"Are you sure?" She let go, just as Dina was about to ball up a fist to defend herself from the sudden, illogical attack.
"He"s turned you."
"Turned me into what?"
"Into one of them."
"A vampire." She let sarcasm drip. She reached out herself, touching marks on Lorelei"s throat, but lacking the courage to return the pain Lorelei had inflicted. "What about you? What have they made you into?"
Lorelei"s mouth tightened, her brows compressing in irritation. "That"s different," she said sullenly, then added after a moment, "I don"t know. But Julian"s good. Nicholas-" 88 "He hasn"t hurt me. Not since I woke up in that bed. He"s been good to me."
"Maybe he just feels guilty."
Dina rubbed her eyes. They kept sliding closed, heavy and gritty with her need to sleep. "You have no reason to lie to me, Lorelei. But I need to talk to him about this. And this vampire stuff-it"s just crazy."
"Then tell me why you suddenly can"t keep your eyes open just because the sun"s coming up."
"I"m not drinking anybody"s blood."
"Not yet."
"I really need to go to sleep."
"I know." Lorelei took her hand and led her to a door at the back of the small room. "I"ll take you where you can rest."
Nicholas had half-expected Julian to issue an instant execution order. It would have been fully within his rights as Senior, and would have set an example for others who might take innocent and unwilling victims. There"d been a rash of that lately, in spite of the official codes of conduct. The previous Senior had turned a blind eye, recognizing the impossibility of enforcement. Julian seemed inclined toward a different approach.
Apparently the fact Dina hadn"t actually died tempered the situation a bit, though, for Julian listened, frowning, to Nicholas" story, smoking meditatively as he considered the details. Vivian had left some time ago, escorted by William to a place where she could sleep.
"This has happened before?" he asked when Nicholas came to an awkward finish.
"Yes. A few times. They always die."
"You have no idea why?"
"None."
"But when it happens, the killing is always prompted by intense compulsion?"
"Yes."
Julian snubbed out his latest cigarette. He smoked like a chimney, judging by the overflowing ashtray. Nicholas wondered 89 exactly what he smoked. There wasn"t much tobacco in the mix, and it didn"t smell at all like pot. Given those facts, Nicholas wondered what he got out of it.
"I"m going to place you under house arrest until we get this figured out. You"ll be sleeping soon, so I"ll escort you to a room.
In the meantime, I"ll have Dina"s blood tested and see if we can find anything."
Nicholas stared. "Have her blood tested?"
"To look for abnormalities." Julian stood and stretched, then gestured for Nicholas to precede him out of the room. "You don"t have much time. We should go."
"Who"s going to do the testing?"
"I"ll be awake for a while, along with the human servants.
Lorelei can help."
"You didn"t Turn her?"
"I"m not sure what I did to her."
"And you?" Nicholas couldn"t help the question, impertinent as it was.
Julian only smiled. "We"re not sure about that, either."
The room seemed ordinary enough, but Nicholas knew that if he tried to leave it he"d be intercepted and probably killed when Julian left him. So he made no effort to plan an escape.
He just stripped to his underwear and crawled under the bedclothes. When dusk came, perhaps there"d be answers.
Dina drifted out of that strange, intensely deep sleep to see Lorelei leaning over her, a frown between her delicate, black brows.
"How do you feel?"
Dina considered. "I"ve been worse."
"Did you feel better yesterday?"
She frowned, wondering at the strange questions. "Maybe.
I"m not sure. Why?"
"Because I"m trying to figure out exactly what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Nicholas did to you."
"Lor-"
"No. I don"t want to hear any more of your rationalization."
She straightened. "Come on. We need to talk to Julian." 90 She went without protest. Obviously Lorelei felt strongly about the situation, though Dina still found it difficult to believe that Lorelei honestly thought Nicholas was a vampire. And Julian, too, apparently, as well as Vivian. Maybe Lorelei had tried some mind-altering drugs at the Halloween party, and they"d done permanent damage to her brain.
Her lack of protest, though, had less to do with respect for her friend than with the fact she was too tired to worry about any of it right now. She felt like she"d only had an hour or so of sleep. She also felt like she had the flu. Her body ached, bone- deep, everywhere. Her surroundings looked strange, like everything was the wrong color. Her chest hurt, as if her heart struggled to beat.
It wasn"t as bad as the aftermath of chemo, though. She decided to tough it out.
Julian sat behind a desk in what looked like a mundane office, working at a computer. Surely vampires weren"t computer literate. Didn"t they spend all their time reminiscing about the 18th century or something? The strangeness of her thoughts didn"t register immediately. Lorelei told her to sit in a chair across from the desk, and Julian looked at her.
He was old. She could tell that from looking into his eyes, and the realization shook her. He didn"t look more than thirty, but his eyes-those eyes had been around for a long, long time.
She swallowed. "Are you-are you really a vampire?"
He smiled a little. "I used to be. Now-well, we"re looking into a variety of possibilities."
"That"s not what we"re here for," Lorelei broke in. Rudely, Dina thought. But Julian looked at her with a deeper, wider smile. The age in his eyes turned to warmth, and Dina shivered again. This man-or whatever he was-loved her friend. How?
They couldn"t have met before the party.
"I know, love." He spoke gently, and Dina wished the voice had been directed at her. It thrummed with beauty.
"We"re going to press charges."
Dina blinked at Lorelei"s p.r.o.nouncement. "Charges? What charges?"
"Against Nicholas," Julian said. "As Senior, I"ve determined 1 his attack on an unwilling victim to be prosecutable. I could order him killed, but I"d rather go through the formal Tribunal."
"Would they order him killed?" The very idea appalled her.
Did they consider her an unwilling victim? Of what? She had no idea what might have been done to her at the party, or who"d done it. Plus there was the added wrinkle that he hadn"t killed anyone.
Julian returned his attention to her, his deep, deep eyes once again mild. "If the charges are proven, the penalty is death."
"How can you prosecute him if the victim has no recollection of what happened and there are no other witnesses?"
"There are witnesses," said Julian. "Lorelei saw him take you, and so did I."
"But I"m not dead."
He traded a strange glance with Lorelei.
"He should die for this," she said.
"It"s not time yet." Julian stood, walking around the desk to kneel next to Dina"s chair. "We have to have a talk. A very long talk. Nicholas and Vivian need to hear this as well. Only then can we decide what should be done."
"A blood test?" Dina looked impulsively at the bend of her right elbow. Sure enough, there was a small mark, its edges tinged with blue. "This is ridiculous. I"m getting a little tired of waking up with mysterious wounds."
Julian smiled. "I don"t blame you."
They still sat in his office, but Nicholas and Vivian had joined them, in chairs next to each other opposite Dina and Lorelei. Julian perched on the desk amidst a clutter of papers.
Behind the desk was the last member of the group, a mild- looking man with gla.s.ses and a receding hairline. Julian had introduced him as Dr. Greene. The sheer ordinariness of her surroundings struck her as surreal.
"Why did you do this?" Vivian asked. Her voice was quiet, as if she knew something the rest of them didn"t.
"Nicholas told me about the occasional strange results of his feeding. I want to find out what causes it. Then, perhaps, 92 we can find a way to cure it."
"What causes it?" Nicholas asked.
Julian looked back at Dr. Greene, who rose and came to stand in front of the desk, carrying a manila folder. He consulted the pages.
"Dina"s blood is dying," he said. He barely glanced at her, then shifted and let his gaze meet hers. "I"m sorry to put it so bluntly, but that"s the truth."
"Why?" she managed. Everything felt so unreal, his words had little impact.
"As near as I can tell, the exposure to Nicholas" vampiric blood caused your blood to replicate rapidly until all the lost blood was replaced. However, it began to die again almost immediately. Within the next few days, there"ll no longer be enough living cells to sustain life."
"Replicate rapidly," Vivian repeated. "Like cancer."
"Very much like cancerous cells," Dr. Greene confirmed.
"Except in this case the result is beneficial rather than detrimental."
Dina folded her hands hard in her lap. Cancerous cells.
"Could my own cancer have caused that reaction?" She asked the question almost without thinking, then kept her gaze fixed on Julian, ignoring the shocked, gaping look on Lorelei"s face.
He nodded slowly. "How much cancer?"
"Extensive."
"There"s more to it than that," said Vivian.
"Yes?" Julian"s attention moved almost languidly to Vivian.
Vivian shifted under the scrutiny of the others in the room.
"We all have to find our way through the conundrums of our way of life. My way was to focus on mercy killings. Over the past century, I"d estimate ninety-five percent of my victims were afflicted with incurable cancer."
"So the blood that"s sustained you, the blood you used to make Nicholas, was formed and reformed over at least a hundred years from blood drawn from cancer victims." Julian looked again at Dina, but spoke to Nicholas. "Were you aware she had cancer?"
"No." His voice was soft and thick. Dina had never heard 3 him sound like that. Looking at him, she expected to see tears, but found only a strange, drawn look of desperation.
"Were you originally one of Vivian"s mercy killings?"