"It was you, wasn"t it?"
"I"m not sure what you mean."
"Yes, you are. I"m certain I saw you ... no, I think I saw you. Or I heard you. I was terrified and I knew I was about to be mugged or murdered and you ... you stopped him. The shadow, the fear, the footsteps. He never got me. You told me to run. And I did. G.o.d, I ran so fast! I reached my car, climbed in, and gunned the motor. I was out of there so fast. ..." She stared at him. "I would have been killed if it hadn"t been for you, right?"
"You were followed," he told her simply.
"You saved my life."
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "You shouldn"t leave this place late at night alone."
"I won"t again. Ever. I swear it."
"Good."
"G.o.d, you"re wonderful."
He rose impatiently. "No, Cathy, I"m not wonderful. But you need to listen to me right now. You"ve got to be careful. Really careful. It"s that simple. Get off in the daylight. Be careful at night; stick with large groups." He started to walk away; then he turned back to her, shaking a finger beneath her nose. "And don"t go inviting any strangers in, you hear me?"
She nodded, somewhat taken aback by his ferocity.
He started out to the street, anxious to be away. The sunlight was very bright. Too bright. He doubled over suddenly, caught in the vicious grip of a gnawing agony. Home. He needed to get home.
Quickly. Now. He needed rest today. His customary strength was more than admirable, but the sun was bright this October.
You should see the other guy! he had said earlier.
And that had been true enough.
He had known they were there; they had wreaked carnage in New York and come here. Quickly. Last time, he had ripped them both to shreds. ...
But they had healed.
This time he hadn"t seen Sophia. She was keeping her distance, ready to sacrifice that fool, Darian. And he had stopped Darian, torn into him again. ...
But...
Darian had escaped. Lucian had kept him from Cathy, but he had escaped Lucian"s hold.
And, this morning Lucian could still almost hear the taunting voice of his adversary.
Just who do you think you are? Just what do you think you are? To the others, are you any less fetid, horrible, repulsive?
I think I"m the king, the ruler; that"s what I know.
You have to hold on to power.
And I will, my friend.
You grow weak, and I grow strong. And she, she grows stronger still.
You are a fool. You will never be stronger than I! I will never allow it.
And to himself he added, Because my hatred is greatest, my bitterness the deepest. I will hold my power with my will, and it is not weakness that governs me, or a conscience, but sense and logic and the will to survive.
We are what we are, Darian taunted. Hunters. Wolves. And wolves will hunt sheep.
Not when meat is provided. And not when hunting the sheep will bring upon us a hundredfold the vengeance of the sheep farmers.
Farmers, bah!
Farmers. You"ve seen through time. We will all fight to survive.
The farmers just as fiercely as we do.
You are growing foolish and sentimental and weak. We bided time.
We healed. We grew strong. And in the end, we will best you, and I will be king. She made you, and she will unmake you as well What she created, she can destroy.
Never. . . never. . . you think you know hatred, you think you know anger? You have no idea what hatred is, fury, loss. . . .
Because you think you have found her again, you think you have a soul. You see Igrainia in that woman. But what would she see in you ?
You are a creature of the night. Foul. Loathsome. You are heinous.
You have sinned as few others, raged, killed . . . you are darkness, you are death, you are the very flames of h.e.l.l...
His head was nearly bursting. The sunlight was staggering. He gritted his teeth and straightened, his shoulders squared beneath the sunlight. He seldom needed help. He kept no one close. He had spent a great deal of time taking the gravest care, trusting no one.
The talisman!
It was all he could think.
She must have the talisman again.
d.a.m.n, but the sun is bright! He needed his home here, rest, a place of darkness....
No, he needed more than home. He needed help. And though he had sworn to stay away, he had an old friend in the city. A very old friend ...
He walked with the crowd.
And then he was shadow.
By the bright light of day, Jade was convinced that she needed a psychiatrist. She tried to a.n.a.lyze herself, and could only come up with the fact that she must be frustrated, afraid since Scotland.
Not wanting to dwell on her thoughts, she decided on a trip down to the police station. Gavin, a friend of Rick"s, worked in Homicide, and was a really nice guy. If he knew something, he would surely share it with her.
When she was just about ready to leave, Renate appeared at her door.
"You were on your way out?"
"Yeah."
"I thought Rick was here." Renate looked over Jade"s shoulder, into the living room.
"He was. He left."
Renate wedged her way into the entry.
"He"s really gone?"
"Yes, he"s really gone." "I was hoping to learn more."
"About?"
"The kid killed in the accident," Renate said impatiently.
"Sorry. He"s really gone." She hesitated, then added. "He came in, but he"s sick. He"s in bad shape. He"s a good cop, you know, and he went back in to work last night just because of the kid."
"I thought he could tell us about it."
"Well, he"s not here."
She didn"t tell Renate that she was about to head off for the police station. She didn"t want company, not Renate"s, at any rate, not right now.
"The story about the accident is in the paper. The alcohol level in the kid"s blood was off the charts. Not that they found that much blood.
Not even on the car-or on the tree he hit. He shouldn"t have been driving. He"d been drinking, beating up his girlfriend.... I know Rick is really fond of kids, that he prides himself on his work, but this one ..
.Jade, he hadn"t even been at LSU a semester, and he was in trouble for outrageous stunts. I"m telling you, this kid-I know how you usually feel-but this one ... this one ..."
"This one what?"
"He was bad."
"It"s still a terrible death," Jade argued. "And if he was young, he might have changed; he might have grown out of being a delinquent."
Renate looked skeptical. She cast her head at an angle, studying Jade. "And he might have killed other people as well. Thank G.o.d he didn"t kill some little girl or boy."
"Renate, once in a while-"
"I should look for the good. Yeah, yeah. But I write mysteries. All about crime. And I do research, and I know that people can be really terrible. They can be terrible more often than they can be good. Even people we think are good would probably be terrible if they thought they could get away with it."
Jade lifted a brow. "Renate, there are good people and bad people, and there are all kinds of gray in between as well."
"Yeah, sure."
She stared at Jade, waiting for something, expecting something.
"Well?" Jade murmured. "Well?"
"Is Matt still at your place?" Jade queried, suddenly determined to turn the tables.
"What?" Renate demanded.
"Matt. Remember, you two left here with champagne and caviar."
"Oh, yeah. No, Matt is long gone."
Jade grinned, looking at her. "Did Matt get lucky?"
"Jade!" Renate smoothed back her perfectly styled hair. "Really, Jade, how could you ask such a thing? That"s repulsive!"
"Renate! That"s cruel."
"I said no such thing to Matt," Renate said regally, "so it"s cruel only if you repeat it to him. And of course I"d call you a liar, and insist I never said such a thing."
"Matt is not repulsive-and I would never hurt his feelings by repeating such a thing to him."
"Okay. He"s not repulsive. He"s just not.. . s.e.xy."
"He"s as nice as can be."
"I don"t see you having an affair with him."
"I"m seeing someone else. And Matt is my friend."
"Yeah, well, Matt is my friend, too."
To Jade"s great relief, her phone started ringing. "Oh, hey, excuse me, Renate, will you? I"ve got to get that."
"Um. Well, if you get any good, usable information, you"ll share, right?"
"Sure thing."
Jade got Renate out of her apartment. She went flying to the phone. It might be Rick. She hadn"t thought of that at first, but it might be. He might be feeling really awful, even worse than he had been, and he might need her.
When she reached the phone, her machine had already picked up.
"h.e.l.lo?" she said quickly.
"Jade? Jade MacGregor?" It was a woman"s voice. Soft, hushed.
"Yes?"