Argeneau Book 1 - Chapter 21

"Bob." Lissianna peered at the man with surprise.

"Dwayne," he corrected with irritation, and she recalled that she'd wanted to call him Bob that night in the parking lot, too, and he'd had to correct her.

"Do you know this guy?" Greg asked, easing to the side and drawing her with him as he repositioned them so that they faced both men, rather than having a gun at the front as well as behind them.

"Yes," Lissianna answered absently, her concentration on trying to infiltrate Dwayne's thoughts as she watched him s.h.i.+ft closer to Father Joseph's side so they both stood blocking the door. Unable to get past his alarm and wariness, she sighed, then realized what Greg had asked her and how she'd answered and grimaced. "Well, no, not really."

"Which is it?" he asked dryly. "Yes, or no, not really?" Lissianna shrugged helplessly. "Sort of?" He rolled his eyes, then glanced at Dwayne, as the man said, "I was dinner last Friday."

Greg arched an eyebrow and turned to Lissianna to whisper, "I thought I was dinner last Friday night?"

Exasperated that he even cared at a time like this she whispered, "I had Chinese last Friday. You were an unexpected appetizer, and Bob was just anemic."

"Dwayne," Greg corrected, not bothering to keep his voice down anymore.

She shrugged. "He looks like a Bob to me."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Funny, I would have said he looked more like a d.i.c.k."

Despite the situation, Lissianna grinned at the play on words. Dwayne found the insult a little less entertaining.

"Hey!" he snapped. "I'm holding a gun here."

"It's all right, Dwayne." Father Joseph patted his shoulder, then explained to Greg. "Dwayne and I met last Friday night outside a bar downtown. One of our clients had told me there was a new boy on the streets and that he was eating out of the Dumpsters behind the bar. I went there looking for the lad to see if we couldn't help him, but as I approached the Dumpsters, Lissianna came walking from behind them. I was startled to see her, of course and hailed her. We spoke, and she claimed she was there with her cousins to celebrate her birthday. When I explained why I was there, she offered to help, but I sent her inside because it was cold out. Then I checked around the Dumpsters for the boy and instead found Dwayne."

Greg turned to her, one eyebrow arched as if to say, "You picked him up in a bar?"

"Yes, I know." She sighed, then added defensively, "It was Mirabeau's idea."

Her gaze slid back to Dwayne and Father Joseph then, and Lissianna mentally chastised herself for her stupidity. It wasn't for picking up strangers in bars, though she sup-posed that sounded seedy and cheap, but she'd obviously messed things up badly that night. Lissianna had forgotten all about Dwayne being behind the Dumpster when she'd hurried back into the bar to avoid any sticky questions from Father Joseph. She supposed that explained how the anemic man had managed to recover and leave the parking lot by the time she and the others left the bar moments later. Lissianna had wondered about that at the time, but hadn't put together Father Joseph's presence and the man's apparent recovery.

Lissianna shook her head, thinking it was rather amazing she'd survived to reach two hundred if she'd made many mistakes like that over the years. Perhaps she should stick to intravenous feeding in future, at least until Greg cured her of her phobia.

"Dwayne was in a bad way," Father Joseph announced, drawing her attention again. "He was weak from lack of blood and disoriented. I put him in the van, thinking he was drunk and needed help. I was going to take him to the shelter for some coffee, but once in the van the interior light revealed the marks on his neck, and I brought him back to the rectory instead."

The priest glared at Lissianna. "I'd seen marks like that before... on the necks of some of those poor souls at the shelter. When I asked them about it, they always gave me the most ridiculous answers; they'd accidentally stabbed themselves with a barbecue fork, or they fell on a pencil... twice."

Greg turned an incredulous look her way, and she rolled her eyes.

"You try and think up something to explain it then, if you're so smart," she hissed in a low voice, not wanting the two men to hear her.

"Dwayne's explanation," Father Joseph continued dryly, "was that he'd pulled the plug of his charger for his p.e.n.i.s enlarger out of the wall by the cord and it had snapped up and caught him in the neck."

Greg's mouth dropped open, and Lissianna winced.

"Well, the man had a cuc.u.mber down his pants and a fake tan," she said with irritation, forgetting to keep her voice down this time.

"I did not!" Dwayne cried, blus.h.i.+ng bright red, then ruined the denial by adding, "Besides, how do you know about the cuc.u.mber? Did we do something behind the bins after all?"

"No," Lissianna snapped, more for Greg's sake than Dwayne's. She then leaned toward Greg to whisper, "I knew the same way I knew he was anemic."

"By biting him?" Greg asked with disbelief. "Just where did you bite him?"

"By reading his mind," she hissed under her breath.

"Oh, right," Greg said, apparently recalling that while she hadn't been able to read his mind, everyone else had. And her not being able to do so had been something of an anomaly.

"I began to put things together while Dwayne was eating the cookies and drinking the juice I brought him," Father Joseph told Lissianna. "The bite marks on the people in the shelter, his bite marks, and your presence at the shelter as well as in the parking lot that night. I added it all together."

Lissianna sighed wearily, wondering why she'd never noticed that Father Joseph was so blasted long-winded, then realized it was probably because she usually didn't see much of him. She'd seen the man more in the last week than in the whole time she'd worked at the shelter... and all--she now realized--because he was trying to catch her out as a vampire.

"I added it all together," the priest repeated. "And the only thing that made sense was that you were..." He paused, then said, "... a vampire."

Lissianna just managed not to roll her eyes at his dramatics.

"I knew then that you had been sent to me by G.o.d. That I was the only one who could keep my flock safe from the soulless demon you are." He stared at her, his expression solemn. "But... I didn't know you well. You work the night s.h.i.+ft, and I rarely even saw you, but you look so... nice," he said the word with a sort of horror, obviously distressed that she didn't fit the image he had of an evil blood-sucking vampire. "And then the very idea of vampires actually existing was incredible. Impossible. But what other explanation was there? It all fit. Still, I had to be sure first. I had to know for sure that's what you are, before I did anything drastic."

"So you brought the garlic mash to the shelter to feed to me, and blessed the watercoolers so they would be filled with holy water, and littered my office with crosses," Lissianna realized.

"He did all of that?" Greg asked with surprise. "You never mentioned any of this."

Lissianna shrugged and silently wished she had. Perhaps he would have picked up on the fact that Father Joseph suspected she was a vampire. Looking back on it, Lissianna supposed she herself should have realized something was up, but really, at the time he'd had such believable explanations. Besides--as he'd pointed out--until the past week, she'd really hardly known the man as more than someone to say hi to on her way in to work. Though she'd heard a lot about him, and most of it came down to the fact that he was zealous in his devotion to G.o.d.

One of the things Lissianna had learned through the centuries was that there was nothing more dangerous than a zealot. She didn't doubt that, to Father Joseph, her being a vampire was the equivalent of the devil himself. Convincing him that she was a "good" vampire was out of the question, but she might convince him she wasn't a vampire at all. After all, his tests had failed.

As if having read her thoughts, he said, "Yes, I did all of that. Imagine my amazement when none of it worked."

"They didn't work because I'm not what you think I am," Lissianna said quietly.

"You bit his neck," Father Joseph responded. "Dwayne was almost faint from blood loss. He's lucky to be alive. If I hadn't come up when I had, you might have drained him dry. You must have heard me approaching."

"No, I didn't, Father," she said with exasperation. "He was faint because he's anemic."

The priest glanced at Dwayne, who looked uncomfortable, but nodded. "Yeah. I am."

Father Joseph frowned, then turned back to Lissianna. "You have been feeding off of the people in the shelter, poor unfortunate souls already down on their luck."

Lissianna s.h.i.+fted guiltily. Put like that it sounded pretty bad. The fact that she'd hoped to be able to help the people even as they unwittingly helped her, didn't really seem to make up for it.

"Look, Father." Greg started forward, only to pause when the priest raised the handgun he held.

"I realize that guns may not do much damage," he said. "But they will do some, and these ones are loaded with silver bullets if that makes any difference."

Lissianna rolled her eyes. "Sure it does, if you're a werewolf."

"Where did you get silver bullets?" Greg asked with amazement.

"1 found them on the Internet," Dwayne explained. "You can get some really cool s.h.i.+t on the Internet."

"Well, whether the silver bullets will work or not, they will at least slow you down so that we can stake you," Father Joseph said, bringing the conversation back where he wanted it. "And stakes--as we all learned the other night-- are quite effective... Though obviously not deadly."

"That was you?" Lissianna asked, suddenly gone cold. "You said you had to test me first before trying anything drastic. I pa.s.sed those tests, and you still staked me?"

Father Joseph s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. "I overheard..." He paused and frowned, then asked, "What's the name of the girl who works the night s.h.i.+ft when you aren't there?"

"Claudia," she supplied.

"Yes. Claudia. I overheard her telling Debbie that she needed to speak to you to see if you'd switch one of your nights with her this week, but she was having trouble reaching you at your apartment. Debbie said you'd been at your mother's all weekend, but were staying at her house that night, and she'd have you call her the next morning when she got home."

Lissianna's breath came out on a puff. A lot had happened since the staking, and most of it had been rather distracting, but the attack had still been at the back of her head, nagging at her. She'd been sure Debbie couldn't have been behind the attack, but that had left her stymied. It had never occurred to her that Deb might have mentioned to anyone that Lissianna was staying at her place that night.

"I called Dwayne," Father Joseph continued. "He was supposed to go over and see if he could learn anything. He was just supposed to watch you."

Dwayne s.h.i.+fted under the glare the priest bent on him, then took over the explanation, and said, "That's all I intended to do, 1 only took the stake in case I got lucky."

At Lissianna's doubting look, he insisted, "Really. Vampires are usually creatures of the night, and I figured I'd have to wait until you lay down to rest at dawn. I really thought I was going there to reconnoiter, get a feel for the layout of this Debbie's house, figure out which room was yours and which she'd be in when you both went to bed," he said, then suddenly grinned. "But when I got there the curtains were open in the living room and I could see you two going at it on the couch, then moved to the bedroom window when you guys moved the action there."

Lissianna felt the blush from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. It was followed by anger at the idea of Dwayne leering through the window watching their first time together. She forgot such worries when he continued.

"I saw you bite him, and it was all the proof we needed." He smiled like the cat who'd found the cream and went on, "I expected to have a long cold night standing around staring in windows until Debbie came home and you all went to bed. I couldn't believe my luck when you left him in the bedroom and went to sleep on the couch. And then when I tried the sliding gla.s.s doors in the dining room and found them unlocked... It was too good to be true." He glanced at the priest and grinned. "Almost like a blessing from G.o.d."

"But it didn't work," Lissianna pointed out, directing her comment to the priest. "If it was truly G.o.d's wish that you kill me--"

"It was my fault it didn't work," Father Joseph interrupted. "I shouldn't have sent the boy, I should have gone myself. I also should have done more research right from the start. If I had, we'd have been prepared to take proper advantage of the opportunity G.o.d presented. Instead, we were still depending on what the movies and books claimed. I hadn't yet learned my lesson."

The priest was pale and haggard-looking from lack of sleep. He obviously hadn't gotten much rest the past week, what with doing double duty by working at the shelter during the day and guarding his flock from her by night. Lissianna knew that sleep deprivation could lead to extreme anxiety and hallucinations amongst other things. Greg was the psychologist, but she suspected that, with Father Joseph, sleep deprivation had caused a break from reality. It must have pushed him over the edge if he really thought G.o.d had put her in his path to kill.

"So, like I was saying," Dwayne continued, drawing everyone's attention back to him, "I crept into the house, into the living room, and right up to you and you didn't even stir. But you were on your side and I was trying to figure out how to get you to roll onto your back, when suddenly, you did just that. You just rolled over."

"Another blessing from G.o.d," Father Joseph murmured.

"It was the cold," Lissianna snapped impatiently. "He left the sliding gla.s.s door open and a draft was coming in. It woke me up. I rolled over to get up and find another blanket to keep warm."

"It was a miracle,'' Father Joseph insisted. "It allowed him to stake you."

"For all the good that did," Dwayne muttered.

"Yes." Father Joseph frowned. "I was terribly upset with Dwayne for staking you at first, until he explained about actually seeing you bite your friend." His gaze s.h.i.+fted to Greg then away and he shook his head. "Once he told me about that, I thought it had been G.o.d's will, and the whole matter was over with. I couldn't believe it when your mother called the shelter the next night and said you wouldn't be in because you'd been taken ill." Some of the devastation he must have felt then, showed on his face. "I couldn't believe it. You were supposed to be dead! At one point I even thought it was a lie; that you must be dead, but..." He raised his head and peered at her. "That's when I finally did the research I should have done in the beginning."

"I did the research," Dwayne said with irritation. "You didn't even know how to get onto the Internet."

"I used the resources G.o.d had sent me and called my computer friend here to do the research," Father Joseph corrected grimly, then informed them, "He's very good with computers; he's a programmer."

Lissianna raised one sardonic eyebrow in Dwayne's direction. It seemed the tan, the padding, and the cuc.u.mber weren't the only things he'd faked that night. He'd told her he was doing his last year of interns.h.i.+p and once he was a full-fledged doctor, he planned to start his own family medical practice. Trying to impress her, she supposed. Idiot. What would he have done if they'd hit it off and he'd wanted to pursue a relations.h.i.+p with her? How would he have explained that he wasn't an intern after all?

"Dwayne found all sorts of information on the Internet," Father Joseph announced. "Of course, there was the usual stuff about crosses, holy water, and garlic, which we already know is wrong, but there were also suggestions about vanquis.h.i.+ng one of your kind. Some sites claimed that a stake through the heart would do it, but others said that once the stake was removed, the vampire could be resurrected... as you were. Those sites claimed you had to cut off the vampire's head to finish the job properly."

"G.o.d," Greg muttered. "Don't you just love the Internet?"

Lissianna shared a grimace with him, but turned back to Father Joseph as he continued.

"I knew I couldn't handle it on my own. So, I again enlisted the help of Dwayne and we prepared this house, then came up with this plan to lure you out here this morning. Of course, at the time I expected you to be driving yourself to work as you normally did. When you got a ride into work last night, I feared the plan would have to be put off for another day, but then your friend showed up. Providence again lent a hand," he said, with a pleased sigh. "While he was in your office with you, I called Dwayne, and he told me how to fix it so the car wouldn't start, then headed out here to wait for our arrival... and here we are."

"Here we are," Greg agreed dryly, drawing Father Joseph's attention.

"Of course, when we conceived the plan, we were only counting on it being Lissianna we had to deal with," the priest pointed out. "So I'm afraid I only brought one stake."

"Such a shame," Greg said pleasantly. "Oh well, I guess we'll just have to put this off to another time, huh?"

"That won't be necessary," Father Joseph a.s.sured him quietly, then added, "I do have some wood in the back of the van. I'm sure it won't take long to fas.h.i.+on another stake... Or we could do the two of you one at a time. Lissianna first, I think," he decided. "We can stake and behead her, then use the same stake on you."

"Ladies first, huh?" Lissianna didn't bother to dampen her sarcasm.

"I'll make it as quick and painless as I can," Father Joseph a.s.sured her solemnly, then he hesitated, and said, "It would be easiest if you didn't fight this and simply allowed me to get it done with."

I'll bet it would, she thought grimly.

"And then you'll finally find peace," he added, trying to tempt her. On a grimace he added, "It would be much simpler than having to shoot you half a dozen times, then staking you while you are weak."

"Father, I'm hardly going to stand around and let you stake me," Lissianna said patiently.

"I was afraid you would make us do this the hard way," Father Joseph said on a sigh. "Never fear. We were prepared for that. Dwayne, it's time.

"He rigged this up today," Father Joseph informed them proudly as the younger man retrieved a remote control from his pocket. "He's quite clever."

Lissianna stiffened, alert for any eventuality. Dwayne pushed a b.u.t.ton on the remote control and a snapping sound then drew her gaze upward to see the ceiling peeling away overhead. She stared in amazement as it began sliding down the slanted roof toward the walls.

Not the ceiling she realized, a black tarp that had been hung to cover the ceiling and walls and rigged to be released when Dwayne hit a b.u.t.ton on the remote control. The heavy cloth was slipping away to reveal that the dark room they'd stood in was actually a sunroom and that while they'd been talking, the sun had risen outside. Bright suns.h.i.+ne poured in at them from every direction except the wall Father Joseph and Dwayne stood in front of.

"Nothing's happening to them," Dwayne said nervously, as the cloth snaked to the ground outside the windows and pooled there.

Father Joseph tsked with irritation, then scowled and began to dig around in his pocket as his cell phone began to ring. He peered at the display window, frowned, then barked, "Watch them" to Dwayne, and moved closer to the door. He turned his back as he answered his phone.

Dwayne licked his lips nervously and pointed his gun at them. Lissianna noted that the tip of the gun was shaking and hoped he didn't accidentally shoot one of them in his nervousness.

"Okay, Lissianna, now's the time," Greg murmured.

She glanced at him with confusion. "Now's the time for what?"

"You know." He made a face and nodded meaningfully toward Dwayne. "Do your thing. Put the whammy on them. I'd try, but you haven't taught me that stuff yet."

"Oh," she sighed. "Don't you think I've tried?"

"What?" he frowned.

"It isn't working," Lissianna told him. "They know what we are."

"So? Your mother was able to control me after I knew what you were."

"No. That was Aunt Martine. She's older and more powerful than Mother, and even she had to be right in your head to do it. Usually we can control behavior with a suggestion; but with these two being aware of what we are, they're wary, and it makes them resistant. I'd have to be right inside their thoughts to control them, and 1 can't possibly control two of them at once."

"Then--"

"Greg," she said quietly. "If I control one, and the other shoots either of us, there will be blood."

He let a slow breath out as he realized what that meant. Thanks to her phobia--the one he hadn't cured--she'd faint, then neither man would be controlled, and he and Lissianna would be dead. Or maybe not.

"I'm stronger and faster than both of them, aren't I?" he asked.

"Not by much yet," she said quietly. "By the end of the month, you'll be ten times stronger and faster and it will increase even more over time, but right now you're still new and just building in your abilities and strengths," Lis-sianna said apologetically, then added, "And Greg, I don't want to hurt them... well, at least not Father Joseph."

"The man's planning to kill us, Lissianna," Greg pointed out.

"Yes, but not because he's evil or cruel, he just thinks he's doing G.o.d's work and giving us peace," she pointed out, then added, "Father Joe's beliefs are very strong."

"What are we going to do, then?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, on a sigh. "I'm hoping we can talk him out of killing us. Maybe convince him he's made a mistake, and we aren't vampires."

Greg didn't look happy. After a moment, he sighed, and said, "Well, you'd better talk fast then, because I think the sun's already affecting me."

Lissianna peered at him with concern. She noted that he'd grown pale and silently kicked herself for not realizing that it would affect him so quickly. It wasn't affecting her yet, but his nanos were doing double time at the moment, still making minor but necessary changes to his body, and now also having to repair the damage the sun's rays were inflicting. Even without the sunlight he would need to feed more often than she for the next couple of months, but with it...

Any more conversation was impossible as Father Joseph hung up the phone with a mutter and moved back to Dwayne's side.

"There's an emergency at the shelter," he announced. "I have to get back, so we'd best get this done." The priest hesitated, seeming to be at a loss as to how to go about starting, then sighed and raised his gun.

"Wait," Greg said as Father Joseph pointed the weapon at her. "Father, what if you're wrong?"

"About what?" he asked warily. "She is a vampire."

"Is she?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

He nodded with firm certainty.

"What about the garlic, the crosses, the holy water, and the sun? You were pretty sure about them, too, weren't you? But they had no effect on her. Doesn't that tell you something?"

Father Joseph frowned, and for a moment Lissianna was sure Greg had saved them as she saw uncertainty flicker on his face, then he shook his head. "Yes, it tells me the movies and books are all wrong about how to deal with vampires."

"What if they aren't wrong? What if you're the one who's wrong?" he asked urgently.

The priest shook his head grimly. "Dwayne staked her, and yet she's still alive. She has to be a vampire."

"Yes, Dwayne did try to stake her," Greg said patiently. "But Father Joseph, it takes a lot of force to get through the muscle and bone of the chest and--thankfully--he didn't hit her hard enough to do much damage. The stake hit the collarbone and stopped."

"Her collarbone!" Dwayne cried with disbelief.

Lissianna managed to contain her own surprise at Greg's claim. The stake had gone nowhere near her collarbone, Dwayne's aim had been good, he'd barely missed her heart.

"It was dark," Greg pointed out to the younger man. "And fortunately that must have thrown your aim off. As I say, you pierced the skin and hit her collarbone. There was a lot of blood, but very little real damage."

"Could this be true?" The priest stared at Dwayne in amazement, but when he just stood there looking uncertain, he turned to Lissianna, and asked, "Is it?"

"It's true." Lissianna grabbed on to Greg's lie and embellished on it. "I was at emergency most of the night, but then they finally gave me a couple of Tylenol, put in two st.i.tches, and sent me home. I'd have come to work last night, but when I woke up I had to go to the police station to fill out a report, and that took just as long as the emergency visit."

"But, I'm sure I hit--I felt it go in," Dwayne argued.

'i had a couple of blankets over me," Lissianna said, knowing it had been dark and he couldn't possibly know she'd only been covered by the afghan. "They buffered the blow. It went through them, but just pierced me a bit."

Dwayne shook his head, confusion covering his features.

"She isn't a vampire, Father," Greg said firmly. "Neither am I. I'm a psychologist."

"You're her psychologist?" Father Joseph asked with bewilderment.

Lissianna saw Greg smile and knew he'd just come up with a plan. She hoped it worked. He was really starting to look poorly.

"Yes. I'm Lissianna's psychologist. You can check my ID if you like." He pulled his wallet from his pocket and tossed it on the floor in front of the two men.

Dwayne bent to pick up the wallet, keeping the gun trained on them the whole while, then juggling it about as he searched through the wallet's contents. Lisianna held her breath and waited, positive the idiot would accidentally shoot one of them before he was through. She sincerely hoped it was her the man shot; she'd just pa.s.s out at the sight of blood if Greg was shot anyway. But, in the end she supposed it didn't really matter, Father Joseph still had them in his sights.

"Dr. Gregory Hewitt," Dwayne read aloud and then frowned. "That name sounds familiar."

"There was an article about you in the paper a couple weeks ago," Father Joseph recalled.

"Yes," Greg said solemnly.

"Oh yeah, I read that," Dwayne nodded. "You're that specialist in phobias."

"Phobias are my specialty," he allowed. "But I also work with other disorders, and Lissianna's mother contacted me because she was concerned about her. Lis-sianna suffers from..." He hesitated, then asked, "Have you ever heard of lycanthropy?"

"Oh, hey, yeah," Dwayne said when Father Joseph just stared. "That's when people think they're werewolves, right?"

"Right." Greg nodded. "Well, Lissianna suffers from a similar ailment, only she thinks she's a vampire."

Both men turned to peer at Lissianna, and she hoped that none of her surprise was showing. She hadn't expected the tale Greg was coming up with, but it might work if they believed him.

"But she is a vampire," Father Joseph protested. "She bit Dwayne and she's bitten others at the shelter."

"Open your mouth, Lissianna," Greg ordered.

"What?" She stared at him blankly, confused by the sudden order.

"Show them your teeth," he said meaningfully, then moved to her side and caught her face, explaining, "She's resistant because she hasn't got her fake teeth in."

Realizing what he was up to, Lissianna relaxed, allowing him to open her mouth.

"See? No fangs." Greg gently used one finger to lift her upper lip on one side, then the other. It was a quick action, just long enough for them to see that her canines didn't extend past her other teeth, but not long enough for them to notice that the tips were pointed.

Father Joseph and Dwayne took a step forward, then stopped. Both men were frowning.

Greg released Lissianna and turned to face them fully as he continued, "She has ceramic teeth that she glues over her real canines when she goes out to bars to find someone to bite. Lissianna works nights because, of course, vampires can not be out in daylight. She follows all the vampire laws, shunning garlic and religious symbols."

"She ate the mashed garlic I gave her at the shelter," Father Joseph pointed out. "And she didn't react at all to the crosses in her office. If she believes she's a vampire, shouldn't she have at least reacted to them?"

Lissianna glanced at Greg, wondering how he'd explain that.

He hesitated, then said, "She wasn't in her vampire persona then."

"Her vampire persona?" Dwayne asked. "Are you saying she's like a multiple personality or something?"

Greg hesitated again, then tossed an apologetic look her way, and said, "Yes. She's disa.s.sociated with two distinct personalities. One is just--" He shrugged. "Lissianna. The other thinks she is a two-hundred-year-old vampire who walks the night."

"But--" Father Joseph broke off with a curse when his phone rang again. Pulling it from his pocket, he growled, "Yes?"

Lissianna glanced toward Greg, noting that aside from his pallor, telltale beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. He was really suffering. Turning back to their would-be killers, she concentrated on Dwayne. Of the two, she suspected his belief that they were vampires was the more shaken by the tale Greg had come up with. Father Joseph was resisting because if it was true that they weren't vampires, then he would have to accept that he'd tried to stake an innocent woman. He'd rather believe that he was on a mission for G.o.d.

Her attempt to slip into Dwayne's presently confused mind came to an abrupt end when Father Joseph said sharply, "It doesn't matter where I am. I'm on my way right now. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

He shut off his phone with disgust and turned his attention back to them. "We have to finish this. I have to get back now. There is no more time for discussion."

"Then you should let us go." Greg took a step forward as he spoke, then froze as a gunshot exploded in the room.

"Oh Jesus," Dwayne breathed. "I didn't mean to do that. Why did he move? I didn't mean..."

Lissianna peered from him to Greg with confusion.

"What--?" she began, then paused as Greg turned slowly toward her and she saw the blood spreading on his chest.

Aware of the sudden roaring in her ears, Lissianna focused on the bright red patch and noted that the longer she stared, the darker and larger it seemed to get. Soon her vision was filled with it, then she experienced a falling sensation and realized she was fainting.