He listened fretfully to Thierry wheezing below him. Slowly the words of their client came back to Andre. He shuddered. There had been something depraved in that figure, unnatural, as though he had done terrible things, and would do them again. "I don't know," he said at last.

Thierry stamped his foot; unwise, given what he was standing on. They heard bone crack. "Careful," said Andre. He heard his own everlasting doom there. Again, he crept to the body in the burlap sack.

He would have to touch it, real soon. Then he'd know. It would be hard, awkward; settled in its discomfiture the way old compost lay, sickly to the touch.

Either that, or spring at them!

Nothing would shock him now.

It all went back to the client. Night stretched into night, in his memories of their meeting, as though daylight would never come again. An illicit one-time actthat was the way Andre liked to think of it; but this time was somehow different, more unsettling.

Andre had never murdered anyone. He didn't think he could. But he knew what murder felt like. And he had never felt this before.

He looked at Thierry, who seemed preternaturally paused, as if he, too, were undergoing the same set of moralistic crises, heaped one atop the next.

"Do you get the feeling," he said, "like we shouldn't be doing this?"

Thierry grunted, clearly troubled.

"Say we don't," said Andre, "say we take this guy, we..."

"He's dead," said Thierry. "If we heard anything, it was his ghost talking." He was irritated by the hesitancy he perceived in Andre's voice. "Let's get this over with."

Then he looked up. Andre looked frightened. A fear was on his face that could not be tossed aside, or in a pit and covered over with what remained of the night.

"I don't want to do this," Andre said.

Andre had a plan. They would cover over the coffin, lid and earth, making it look to unsuspecting eyes like nothing had happened there. Suspecting ones were another matter.

Implausible though it seemed, Andre wasn't certain, whether in a day or in a year, somebody would be sent, to check up on the contents of the grave, to see if the contract had indeed been fulfilled. But there was nothing else for it. With doubt indecision had been born.

Probably he was being paranoid, but it was time to take action. What could this man have done, he wondered, to warrant Quickly, and with aching backs, they began forcing the dirt back from where it had come. Within minutes they had finished, both men doing their best to make the site look undisturbed. It was biting cold and all about them remnants of dying gra.s.s rose in feeble patches.

The moon had gone, as they trundled back the way they'd come, replaced by the first rays of wintry sunlight, their burden still in their possession. It was late Decemberfreezing in Paris. A sheet of ice half a foot thick glazed over the Seine. It was so cold, Thierry noticed his breath fog before his eyes. His breathing was labored, both with trundling their cargoif anything it had kept growing in size; it was very heavy nowand the new exertion of his and Andre's choice. Something had stopped their hands on the brink of completing their mission (which had never happened before)! And now they were stuck withwhatever it was.

"Are you thinking what I am?" he said.

Andre nodded. "The old man will know what to do," he said. "They say he studies. Maybe he will take it off our hands."

"Not that," said Thierry, who stopped short to rest against a small aspen tree. "First we must know what we are taking him."

It was the thieves' code, both men knew it. Given where the body came from, there could potentially be a considerable amount of heat upon it: interest from unlooked-for foes. The only kinds of bodies they buried were the ones n.o.body wanted found. Which begged the question: What if it were? Tales get around. Pretty soon you pay for your kindnesses, they thought. They didn't want to bring the old man a looked-for body.

But Andre had enough. He stabbed first one spade into the ground, then the next. It was fantastically quiet out. "Are you saying that you think we should check this fellow?" he said. "We can't keep dithering, Thierry."

"Stolen radios make bad p.a.w.ns," said Thierry philosophically.

"Your knife please," said Andre. "Hurry! I don't want to be known as the ditchdigger of Pere Lachaise. We'll see what this fellow knows or if he's as mundane as I find you."

Thierry handed Andre a small b.u.t.terfly knife. It whicked open in Andre's hand.

He started at the neckline, piercing the burlap with the point of the blade, working his way up to expose the chin. There was no pulse.

If experience had taught both men one thing, it was how to recognize Death. For all intents and purposes, the body before them was dead.

Soon, the head was exposed. Andre pulled the hood back crumpling it behind as a makeshift pillow, revealing the face.

The features were striking. This person, whoever he was, would move through society extraordinarily easily, both in the supernatural world, with all its variation, and in the mortal world. It was strange how there was a definition between the two, almost defined by death. Fringe though they may have been, even Thierry and Andre could sense that supernaturals sometimes died. Something was coming. If they could've guessed, hardship. For them and everyone else.

A myriad of far-fetched ideas paraded in front of both men's minds, each more outlandish than the last, until they were consumed by choices, wondering, Which option shall we take? First things first, however: they would need to get a look at the Mark; concealed, for now, but not forever. "We need to get a look at this fellowbefore we bring him to that old bone conjurer," said Thierry shrewdly.

Andre balled his fingers into fists. Why was it always him?

Cautiously, he held one out until it flowered into five gnarled, veined tentacles, and he touched the sack.

There was no reactionunless it was the reaction of Andre's heart beating. "See? Told you," he said. "Dead." He breathed a sigh of relief. The powerful form in the burlap sack remained immobile.

But then what had that whispering been?

Andre wet his lips, anxious to resolve this. He could sense Thierry's uneasiness. The Mark. Just the Mark. And then they could get this over with. Either the body would give up its secrets, and remain deadin which case, they would give it a less-ign.o.ble burial, probably in the old man's gardenor...

He withdrew the blade. Puncturing the burlap had nicked the skin. There was blood on it. Running blood. Andre gasped. Thierry shook his head. It was there. The Mark.

The skin had the fine silvery penstrokes they had only heard about but never seen before. What had the client said? You must say the words?

That was very important. The Last Rites....

Looking at the huge form before them, the only words Andre could muster were how? How had the body seemed to double in size the last half hour? As though it were still aliveor worsechanging.

The face was hardening, becoming bolder, the skin tighter. Andre had never heard of bodies altering so drastically. Hair was forming where there had been none.

What had the client said? This work must be done before first light.

"I don't think we'll ever get it there in time, Thierry."

"In time or outjust as long as it's off our backs."

"I think we're too late."

The figure was rising up, stepping from the wheelbarrowThierry and he tried to runits shroud falling to the waysidebut it was too late.

"Something wicked is in the workswe're dead because of it."

"Its Mark. Look at its Mark, Andre!"

On its feet now, the figure was even more ma.s.sively intimidating than they could possibly have imagined. Who had not wanted it seen, and why? They slammed into a crypt wall, trying to escape, turned, staring at it, their backs to stone. Confusion and fear somehow jammed together, locking up their ability to move.

"But you c-can't be" said Thierry, looking at it. The shadow advanced.

Andre didn't care what the old legends said. This thing was huge. It was here now, before them. Sizing them up. Andre hadn't meant for things to get so out of hand.

"We t-tried to s-save you," he said, trembling before the onslaught of the shadow.

Suddenly the light shone.

They were transfixed by the hunter's Mark.

And then it spoke.

"Stormr hamrinum," it said. The words a kind of melange, a confusion of color and sound and The grapefruit-sized ventricle at its elbow released a surge of magic. The invocation, a brilliant orange fireball, engulfed the night sky. It seemed to envelop Thierry and Andre; before they knew it, fire, like burning coal, had invaded their bodies, rushing to their very souls. Halsey Rookmaaker woke screamingthe writhing bodies still with her, like shadows from a dream.

For a moment that lasted an eternity, it felt like the monster was in her bedroom with her. It was kneeling, when a voice sounded: "The war is starting. Battle lines will be drawn. She and the vampire are headed towards Prague. Find the other one and kill him. Do not let it survive."

"And them?" said the Hunter.

"The Dark Order shall rise again, my old friend."

Chapter 1 Her 18th Birthday.

I felt like I had run really far and stoppedmy heart rate was off the charts. Who had that figure been and why was I seeing him? True, he had been really bighulking evenbut even in my dreams I could feel what the other men had been thinking. Their perceptions of him colored the flash-memory. He had grown, changed, shifted, killed. It had been really dark. I wished I had seen him better. But did I?

It was a second before I realized they were dead. That I had seen it happen. And that it was probably real. Pere Lachaise was in Paris, France. I had seen something which had happened a great distance away.

I reached to turn on the light, but the lightbulb blew out. This was something which had been happening on a regular basis, and I wondered why it hadn't happened before. Probably because I needed to know it was possible before I could do magic. Which was a depressing thought.

I didn't like to think that I was so much of a follow-the-leader that I had to wait for Lia to tell me she had been blowing up microwaves and stuff before she realized it was the craft that was doing it. The magic spark in her skin or whatever, her core self, that was saying, There's something going on here. You're coming into your Self.

My Self was in her nightgown in her four-poster, shivering slightly, because the wind had knocked open the French doors, and when I looked he wasn't there. Lennoxlove Lenoir, one of the vampires from France. When Hunter, and what I had just seen in my visions, I realized he hadn't been one, either, a vampire. Then who had the Hunter been?

Somebody looking for something.... That's all I knew. I think instinctively I knew that. Boxes of empty Sylvanias littered the floor. I gave up and lit the Iron Roses, two entwined candle holders like roisin dubhs, black Irish roses, with links to northern Wicca.

When I looked up LENNOXLOVE in a search engine, it gave me a place in Scotland. Which was weird. Maybe that was where Lennox was from. I had always taken him for American. It was too depressing to think about. What did I really know about him, other than the fact that he was really good-looking, with long, dark hair that shot out dynamically just so. He was always making interesting shadow figures, creeping into my loft. My landlady didn't know. She thought I was just a loner. A stupid ragazza.

I fetched from the bedside Volume number two of my Diaries, feeling the heavily-worn pages with my fingertips. It had had a Mark. The hunter had had a Mark. That seemed to clunk in my brain as something which was important.

But that wasn't possible, was it? He was a shifter. I had seen him change into a wolfor a kind of wolf. There hadn't been one in over a century. A witch or wizard and a shifter. A witch or wizard shifter. So others had said. I saw him changing, becoming something more than he waswhich is what I wanted to do.

I sighed, letting my mind wander: So be it, I thought; which had become, of late, my motto, with so many lightbulbs being destroyed. They were collecting like the bones of dead things in my trash can.

I wrote out the last few lines in my somewhat loopy handwriting and closed the diary. Dedication... ErmI thought a bit...

Let's see...

I hit upon a likely line and wrote the following: To my amanuensis, Lennoxlove Lenoir, and as some have taken umbrage, I can only stress that the remainder of the Diaries shall be written through my eyes only; forgive him his trespa.s.ses, even if he isn't in this volume, much.

Let them make of that what they would, I thought, before realizing the likelihood of any reader actually reading this far was beyond unbelievable. But then all of this was. Vampires and werewolves and me. I was a Wiccan. A Neophyte now, to be more precise. There was also Adept, and then those who were Fledged; the great end-all be-all, Fledged; the steppingstones to magical apotheosis.

As for why no one would read thiswell, that was one of the Lenoir's rules, wasn't it? To shut the h.e.l.l up about the existence of vampires. The other rule was don't make too many vampires. Would I be held accountable if this account were to somehow get out? I had been in the world six months. Long enough to know better. But I had never been indoctrinated, in the Wiccan sense. True, I had taken the Rede, a kind of Hippocratic oath, but I had never sworn allegiance, or, in fact, sided with one group over another, unless verbally. Maria Lenoir knew, for instance, that my heart was with the werewolves and with her cousin, Lennoxlove Lenoir. Almost like I was torn. In truth, the predicament had never been difficult. If anything, it felt like the right thing to do. As if I was born to be split. Like magic itself.

Not one or the otherbut both my Lennoxlove-allegiance and my werewolf-allegiance existing simultaneously. It felt natural. Just...

Stop defending it, I told myself.

But if it got out that I was running around with a pack of werewolves, and with the only vampire in Rome, would the Lenoir come for me?

It was a chance I would have to take. I would be willing to take. Writing was like therapy, to me. I felt better when I did it. It helped me make heads or tails, X, Y, or zed, of things. Plus, if I wanted to attain the highest Wiccan standard (and I did), I would have to keep the diary. Fledged wasn't something I could do in a controlled environment. I had thrown my future away, after all. Wiccans wrote. Kept Books of Shadows.

Briefly other Wiccan InitiatesShaharizan and so forth; Gemma Moonflower and the likethose who were going to established Wiccan Households, such as Harcort, or the Covens. There was also the House of Peril and some other ones, chief among them Ravenseal. It was said Ravenseal was the best. Then why didn't I want to join it? What was it about the easy opportunities and likelihood of running into 'the best people', at Ravenseal, that bothered me so much? Was it that I was fraternizing with the enemy? (They had selected me at the Gathering. Which was kind of a recruitment-type thing.) NoI was in this by myself.

It was winter finally, fully and completely. For the past six months, since I had been on the mainlandfirst in Paris and then traveling down through the oddly-shaped boot which formed the Italian Peninsula, where I mostly stayedI had grown used to what I referred to as the Mediterranean lifestyle, easygoing and rich in sensory stimulation, funded of course by my vast financial resources. I was independently wealthybut you could've fooled me. For the first seventeen years of my life I had been raised in New England, in an all-girls' school, the kind most parents would be horrified to send their children to. St. Martley's Academy for the Gifted was a school for freaks. I didn't know why, but I would probably always think of St. Martley's that way. As a place I had escaped from. And now I was free.

It was cold being free. Rome was as inhospitable as it had ever beenat least climactically; on a personal level, it was icy, windy and chill-inducing. That's really where our story starts, on my eighteenth birthday, when I was altogether lonesome for an entirely different reason. Oh, I had friends, all right. In fact, two of them were getting married. As Lia said, there was no point postponing the inevitable. Her heart's joy was found in Gaven. The King of all who were werewolves.

My heart was lost.

I got up from my bed, because I always wrote supine. It helped the blood flow, you know?

The lavender hangings around my four-poster reminded me of the one I seemed destined to live without. Since scrying Lennox, he had shut me out completely. Why had I fallen for him so hard, when it didn't even make sense? Lennox was of immortal make and I-I was not. How could I ask him to love me when he would just have to leave me, whether through age or some other mishap? And then, if I did die (if? I asked myself), would I really want him seeking out the kind of happiness we might have shared together, in someone else? The answer was most definitely not. I didn't care if that made me selfish. And then, for my own morbid amus.e.m.e.nt, I thought about it: of me dying and him and everyone else being left behind. In particular, I liked the grief and devastation, with regards to other people mourning me. I saw Ballard punching a wallbut then Liesel, this really hot older werewolf hamrammr chick walked by, and he forgot his grief. Lennox, in the dream-revery, didn't show any emotion, just remained sullen: something I intuited to mean his sense of guilt at dragging me into this world. But I had dragged myself. My pink and wigglies squirmed pleasurably. Maybe, I thought, he would light a candletwo candlesthe Iron Roseskeeping an eternal vigil over me, or at least on my birthdays, as years became centuries and wethat is to say, he and I, or the memory of me, at any ratepa.s.sed into the millenniums untouched and together.

It changed suddenly, and my eyes were like his, or like his family's, Dallace and Camille's; like colored planets of raging storms, or swirling tempests: the eyes of the lamia. The Latin for vampire made me think of something else, maybe because I had been studying orchids.

Could two people walk through a world eternal and unchanged together and forevermore and really have anything to talk about, or would it all seem like one long burdensome journey?

I had to get this down in my diary, before I forgot it, but my diary was already full.

Two of them were. I put the now-finished second volume beside its sibling, on my small wooden bookshelf, I had purchased from an antiques shop down in Via dei Condotti, on the strada where I lived, with, of course, my landlady's permission (she wouldn't approve a refrigerator, and now I had a melted half-tub of rocky haagen-daaz I had been dipping into the last twenty-four hours with increased lethargy, the name of which was Sundae Mooning. I figured that fit me to a T, or an H, as the case may have been). True to her word, my landlady had kept everyoneincluding herselffrom entering my room, for the two or so months since I had been gone, figuring out what I already knew: that there were some people in this world who could do extraordinary things.

I didn't say good things. Just things. And sometimes, magical things.

Thinking the thought made my skin tingle all the way down to my Wiccan Mark. I had been persistently, failingly obliged to try not to look at it, every possible second, but had failed miserably in my self-imposed abstinence. It was an itch too easy to scratch. It was so unlike me to have this physical proof, this everyday, full-time reminder of what I had the potential to become: someone in this world who could do extraordinary things. I felt that potential like a solid ma.s.s in the pit of my stomach. As for the Mark, it was docile now, but an hour ago it had been raging unchecked inside of me, writhing and twisting up my arm. Orchis halsey or whatever.

It had been so bad I had felt like there was another part of me I didn't entirely understand yet that sometimes had control over me. Like there was someone elseor somethinginside me; a submerged part of my ident.i.ty, like a stalk, almost, which puts out leaves, and then one day, bam, there's a flower there. My Wiccan flower.

My orchid.

I looked up what it might be called, its genus and so forthbut whereas Vittoria, who was my nemesis, could be said to have nightshade, I had no real clue what my orchid was. I just knew that it was a flower-Mark and therefore that my virtue was either Grace or Goodwill and that it looked bada.s.s; and as I didn't want others to know what it looked like, I showed no one. But my landlady wasn't any ordinary person. In fact, she was extraordinary. She could tell there was something different about me the first time I returned and she threatened me.

She said "Hmph!" and "Snrgh!" And then looked down her long, pointed nose, at me. "I'm watching you," she said to me.

She jabbed at her own two eyes with her index and middle fingers. Instinctively I looked for her Wiccan Mark, but there was none.

I couldn't meet her gaze lest she penetrate my inmost thoughts, but I nodded. "May I go to my room, now?" I said, as straight faced as I could manage.