the statement. Which, to judge by the immediate narrowing of his icy gaze, he certainly did. But Nicholas was not inclined to tell him the true reason, which in any case was still little more than a muddle of random ideas and unfounded convictions – that the thing was following him. That it was accursed. That sudden and unnatural death had overtaken so many because of it, directly or indirectly, death that he himself had been the agent of. That he was afraid of it. That he wanted to destroy it – and yet felt that he should retain possession of it, for safekeeping. That a vampire who had walked into the sun centuries ago had charged him with keeping it in order to remember the death of another vampire, and the part that Nicholas had played in it. That possibly the inscription on it, in now-archaic French – ‘to light the darkness’ - held some significance that he had not yet discovered.
	Coincidence, Lacroix would say. Superstitious nonsense. And perhaps he was right, but still Nicholas refrained from any further explanation.
	“There’s more to it than that, I’m sure,” said Lacroix. “However, be that as it may, why not just take the thing and be done with it, instead of wasting your time attempting to teach music to that dunderhead?” He examined Nicholas’ face, then snorted in derision and answered his own question. “Nicholas. Ever the gallant. You would consider that to be theft, wouldn’t you? And that’s not how you play this game of blending into the mortal world any longer, is it? My, how your standards seem to have changed.”
	Nicholas knew he was referring to that unfortunate incident when Nicholas and a mortal accomplice had killed the son of the French king and stolen the ransom the king had paid for the Dauphin’s return. It was a totally irresponsible act which he would have dearly loved to be able to forget, which given the vampire’s perfect memory was of course impossible. He shifted uncomfortably.
	“What you do about this trinket is no concern of mine,” said Lacroix. “Janette and I are leaving Bath. After a winter spent sipping from gouty, self-indulgent old men and women, I feel a need to move on and cleanse my palate. And my search for remnants of the old Roman Aquae Sulis has unfortunately proved fruitless.” Briefly he laid a hand on the maps spread out on the desk. “You will accompany us, Nicholas. Isolation has made you far too needy a creature.”
	It was said not so much as a command but as a statement of simple fact. After James Crawford’s death Nicholas could hardly refute it.
	“You have a week to conclude whatever matters you’re involved in here. If you feel that your future happiness absolutely depends on regaining possession of that trinket – “ sarcasm fairly dripped from his words “ – then I suggest you either steal it or drain the enchanting Miss Crawford and take it, whichever suits. In any case, we will all be leaving Bath in seven nights’ time. Is that understood?”
	Nicholas nodded.
	“I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear that,” said Lacroix politely.
	“Yes,” said Nicholas grudgingly.
	“Good. I’m so glad that we’re agreed. And now that everything has been resolved so amicably, I suggest that you be on your way and begin winding up your affairs.” Lacroix pulled himself close to the desk again and resumed his examination of the maps, obviously having said all that he intended to say, and taking it for granted that Nicholas would now remove himself.
	Nicholas seethed at the dismissal, but didn’t protest. What good had it ever done? With cool dignity he left the room. The footman held the street door open for him.
	He stood amidst the bustle of carriages, sedan chairs, and pedestrians, all seemingly making their way to and from parties and suppers and various other entertainments, if one could judge by the elegant costumes and gay chatter. He slowly crossed Pulteney Bridge without any conscious destination in mind. Reaching the corner of the High Street, he stopped. At the bottom of the street the two towers flanking the west front of the Abbey were clearly visible. After a moment’s hesitation, he made his way toward the massive building, walking resolutely despite his increasing uneasiness, until he had reached the deserted square in front of the church.
	By now his uneasiness was threatening to flare into panic. He clamped down on it firmly, trying to ignore the attendant sensations of an oppressive weight on his chest, ice-cold chills, a ringing in his ears that had nothing to do with church bells, and blackness around the edge of his vision. He propped himself up against the comfortingly sturdy stone wall of a nearby building, and studied the Abbey. The larger-than-life size statues of saints, one on either side of the age-blackened carved oak doors, the angels frozen into stone in the act of climbing to and from a symbolic Heaven, and the stone Apostles, all appeared to study him in return. He took a step toward them all, then another, as if swimming against a strong current, until finally, twenty paces from the door, he could go no further. He nearly fell to his knees through sheer weakness, but managed to stay on his feet, eyes still fixed on the magnificent, forbidden building before him.
	Unlike the stone angels, he could fly. He could bend a human’s will to his own, and he could, if he so desired, snap that same human like a twig. And yet the weakest, most dissolute sinner on Earth could do what Nicholas de Brabant, former defender of the Christian faith, could not: walk through the doors of that building.
	Once, in times past, the thought had made him so angry that he had picked up a rock and hurled it at a church, completely shattering a beautiful stained glass window. He could not find it within himself to do such a thing now. The fault lay in him, not the church, but he could see no way to regain that state of grace which would permit him to enter a house of God.
	Leaving with Lacroix, he knew, would do nothing to bring him any closer to that end, but he had no option. Lacroix had decreed it, and he would go. He might try to escape, but his master would find him in the end and drag him back, with that fanatic possessiveness which Nicholas had accepted in the past as the natural rights of a father and liege lord, and sometimes even as love. And who was to say that the bond which ultimately kept him at Lacroix’s side, no matter how far he might occasionally stray, and how much he might despise it, wasn’t in truth formed equally by elements of all three?
	It was an unusually charitable view of their relationship. Perhaps, he thought with the briefest flicker of amusement, that was due to the influence of all those stone saints and angels. But, in any case, Lacroix’s ways did not have to be his. Not all of them, at least. 
	He found that he was starting to sway where he stood, but nevertheless he remained with his face upturned to the great church and the stone crosses surmounting the facade until the bells began to strike the hour. The sound of their portentous tolling finally overcame him, and he stumbled back out of the square and up the High Street.

	His affairs, as Lacroix called them, were few, and required little more than giving notice to his landlady and composing a note to be delivered to Florence Crawford, saying that unfortunately an urgent matter required him to leave Bath immediately. It was unlikely that he would be able to return any time soon, and he wished her well with her music studies.
	But he didn’t post the letter until he had decided what to do about the amulet. He simply couldn’t go off with Lacroix leaving the thing in Florence’s possession. True, there was only one death so far that he could attribute to its influence, and that only indirectly. But he wanted it back. What he would do with it, he had no idea. He was afraid to leave without it, and afraid to have it with him.
	He would have liked to have offered to buy it from her, but his current impecunious state barely permitted him to pay the rent for his miserable room. He certainly couldn’t squander the few shillings he had left on gold jewellery. He could swallow his pride completely and approach Lacroix for a loan, but he knew snow would be falling in hell before Lacroix would lend him a penny once he knew why Nicholas wanted the money; he had already pointed out much simpler methods by which a vampire could acquire such a thing. Janette was almost as unlikely. Which meant that the only remaining course of action, given the few days he had left, was to use one of Lacroix’ suggestions and steal it.
	It was hardly an honourable thing to do, but it was no worse than hypnotizing her into handing the amulet to him, and less risky in case by some freak chance she should turn out to be one of those few over whom he could exert no power. And in any case it might be safer for her in the long run than keeping the thing. 
	Having made the decision, he dropped the note off at her door just before dawn one morning – hopefully she would think he had delivered it on his way out of town – and returned late that night, landing silently in the tiny cluttered space behind the house. A solitary cat hissed in fright and vanished over the back wall; otherwise his arrival was unobserved.
	With his hand on the knob of the door, he reflected on how ironic it was that the last time the amulet had come into his possession, it was because he had casually killed a man and robbed his corpse; now, he hesitated over a comparatively minor piece of larceny.
	A bit more pressure on the door and the latch gave with a quiet snap. He opened the door just wide enough to slip inside and stood in the dark passageway leading to the kitchen, listening intently. The house was silent. But it was the silence of emptiness, rather than sleep. No one was there.
	That was strange. It was well after two o’clock in the morning; even if Florence had been at a late supper at a friend’s and had decided to stay the night, the elderly housekeeper should have been home. He prowled through the house, silent as a cat, and found to his dismay all the familiar signs of a hasty departure. The furnishings and fixtures remained, including the piano with the sheet music for last week’s sonatina still on the rack. But all the personal belongings of the household were gone. His note from the previous morning, along with several others, lay unopened on the floor at the front door.
	He searched the entire house, but there was no sign of the little gold and ruby candle.

	Early in the evening of the night when he was to leave Bath, Nicholas was awakened by a thunderous knocking on the door of his room. He rolled out of bed and stumbled the three paces to the door, pulling it open just as his unwelcome visitor raised a hand to knock again.
	His scowl lightened at the sight of one of the housemaids, a big buxom girl with a West Country burr to her voice, with whom he was on much friendlier terms than with his landlady. “Goodness, you sleep sound, sir,” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure I’ve been calling your name and knocking on this door for five minutes. Ever so sorry to disturb you, but there’s a gentleman to see you downstairs.”
	A gentleman? He could think of no one fitting that description other than Lacroix who would call on him here, and if Lacroix did so he certainly wouldn’t come to the front door. “Who is it?”
	“A little, tired-looking man, is all I can say, sir. Shall I tell him you’ll come down?” asked the maid, who was clandestinely enjoying the sight of Mr. Braithwaite in his nightshirt. “Or shall I ask him to come back tomorrow?”
	Curiosity prompted him to answer, “No, tell him I’ll be there in a minute.” He closed the door gently but firmly on the maid’s grin, splashed some water on his face, and dressed hastily.
	Waiting for him in what the landlady was pleased to call her drawing room, but which was in truth little more than a frowzy, over-furnished closet, was a small, middle-aged man with thinning hair and a rather shabby coat. As the maid had said, he did seem weary, chronically so.
	Nevertheless, he rose politely as Nicholas came in, with apologies for calling at such an inconvenient hour. “But as I was passing the door, sir, and have many pressing appointments tomorrow, I thought I had best stop in now, so that you would hear the unfortunate news sooner rather than later.”
	“Unfortunate news?” echoed Nicholas, more puzzled than ever.
	“I am Lieutenant William Crawford’s agent, Mr. Braithwaite, and it is my unhappy duty to inform you of the death of his daughter Florence.”
	Nicholas stared, utterly dumbfounded. “Miss Crawford is dead?” It was the last thing he had expected to hear, but then again, perhaps not so surprising. The candle, he had failed to get the candle away from her . . . “What happened?”
	“There were some – ah – financial difficulties, which made it advisable for Miss Crawford to leave Bath and return to the family home in Northamptonshire. She was somewhat given to overspending her allowance, particularly to support her brother, and there has been some inexplicable delay at the Admiralty in sending on her father’s pay the last two months, so she decided to give up the house here. She and the housekeeper were travelling by coach, and it seems the machine was going excessively fast – there was some question of whether the driver may have been drinking . . . in any case, the coach overturned, Miss Crawford was flung out, and, I greatly regret to say, was gravely injured and died shortly thereafter.”
	Nicholas could think of nothing to say. He also could not understand why this man should be coming to him to tell him about Florence Crawford’s death, but that mystery was solved when the other man produced an envelope and handed it over. It was addressed to ‘Mr. Nicholas Braithwaite, Esq., 27 Westgate Buildings, Bath’ in Florence’s untidy handwriting. It was unsealed.
	“This was among Miss Crawford’s personal effects at the time of the accident,” said the other man. “Mr. Braithwaite, if the two of you had an – er – an understanding, then you have my deepest sympathies. Miss Crawford was a very sweet-natured young lady. If there is anything further I can do for you, please feel free to call on me.” He handed Nicholas his card and excused himself.
	Obviously Lieutenant Crawford’s agent had misinterpreted his shocked silence for a griefstricken one. Well, it hardly mattered now. He pulled the letter out of the envelope, reading it without difficulty in the near darkness of the drawing room. When he had finished it, he was unsure whether to laugh or to cry.

	“Mr. Braithwaite,

	“It is with great unhappiness that I must tell you that I have decided to leave Bath. I write this from the Angel at Newbury where we are waiting for the Northampton coach. This turn of events is truly unfortunate, but it seems I must resign myself to returning to a dreary village, when I should have far preferred to remain in Bath. I shall console myself by remembering the many pleasant times we shared, and the ball a week ago where we danced together.
	“I am so very sorry that in all the hurry of leaving, I did not have a chance to say a proper goodbye to anyone, or to pay you for the music lessons this month. I find myself with little ready money just at the moment, but I hope you can be persuaded to accept this small piece of jewellery instead. Father told me the stone is a real ruby, so it has some value, and I remember that you admired it. I will be so bold as to hope that when you look at it, you will think of me.”

	The letter ended there. It had never been sealed, and was obviously unfinished. Perhaps the coach had arrived before she had time to write more. He could imagine her bent over the paper at a table at some wayside inn, striving to make her note seem coquettish, probably writing with a pen in one hand and a tear-dampened handkerchief in the other.
	The envelope held nothing aside from the single sheet of paper. Whether she had intended to put her jewellery inside after she had finished the letter, or whether it had fallen from the envelope in the accident and was now lying in a Northampton field, or had gone astray at some point since then, hardly mattered now.
	For the third time, the amulet was gone.

	Nick finally dozed off on the couch, the sound of Florence Crawford’s sonatina haunting him even in his sleep, and didn’t awake until past nine thirty, after the sun had set. He found himself sprawled half on and half off the couch; obviously, his sleep had been uncharacteristically restless. It was a good thing it was Friday night and he didn’t have to get ready for work, he thought groggily, heading straight for the fridge and a bottle of blood. Right at the moment, mingling with mortals was the last thing he wanted to do. He drank straight from the bottle, not bothering with a glass.
	The blood helped to clear his mind. Remembering that Natalie would be arriving soon, he hastily showered and shaved. The face that looked back at him from the mirror definitely looked like that of someone who hadn’t slept for several days. He sighed, knowing that Nat was bound to notice and comment on his appearance.
	Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he padded barefoot back downstairs to open the shutters, light more candles, and down another glass of cow’s blood. When the elevator door slid open to admit Natalie, he was back at the piano again, this time exploring the lyrical adagio from Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’ sonata.
	He looked up with a welcoming smile, the notes trailing off under his fingers. “Keep playing,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
	He obliged her by finishing the movement, then pushed away from the piano. She applauded and he offered her a mock bow.
	“No encore?” she asked, and she seemed to be genuinely disappointed that the performance was over.
	“Not tonight. Will you settle for a blood sample instead?”
	“Well, it’s not nearly so aesthetically pleasing, but yes, it would be greatly appreciated.” She was already setting out her venipuncture equipment on the kitchen table. He sat down in one of the chairs and rolled up his sleeve, remaining dutifully still as she wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his upper arm, wiped a patch of skin with an alcohol swab, and then slid a needle into his vein. He never let her know just how difficult this was for him. For a vampire, having blood taken from the body, even in such a clinical setting as this, was either an erotic act or a violation. In either case, the response he instinctively felt was completely inappropriate here. He hoped she attributed the tension that manifested itself each time to a simple fear of needles.
	She took three tubes with brisk efficiency, removed the tourniquet, withdrew the needle, and pulled out her black journal. “So, how did you fare with the last protein drink?”
	“Well, I got some of it down,” he answered diffidently.
	“How much is some, precisely?” she asked. As he hesitated, she prodded, “Come on, Nick, I need to know this.”
	She continued to question him about his blood intake and general health, jotting down the answers with one hand while gently inverting one of the tubes of blood with the other. The sight made him smile. The beauty of her beauty, he thought, was that she was totally unconscious of it. She had no idea how lovely she truly was.
	“What is it?” she demanded, seeing his smile.
	He shook his head, embarrassed at being caught staring. “Nothing. Sorry.”
	She replaced the book and equipment in her black bag and carefully set the blood samples in a small insulated bag. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that having to deal with the Middleton autopsy meant I didn’t get a chance to finish the new formula I was working on. I’ll have it ready next week. So what’s happening with that case? I heard you and Schanke have a lead.”
	“I hope so,” he said cautiously. “It looks like her death may have been a mistake. As strange as it seems, there’s a possibility the killer may have thought she was someone else.” He didn’t want to talk about Lesley Middleton, and cast around for a way to change the conversation. “You look like you’ve got a bit of sunburn.”
	She snorted. “Don’t remind me. I was out on my bike most of the day and I forgot to put sunscreen on. Do I look like a lobster?”
	“Of course not!” he reassured her, somewhat mendaciously. “Where did you go?”
	“Down by the lake, along the Martin Goodman Trail. You know where I mean. You’ve seen the waterfront a thousand times.”
	“Only at night,” he said . “Tell me what it’s like in the sun.”
	“Seriously?”
	He nodded. “Yeah.”
	Touched by the sudden longing in his voice and eyes, like an exile craving news of his homeland, she described her afternoon. The kids playing on the sand and in the water along the eastern beaches. The enormous freighters moored in the port and the ferries chugging back and forth from the island. The ragged homeless man who had brought the thundering traffic on the Lakeshore to a halt by casually wandering across against the light at Parliament. All the tourists around Queen’s Quay. The aging elegance of Sunnyside Pavilion. The omnipresent seagulls. She told him how clean and white the sailboats had looked in the sun, and how even the murky harbour had sparkled when the breeze picked at the water’s surface and the sunlight caught it, and about the clever or peculiar names she’d read on some of the yachts in the close-packed marinas at Harbourfront. She told him about sitting on a bench in Coronation Park, eating lunch and watching the small planes landing and taking off from the island airport, all the while surrounded by a gaggle of Canada geese apparently convinced that they were about to receive a handout. She had begun to worry that she was about to be swarmed when a woman with two little kids arrived at a nearby bench and the geese abruptly switched targets.
	That got a smile from him, at least.
	“Hey, maybe I’ve got a new career path opening up here,” she said light-heartedly. “Natalie Lambert, tour guide to the sun.”
	“Sounds like a good – “ He broke off and cocked his head toward the black square of the skylight. He was suddenly as tense as a watchdog scenting danger. Natalie was more than a little alarmed to see that his eyes had turned the green-gold of the vampire, something she had only seen once before, when a supposedly shattered bomb victim had risen from the dead on her autopsy table. Despite her scientific curiosity about the physiological processes which brought about the change in his eyes, she really had no desire to see it now, first hand and at close range.
	“What – “ she began.
	“Hush, Nat,” he said, his voice deeper and raspier than his usual timbre. Then he called up to the skylight, “Whoever you are, come down here.”
	Who in the world was he talking to? An over-zealous Jehovah’s Witness? A would-be housebreaker? Another – 
	“Oh, my God,” she whispered, unconsciously backing away as the glass of the skylight shattered and something plummeted through the opening in a blur. She backed into the edge of the table and clung to it.
	The creature standing facing Nick, in profile to Natalie, appeared to be a young human male. Dressed in the height of Goth fashion complete with multiple body piercings, he was an inch or so taller than Nick, and looked several years younger than the age Nick appeared to be. His skin was startlingly white, the pallor enhanced by the black of his outfit, and his face was badly pocked by what must have been a severe case of acne in his mortal days – surely this seeming adolescent couldn’t be old enough to be a victim of smallpox?  His eyes, like Nick’s, were glowing eerily.
	“You’ve been following me,” hissed Nick. “What do you want?”
	“I want the amulet,” the other vampire hissed in return. “Give it to me.”
	“Why do you want it?”
	“Not your concern. Give me the amulet.”
	“It’s mine. Did you think I would just hand it over for the asking?”
	The other vampire laughed. The sound made Natalie grip the edge of the table even more tightly. “Everyone knows about you, de Brabant,” he said tauntingly. “You don’t kill. You don’t drink human blood. You’re a fool and a weakling. I’ll break you in two if you don’t give me the amulet.” He started for Nick with a smirk on his pallid face, clearly intending to carry out his threat. His bared fangs caught the light like white knives.
	And yet, two strides away from Nick, he stopped.
	Nick hadn’t moved a muscle. His own fangs were prominently in view. Under Natalie’s horrified gaze, the glowing light in his eyes changed from amber to fiery red. A low, rumbling growl issued from his chest and reverberated around the room.
	The other vampire snarled back. Natalie felt a sudden hysterical urge to laugh. They looked like two nightmare creatures playing a game of ‘my fangs are bigger than your fangs’.
	If it was a contest, then Nick was winning. For the first time, the intruder seemed to be hesitating. Nick growled again, and the Goth vampire backed off a step.
	“Do you still think me a weakling, young one?” he hissed. “You’d do well to learn more about your victim and not just listen to what everyone tells you. Now run away home before you get hurt.”
	The other vampire retreated another step. Nick made a feint towards him, and he snarled and vanished back through the skylight.
	Natalie was glad she had the table to support her, because her own knees weren’t doing a very good job of it. The intruder was gone, but she was suddenly very conscious of being alone with a creature who was no longer her familiar friend but something – else.
	He had his back turned to her, gazing up at the skylight. Natalie remained where she was, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe, until he turned again and came towards her, eyes blue and expression remorseful. He stopped several paces away, hands extended as though he wanted to wrap her in his arms but had suddenly realized that even such a gesture of reassurance might be completely unwelcome now.
	“Nat, I’m sorry – I’m so sorry that you saw that,” he told her. She didn’t know whether he was sorry simply because she had been forced to watch an unpleasant potentially violent confrontation, or because she had seen yet more evidence of the existence of vampires, or if it was because she had witnessed another manifestation of his inhuman nature.
	Watching as his arms dropped to his sides as if he were trying to pretend he didn’t know that they’d been held out, she suspected his regret was mainly due to the latter reason. She had assured herself, and him, several times that her professional curiosity would outweigh any fear she might feel under such circumstances. Well, that assertion had just proven to be utter hogwash, as her pounding heart no doubt clearly revealed to Nick; but she hadn’t let the fear overcome her. And now she had to convince him that as far as she was concerned he was still the same person he’d been before the other vampire arrived.
	It was absolutely imperative that he realize that, or all the time she’d spent gaining his trust would have gone for nothing.
	“Nick?” she questioned softly. “Are you all right?”
	“I’m fine,” he answered brusquely. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
	“I don’t know, you just look as if you wanted me to leave you alone, or something.”
	“No! Don’t ever think that. I just – it’s – Nat, how can you stand to be in the same room with me, after that little demonstration of what I really am?”
	Natalie walked up to him and poked him lightly in the chest. “Don’t get me started. I thought I’d made my opinion on that subject perfectly clear. Yes, your eyes changed and you grew fangs. I’ve seen that before, remember? And I didn’t flee screaming from the room then, did I? And as far as getting violent goes, I’ve seen my own brother have a worse tantrum than you just did, and he’s just an ordinary mortal. Good grief, I’ve probably behaved worse myself. You hardly did more than stare him down.”
	“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
	“No, I don’t suppose I do. But you’re not going to convince me that, fangs and glowing eyes notwithstanding, you could be as depraved as some mortals.”
	His body stance seemed to be a fraction less tense, but he was still looking everywhere but into her eyes. She decided to shoot her final bolt. She closed the last few inches of the gap between them and put her arms around him.
	After a moment he hugged her in return, letting his chin rest on her hair. She sensed that there wasn’t as much conviction as there might have been in that embrace, but still it showed that he had overcome a major hurdle.
	Something crunched under her foot, and she suddenly realized that the shattered glass from the skylight was everywhere around them and that Nick was standing there in bare feet. “Nick, the glass! You’ll cut yourself.”
	“Nat, it doesn’t matter – “
	”Yes it does. Don’t move till I get it cleaned up. I don’t suppose you own anything as mundane as a broom and dustpan, do you?” She was already heading for the kitchen.
	“Under the sink.”
	“Ah, the domestic vampire.”
	After what had just happened, it was a relief to be doing something so ordinary and everyday. She began sweeping the floor energetically. Nick remained patiently where he was until she gave him permission to move.
	“So what was that guy talking about?” she asked, dumping a panful of glass in the kitchen garbage. “What was this amulet he wanted you to hand over?”
	Nick didn’t reply. She looked at him with suddenly narrowing eyes. “Wait a minute. Someone called the morgue yesterday asking us to double check the Middleton girl’s effects for some kind of gold pendant. We’re not talking about the same thing here, are we?” At his continued silence, she prodded, “Nick?”
	She would have taken bets that he wasn’t going to say anything, and she was wondering how she could shake some kind of answer out of him when he answered quietly, “Yes. Lesley Middleton was wearing a pendant on a chain. An amulet shaped like a candle, made of gold with a small ruby for a flame. I removed it from her body, down in the ravine.”
	“You did what?” gasped Natalie. He didn’t answer, his look saying plainly that he knew she’d heard him the first time. “Why?”
	“Because it was mine.”
	“Y - yours?” she asked, stuttering a bit in astonishment. “How? Did you know her?”
	“No. I bought it from a goldsmith on the Grand Pont in Paris, three weeks before Candlemas in the third year of the reign of King Louis IX.” At her baffled look, he added, “January 1229.”
	This time her mouth opened slightly but no sound came out. He crossed to the table behind the couch and took the amulet from the wooden box. He dropped it in her hands, as if holding it could make her better understand why he had done what he had.
	“I lost it that same night in a game of dice, but the person who won it from me was killed, and it was returned to me by someone who wanted me to have a tangible reminder of that death. Three months after that, I tossed it in the Rhône river at Avignon. Almost two centuries later, I found it amongst the possessions of a man I killed near the town of Perugia, in Italy.
	“I only had it for a very short time then, before I had to sell it. I didn’t see it again for four hundred years. That time it was in England – Bath, to be precise –  and I was never actually able to get my hands on it. Then it was lost. And now, two hundred years later – here it is again.”
	Amazement and awe were battling with disbelief on Natalie’s face as her gaze flickered between him and the gold candle. He plunged on, “I don’t know why it keeps coming back to me. All I know is that there have been so many deaths while it’s been in my possession, or even just at my fingertips. Deaths that shouldn’t have happened. Lesley Middleton’s is just the latest of many.”
	“Why did you take it from her, then? Why not just leave it where it was?”
	“Maybe it’s something I’m meant to have,” he answered slowly. “A cross I’m meant to bear, so to speak. The person who gave it back to me after I’d lost it at dice intended it to be. His son had just died, and I was responsible for his death. I wasn’t the one who killed him, but he died because of me – we’d been fighting over the amulet, and we attracted attention from the wrong people. Afterwards the father killed himself. He was a vampire, and he went out on a rooftop and waited for the sun to rise.
	“It’s not an easy thing to kill one of my kind, even for another vampire. I seem to have a talent for it.” Involuntarily his eyes strayed to the scorch mark on the door of the elevator.
	Natalie decided not to debate the metaphysical and theological implications of his theory, nor was she about to indulge him with any sympathy for his guilt about Lacroix’s demise. From the little she knew of the two thousand year old vampire, Nick – and the world – were far better off without him.
	“You said there were so many deaths associated with it. Why don’t you just destroy it? Melt it down or something?”
	“I was planning to, once. It’s just that – I don’t really know what it is. Aside from a piece of metal with a bit of rock stuck in it. Sometimes I think that’s all it is, and other times it seems as if it must have some kind of evil power. I know that sounds really melodramatic, but it’s too much of a coincidence that so many people have died while I’ve had it with me. If I destroyed it, who know what might happen?”
	“Do you think it’s cursed?” she asked suspiciously.
	“I don’t know,” he answered. “I know something like that doesn’t fit your scientific notions about the world.” He smiled deprecatingly, so she would know he didn’t intend any offense. “But I’ve seen too many things over the centuries to discount the possibility too quickly.”
	She said practically, “Well, you can’t have it both ways. If you think it’s been wished on you by a higher power – i.e. God – to remind you that you were responsible for the death of those two vampires, then it’s hardly likely to make you go around killing more people, is it? On the other hand, if you really think it’s following you around to make you kill again, I say get rid of it.”
	He looked amused. “The consummate scientist. If a thing isn’t black, then it must be white. Every question has an answer, every puzzle has a solution. Have you never come across something you couldn’t categorize?”
	“Are you saying you don’t believe in the scientific approach any longer?” she asked, nettled.
	He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “On the contrary. All my faith is placed in science at the moment.”
	“Not a very wise policy, Nicholas de Brabant. Do you really think that science has anything to offer us, other than misery and false hope?”
	Nick spun around with a vicious hiss, his eyes instantly flaring gold. This new intruder stood in the centre of the room beneath the broken skylight, as motionless as a column of marble which might have been set there eons ago. Unlike the spectacular arrival of the young Goth fledgling, this one’s advent had been as silent as a shadow. Nick had  neither heard nor sensed anything until this other vampire had chosen that he should do so.
	Slender white hands lifted the shadowing hood away from the face. Nick found himself staring directly into the eyes of the woman he had last seen nearly eight hundred years ago in a stinking Paris alley, when those same delicate hands had torn the head of another vampire from his shoulders. The Enforcer.
	And this time, he knew exactly why she was here. Whether it was because of Lacroix’s death or the fact that he had not only allowed a mortal to know about his existence but to attempt to alter that existence, there was no lack of reasons why the Enforcers should deem it essential to put an end to him. And, of course, they would leave no witnesses, which meant that Natalie too would die. If there was really a curse laid on the amulet, it was about to claim its final victims.
	He snarled in defiance.
	The vampiress smiled the icy smile he remembered from their first encounter. “Still a fighting cock, I see. Don’t bother ruffling your feathers at me, de Brabant. My emissary failed in his task, so I’ve come in person to reclaim my property.”
	This wasn’t at all what Nick had expected to hear. “Property?”
	“The amulet. It belongs to me.”
	“It’s mine. I bought it from a goldsmith on the Grand Pont, the same night you killed Jehan.”
	“It was mine before then. It was made for me two hundred years before you were even born. But if you don’t wish to hand it over, no matter. Now that I’m here, I see I should have given credence much earlier to the rumours that you were consorting with a mortal. The first time we met, you were nothing but an ignorant fledgling. You hardly have that excuse now. You know the penalty to be paid. Afterwards I will simply take the amulet from your ashes.” She directed her chilling smile at Natalie. “So convenient that your mortal is here. I’m saved the trouble of tracking her down.”
	Her eyes changed from bullet hole black to crimson and she snarled, revealing immense, glittering fangs.
	“Run, Nat!” shouted Nick, and launched himself at the Enforcer.
	Natalie could no more have run than she could have flown through the skylight. Sheer terror, both for herself and for Nick, combined with a desperate need to know what was going to happen, prevented her from escaping. She could only stand and watch as Nick and the female vampire grappled, hissing and snarling.
	It quickly became obvious that the combatants were far from evenly matched. Nick managed to land a few blows, but they had little effect. Had Natalie’s legs been capable of carrying her to the door, she wouldn’t have gotten as far as the ground floor before the female vampire picked Nick up bodily and tore his throat apart with her fangs. Face smeared with his blood, she began to drink from him avidly. Nick gave a howl of pure fury that trailed off into a ghastly bubbling noise and struggled helplessly. Natalie was as unable to look away as she had been to run. She felt as if she were watching a rape.
	Nick’s movements dwindled to nothing more than a rag doll flopping as the other vampire shifted him in her arms to tear even more fiercely at his throat. Natalie thought his eyes were closed, but there was so much blood everywhere it was hard to tell. The tableau was like an obscene travesty of Michelangelo’s Pieta, with the dead Christ limp in Mary’s arms. Tears began to flow down Natalie’s cheeks.
	Finally the woman had drunk her fill, or else Nick had nothing left for her to take. She straightened and released him. His body tumbled to the floor, landing on the rug with a muffled thud. The sound was echoed by Natalie’s anguished whimper.
	The vampire regarded her with a stare that was as piercing as a stiletto. The red had ebbed from her eyes and her fangs were concealed again, but there was still something other than human in her motionless gaze. The totally inappropriate thought occurred to Natalie that the woman bore more than a passing resemblance to  Morticia from the Addams Family, but the comparison failed to mitigate her fear. She found that she had backed all the way into the kitchen and was still trying to get further away, even though the unyielding edge of the countertop was now pressing into her lower back.
	In the blink of an eye the vampire had closed the distance and now stood directly in front of her, holding out one bloody hand. Natalie realized she was still clutching Nick’s little gold candle; in fact, she had been holding it so tightly that the thin gold loop shielding the ruby flame had left an imprint on her palm. Her hands were shaking so much she could barely control them, but she dropped the amulet into the vampire’s waiting grasp.
	The woman stood turning it over and over, examining it carefully. She made no further move towards Natalie, who finally cleared her throat and managed tremulously, “Is he dead?”
	The woman looked back at Nick’s crumpled body. “No. Although by rights I should kill him. Defying me was simply the latest of his many transgressions.” Holding the amulet, she went back to kneel beside Nick, turning his head up with one hand to look at his blood-streaked face.
	“Nicholas de Brabant has been in frequent contempt of the Code,” she continued. “But his master has been overly indulgent. And now his master has paid the price for that.”
	From what little Nick had told her about Lacroix, Natalie couldn’t believe that. ‘Indulgence’ had hardly seemed to be the watchword of their relationship. But she wasn’t about to argue.
	Still regarding Nick, the female vampire said musingly, as if to herself, “There is something in him that others of our kind would find contemptible, but I would not wish to see destroyed.  A depth of soul, perhaps. Even though most vampires don’t believe they possess a soul at all. In many cases we don’t. It would appear that Nicholas, in this as in so many other things, is an exception.”
	She fell silent. Natalie almost began to breathe normally again.
	With her eyes still fixed on Nick’s face, the vampire said softly, “For the sake of the one who made my amulet for me, I will let you both live.”
	Then she looked up, black eyes pinning Natalie brutally. “Go now. Get out of here.”
	Perversely, Natalie suddenly wanted desperately to stay. Nick couldn’t simply be all right, not with every drop of blood drained from his body, and she was frightened of what this other vampire might do to him while he was still vulnerable. “What about Nick? I have to know he’s all right. I can’t just – “
	Her protests were met with an angry, open-mouthed hiss. Natalie took the hint and fled.

	She spent the weekend alternately worrying about Nick and jumping at shadows in case the woman had changed her mind and decided to come after Natalie after all.
	By Sunday evening she still hadn’t heard from him. She had barely slept in two days and felt worn to a shadow herself. She debated about whether or not to call in sick, but decided she would be better off with other people around than spending another night alone in her apartment with all the lights on.
	She decided to drive to the loft before going in to work. Glancing up at his windows as she drove in to the yard of the warehouse, she saw with dismay that they were all still shuttered, even though the sun had set more than an hour ago.
	She buzzed for entry at the security keypad, but there was no response. She let herself in and travelled upwards in the creaking freight elevator, heart beginning to pound with trepidation. The door opened on a room in complete blackness. She groped along the wall for a light switch and a few of the lights came on.
	The loft looked exactly as it had when she had left. The only sound was the slow circling of the ventilation fan above the door. Her eyes went first to the rug in the centre of the room, half-expecting to see Nick still lying there, but there was no sign of him or of the other vampire.
	“Nick?” she called hesitantly, out of a dry mouth.
	Something stirred in the shadows at the top of the stairs and Nick slowly descended, holding the handrail.
	“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, hurrying to the foot of the stairs.
	She thought he looked paler than normal, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. There was no sign of the obscenely gaping gash in his throat. He was dressed neatly in jeans and a black denim shirt, but he hadn’t shaved.
	“I’m fine,” he answered. He sounded tired, but he looked a thousand per cent better than he had done when she’d last seen him. “Are you all right?” He took her hands in both of his and stared hard at her.
	“Oh, fine. Well, a little stressed, actually, but basically okay.”
	He nodded, gave her hands a brief tight squeeze and released them. He crossed to the fridge and pulled out a wine bottle. He poured out a glass of blood, looked an apology, and drained the glass in three strong swallows. She knew better than to scold him. Recovering from a near-fatal assault was hardly the time for experimentation with a new diet.
	“Well, what happened? Is she gone?” Natalie demanded.
	Nick poured a second glass and sipped at it. Eventually he answered, “Yes, she’s gone. As for what happened – I’m not really sure.”
	“Who was she?”
	“She was an Enforcer.” At Natalie’s blank look, he elaborated, “A group of vampires whose task is to protect us by punishing those who break the Code. Any vampire who draws human attention to our existence can pretty well be guaranteed a sudden end to his or her immortality. Then they kill the humans involved, as well. To stop the rot before it can spread, so to speak.”
	Natalie remembered several occasions when he had alluded to some shadowy force from which they would both be in danger if her knowledge of Nick’s secret was discovered. But she was surprised to be told that vampires, who seemed like the embodiment of individualism, subject to no law except their need for blood and the necessity of staying away from sunlight, would be sufficiently regimented to have a form of internal police.
	But she filed that knowledge away for future contemplation. Right now she had no interest in learning anything more about Enforcers.
	“But she didn’t kill us,” she said wonderingly.
	“No. Believe it or not, I think it was the amulet that saved us.”
	“She said something about ‘the one who made it for her’.”
	“She told me part of the story, afterwards. When she was still a mortal, she married a man who was a goldsmith, who she loved deeply, even after she’d been brought across. He was the one who made the candle for her. Did you notice the inscription on it?”
	She shook her head.
	“‘Por illuminer les ténèbrus’. It’s very old French. It means to light the darkness, or the shadows. He made it after she’d become a vampire, you see. Then, without intending to, she killed him one night. She was hungry, and he was there. End of story. It wasn’t until it was too late that she realized what she’d just done. The amulet was all she had left of him.
	“It’s hard to hang on to things, even something that small, when you live so long and have to move around so often. She lost the amulet, or it was stolen, I’m not sure which. Anyhow, she’s searched for it for centuries. Ironic, isn’t it? She never found it until now, while I, who didn’t even want it, had it dropped in my lap four times over.”
	“Did she have any idea how that could have happened?” Natalie was curious to know if the Enforcer had subscribed to any of Nick’s theories about the amulet being cursed, or sent to him by a higher power. Had she thought that it caused the owner to kill? Would she have cared if it did? Or did she think that the whole idea was nonsensical? Natalie found the entire situation so bizarre that she would have welcomed another opinion, even from a creature that was apparently some sort of supernatural assassin. 
	Nick dashed her hopes. “If she knew, she wasn’t about to tell me. We didn’t exactly have a heart to heart chat.”
	“Maybe,” began  Natalie slowly, and then stopped. She was hesitant to put into words an extremely half-baked theory she had begun to formulate over the nerve-wracking weekend, because it presupposed the existence of some kind of supernatural guiding force that would concern itself with anything as trivial as a piece of jewellery, and that was a realm into which she was reluctant to stray. Then again, God moved in mysterious ways, as they said. Who knew? Maybe this was one of them. Maybe she just wasn’t wise enough to say.
	Nick was looking at her curiously. She gathered up her courage, hoping he wouldn’t think her idea was totally ridiculous. Then again, why should it be any more ridiculous than his? “Maybe,” she repeated, “something – or someone – sent it to you for just the reason it said. To shed light in the darkness. To remind you of your search, your quest, for the light inside of you. Now, I wasn’t there, obviously, and I don’t know what happened when you had the candle before, but maybe you need to look differently at the deaths you think it caused. Maybe those people would have died anyway.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say “Maybe you would have killed them anyway, with or without the amulet”. “Maybe more people would have died. What if the candle was just there as a reminder to keep searching for the light, no matter how dark things seemed?”
	“Then why not leave it with its rightful owner?” challenged Nick. “She needs a reminder just as much as I do.”
	Natalie shook her head. “Maybe she’s just not searching as hard as you are. From what you said, killing people is a career choice for her. She’s not doing it just to survive.” 
	There was a thoughtful silence. Nick picked up his glass and gently rotated it, staring at the ruby swirl as if there might be an answer there. If what Natalie was suggesting were true, then perhaps he would never see the gold candle again. Now that he had her in his life, what did he need with charms and amulets? Her faith and trust in him supplied all the reminder he would ever need to keep searching for a way out of his darkness, and was a treasure far more valuable than a thousand gold and ruby candles. 
	Finally he said, “Well, anyhow, she must have taken it with her when she left. I’m still amazed she was so lenient with the both of us. You know, I think the only reason she sent that kid in first to try to get the amulet was because she knew if she came herself, she’d have to face the fact that I was doing something I shouldn’t – i.e. ‘consorting’ with you – and then she would be compelled to destroy me. And yet, in the end, she still couldn’t do it.”
	“She said that you had a ‘depth of soul’,” Natalie told him gently. “Maybe you’ve got a kindred spirit there.”
	Nick shuddered briefly, remembering the casualness with which the woman had torn Jehan’s head off. He himself might be capable of that act, but not, he hoped, of the attitude. “If she ever comes after me again, Nat, I’ll be dead for sure.”
	There was another silence while Nick finished the contents of his glass. Natalie was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, and why.
	After a moment she said, “But don’t you think that it’s the most romantic story you’ve ever heard? I mean, after all these centuries, this supposedly soulless monster was still trying to find that amulet, because it was given to her by her long-dead husband.”
	Nick briefly touched his forefinger to her lips. “What I think is that we’d better not mention it again. Any of it. The fact that we’re still alive and can remember what happened is her gift to us. I don’t know why she allowed us to keep our memories – but I do know that she’s trusting us not to tell anyone what she did. Enforcers aren’t generally known for being merciful. Any who start showing leniency are liable to run into the pointed end of a very sharp stake.”
	Reluctantly Natalie nodded her assent, unwilling to relinquish such a fascinating topic. But she certainly didn’t relish the idea of a return visit from the Enforcers. Forcing  her mind back to more mundane matters, she said, “Are you going in to work tonight?”
	“Oh sure, I’ll be fine. What about you?”
	“I’m on my way in right now.”
	“Can’t let a little thing like a vampire invasion interfere with your work schedule, huh?”
	“Of course not.”
	When she was almost to the door, he called softly, “Nat?”
	She turned around. “What?”
	“Do you have any more bike trips planned for next weekend?”
	“I don’t know. It depends on the weather and how much energy I have left. Why?”
	“Um – if you go, would you mind being my tour guide to the sun again?”
	She looked at him standing in the half-dark of the sparsely lit room, with a hopeful smile on his face, and couldn’t help but smile in return.
	“Any time.”

	
	
Fin

August 2000 – April 2001