Legacy

FOR AN INSTANT, THE ROOM TILTS.

Tamara's voice: "It took you long enough."

I'm yanked back to the present as if from a dream, disoriented and confused. Then my head clears, and I remember.

Sandra's eyes shine with a light that isn't her own and she smiles at me with an expression that holds no warmth, no pleasure.

"What's wrong, Anna? What did I do?" she asks. Her lips move, but it is Avery speaking. "Nothing but respond to your desire. It was the same before. I never forced you to do anything you didn't want to do. You can't dispute it. Your body betrays you."

At once, warmth surges through me. A familiar spark of passion.

"Don't." I turn anger against the rising heat until arousal dissipates into ash. "I won't let you manipulate me again."

"You think you can stop me?"

"Sandra will stop you. We'll find the talisman."

"You mean that talisman? The one around Tamara's neck?"

I'm given no time to respond. A blur of something comes at me with tremendous speed. I pivot toward it, hands instinctively outstretched to bat it away. It's lupine, huge. My blow catches it at the shoulder and it falls back.

But how? Tamara's clothes are in a heap on the floor. She must have made the change while Avery was toying with me.

The wolf leaps to its feet and comes at me again, but this time I'm ready.

We circle each other, the vampire and the wolf. She is as big as a mastiff, gold in color, black lips curled back in a snarl. Her eyes are yellow with slit pupils that reflect more than animal intelligence. She is aware. Acting not instinctively as a beast, but deliberately. Is she under Avery's control? Until this moment, I wouldn't have thought it. Tamara sought me out to help Sandra.

Didn't she?

In the distance, Sandra begins to croon in a soft, low voice. The wolf pauses, listening.

"Sweet Tamara. I should have chosen you, but you and I will be one soon. We will be rid of this irksome body. Of Sandra." She steps closer. "You need only to kill Anna. It's the one thing I ask of you. The one thing Sandra denied me. She could not do it. You are stronger. You have the power. You know what you must do."

The crooning stops, and the wolf gathers herself to attack. I remember the words of the book.

Silver.

Silver is lethal to wolves.

I remember Frey's warning.

I must assume a werewolf bite is fatal. My back is against one of the shelves, and my hands grope behind me for something-anything-to use as a weapon. I can't take my eyes off her long enough to search. I can only feel and there is nothing that passes under my fingertips to offer protection.

For the first time, I realize that vampire strength and cunning is not going to be enough. I can't fight her because I can't let her get close enough to bite me.

I'm afraid. It twists around my heart and knots my stomach.

It's unfamiliar and disturbing.

Worse, Tamara senses it. She's in no hurry to attack. She creeps toward me, slowly, fangs bared. Does she know she need only to bite me once? Death may not be instantaneous, but it will be certain.

The muscles along her shoulders tense. She gathers her hind legs under her and snarls her intention. When she leaps, I grab the first thing my fingers close around from the shelf behind me, hurl it, and jump away.

The ceramic vase catches her under her left eye. It shatters, a shard settling deep into the eye socket. She tumbles back, yelps, shakes her head furiously until the shard falls away. Blood spurts from the cut. When I breathe it in, I realize it's human blood. It causes my own to quicken but I can't give in to the bloodlust. It's human blood, but it's not a human I'm facing.

I have to keep distance between us.

She's recovered. She looks for me, sniffing the air for my scent. I've moved to the middle of the room, between the rows of shelves. She catches my scent, howls in pain and anger, and comes after me.

The shelf facing me offers nothing I can use against her. She lowers her head and watches as I back up. Every instinct I have screams to meet her head on, snap her neck, drink her blood. Could I do it before she sank her teeth into my arm or hand?

I can't take the chance.

Think.

There were hundreds of silver objects scattered here among Avery's possessions. I know there has to be something I can use as a weapon. My eyes sweep the shelves.

Jewelry.

Goblets.

Bowls.

The wolf's ears flatten. Blood drips from a ruined eye socket.

There. On one of the top shelves. A dagger.

We move at the same time.

The wolf springs.

I leap straight up, grab the dagger.

The wolf touches down first, landing where I'd been standing, landing on nothing. She skids on the dirt. Clouds of dust rise under her scrabbling feet.

She whirls to face me, howling her frustration. Blood and spit spew out with her rage.

The dagger's blade is ten inches long. The hilt is heavy in my hand. Could I throw it at her? No, I couldn't be sure of a kill shot. The only chance I have is to get behind her, seize her behind the neck and plunge it into her before she can sink fangs into my hand.

How to do it?

The muscles under her pelt bunch; her hind legs draw into each other like a spring being tightened. She is taking her time, gauging the distance, waiting for me to make the first move.

I feint to the left. She hurls herself at me. I wait until I feel her breath on my face before stepping back and around. I dig my fingers into her mane and straddle her. She bucks against me, snapping at air and howling. I work an arm around her neck, yank her backward against me. Her smell, lupine, musk, human.

I plunge the dagger into what I can most easily reach, her exposed belly. She screams in anger and pain, but the wound is not fatal. Blood, hot, fragrant, flows over my hand. She's pawing at the air, trying to shake me loose. I hold on, fighting her, fighting the vampire lust that thirsts for the blood. If I loosened my grip, a tiny bit, I could turn her to face me, reach her neck, drink.

Her jaws open wide, fangs seeking a target. Seeking skin to ravage, bone to crush. Mine.

I tighten my arm around her neck. Tighten my grip on the dagger. This time, when I plunge the dagger, I find the mark.

Find the heart of the beast.

For a moment the earth stills. Only the wolf moves. She thrashes, whimpers. I jump back and away. She does not come after me. She twists into herself, shuddering, jaws working in a desperate attempt to reach the dagger. Her clumsy, frantic efforts succeed only in driving it deeper.

Another heartbeat and the thrashing stops. The wolf's head falls to the floor. Then there's only the blood. It pumps still, seeping around the dagger, turning the fur crimson. The blood of the wolf/human calling to me. I command myself not to respond, not to move. My nails dig into the palms of my hands until it's the smell of my own blood that fills my head. My eyes remain riveted on the wolf. As if in slow motion, the transformation from beast to human begins.

I feel Sandra watching, too.

The fur retracts into the skin, the head reshapes, followed by the limbs. The vertebrae realign with a crack like the withered branches of a dead tree. The knife in the naked human chest looks much more deadly than in the wolf's. Tamara's face is contorted in death, her mouth open, teeth bared. Around her neck, two gold chains.

She had Sandra's locket all along.