She reached her arm around his head and snapped his neck. The move was so quick and unexpected that Susan did not have time to turn away from the violent act. The man's head now hung at an odd angle and his lifeless eyes stared down at her.

Susan turned away, clutching Jason to her breast. She did not want to watch the incomprehensible scene before her.

The golden-haired woman stared down at her, seemingly unperturbed by the corpse she now held in her hand. "You had better go," she said to Susan.

Susan scrambled to her feet, trying to hold Jason and retrieve her keys at the same time. She fumbled with the keys, dropping them, then kneeled to pick them up, still clutching her unconscious son. The woman took the keys from her patiently, effortlessly supporting the corpse with one hand. She unlocked the door then held it open in a chivalrous gesture, holding out the keys.

Susan s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys from the woman, practically threw Jason in the car, then climbed in and slammed the door behind her. Her hands were shaking as she placed the key in the ignition. She started the car, slammed it in reverse, then went screeching backwards. She slammed it into drive, then went screeching toward the exit.

The woman watched the Lexus recklessly leave the parking lot, her face expressionless. She glanced down at the body in her grasp, then pulled it into the shadows. She held the lifeless corpse, focusing her senses in the darkness: not lifeless just yet. She shrugged. Easy enough to rectify.

Rather than kneel down, the woman pulled the body upward. She removed a dagger from inside her coat and with surgical precision, sliced the man's throat from ear-to-ear. Blood began to spill out onto the ground.

Although the neck of the corpse still hung at an odd angle, the man's eyes fluttered open. He tried to speak, but could not because of the damage to his throat. The woman held him dispa.s.sionately, allowing the blood to pool on the ground. He struggled feebly for a few moments, then went limp. She sensed that his life force was still present, but this did not concern her. It would just take the right combination of techniques.

She smashed her fist through the gla.s.s window of the vehicle next to her, the violence as quick and easy as before. She shoved the body through the gaping hole, then walked to the rear of the car. She placed her fingertips under the edge of the trunk and popped the trunklid upward with a flick of her wrist. She was pleased to find a gas can in the storage s.p.a.ce. She shook the can, noting the sloshing sound inside.

She removed the cap and splashed the gasoline on and underneath the car. She moved a few feet away, then removed the small case from her pocket. She took a small cigar from the case, expertly lit it, then turned to walk away. As she turned, she tossed the match over her shoulder.

The gas caught quickly and within seconds the car was fully engulfed. Her body was momentarily silhouetted by the flames before it disappeared into the darkness.

Susan stared down at her son in the hospital bed. His head was wrapped in a bandage and he was lightly sleeping. After ensuring there was no bleeding inside the skull, the doctors suggested he be kept in the hospital for observation. Susan, understanding how serious a head injury could be, agreed without hesitation.

Susan had rushed Jason to the hospital immediately following the attack in the parking structure. He had awakened in traumatic care and fortunately the first thing he had seen was her. He stayed awake all through the examination and only moments ago had finally drifted off to sleep. He clutched the stuffed dinosaur Neda had brought from home.

The thought of the older woman made Susan glance up. She could see Neda seated outside clutching a box of tissues. There were dark circles under her eyes. Susan's eyes drifted to the left. A refined-looking gentleman sat three seats down from her. He was dressed in a three-piece suit with a cane leaning against the seat next to him. A hat was perched neatly atop the cane.

Susan stared at the man. There was something about him.

She stood up abruptly and moved toward the door with purpose. The man glanced up from his magazine as she came through the door. Neda started to speak but the words died on her lips as Susan brushed by to confront the man.

"Where is she?"

The man gazed up at her in some confusion. "Excuse me, ma'am?" he asked politely in a clipped, British accent.

Susan was not to be deterred. "The woman. The one with the golden hair. Where is she? I want to speak with her."

The older gentleman's expression was still perplexed, but now laced with a little sympathy. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am. And I believe you must have me confused with someone else."

Neda stood and took Susan's elbow but Susan pulled away. She was adamant. "There are no other patients on this floor. I know. I work here. There's no reason for you to be here."

The gentleman's expression changed to one of concern. "Oh, then I must be on the wrong floor." He stood, gathering his belongings. "How unfortunate. Thank you so much for telling me."

To Neda's dismay, Susan reached out to grab the man's sleeve.

And he was gone.

Susan turned and there he was, to her right, several feet away. He gazed at her with an unwavering gaze, his air of grandfatherly concern gone, his face now expressionless.

Susan was slightly afraid, but her anger and fear for her son were making her brave. "I want to see her. I want an explanation."

The man shook his head. His words were unequivocal. "This is not her fault. You should not have published your work. You brought this upon yourself."

Neda was desperately trying to follow the conversation between the two, but this brought her up short. She took a threatening step toward the man. "How dare you accuse her of bringing this upon herself. As if she would ever do anything to-"

Surprisingly, it was Susan who stopped Neda's tirade. She watched the man, trying to steady her voice. "I don't care," she said, "I want an explanation."

The man was silent, giving no reaction to her words. If he was contemplating them, he gave no indication he was doing so. Susan was discouraged but continued anyway, playing her last card.

"I don't think you would be here if she didn't feel at least partially responsible."

Her words seemed to have no impact on him. He simply stood there and for a moment, Susan was afraid he was going to walk away.

He did not. "Very well," he said stiffly, his accent even more p.r.o.nounced. He lowered his voice so that Susan could barely hear it. "If it were up to me, I would not let you anywhere near my master."

The expression caught Susan by surprise. It seemed so archaic, so ancient, so out of place in the ultra-modern hospital corridor. The man continued. "I would not even have come here were it not for her direction. But I know her well, and I believe she will receive you."

The man abruptly turned and began to walk down the hallway. He now moved fluidly, in complete contrast to his earlier stiffness. Susan watched him walk away. She glanced indecisively through the window at her comatose son, then made a snap decision.

"Stay with him, Neda. I'll be back."

Neda stepped forward as if to try and talk her out of it, but then relented. She watched the young redhead disappear into the elevator with the older man. She then moved to the window to look down into the receiving area of the hospital. A sleek, black limousine pulled up to the curb and within minutes, Susan's red hair could be seen next to it. Both she and the elder man climbed into the rear seating area and the limousine pulled smoothly away from the curb.

Neda watched it disappear, feeling a shiver make its way up her spine. Although not a particularly religious woman, she crossed herself for good measure.

Susan rode silently in the back of the limousine. The windows were blacked out so she could not see where they were going. Other than a few directions to the unseen driver, the older man did not say a word. He sat staring at the opaque window, almost as if he could see through it.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Susan felt the vehicle slow, then begin to drive up what seemed a curvy road. This part of the drive was much shorter, and it seemed only a few minutes before the vehicle came to a stop. Immediately the door opened and the man gestured for her to get out.

Susan stepped out onto the entranceway to a mansion. Light streamed from every window into the night beyond. She stood at the base of the stairway, staring upward in astonishment. She had been to many opulent houses, but this was a castle.

The man took her elbow and began guiding her up the stairs. Normally she would not stand for such a patronizing gesture, but she was overwhelmed at her surroundings and was actually glad for the guidance.

Double doors whispered outward and she was led through the entranceway into a luxurious foyer. The furnishings were elegant, but simple as well. Servants kept their eyes downcast as she pa.s.sed. If they were curious, they did not show it.

Susan was led through another set of double doors into what appeared to be a small version of the Smithsonian library. A large fire burned in a huge marble fireplace set in the wall. The golden-haired woman sat behind a desk, reading the Wall Street Journal. She did not look up at Susan's approach.

The man stopped several feet from the desk and Susan stopped as well. He did not speak, and Susan shifted uncomfortably. The woman didn't appear to notice their entrance, and did not acknowledge their presence in any way. Susan quickly became impatient and took a step forward.

In a flash, the elder man was in front of her, blocking her path. Susan was startled by the quickness of his movement and retreated the step she had taken forward. He still did not speak, merely looked down at her with disapproval.

"Let her pa.s.s, Edward."

The voice was sardonic, almost resigned. After an imperceptible hesitation, Edward stepped out of Susan's way. He moved some distance away, maintaining his vigil.

The woman finally looked up. For the first time, Susan noticed the strange color of her eyes, a combination of gray, blue and green. They seemed to shift hues with the flickering firelight. Her gaze was mesmerizing and her words, although polite, were a decree. "Won't you have a seat, Dr. Ryerson?"

Susan moved numbly to the seat the woman indicated. Strangely, her anger and urgency disappeared at the sound of the woman's voice. Susan noted the undefinable quality she had noted before, the depth that belied her youth.

"It seems you have me at a disadvantage," Susan said, referring to the fact that the woman knew her name.

"Yes," the woman interrupted smoothly, "I do."

Susan flushed at the slightly mocking tone in the woman's voice. She had come here with the intent of demanding answers. Yet now all she could do was sit and stare at the young woman who stared back at her with an unblinking gaze.

"Do you have a name?" Susan finally asked, unable to completely disguise her sarcasm.

The sarcasm did not escape the woman, nor did it offend her. There was a devilish glint in her eye when she replied. "Yes, I have a name."

She turned in her chair, her unblinking gaze resting on Edward for a moment, then turned back to Susan. "My name is Rhian."

Susan was not certain she had heard the name right. It had a slightly different inflection than she had heard before. Evidently, the woman picked up on Susan's confusion and elaborated. "An acceptable equivalent would be *Ryan.' Now what can I do for you this evening?"

The events of the last few days came flooding back to Susan and she felt her anger stir again. "You could start with an explanation. My son is in the hospital."

Ryan nodded. "I am well aware of the condition of your son. I warned you that you were in danger."

Susan felt her anger flare. "I think you owe me more than a warning. I want some answers. Who the h.e.l.l are you? Why did that man come after me? And why did you kill him? Couldn't you have just stopped him? Turned him over to the police?"

Ryan looked at her with an expression that bordered on exasperation, as if what she was suggesting was incredibly naive. Susan was just beginning to vent, though, and now the questions and accusations came pouring out.

"You show up in my lab a corpse and I watch you come back to life, only to have you smash your way out of the hospital. You show up three months later, break into my house, leave some obscure warning, then disappear again. Three days after that, some madman attacks me, and you pop up out of nowhere and break his neck. In the meantime, my son is in the wrong place at the wrong time and nearly gets his head cracked open."

Susan finished her tirade, catching her breath. Her chest heaved with the emotion of her words. She felt tears sting her eyes as Ryan gazed at her, expressionless. The golden-haired woman spoke at long last.

"I am sorry about your son."

Susan lashed out at her. "Well, wonderful. I want you to be more than sorry. I want some answers. Who are you?"

The words hung between them for a long moment. Susan did not think it was a question requiring so much thought.

Ryan pushed back from the desk and leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs in front of her. She folded her hands, her elbows on the armrests of the chair. She gazed at Susan Ryerson in the flickering light.

"Do you know how old I am, Dr. Ryerson?

Susan didn't see how the question was relevant. "No, I don't," she said impatiently, "I would think late 20's, maybe early 30's."

The woman's eyes shifted to Edward who was standing in the shadows. Whatever unspoken advice he transmitted to her, she ignored. "Late 20's, early 30's," she repeated. She picked up the gla.s.s of red wine from her desk, swirling the contents. "I don't have a record of my birth," she said, "but as near as I can tell, I should be reaching a century mark sometime soon."

The woman's words were conversational, as if she were discussing something as mundane as the weather. Susan wasn't certain she had heard her correctly.

"Are you telling me you're almost a hundred years old?"

Ryan shook her head, her gaze on Susan. "No," she said, "almost seven hundred."

Susan caught her breath. Obviously what the woman was suggesting was impossible. Extraordinary anatomy or not, she could not possibly be that old. Even as Susan mentally denied the possibility, though, her own words came back to her: longevity, immunity, strength...

It seemed as if the woman could read her mind. "Don't you believe your own research, Dr. Ryerson? Can you explain any of your findings? What did you say? *The patient appears to be suffering from some type of genetic abnormality, or perhaps a state of advanced pathology. The heart is enlarged to nearly three times normal size. The lungs are shrunken, as are the liver and the pancreas...'"

Susan was stunned. The woman was repeating word-for-word what she had doc.u.mented on her computer. "How did you get access to my records?"

Ryan shook her head. "I didn't need to, Dr. Ryerson. I overheard you."

Susan shook her head, still feeling numb. "You couldn't have. You were unconscious, and out of hearing range."

Ryan's reply was softly spoken. "Having not actually tested my hearing range, I would think that's a rather premature statement."

Susan was taken aback at the gentle reproof.

"You see, that's a problem," Ryan said, continuing her mild rebuke. "Your scientific method a.n.a.lyzes everything, explains nothing. It is blind to everything outside itself. You're a product of your time. You've been taught to distrust everything you cannot measure with your senses. Which amazes me," she added as an afterthought, "because humans have notoriously poor senses."

"What do you mean *humans'?" Susan said with skepticism, "Are you saying you're not human?"

Ryan gazed at her. "I would not think so, noting the very fundamental differences between myself and human beings. I think I was once human, but that was a very long time ago."

"Seven hundred years ago?" Susan asked, unable to hide her sarcasm.

Ryan just smiled, amused at the sarcasm. "Seven hundred years ago," she replied.

"Then what are you, if you're not human?"

Ironically, this gave Ryan pause. She turned to stare into the fire. "I don't have a name to describe my Kind, because I speak with the language of humans. And humans have no name for my Kind, any more than people who live in a black and white world would have names for colors."

"What year were you born?"

Ryan laughed, aware of Susan's attempt to trap her. "Again, that shows me your inability to step outside your time. Only in this century has time been divided into such discrete little quant.i.ties." She continued to gaze into the fire. "As if the ebb and flow of life were so constrained." She turned to Susan, raising an eyebrow. "I read history books and they give the illusion that the human race has always measured itself with calendars and clocks and the dates of important events. When I was a child, we didn't even know of such things."

Susan did not try to hide her incredulity. "So how do you know it's almost seven hundred years?"

Ryan had a gleam in her eye; she saw through the skepticism to the beginnings of genuine interest. "I know I was born in the first part of the 14th century, my best guess would be around 1325, if your history books are even close to being correct."

"Why 1325?"

"When I was 16 seasons," Ryan paused, correcting herself, "I mean 16 years old, I fought for Edward, the Black Prince."

Susan thought furiously, trying to remember her history. She would shatter this illusion yet. "Would that have been the Hundred Years War?"

Ryan looked at her mockingly. "Well, yes, I guess, but it was not called the Hundred Years War until later because, when it started, no one knew it was going to last a hundred years."

Susan stopped, startled. She hadn't thought of that. Ryan continued her rumination.

"Actually, it lasted exactly two for me, at which time I ran away from service to return to my family."

Susan thought she had her now. "How could you be allowed to fight in the 14th century as a woman?"

Ryan shook her head. "I couldn't. Women were little more than chattel at the time I was born, which is why to this day I sometimes have difficulty respecting them."

Susan shook her head. "I examined you, remember? I know you're female."