"That's really pretty," she said, somewhat taken aback by the description of his former human calling, "but I just can't picture you reading from the Bible and handing out communion wafers." Maybe because she'd gone down on him in the shower, and had been fantasizing about all the other things she wanted to do to him as soon as they got to his place. Do you go to h.e.l.l for giving an ex-priest vampire an o.r.g.a.s.m?

He smiled sadly. "I am sorry to say that I did not do much of that during my human life."

She pa.s.sed the canteen to him. "Can you still drink water?"

"In small amounts." Gabriel took a sip before handing it back. "I spent most of my priesthood fighting alongside my Templar brothers in the Holy Land. We engaged in countless battles against the Saracens, but they proved too many for us."

Too many. Nick remembered what the green man had said, and raised the canteen to her lips. "Do you dream when you sleep?"

"Kyn do not sleep, precisely. We rest our bodies. Our minds, our dreams..." He stopped and thought for a moment. "I cannot describe it adequately. I call them the nightlands."Hearing her own word come out of his mouth make Nick almost choke on the water.

"My friend Thierry, he can share the dreams of sleeping humans," Gabriel continued. "Even alter them."

Had her dreams had been fiddled with? Had he manipulated her into falling in love with him? "Can all of you do that?"

"No, only Thierry."

That made her feel a little better. "I know he's your friend and all, but that's kind of creepy."

He made a negligent gesture. "That is being Kyn."

"There's one other thing I don't get," Nick said, watching the moths march down her forearm in single file. "You said that your sister and some of your friend's relatives also changed into Kyn. But your sister and the others, they didn't go on the Crusades, right?" When he nodded, she added, "If this Darkyn thing really was a curse from G.o.d for what you did in the Holy Land, then they shouldn't have gotten it."

"That has long been my own belief." Gabriel turned toward her. "Have you found any female Kyn during your travels? My younger sister, she looks like me-"

"No. No women. Only guys." Nick stood up, sending the trio of moths fluttering away. "We'd better get back on the road."

Being abrupt with him made her feel like h.e.l.l, but Nick had been on the verge of blurting out everything she knew about the Golden Madonna. Thank G.o.d Gabriel had reminded her why she had to keep her mouth shut. However nice and understanding he seemed, and however hot she got for his body, she had excellent reasons not to trust him. She couldn't let him get in her way, not when it came to the Madonna. If she told him everything, he might try to stop her. His own sister...

No, she told herself as she climbed on the bike. Don't go there.

"We're right outside the city," she told him. "So tell me how to get to your place from here."

Gabriel gave her simple directions on how to reach his home, and added, "Dalente will have the grounds secured. The code for the front gate is six-one-four-seven."

Rather than ride through Toulouse and risk drawing any unwanted attention, Nick took a narrow, winding utility road into the hills, past the pretty houses and shaded gardens of the Cote Pavee and into a more affluent, exclusive area where the homes were more of the mansion variety and the properties extended for dozens of acres.

When she found the turnoff for the dirt road Gabriel had described, she saw two old statues of lions carved from some dark marble at the other end flanking an open, rusting gate.

So much for the secured grounds.

She slowed to a stop in front of the gate and looked down a trail of weeds sprouting from the rose brick-paved drive. The house stood dark, with no lights inside or out.

It looked like utter s.h.i.t, too.

"Gabriel?" Maybe she had the wrong place. "Is there, like, a huge forest behind your place?"

"Yes. Also two lions by the front gate."

That clinched it. "Uh, how long has it been since you've seen your house?""I was taken in Ma.r.s.eilles, while I was spending the winter with my friends. Almost three years now." He took a deep breath.

"Do you smell that? Rosemary and thyme. Dalente still tends to his herb gardens."

Nick glanced down at the fragrant herbs, which were growing wild and woody in a drainage ditch. "Uh-huh."

She drove down the drive and parked in front of the house, which looked as if it had been completely abandoned. Most of the windows on the first floor had been broken or left open. She'd seen nicer crack houses in Paris.

Without saying anything to Gabriel, she took out her crowbar and stuck it in her back pocket along with her lock kit. "This servant of yours, does he live in town?"

"Non. He lives here." He started toward the door and stumbled over a loosened paving stone. "Will you lend me your arm, Nicola? I do not wish to fall on my face before I step foot in the house."

"Sure." She grabbed her flashlight and switched it on before putting his hand on her forearm and guiding him up the stairs. "Hang on." She pulled one of the lock picks she carried on her belt and used it to open the entry door.

"You have only to ring the bell," Gabriel told her. "My tresora will hear it in his room."

"It's almost midnight. Let's not give the guy a heart attack." She swept the empty front foyer with her flashlight. Mud and dirty footprints soiled the light tile floor, and spray-painted graffiti of various colors decorated the peeling wallpaper. The faint, ugly smell of garbage and human waste colored the air.

"Dalente imported all of the antiques from Italy," he said as they walked inside. "As you can see, I have a particular fondness for marble statues."

Nick aimed the flashlight's beam all over the interior, but didn't see so much as a kid's bag of marbles.

"That one." Gabriel pointed to an empty s.p.a.ce beside a wall scrawled with obscenities. "That is the Aphrodite I commissioned Rodin to sculpt for me. Not what the cla.s.sic Greeks imagined her to look like, I know, but she is my favorite marble. Is she not lovely?"

"I've never seen anything like it." Nick had to get him out of here. "Listen, I don't think this Dalente guy is here. Maybe we should stay in the city tonight, and deal with this tomorrow."

"Paolo must have moved to town so he would not be so lonely. I cannot blame him; I have been absent too long. But come." He tugged on her arm. "Let me show my home to you."

In the receiving room, Nick ducked to avoid a snare of cobwebs floating down from a smashed chandelier and nearly tripped over a pile of crumpled bags and empty soda cans.

"The family rooms are upstairs, but most of my personal art collection is kept on display in the room to the right of the stairs." He gestured in that direction. "I have a small arrangement of p.i.s.sarros and Renoirs over the fireplace, but with all the statuary my tresora insists on calling it 'the marble room.'"

She stopped him at the threshold and looked down at the crumple of tinfoil and an empty, broken syringe glittering next to her right foot. The room, like the foyer, had been stripped.

She trained her flashlight on the walls and saw some piles of rags and an old crate topped with candle stubs. Along the walls were rows of light, square-shaped patches where paintings had once hung. A splash-shaped stain and a lingering odor indicated someone who had recently occupied the room had been violently sick. Another person had answered an urgent call of nature in the corner, several times.

Thank G.o.d he's blind. "Gabriel, I'm a little wiped out from the ride, and you need blood," Nick said, trying to turn him around. "Let's head into Toulouse. We'll come back tomorrow after sunset." That would give her a day to think of what to do next. He couldn't stay here. "Come on."

He wasn't paying attention to her. "This is odd, but I don't remember the house smelling like this. Dalente must be keeping all the windows locked. He needs to take out the garbage, too." Nick tensed, and his grip tightened on her arm. "What is wrong?"

Everything.

"Nothing." How could she tell him his place had been gutted and turned into flophouse for junkies? "You said you had some money and papers stashed here. We should get those first." That way she wouldn't have to bring him back. "Where are they?"

"In the library." He pointed toward the opposite hall. "The third door on the left."

Nick had a h.e.l.l of a time guiding him around the acc.u.mulated refuse left behind by the squatters, but she managed to get him to the library without a stumble or a mishap. She couldn't do anything about the smell of garbage, but the cold air coming in from the broken windows brought with it the scent of wild herbs and flowers, which helped to mask it.

"Here." He switched on the light switch, but the room remained dark. "I know, it must look like a university library to you, but I like to read."

The shelves were empty, the books and furniture gone. Cigarette burns had rendered the lovely old Persian carpets scattered on the oak floor worthless. All that was left were some old tapestry curtains that had been stuffed into a missing windowpane to keep the cold wind out.

"You stay right there and tell me where it is," she said, her heart breaking for him, "and I'll get it."

"I must telephone my tresora." Gabriel released her and, before she could stop him, crossed the room, his arms out. "Dalente always loved to rearrange things." He stopped. "Where has he put the desk?"

Nick scrubbed her hands over her face. "Gabriel, there is no desk in here. There's no furniture in here."

"Of course there is. Dalente wouldn't put the furniture in storage; he-" Gabriel b.u.mped into a bookcase and steadied himself before moving his hand across the empty shelf. "My books..." He groped his way to another shelf and felt it, and did the same to a third. His tone changed from puzzled to bewildered. "Nicola, where are my books?"

"They're gone." She should never have brought him in. This was going to kill him. "All of them are gone."

He turned around slowly. "C'est une blague ou quoi?"

"No, Gabriel." She swallowed against a tight throat. "I wouldn't joke about something like that."

"What else has been taken?"

"I don't-"

"Tell me."

"It's all gone. The books, the furniture, the statues, all of it. They cleaned you out. From the dust and the cobwebs, I'd say it happened a while ago." She didn't have to tell him about the signs of drug users and squatters. "Let's get out of here, okay? I'll spring for a nice hotel in town, check into what happened up here. Maybe your guy put everything in storage."

"No." He went from shelf to shelf, stirring up dust and feeling for the books that weren't there. "They must have discovered that this was my home.""You mean the holy freaks." Nick kicked one of the ruined carpets aside, and saw that one of the oak floor panels under it didn't match the others. "Wait a minute." She used her crowbar to pry up the wood and found that a s.p.a.ce had been chiseled out of the cement foundation under it. "There's a long metal box here. It's not locked, but it has a red cross on the top of it."

"Open it."

Inside the box Nick found a bundle of papers, a thick padded envelope, and a long, dark-colored sword. The envelope contained several thousand dollars in cash, five pa.s.sports, two velvet pouches, and a typed letter.

Nick poured the contents of one of the pouches into her palm, and found herself holding a handful of diamonds.

Temptation made her fingers close over them for a moment. He couldn't see; he'd never know. But she couldn't steal from a blind man, especially not one who had lost everything that mattered to him.

She was a thief, but she wasn't a f.u.c.king thief.

She tipped the diamonds back into the pouch as she described the rest of what she had found in the box, reading the names off the IDs and out of the pa.s.sports.

"There's a handwritten note here, too. It's in English, and it's dated about a year ago."

"Dalente preferred to write to me in English; none of the household staff understood it." He came over and crouched beside her.

"Would you please read it to me?"

She opened it, trained her flashlight on the loose scrawl, and began to read out loud: My lord Gabriel, Forgive my brevity; I believe that I do not have much time left. Lord Tremayne has sent word that you were executed by the Brethren, but I do not believe it. Our bond is such that I am convinced that I would have felt you pa.s.sing from this world to the next.

This morning your enemies came to the estate to question me. They speak of you as if you are dead and this house now belongs to them. They demanded that I turn over the contents and the property to them and vacate the premises.

I pretended ignorance, and showed them the deeds, as always, but despite this I expect they will return and try to take possession by force. They know I cannot risk summoning the authorities without betraying you and the Kyn. I am old, but I vow that I will not surrender without a fight.

I also know that it is unlikely that I shall survive this skirmish. That is why I must write of the disturbing news I have learned from our friends across the Atlantic. Angelica betrayed you-as well as Thierry, Jamys, and the Durand family-to your enemies. I fear that she has been in league with your enemies from the beginning.

I will place this cache where your enemies cannot easily find it. Angelica's betrayal means that there is no place in France where you will be safe. I beg you go to Ireland and take sanctuary with the high lord.

I am grateful for the long and happy life I spent in your service, and the many pleasures I have known in our long friendship. I remain, as always, your loyal servant, Paolo Dalente.

Nick folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. "He sounds like a nice man."

"He was." Gabriel rose and moved to the center of the room. "He is dead."He sounded as if he didn't care, but Nick understood. What you couldn't handle, you had to disconnect from. "You don't know.

Maybe he got away. Maybe-"

"If he lived, he would still be here, as would my possessions." He turned around slowly. "The property-everything I own-was in his name, not mine."

The holy freaks had killed the old man to take the stuff from the house. While they had been burning and hurting Gabriel. Was there anything they wouldn't do to hurt the Kyn? "I'm so sorry."

"Maudit." His voice went low. "He deserved better than to die at their hands, Nicola. I should have known. I should have taken measures to better protect him in my absence."

Nick moved the flashlight toward him and saw the way he stood, a fighter left in an empty ring. "How could you have known?

You were grabbed and locked up, remember? This wasn't your fault. It was them."

"Dalente wasn't Kyn. He posed no threat to them. He was seventy-three years old and growing frail. He spent most of his days planting and weeding in his garden. He should have lived out his life doing the same." He turned his head, and a faint, scratching sound came from outside the room. "They killed him for the things I had, things that he cared for in my absence. He died for serving me."

Nick didn't need her flashlight to see his face. The light from his blank eyes illuminated his features with an eerie green glow. "We should get out of here, you know? We could..." She wasn't sure what to do.

"No. I will see it all. All of it."

Something clicked and scratched all around her, and when Nick angled the flashlight down, it showed her hundreds of huge black beetles erupting from the s.p.a.ce in the floor.

"s.h.i.t. This place is infested." She scrambled backward and to her feet, just in time to see what was left of the library windows implode. "Gabriel, look out."

Clouds of wasps flew in swarms through the shattered windows, streaming across the room and slamming into Nick. She covered her head with one arm and backed up to the wall, only to see something slithering. Jerking the flashlight, she illuminated countless worms that had bored their way out of the panels and were oozing down the walls.

"Gabriel," she shouted again, but he and the wasps were gone. Something deadlier than a wasp whizzed from the window past her face to bury itself in the wall. She flicked the flashlight up and saw termites pouring out of a brand-new hole. "G.o.d, this place is coming apart."

Something in the distance cracked, and what was happening finally registered when plaster exploded by her face, showering and cutting her as a second hole appeared in the wall.

Someone outside was firing a gun into the house.

Gabriel strode out of the library, drawing the many around him and forcing them to show him the destruction of his home. What had been his only retreat from the worlds of man and Kyn had been reduced to a haven for addicts and wanderers, scarred by their indifference and painted with their contempt. Filthy epitaphs, piles of desiccated s.h.i.t, the sour stink of despair. The art of desperation and disgust. They had filled his house with it.

And for this, Dalente had died.

What the Brethren had inflicted on Gabriel he had accepted as the price of his immortality. But his beloved tresora had been made yet another martyr in the war, as innocent and blameless as all the others who had given their human lives to serve the Darkyn.

The many flew into the marble room, showing him the stripped walls and drug paraphernalia left behind by the addicts who had used the house. They found scatterings of marble chips and dust that hinted of the fate of Gabriel's statues.

Had the Brethren destroyed every one of them?