If he doesn't, she mused, we're out of options.

A short flight of stairs brought them to Macaro's private office overlooking the ops center. The elegant furnis.h.i.+ngs reminded her of the opulent decor back at Ordoghaz. She felt a minor pang at the thought that she might never again set foot in the mansion, her home for so many generations. She was hardly the sentimental sort, and yet...

Moonlight filtered through the skylight in the ceiling, adding to the illumination provided by the crystal chandelier and Tiffany lamps. Selene eyed the skylight with a touch of apprehension; Marcus's newfound wings had her on guard against aerial attacks.

Lorenz Macaro greeted them from behind a large mahogany desk, beneath the watchful gaze of a carved wooden G.o.ddess. Selene noted the man's dignified bearing and concerned expression. For a human, he conveyed an aura of quiet authority. If he had any misgivings about being in the presence of a vampire and a hybrid, no trace of it showed upon his regal features.

He nodded at the pendant in Selene's hands. "May I?"

Selene handed it over. Lucian's precious keepsake had brought them this far. Maybe the pendant could somehow convince Macaro to help them stop Marcus.

It was a worth a try.

The elderly human contemplated the infamous pendant, running his finger over its intricate detail. Selene noticed his signet ring, although she couldn't quite make out the design upon it. She wondered what was going through the old man's mind. His inscrutable expression defied her attempts to read his reaction to the pendant.

Four armed bodyguards stood by the stairs, watching Selene and Michael warily. Lifting his gaze from the pendant, Macaro motioned for the men to leave. "But, sir," one of them protested, looking with alarm at the Death Dealer and her companion. He was obviously reluctant to leave his employer unguarded.

"You can go," Macaro insisted brusquely. He waited for the men to depart before resuming his inspection of the pendant.

"You're familiar with this then?" Selene asked.

Macaro gave her a cryptic smile, then gently nudged the hidden switch with his fingertip. The concealed blades emerged from the pendant like clockwork. "Intimately."

She and Michael exchanged a startled look. Did everybody know about the pendant's secret workings except them? A thought occurred to her and she took a closer look at Macaro's signet ring, even as she recalled that woodcut ill.u.s.tration of the armored soldiers marching across a plagueravaged countryside. The stylized C upon the ring matched the crest upon the knights' s.h.i.+elds.

By the Elders! she thought as the truth struck home. She looked at the aging human with new eyes. Although she tried to maintain her cool, her hushed tone betrayed the awe she felt.

"You're Alexander Corvinus."

The man who called himself Lorenz Macaro blinked in surprise at the name. He glanced at his ring with a rueful sigh. "There was a time that I was known by that name." He rose from his chair and circled around his desk to face Michael. He laid his hands upon the younger man's shoulders. Parental pride showed upon his face. "But by any name, I am still your forefather."

Corvinus, as Selene now thought of him, handed the pendant back to Michael, who refastened the chain around his neck. He gaped at the older man, seeming uncertain how to respond. Selene recalled Michael telling her that his grandparents had immigrated to the United States after the Second World War. Surely, when he had decided to move to Hungary after his fiancee's death, he had never expected to come face-to-face with an ancestor from the fifth century.

"How have you stayed hidden all these years?" Selene asked. Truth be told, she was feeling slightly overwhelmed herself. By her reckoning, the man standing before her was over sixteen hundred years old, an impressive span even for an immortal. The legendary Corvinus was indeed what Tanis had called him.

The father of us all...

"For centuries I've stood by and watched the havoc my sons have wrought upon each other...and upon humanity." He sighed wearily and turned away from them. "Not the legacy for which I prayed the night I watched them enter the world. "He sat back down behind his desk. "And a tiresome duty: keeping the war contained, cleaning up the mess, hiding my family's unfortunate history."

"Couldn't you have stopped them?" Michael asked.

"Yes," Selene insisted.

Corvinus looked sadly at his descendant. "Could you kill your own sons?"

"You know what Marcus will do," Selene said. She leaned across the desk to confront him. "If he finds me, he finds William's prison. You need to help us stop him."

He regarded her skeptically, then laughed harshly. "You are asking me to help you kill my son? You? A Death Dealer?" His face was stern and unforgiving. His cultured voice dripped with scorn. "How many innocents did you kill in the six-century quest to avenge your family? Spare me your self-righteous declarations. You are no different than Marcus, and even less n.o.ble than William. At least he cannot control his savagery."

Selene was taken aback by his verbal attack, but only for a moment or two. She wasn't about to be treated with contempt, not even by Alexander Corvinus. "Anything I've done can be laid at your feet. Hundreds of thousands have died because of your inability to accept that your sons are monsters. That they create...monsters." She was honest enough to include herself in that category. "You could have stopped all of this."

"Do not come groveling to me," he said, scowling, "simply because you are weaker than your adversary."

Selene refused to be intimidated. She found it ironic that, essentially, she was taking Viktor's side in his long dispute with Marcus. "You know what kind of devastation William caused before he was captured. He can't be set free."

Corvinus had no ready response. He s.h.i.+fted uneasily in his chair, obviously wrestling with his conscience. He knows I'm right, she thought, no matter how much he hates to admit it.

"Let me tell you about what your other son has become...."

The sentry paced the deck of the Sancta Helena, keeping an eye out for trouble. Colin Langely had served with the Cleaners for nearly three years now, after being recruited from Her Majesty's Secret Service, but tonight he felt unusually on edge. You didn't need to be a top-grade intelligence a.n.a.lyst to know that things were up. Elders a.s.sa.s.sinated, the vampires' headquarters burned to the ground, now a Death Dealer and a suspected lycan visiting the Old Man in person. All of this was unprecedented in Langely's experience.

Sounds as if this cold war is becoming hot.

Shallow waves lapped against the hull. A full moon cast its reflection on the surface of the Danube. Langely scanned the sh.o.r.eline with a pair of night-vision binoculars. Beyond the silent docks and warehouses, traffic flowed upon the Belgrade Parkway. In the distance, the lights of central Pest lit up the night. Despite his apprehensions, he spotted nothing amiss.

Without warning, a dark figure dropped into view. Langely caught a glimpse of huge, demonic wings. Clawed feet smacked down upon the deck. A hideous face, with flared ears and a batlike snout, glared at him.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! Langely thought, dropping the binoculars. The grotesque creature before him bore no resemblance to any vamp or lycan he had ever encountered before. He reached for his Uzi, but the winged monster was too fast. His shots went wild as a savage claw ripped off half his face.

The sound of gunfire, coming from topside, electrified Michael and the others. Corvinus leapt to his feet, while Selene drew her new Walthers. They heard anxious gasps and chatter from the ops center below. Michael recognized the sound of automatic weapon's fire, something he had become all too familiar with over the last few nights.

Now what? he worried. Has Marcus found us already?

Corvinus opened his mouth to demand a report, but was interrupted by an enormous crash directly overhead. Michael jumped backward as a body, wearing the black uniform of a Cleaner, came smas.h.i.+ng through the skylight, landing on top of the desk amidst a shower of splintered gla.s.s. Corvinus and Selene also reacted with shock.

Michael saw at once that the guard was dead. His face and chest had been ripped to shreds. An Uzi, strapped to the Cleaner's chest, had obviously done the poor guy no good. Blood dripped off the edge of the desk onto the expensive carpet.

Instinctively, Michael clutched the pendant hanging around his neck. He understood that at all costs they had to stop Marcus from getting his claws on the key. A hybrid Elder was bad enough; they couldn't allow Marcus to free William as well.

He looked to Selene, hoping she would know what to do. But before she could answer, the window behind him exploded inward. Vicious talons tore through steel shutters as if they were tissue paper, then stabbed all the way through Michael's shoulders. He screamed in agony as he was abruptly hoisted off his feet and yanked out of the office through the broken window.

A cold wind rushed against him, but was not frigid enough to numb the searing pain in his shoulders. Looking down, he saw the Sancta Helena shrink away below his dangling feet. Guards upon the s.h.i.+p's deck fired up at them, apparently none too concerned about hitting Michael as well as Marcus. He heard the Elder's powerful wings flapping in his ears.

Michael cried out. High in the air above the dock, he thrashed wildly upon the talons spearing his shoulders. Blood streamed from the wounds, falling hundreds of feet to the pier below. Vertigo threatened as he gazed down at the empty air beneath his feet. How high up was he?

Not that it mattered. A heartbeat later, Marcus hurled Michael at the ground. A scream tore itself from Michael's lungs as he plunged downward at heart-stopping speed. Hitting the run-down wharf, he smashed straight through the rotting timbers into the ice-cold water below. The sudden immersion came as yet one more shock to his system, on top of his crash landing and skewered flesh. The moonlit waters took on a reddish tinge.

Stunned, he sank toward the bottom of the river.

"Michael!"

Selene rushed over to the ruptured window, just in time to see Michael crash through a nearby pier. Splinters flew from fractured wooden beams, followed by a tremendous splash of water erupting from the river below. A second later, a winged figure dived after him.

Was Michael strong enough to survive the fall? Probably, provided he didn't drown before Marcus got to him. But that still left the ruthless Elder to deal with.

Hang on, Michael, she thought desperately. You don't have to fight him alone.

Thrusting her handguns back into their holsters, she swiped the dead guard's Uzi and racked another round into the chamber. Turning away from Corvinus, she headed for the open window. "No, wait," he called after her. "You're no match for him."

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Corvinus was undoubtedly right, yet that wasn't going to stop her from coming to Michael's aid. h.e.l.l, she thought, I've already killed one Elder this week. Let's go for another.

She dived headfirst out the window, then landed like a panther on the dock below. She raced across the wooden planks to the gap Michael's falling body had punched through the floor of the dock. She peered through the hole into the murky shadows beneath the pier. Rusty iron struts supported the crumbling wharf. Excess crates and barrels were stacked on slime-covered wooden planks along the sh.o.r.e. A set of concrete steps led up to the pier. Lengths of thick, knotted rope helped hold the dock's substructure together. Crimson water lapped against the riverbank.

"Michael!"

Oily water sprayed against her face as Marcus burst from the surface of the river, clutching Michael's bleeding body. The Elder, in his monstrous hybrid form, hurled Michael onto a muddy bank beneath the pier. Selene felt a surge of relief as she saw Michael roll to his feet upon the sh.o.r.e. Marcus touched down in front of him. The shattered pier was high enough above their heads to allow the Elder to unfurl his wings to their fullest.

Michael snarled at the other hybrid. His eyes s.h.i.+fted to black.

But Marcus did not give Michael time to complete the transformation. The deadly wings snapped forward, spearing Michael in the chest. Blood sprayed freely as the lethal talons stabbed Michael again and again, like the stingers of an angry scorpion. Michael recoiled from the furious onslaught. He stumbled clumsily, too overwhelmed to strike back. He swiped impotently at the darting wings, trying and failing to fend them off. His face was contorted in agony. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

No! Selene thought. Michael was being tortured to death before her very eyes. Leave him alone, d.a.m.n you!

She dropped through the hole in the dock, splas.h.i.+ng down into the shallow water along the sh.o.r.e. Raising the Uzi, she took aim at Marcus, but...

With a wicked growl, Marcus seized hold of Michael and rammed him into one of the rusty iron struts supporting the dock. The metal split in two and Michael's body smashed down on the bottom half of the sundered strut. The force of the collision drove the steel beam up through Michael's chest, impaling him from below. Blood gushed from his open mouth.

Selene froze in horror, transfixed by the awful tableau. She felt as if an iron bar had just been run through her own heart as well. Please, no, she thought despairingly. Not Michael.

Marcus, on the other hand, was not at all dismayed. He tore open Michael's s.h.i.+rt and wrapped his claws around the blood-spattered pendant. A look of triumph crossed his malevolent face as he claimed the precious ornament once and for all.

The sight of the pendant snapped Selene out of her grief-induced paralysis. Screaming in fury, she emptied the Uzi, peppering Marcus with red-hot silver. The muzzle of the submachine gun flared like the anger erupting inside her. Die, you ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.d! she thought, wis.h.i.+ng she could make the heartless Elder feel just a fraction of the pain she was going through. Die!

Marcus hissed loudly, whether from pain or annoyance she couldn't tell. With preternatural speed, he retreated into the shadows, taking the pendant with him.

s.h.i.+t, she thought.

Aboard the s.h.i.+p, Corvinus strode briskly to the ebony armoire on the starboard side of his office. He opened the cabinet to reveal an impressive collection of antique weapons: broadswords, battle-axes, rapiers, daggers, pikes, maces, scimitars, stilettos, and other mementos of his martial past.

A fitting memorial, he mused, for one whose legacy has long been written in blood.

Selecting a seventeenth-century broadsword from the armoire, he withdrew the double-edged weapon and prepared to meet his vampiric son for the first time in centuries. He eyed the sword dubiously. If and when the moment of truth arrived, was he truly willing to take arms against his own flesh and blood? Chances were, he would soon find out.

Not for one moment did he expect Selene to defeat Marcus on her own.

Murder in her eyes, Selene crept along below the dock, searching the shadows for her foe. Part of her wanted to rush to Michael's side, see to his injuries, but she knew she couldn't afford to let her guard down for a moment. Even though Marcus had claimed the first part of the key, he still needed a taste of her blood to discover the location of William's hidden prison.

Come and get it, she thought coldly.

The empty Uzi lay in the mud behind her. She gripped a loaded Walther in her left fist. She regretted that all she had was silver bullets to work with; the experimental UV ammo had not been the right caliber for her new handguns.

Excited voices shouted up above. Racing footsteps pounded across the pier, as though the Sancta Helena was being abandoned en ma.s.se. Selene did her best to tune the distracting noises out, trying to listen for the flutter of bat-wings instead. All she heard, however, was the sound of the water against the sh.o.r.e...and Michael's dying moans.

Dammit, she cursed silently. Where the h.e.l.l was Marcus?

Suddenly, the misshapen hybrid leapt out at her from behind a large wooden pillar. His wings lashed out at her, but Selene instantly flipped into the air, grabbing on to the underside of the pier with her right hand. The deadly pinions pa.s.sed beneath her, missing by inches.

Hanging by one hand from the rotted timbers, she fired down at Marcus with her Walther. Nine millimeters of solid silver tore through the Elder's flesh, causing him to grimace in pain. Instead of falling down, however, he flapped off the ground at Selene. Gritting his teeth against the impact of the bullets, he flew toward her like the Angel of Death, while she fired ceaselessly at his misshapen hybrid face.

His wings lashed out, his left nailing her right hand to the wooden crossbeam, while his right wing pierced her hip. Selene bit down on her lip to keep from crying out, while squeezing the trigger of her pistol until it ran dry. Gory bullet wounds marked the hybrid's mottled hide, but Marcus kept on coming. A s.a.d.i.s.tic grin twisted his lips.

Selene screamed in frustration as her gun clicked uselessly. Marcus drove his taloned wings even deeper in her flesh as he positioned his open jaws beneath her skewered hand. She watched helplessly as her blood streamed down toward the Elder's waiting maw. Her heart pounded against her will, speeding the crimson flow.

This is just what he needs!

The blood splattered across the hybrid's face. Closing his eyes to better savor the moment, he gulped it down eagerly, chasing after stray droplets with his tongue. He sighed in rapture as Selene's memories coursed through his brain: The dungeon was cold and damp. Selene was tired of playing there. "Come on, Cecilia!" she called to her sister as they ran up the stone pa.s.sageway toward the sun. Giggling, the girls raced past the straining laborers with their heavy carts. "Last one there is a silly goose!"

"No fair!" Cecilia complained as she dashed after her sister. "You've got a head start!"

Cecilia gave her a good chase, but the outcome was never in doubt. Selene burst out of the gloomy tunnel into the bright afternoon suns.h.i.+ne. "I win!" she shouted to Cecilia, who came rus.h.i.+ng out of the dungeon only moments later.

Selene turned around to look back the way she had come. The entrance to the dungeon had been dug into the forbidding face of a craggy mountaintop. A river wound its way through the rocky mountain pa.s.ses, while high above the raging torrents, Lord Viktor's castle sat atop the very peak of the mountain, its magnificent turrets and battlements reaching toward the sky. The imposing sight of the mighty fortress imprinted itself on the little girl's memory.

Marcus's black eyes snapped open. Selene's blood dripped from his chin as he smiled triumphantly.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Selene thought angrily. She felt violated by the Elder's attack. Fury helped her overcome the shock to her system as she reached for her spare handgun and blasted Marcus in the chest. The demonic hybrid shrieked in pain and tumbled back toward the water below.

His talons were yanked from her flesh and she fell like a rock toward the river below. The freezing water jolted her as she splashed into the Danube, sinking below the shallow waves. She kicked madly back up to the surface, and her head burst free of the river. Her eyes searched anxiously for Marcus, but the Elder was nowhere to be seen.

Of course, she thought bitterly. He got what he came for. The pendant and my blood. Now all he needs is the second half of the key, wherever that is.

Her gaze fell upon Michael, his unmoving body impaled upon the b.l.o.o.d.y strut, and every other consideration fled her mind. Heedless of her own injuries, she ran out of the river and over to the shattered strut. Icy water streamed down her soggy leather gear as she splashed through the shallows up to the sh.o.r.e.

Michael!

It was even worse than she remembered. At least a foot of rusty metal jutted from Michael's chest. His body was limp and still, his arms drooping at his sides. His agonized groans had fallen silent. His eyes, reverting to their mortal brown tint, stared blankly at the pier above them.

"Michael..." She gently lifted him off the impaling iron beam and laid him down on the wooden planks along the sh.o.r.e. Bending over him, she laid her hand against his cheek, hoping to get a response. Her fingers searched for a pulse. "Michael!"

It was no use. His chest had been torn to shreds, with a gaping hole where his heart should have been. Not even an Elder could survive such a wound.

Michael was dead.

"No!" Anger, an emotion she knew far better than grief, rushed over her. "d.a.m.n you!" She fell to her knees beside the body. Her clenched fists pounded upon his ravaged chest, coming away stained with his blood. Tears gushed from her eyes, mixing with the cold water dripping from her hair. Six hundred years of loss and heartbreak surged up inside her, spilling over the dams she had erected around her heart. Violent sobs racked her body.

"f.u.c.k!"

Chapter Nineteen.

"h.e.l.lo, Father."

Alexander Corvinus recognized his son's voice, even after centuries. The voice approached him from behind, Marcus having dropped through the shattered skylight into the office. Broken gla.s.s crunched beneath the intruder's feet, grinding the brittle fragments into the carpet.