Twilight Hunger

"But it's not even dark outside yet."

"I know," David said softly. "But, Morgan, you're exhausted." His tone, his eyes, everything, so concerned. Full of love and worry. And yet he was keeping something from her. She knew he was. And it was more than just the fact that he was trying to drug her so she would sleep the night through.

She would be damned before she would let him.

"Come on, sweetie. Drink the tea and then go on up to bed. You need your rest."

She eyed the teacup. Laced, no doubt, with the tranquilizers Dr. Hilman had given him today. God, if he only knew that her life depended on seeing Dante again, on convincing him to do whatever it took to make her immortal...

She lifted the tea to her lips, pretending to sip. Lowered the cup again and then took the napkin from the coffee table and dabbed the poisoned moisture from her lips. "I'll do as you say, David, if you'll tell me what it was you and that blond woman were discussing when I walked in on you this morning."

He glanced at her sharply. "I already told you. I was just telling her where to find her friends. Offering to drive her into town to join them."

"It looked like a bit more than that."

He shrugged carelessly, but didn't hold her probing eyes. "It wasn't easy trying to explain why you would throw your own sister out of your home, Morgan. If it seemed intense, it was because I was struggling to find a way to justify your behavior."

It was intended as a barb, and it bit home. It stung a little to have the one person who had never hurt her suddenly jabbing her that way.

He reached over, took her hand and held it gently. "I don't mean to hurt you, love. It's just so unlike you to be this unfriendly."

"It's unlike you to turn against me," she whispered.

"Oh, Morgan, no. Not against you. Never, ever against you."

"Then what were you and that woman conspiring about? You went dead silent when I walked in. You were discussing something you didn't want me to hear."

He ran his hand through her hair. "Only because I don't want anything upsetting you, as sick as you are right now. I didn't want her demanding explanations of you, and I didn't want you trying to offer them. That's all."

Tears were brimming in her eyes, and she blinked them away, telling herself that it didn't matter that her most beloved, most trusted friend was lying to her. She didn't need him. She only needed Dante.

"Drink your tea, darling. Come on."

He lifted the cup, held it out to her.

Taking the delicate china cup from his large hand, she nodded slowly. "I think I'll take your advice and go up to my room. I'll take it with me, sip it in bed."

"That's a good idea."

He helped her to her feet, and she carried the cup with her to the stairs, started up them. "I seem to have become an awfully light sleeper," she said as he walked beside her, one hand cradling her elbow. "Must be all this time living alone. I've become used to silence, I guess."

"I'll be quiet as a mouse, love. You need your rest." He stopped, opened her bedroom door for her. She offered him a meek and obedient smile, kissed him on the cheek and went inside.

"Good night, Morgan," David said, and he pulled the bedroom door closed.

She walked across the bedroom to the French doors, opened them up and stepped outside. Then she tipped the little teacup upside down, pouring its contents toward the ground below. The stiff sea wind scattered the tea into a thousand droplets before it ever hit the earth.

Sighing, Morgan walked back inside, glanced at the neatly made bed, at her white satin robe hanging from the bedpost and the empty teacup in her hand. She would have to make it convincing. David wasn't a fool.

She set the teacup on the bedside stand. Then she tugged the covers back, rumpled them up a little. When she rearranged them, she put pillows underneath, working them around, plumping and flattening, over and over, before tucking the covers around them. Then she stepped back toward the bedroom door to look from the same point of view David would have when he checked on her, as she knew he would.

Good. It looked good. Just as if she were lying in the bed, burrowed beneath the covers with her back to the door.

She stripped off her jeans, her sweater, dropping them on the floor in plain sight. Even her tennis shoes and white ankle socks. She pulled on the robe. Then, finally, as a last touch, she closed the French doors again and lowered the shades beneath the sheer curtains. She closed all her other bedroom shades, as well, blanketing the room in shadows. Now it would be even more difficult for anyone to tell she wasn't really in the bed, at least without turning on the lights, and she didn't think David would risk waking her to do that.

Finally she tiptoed to the closet, pulled a warm blanket-like shawl of soft black felt from its hanger and draped it over her shoulders. She slid her feet into a pair of tiny slippers, like ballet shoes, only velvet. Then she walked quietly to the bedroom door.

She had to pause there, because her breathing was out of control. Too fast and too loud to go unnoticed. Just the simple acts of the past five minutes and she was out of breath. It was getting worse. By the hour, it was getting worse.

She waited for her breathing to calm, her pulse to slow. Then, finally, she opened the bedroom door, just a crack, and peered out into the hall. It was empty. Silently, she crept out, closing the door slowly behind her. Then, step by carefully placed step, she moved toward the stairs. The living room loomed below her. empty. She started down the stairs, one hand gripping the railing in case she stumbled. So many stairs. God. Where the hell was he? Where was David?

She listened but didn't hear him. Looked but didn't see him.

Finally she reached the bottom, and that was when she heard footsteps above her. Snapping her head up. she saw David coming along the hall toward the top of the stairs, and she quickly got off them, ducked around them at the bottom and ran silently from the living room to the study.

Quickly she took her key from the pocket of her robe and let herself in, closing the doors behind her. Then she paused, leaning back against the doors to catch her breath.

It took time for her heartbeat to slow. Time for her breathing to become closer to normal again. When it did, she opened the safe and removed three of Dante's journals and the CD that contained the only copy of the new screenplay. The one she had been working on for months.

She closed her eyes, drew a steadying breath. She was doing the right thing. She had read the tale, in Dante's own words, of how a woman's love and betrayal had nearly cost him his life and that of his dear friend. She had to prove to him that she wasn't going to do the same thing. This gesture... this would show him.

She sealed the safe closed again, then listened at the doors and, hearing nothing, slipped out, relocking them quickly and moving into the dining room, into the kitchen. At the back door, the alarm panel stood at the ready, its red light blinking. David had armed the damned thing!

Breathlessly, she tried to remember the code, but her mind was whirling with other things. David was coining through the house now. Coming this way! Dammit, when had she told him the alarm codes? Hell, how hard was it for him to guess, even if she hadn't told him? Her birthday.

Right. Her birthday.

She quickly punched in the numbers. The green light flashed on. David was coining through the dining room now, toward the kitchen. His steps got nearer and nearer. She yanked open the kitchen door and darted through it, hugging the books to her chest with one arm. Then she pulled the door closed quickly, but as quietly as possible. She raced toward the large willow tree, mentally counting as she ran. The alarm would reactivate itself in thirty seconds. Morgan hoped to God David wouldn't notice the green light before it turned red again. Reaching the tree, she ducked behind it and kept counting. When she reached thirty, she waited, staring back at the door, expecting it to burst open and David to come outside to see what was going on. But he didn't.

He hadn't even seen her.

Sighing her relief, she turned away from the house and walked down toward the shore and the spot where she had last seen Dante. Then she sat there, shivering and pulling her shawl more closely around her. Waiting. Waiting for him to come. What if he didn't?

The scene from the night before kept replaying in her mind. The way he'd jerked in pain, the blood oozing from around the bolt in his arm, and then him falling. Just plummeting.

How could he have survived?

But he wasn't human. He wasn't alive, really. Biting her lip, she looked down over the side. And there she saw what she hadn't seen before, in the darkness. A ledge. He must have landed on the ledge.

Frowning, she looked around, chose a spot and clambered over the side, lowering herself onto the wide stone ledge, like a natural balcony overlooking the sea. It wasn't easy to cling to the journals, the CD tucked into the pages of the top one, while making her way down. Thank goodness she hadn't tried to bring more of them.

She landed on the ledge. Here, she thought. He must have landed here. She ran her palms along the stone, as if she could still feel him. But she couldn't. Were the tiny stains she saw his blood? They could just as easily be droplets of salt water or rain or dew.

"Where did you go, Dante?" She looked to the left and right but saw nothing. Below, only sea and rock. He couldn't have gone into the sea, could he?

Sighing, wondering if she could manage to climb back up, she stopped and stared into the tangle of vines and the opening beyond them. "A cave," she whispered.

Parting the vines with one arm, she crept inside, into pitch, utter darkness and the constant chill of the deep earth. She drew her shawl closer, straining her eyes to see ahead of her. Stretching out her free arm, she moved it back and forth in front of her as she walked forward in slow, abbreviated steps. She expected cobwebs. There were none. Just smooth, cold stone beneath her slippered feet. She kept expecting to reach an ending of some kind. A drop-off, perhaps, and her feet slid cautiously. But the floor didn't fall away.

Her mind kept telling her to turn back. But everything else, her instinct, her heart and this mindless yearning for Dante, made turning back impossible. She was compelled to move forward. There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself over and over as the darkness swallowed her. What was the worst that could happen? She could die? She was dying anyway.

She stopped swinging her hand and instead dragged it along the wall, until the wall curved away from her, and she stopped, startled. Okay, okay. She took her time, trying to get oriented, feeling her way. The walls hadn't vanished, just widened. She was in a larger area now. She patted the wall following it around until her hand felt a spot that was different Steel rather than stone. Her fingers scrambled outward to its edges, and she realized she had found a door. She located the handle, an iron ring, and tugged, then pushed and tugged and pushed again until the thing moved, just a little. God, this wasn't going to be easy. Especially given how weak she felt today. Still, she set her precious books aside, summoned what little strength she could find and continued working at the heavy door until finally she managed to drag it open just enough.

Then she paused and leaned back against a bumpy stone wall, panting, breathless. And slowly, as she tried to will her heartbeat to slow, she felt something. Some... awareness. Some sense beyond the normal five-not a smell, not a sound-told her that she was close to him. Dante. He was here, somewhere. She wanted to sniff, but not that exactly. She lifted her head, searching with her mind, scanning the air for that sense of him, finding it, stronger now, thrumming in the very center of her forehead.

"Dante... " she whispered, her heart catching in her chest. That hollow yearning clawed at her belly. She pushed off the wall, bent to feel around until she found her books and hugged them to her, then squeezed herself into the space made by the slightly opened door and through it. "Dante, are you here?"

No reply. Pitch darkness, and yet her voice didn't echo as it should. She moved around, again, using her hand to gauge the shape and size of the room. Flat walls, not curved. And it smelled different. Her thigh bumped something that rocked, and her hand shot to it to steady it.

A small table.

And the item on it... a lantern. Then there should be...

Yes, she patted the table and found the matches. She must be in the room beneath the study, she thought, her heart tripping into a gallop all over again. Was this where he had come?

She set her books on the table, then fumbled in the darkness, lit a match and put its flame to the lantern's wick. When the light shone from the globe, she lifted the lamp and turned.

The coffin was there. Closed. Empty?

Swallowing hard, she looked down, and then she went still. Something dark red had been poured out on the floor. A lot of it, a puddle of it near the door, and then a ribbon that unwound, and another puddle reside the coffin. Oh, God, he had lost so much blood!

Carrying her lamp in a trembling hand, she moved closer, stepping around the drying pools, and for an instant she managed to tear her gaze away from the dull, dusty box and the life blood on the floor, to look around for a hook or... There was an ancient nail sticking out of one of the beams above her head. It was cocked up at an angle, as if it had been put there for this very purpose. She slid the lantern's wire handle over the nail and let it hang there. Then, nervously, licking her lips, she turned back to the coffin.

Was it dark outside yet? It hadn't been when she had found this place. But it had been a while now. Maybe an hour as she had slowly traversed the cave.

Only the length of her back lawn, but that was seventy yards, at least, every step of which had very likely been painted in Dante's blood. In complete darkness Morgan had inched the length of it. And then there was the time she had spent wrestling with the door. Which should have been locked. If Dante had been all right, he would have locked the damned door.

Her hands curled over the wood of the coffin's lid. She closed her eyes slowly, drew a breath for courage, prayed she wouldn't find a lifeless shell inside, and then she lifted the lid upward.

Its hinges, rusted with age and disuse, creaked and groaned.

Dante lay inside, perfectly still, utterly white. His face, so lifeless and yet so real. Pale. "Dante... " She touched his face, then drew her fingertips away quickly at the cool chill of his flesh. Was he dead? Had he bled to death from that hunter's arrow in his arm?

Tears blurring her vision, she tore her gaze from his precious face and looked at the rest of his body. He wore the black silk he seemed to prefer in shirts, and she saw that the left sleeve was torn away, his left arm bare except for the band of black silk that was knotted around it high on his bicep, almost to the shoulder.

Had he stopped the bleeding with his makeshift bandage? Would the faded lining of the casket reveal bloodstains if she inspected it?

Her eyes slid to his face again. "Oh, Dante, please be all right. You have to be all right. I need you." She whispered the words as she cupped his face in her hands and pressed her mouth to his cold, still lips.

Her own tears flavored the kiss. And he did not respond at all.

The words she had read in one of his journals and used in her first film came flooding back to her mind now. There were only a few ways a vampire could die, but bleeding to death was one of them. His wound-that would have healed by now, with the day sleep. Unless he had died before it had the chance.

She moved to his arm, tugging at the knotted silk until she got it loose, and then she unwrapped it from around his arm. There was no wound. Dried blood, yes, but no gaping hole in his flesh. It had healed. The books had told the truth about that.

Then they must also be correct about the fact that the blood he had lost could be replaced only one way. He had to take it from someone else.

"From me," she whispered. "Yes. From me." Leaning close to his face again, she stroked his hair. "I know you won't let me die, Dante. I know you'll do the right thing-and make me what you are-before you'll let me fade and die. I know you will. I trust you." Bending, she kissed his forehead. Then she straightened again and ran her hands over his jeans, checking the pockets, knowing he carried some sort of blade. She had seen him use it.

She found it, slid her hand into his front pocket to retrieve it, and as her hand slid intimately close to him, she realized that he was erect. It surprised her. And she knew instinctively that it wasn't the normal sleeping state for vampires. No. It was her. She was near, touching him, kissing him, and somehow, even in this state of near dormancy, he sensed it. And he wanted her.

Morgan dragged her hand over the front of his jeans, caressing the hardness there as she brought the blade toward her. Opening her palm, she saw what looked like a small onyx-handled jackknife. But the blade she unfolded wasn't a knife blade. It was long and slender and looked like a Phillips head screwdriver, except that the X-shapes that crossed at its pointed tip were razor sharp.

She stared down at the device, and a little shiver went through her. If she jabbed herself in the wrong place and he didn't revive as she hoped he would, she might risk bleeding to death herself, she thought. She needed to be careful. Not the wrist. Not the throat.

Drawing a breath, she closed her eyes and tightened her fist around the odd little blade. Then, with one swift movement, she drove it into the palm of her other hand. Pain stabbed through her, and she cried out. The device clattered to the floor as Morgan gritted her teeth, opened her eyes and slowly opened her hand. Blood pooled into her palm. She looked past it at Dante. His nostrils quivered, and his hands were beginning to move sporadically.

"It's all right, my love. It's all right now." Fisting her hand to keep the blood from spilling, she moved it to his mouth. A droplet, then two, escaped her fist and touched his lips.

His tongue darted out to catch them. And then his hands sprang up like a trap, one closing on her forearm, the other pushing her palm to his open, questing mouth. Before she knew what was happening, he was fastened to her there, sucking at the tiny hole she had made, swallowing her.

The sensations coursed through her as they had before. Every part of her came alive, and some new kind of lust burned in her veins. She felt his teeth, his tongue swirling over her palm, lapping up every drop.

And then suddenly his eyes were open. Wide open, but unseeing. They glowed with a feral hunger, that predatory gleam she had seen before, as he took her hand from his mouth, held it away from him. He sat up suddenly, sprang from the casket, landing on his feet, still holding her hand at the wrist. His breath came fast, and each time he exhaled, there was a growl from deep within him. He jerked her body against his and ground his hips into her, his mouth trailing over her neck, sucking the skin between his teeth, nipping, drawing blood and moving on. The pain was sweet torture, and she arched against him. With one hand she managed to tug loose the sash of her white satin robe, and he pushed it off her shoulders as he nibbled a path over them.

"Take what you need from me, Dante."

One more low, deep growl, and then he pushed her with his body until she hit the concrete wall. He gripped her thighs in his hands, lifted them around his waist, and he drove into her. He was as cold, and hard as the stone at her back, and he filled her, rammed deeper and sank his teeth into her again and again. The bolts of pleasure and pain rocking through her mingled until she couldn't tell one from the other, and she screamed as she climaxed, her entire body shuddering with the unbearable force of her release, and still he kept pumping into her and sucking the life from her veins.

She clung to him, and she whispered that she loved him, that she would die for him, then feared that perhaps she was about to prove it.

Lou and Maxine sat in the car, a few yards down the road from Morgan's mansion. It was a good spot They had a clear view of the back lawn all the way to the cliffs, and the front and one side of the house, as well. Max didn't think anyone would be coming or going without her and Lou seeing them. She had a Diet Dr. Pepper, and he had a mug of coffee. The sky was purple out over the water, darkening up higher, the water mirroring its progression.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Quarter past dusk."

"Very funny." She looked toward the front door of the house, saw it open and that Sumner fellow fill the doorway. He spoke to Lydia for a second, then stepped aside and let her pass. "She's in."

"You thought she'd have a problem?"

Max shrugged. "Sumner said for us to stay away and give Morgan some space. I didn't expect him to welcome Lydia with open arms."

Lou shrugged. "She's a beautiful woman."

"Yeah, but she's not into men."

"More's the pity," Lou muttered.

Max punched him, maybe a little harder than if she'd just been playing.

"I meant for Sumner's sake, Max. Sheesh." He rubbed his shoulder. She had no doubt it really hurt.

"Ten to one she'll be back out here in five minutes," she said, smoothly changing the subject.

"I'll take that bet."

She scowled at him. "So what is it with you two, anyway?"

"Who? Lydia and me?"

She nodded. "Did you and she ever... ?"

"She's not into men."

"Was once," Max said.

"How do you know that?"

"She told me she had a kid with some guy." Lou joked surprised as hell. "What, you didn't know?"

"Sure I knew. I just didn't realize she'd told you."

She shrugged.

"What else did she tell you?"

"Nothing." She looked at him, and it was pretty damn clear in his eyes that there was something else. "Jesus, Lou, tell me it wasn't you."

"What?" He blinked twice, then gave his head a broad shake. "No. I didn't have anything to do with those babies."

Max tipped her head sideways. "Babies? There were more than one?"

He licked his lips. "This isn't our business, Max. You wanna know about Lydia's past, you ask Lydia."

"Fine. Don't get so damned defensive, will you? I just wanted to know if you'd boinked her or not."

He sent her a look of barely restrained impatience. "Not."

"Not that it's any of my business."

"You got that right."

"It's not like we're boinking on a steady basis."

"Or at all."

"Well, the night's young, Lou. Don't rule anything out."

Lou tipped his head back, thumped it against the headrest repeatedly and stared at the ceiling of the car. Max averted her face a little so he wouldn't see her grin. God, she loved teasing the man. She knew he reacted to it with a stirring of arousal. It wouldn't bother him so much if he didn't.

And she was going to tease the hell out of him tonight. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. Stuck on a stakeout with him like this. Alone, all night, in the car. Just the two of them. What would he do, she wondered, if she were to reach over there and lay her hand on his lap? Probably leap out of the car and run for the hills. She looked down at her hand where it rested on the seat in between them. Neat, short, unpainted nails. She wished for a moment that they were long and sharp and painted like her sister's. Men liked that, didn't they? She inched her hand a little closer to his leg.

"Who the hell is that?" Lou asked, his head coming level, eyes sharp.

She resisted swearing out loud and followed his gaze. Then a tingling alarm raced up her spine as she saw the dark figure moving toward the house. He passed by the lamp post on the walkway, and it illuminated his face for a moment.

"It's Scarface!" Max said, squinting, staring harder.

"Is he the same man you saw the night of the fire?"

"I don't know. It was five years ago, remember?" she snapped. "He's ringing the bell. Come on, we'd better move."

She yanked open her door and got out. Lou got out on his side and hurried around the car to meet her in front of it. "Stay behind me, Max."

She didn't argue, but she would be damned before she would use him as a human shield. They reached the walkway just about the time the door opened.

Sumner said, "Who the hell are you?"

"The man who was attacking Morgan the night we arrived," Max called.

Both men swung their gazes around to face her and Lou. Lou had his gun in his hand. He didn't point it, just made sure they saw it. "I think it's time we had a talk, Mister... Stiles, isn't it?"

The scar-faced man nodded, his hands hovering about waist high, palms out. "Frank Stiles," he said. "And that's why I'm here. I want to talk." He looked at Sumner. "To all of you. I don't think you know what you're dealing with."

Sumner glanced at Lou. "What do you think?"

Lou walked up to the man. "Put your hands up, pal." The man raised his hands a little higher, and Lou handed his gun to Max, quickly patted Stiles down, then took the gun back again. "Sumner, you wanna hear what this guy has to say?"

"I think we probably should, don't you?"

Lou nodded reluctantly. "You try anything, I won't hesitate. You understand."

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Stiles said softly. "I just want to help."

Sumner stepped aside. Stiles walked in, with Lou and Max right behind him. "Help?" Max asked. "Is that what you were doing to my sister when we arrived the other night? Helping her?"

"I was checking her to see if she'd been bitten."

Max lowered her gaze as they all trooped through the house into the small sitting room off the main living area. She imagined that was so Morgan couldn't hear or see them if she happened to come down the stairs. "Where's Lydia?" Max asked as they all sat down.

"Upstairs, checking on Morgan." Sumner turned to Stiles. "If you have some explanation for attacking that girl, sir, I would suggest you give it now."

"I need to start at the beginning. If you'll just give me five minutes, I can make you understand-"

"Yeah?" Max asked. "You gonna make me understand why you put a bullet in my best friend's forehead, too, while you're at it?"

Stiles looked her dead in the eye. "I was there. It's true. I was at that apartment. But I did not hurt your friend. He did."

"He, who?"

"Dante. The killer I'm trying to track down."

"Vampires don't shoot people, Stiles."

"They do if they're trying to set someone up. Like me."

"So Dante framed you? Funny, the cops all seemed to think Lou did it. He was the one who ended up framed."

"Lou is a cop. They knew he hadn't done it almost immediately. I was the next obvious choice." Max rolled her eyes, but Stiles went on. "Listen to me. Please."

Throwing her hands in the air, Max sighed and paced away. "Fine. Fine, you have the floor." She sank into a chair. Sumner and Lou were already sitting, but Stiles remained standing.

"For twenty years I was an agent with the CIA's ultra-secret Division of Paranormal Investigations. Our headquarters was in White Plains. Our charge was the research and elimination of vampires."

Max nodded. She had already known all of this. Sumner seemed stunned as he glanced at Lou, then back at Stiles. "My God, you mean it's all true?"

"What I'm telling you is true. The vampires revolted, attacked the headquarters, burned it to the ground and killed most of the operatives. That was five years ago. It was a disaster. Our funding was pulled, the division completely shut down. Any surviving agents scattered, going undercover, as I did."

"Why?" Max asked.

"To avoid debriefing. We know a lot of things the government would rather not risk being made public." He eyed Max. "That's why I threatened you that night. I couldn't afford for anyone to know I was alive."

"And when I told someone, even though it was five years later, you knew somehow."

He nodded. "I still have a few connections in the Agency. One of them told me about Officer Malone's phone call."

"So you went to Lou's place, lured my best friend there and shot her to teach me a lesson?"

"No! I went to his place to try to find out what he knew. That vampire was there, waiting in ambush. The girl was already unconscious. Before I could do anything, he shot her. Then he just gave me this evil smile and took off." He shook his head slowly and went on. "I knew he'd come after Morgan next, that's why I drove all night to get to her. To warn her."

"And why did Dante do all this?" she asked.

"He knows what I've been doing," Stiles said. "Searching for the surviving members of the DPI, patting them back together, re-forming our group as an independent entity. An elite unit of expert vampire hunters." He sighed, lowering his head. "Dante wants to put me away. He figured if he made it look like I killed your friend, you and Lou would find a way to put me behind bars."

Max leaned back in her chair, trying to digest all he had said. "That doesn't explain what Dante was doing in Lou's apartment in the first place."

Shaking his head, he said, "Don't you get it? You and Lou were trying to find out who had killed that woman-Lydia Jordan's friend. It must have been Dante. He must have been afraid you were getting close and gone there to see what you had on him."

"It's a little farfetched," Max said, sighing, turning it over in her mind.

Lou said, "What I don't get is, why do you want to kill all the vampires?" Everyone looked a little surprised, but he shrugged and went on. "Hey, if they're anything like the way Morgan depicts them in the films, they aren't so bad."

"Morgan is under the control of a powerful vampire, Officer Malone," Stiles said. "Trust me, I know what they're capable of. He's got her completely mesmerized. She'll do anything he says, even turn against the people who love her in order to protect him."

"I don't understand that," Max said. "How is that possible?"

"Your sister has a certain blood antigen. It's called Belladonna," Stiles said. "And it's slowly killing her."

"How do you know about that?" Sumner demanded, getting to his feet.

"Whenever the antigen was identified in a mortal's blood, that information was forwarded to the DPI's files. There aren't many who have it. But those who do, attract vampires like honey attracts bees. They feed on them, suck the life out of them. That's why they all die young. It's not the antigen. It's the vampire it attracts. And unless we kill this one, he'll keep coming back, keep on feeding on your precious Morgan until she dies. But if we stop him, she'll live."

Sumner averted his eyes, but Max saw the tears. "The doctor says it's the blood condition that's killing her."

"But he doesn't know how or why. Everyone with the blood type dies young. I'm telling you what the doctors don't know, Sumner. It's because they become victims. Belladonna blood is the vampire's favorite kind."

Max stared at him. "Are you telling me that she can get better? She can live?"

He nodded. "She can live. But we have to protect her from the vampire."

Blinking, Max looked at Lou, silently asking him to tell her that he believed this man, God, she wanted it to be true.

But Lou shook his head almost imperceptibly. Before he could speak, though, Lydia came charging into the room, breathless, wide-eyed. "She's gone!" she shouted. "Morgan is gone!"