"Here's something you might appreciate. Isn't it funny how people can compartmentalize their lives? As a profiler, I run into that all the time. Guy's a devoted dad and proud member of the community five days a week, and a serial killer on the weekends. Father Stone belonged to an evil cult, sure ... but every Sunday he still gave a sermon praising the Lord and all his saints. I'm talking about the Catholic kind, not the sports team."

"Your point being?"

"What makes you think I have one? I'm just tired of hearing you monopolize the conversation. Blah, blah, blah ... if you're going to bite me, do it already. You were an irritating wannabe poser musician when you were following Terrance around, and now you're an annoying supervillain wannabe with a pretentious accent. Also, I got over the whole I'm-scared-of-root-cellars thing a long time ago, so this lame attempt to terrorize me is more pathetic than anything else-"

And then his hand is around my throat, cutting off my air. That particular move seems to be genetically ingrained into every new vampire's brain, and my windpipe's still sore from last time. "Urk," is about the only sound I can manage in response.

He leans in close. "I think I know what I'm going to do to you. I'm going to turn you, then chain you up down here forever. You won't die, but there are all sorts of things I can think of doing to make your existence extremely unpleasant. Garlic stuffed down your throat. Wooden stakes driven through your limbs. Something clever and intricate involving tiny little mirrors and sunlight."

"You ... forgot ... one," I manage to choke out.

"Really? Do tell."

Showing is always better than telling. I bring my legs up, clamp them around his waist, and throw my weight backward as hard as I can. We both topple over.

And into the well.

Ever seen what happens when you throw a chunk of raw sodium into water? It catches on fire. That's apparently the same thing that occurs when you dunk a vampire into a well full of holy water.

Neil screams when we hit, and bubbles explode from every submerged inch of his body. He shoots up to the surface like a rocket, with me still wrapped around him. I can feel the heat through my clothes, but the water is having an insulating effect, leaching away some of the thermal energy at the same time it's causing it. Supernatural chemistry 101.

I grab his tousled hair, take a deep breath, and yank both of us underwater again. It's like holding on to a giant Alka-Seltzer tablet. He fizzes and flails, but he's in too much agony to fight back coherently, and after a few seconds he stops. I surface, treading water, and see that the only thing left of him is some glowing, sudsy-looking bubbles.

I've done some rock climbing, and the shaft is narrow enough to wall-walk up. I put my feet flat against one side and my back against the other, and start the process of inching my way to the top.

I've been cursing my memory since this whole affair began, but I'm ready to forgive it now. I remembered the well from looking at the blueprints Gretch showed me, which were quite detailed about underground structures.

But it was the water font near the door that made me realize this was a Catholic church, and the covered windows that convinced me Father Stone was preparing a trap of his own for the impending invasion of pires. Lure them in, then hit them with sunlight; and if that doesn't work, you've got a well full of holy water stashed in the basement.

I make it to the lip of the well and tumble over it to the basement floor. I lie there for a moment, gettting my breath back and thinking about what I'm going to do next.

Then I get to my feet and head back upstairs.

I know who the real monster is. Time to go prove it.

SEVENTEEN.

When Athena Shaker answers her door, her green eyes go wide and her pale skin flushes. It's a natural enough reaction; we've got the unconscious body of her boyfriend's brother propped up between us, his limp arms draped over our shoulders.

"Oh! What-what happened?"

"Can we come in?" I say. "It's not safe out here."

"Yes, of course!"

She stands aside and we haul our comatose cargo in. We put him on the couch in a sitting position, his head leaning back like he fell asleep studying the ceiling.

"Here's the deal," I say to Athena. "First off, this isn't who you think. It's Peter, not Terrance. I know, his hair's too long and those tattoos don't belong, but that's illusion magic for you; it can fool you right down to the level of bad teenage judgment."

She frowns, clearly confused. "I don't know what you-"

"Stop. We don't have time for the wide-eyed innocent act. You and Doctor Pete are a couple. You've been keeping it a secret, but that's not the only one."

Now she looks less confused and more angry. "That's hardly any of your business-"

"We don't have TIME for this!" I shout. I take a fast step forward, getting right in her face. "We were jumped by a pack of vampires on the way here! I know this looks like Terrance, but it's not. It's his brother-your lover-and he knows where the master vampire's lair is. He was kidnapped and dragged away before he could tell me, then brainwashed with sorcery and swapped with his brother; they thought the last place I'd look for him would be in a jail cell."

She meets my eyes coolly. The pretense of ignorance is gone. "What do you want?" she asks me flatly.

"We need help. I know a magic ritual that'll unlock Doctor Pete's mind, but I need somewhere to do it, and I'll be helpless while it happens. We can't use my place or Charlie's-they've both been compromised."

"Vampires. You know how crazy that sounds?"

"About as crazy as werewolves, but less hairy?" Her only reaction to that is a single blink, but that and the second of hesitation are enough to tell me I'm on the right track. "I know you know," I say. "About Doctor Pete, and what he's going to become the first time the full moon rises. He's being forced to do something he doesn't want to do, and I know you want to help. Don't you?"

And now her lips quiver. Tears rise to her eyes, and she turns her head to look at the still body on her couch. She sinks down beside him, and takes one hand in hers. "Is it-is this really him?"

"Yeah," I say quietly. "It really is."

"I'm so confused," she whispers. "I couldn't believe it when he told me. He said there was going to be a war, and we had to choose sides if we wanted to survive."

"So you chose the one you love. But this is about more than a battle for turf in a small town, Athena; it's going to spread. If we don't stop it here, right now, the mystical fence that's keeping the situation contained is going to break down. You know what you've got then? Two viruses competing to outbreed each other. And both of them will spread faster than the black death in the middle ages, because thropes and pires can travel a lot farther and faster than rats."

She shakes her head, now crying openly. "What can we do?"

"We need to find the identity of the master vampire. Take him out and we eliminate one side entirely."

"And what about the other side?"

"We'll worry about that later. One thing at a time."

She sniffles, then nods. "Okay. Whatever you're going to do, just ... just do it. Do you need anything?"

"Just your TV and DVD player," I say.

It doesn't take long to get set up. I position myself next to our subject on the couch and call up Azura with the remote. "It's time," I tell her.

She nods. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Me, too."

There's a flash of white light.

The memory is from before Tair and Doctor Pete diverged into separate personae. I thought it might be the actual moment itself, but I'm wrong.

I'm tied to a chair. A youngish Peter Adams-not yet a doctor, not yet a monster-is staring at me in consternation. I can feel a trickle of something wet down my face, but it's not a tear; it's blood.

He's dressed in a white lab coat over a T-shirt and jeans, but there's no name tag. We're in a small, dingy room with newspaper covering the windows, trash in the corners, and a desk missing two of its drawers. Pete's leaning against the desk, his arms crossed.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"I'm-" He catches himself and shakes his head. "No. The question is, who are you?"

"Someone who could use a painkiller or seven." I wince. "Clocked me pretty good, didn't you? That's a helluva bedside manner you've got."

"You're the one who broke in."

"Did I? Well, you can't blame a girl for trying to make a buck, can you? Not exactly easy for someone like me to get by in this world anymore."

"A human being, you mean?"

I give him a nasty smile. "Don't you mean an OR? That's the clever, ironic term all you toothy types are using these days."

"I guess I'm not that clever. I don't know what-"

"Original Recipe."

He looks a little disgusted. Good. I can use that.

"I don't think that's clever or ironic," he says. "It's just cruel."

"Oh, I've heard worse. Breather, bloodbag, midnight snack, throatwich ... but really, my favorite's always been tampon slurpee. Not as widespread as some of the others due to exclusive pire usage, but crude, evocative, and demeaning all at once. Has a certain rhythm to it, too, you know? Makes it easy to chant."

He uncrosses his arms. "Look, I'm not a speceist. I don't use those terms, and I'm sorry you've been given a life that's not exactly fair-"

I snort. "Given? Nobody gave me anything, hairball. I had things taken away. Dignity. Respect. Any chance at making a decent life for myself or anyone I care about. But what does that matter, right? My puny seventy or so years is barely a quarter of your time on Earth, and an eyeblink to any pire."

"The fact that we live longer is hardly our fault."

"No, but everything else is. You killed us by the millions and then took over when there weren't enough of us to fight back."

He sighs. "Oh. You're one of those. Look, I may not be a doctor yet, but I'm in medical school. And I can tell you that the plague that hit the human population after World War Two wasn't caused by pires or thropes."

I laugh. "Sure. Only conspiracy fanatics believe that, right? And the whole pire pregnancy spell that just happened to come along right after that was a total coincidence. Absolutely."

I can see by the look on his face that I'm losing him. "Wait a minute, just listen to me. I'm not someone who believes whatever she's told. I've been shown, okay? I've seen actual hard evidence."

"By whom?"

I hesitate. "People who know. Serious people."

"What makes them so serious? They tell you all these things in a really sincere tone of voice?"

There's more amusement than mockery in his voice, but it pisses me off all the same. "These are people who do more than just talk. They do stuff. Stuff that gets noticed."

That gets his attention. "Wait. Are you talking about the Free Human Resistance?"

I don't answer.

"You are, aren't you?" The frown on his face deepens. "You can't trust people like that. They're terrorists, for God's sake."

"No, they aren't. They're freedom fighters." I can hear the passion in my own voice, but the feeling belongs to someone else. "They want to change things."

"How? By murdering people? That's not change, it's just mayhem."

"No. Some people have to die. That's just how things are. It's how things have always been."

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe that. I believe in life. In fact, I'm thinking of studying human medicine-"

"Sure you are. That's why you're working in a gray-market lem factory."

That stops him for a second. "One has nothing to do with the other."

"'Course they don't. One's about studying a soon-to-be-extinct species, the other's about creating slaves."

"Isn't it better to be a slave than have no life at all?"

I shake my head. "That's how you justify it, huh? Well, I don't agree. If it thinks and feels, you can't simply use it up and throw it away. You're not giving them life, you're just giving them existence. Big difference."

He looks away, not sure how to answer that. Which is when the door opens and his boss walks in.

His boss is a thrope too, but only in the sense that a Doberman pinscher and a poodle are both dogs. This guy is a card-carrying member of La Lupo Grigorio, the Gray Wolf Mafia, and looks it-from his greased, jet-black hair to his hand-tailored Italian suit. Thick gold rings adorn both hairy hands, and the expression on his bulldog-like face is one of annoyed contempt.

"What?" he says to Pete. "This? You call me for this?"

"I caught her breaking in downstairs-"

The mobster waves away his explanation with one meaty hand. "Yeah, you already said. She got an eyeful, huh?"

"I'm not sure how much she saw-"

"I saw enough," I snap.

"Shuddup," Pete's boss says casually. He's looking at me with less contempt now, and considerably more interest. "You didn't mention she was human."

Pete frowns. "What difference does that make?"

"She's a federally protected endangered species, that's what difference it makes." He glares at Pete. "The last thing we need is the feds sniffin' around. You did right after all. I'm going to have to take care of this myself."

"What are you going to do?" Pete asks.