Aidan was taken aback, but he smiled and offered his hand. "Aren't you a little young to be part of such an august group?"

Tobias gave a slow grin. "I guess that depends on how you define the word young. I was among the first vampires created." The sudden stunned expression on Aidan's face seemed to please him. "Come. Even we old ones don't enjoy tangling with the likes of Lisette. She can be such a b.i.t.c.h."

In the next instant everything went dark, and Aidan heard a rushing sound. When he was conscious again, he found himself standing with Tobias in a natural tunnel, beside an underground river. There was no light, but that didn't matter, of course, for a vampire's vision is at its best in the blackest gloom.

"Where are we?"

Tobias sighed. "You don't need to know that," he answered with cordial impatience. He sighed again. "I'm afraid Aubrey was quite right about you. You're not much of a vampire."

"No," Aidan said evenly. "I'm not."

"He says you want to be changed back into a man." The words echoed in the dank chamber, hollow with disbelief. "Is that true?" "Absolutely," Aidan answered. He felt a thrumming excitement deep inside, as well as a certain well-founded terror. "I did not willingly become a vampire. I was forced."

"You are not the first," Tobias pointed out, clearly unmoved.

"Perhaps not," Aidan agreed mildly. "But I am a weak link in the chain. You saw for yourself, back there on Lisette's terrace, how easy it is to catch me unawares. Suppose I fall into the hands of those who are enemies to all vampires-the Warrior Angel, for example.

What's his name again? Ah, yes. Nemesis. What if I were to be captured by Nemesis and forced to tell all I know about blood-drinkers such as yourself? The Dark Kingdom would crumble then, wouldn't it, like a castle of sand?"

"I have only to destroy you, here and now, to prevent such a tragedy," Tobias said coolly.

Aidan was aware of the creature's tension, however; he was like a string on an instrument, pulled tight and ready to snap.

Aidan smiled. "I am an insignificant vampire," he admitted, "but there are those who would miss me, and even dare to avenge my destruction."

"Valerian," Tobias said despairingly. "And Maeve."

"You know them, then," Aidan chimed, in a pleased tone that was meant to be irritating.

"They are rebellious and cause the elders a great deal of consternation."

Aidan made a tsk-tsk sound, well aware that he was on proverbial thin ice. "I don't know what vampirism is coming to," he said. "Do you?"

Tobias glared. "This way," he growled. Then he turned and moved along the stream's edge, headed into the very heart of the darkness, and Aidan followed.

Eventually they reached a large, torch-lit cave, where ancient scenes and symbols had been painted onto the walls, among the earlier sketches and scrawls of prehistoric man.

Aidan would have been fascinated if his business in that place hadn't been so crucial.

The vampires a.s.sembled themselves from particles of dust in the air around Aidan, it seemed to him, the oldest blood-drinkers on earth, some fresh-faced like Tobias, others with flowing silver beards and skin as crinkled and weathered as aged leather.

"This one would be mortal again," Tobias announced to the gathering, his bewilderment plain in his voice. "He says he was made against his will."

The elders murmured among themselves as they walked around Aidan, examining him, but their language was unfamiliar.

Aidan kept his shoulders straight and looked each one, in turn, directly in the eye. He caught the name "Nemesis" in the conversational drift, and knew Tobias had reported his threat.

They might well destroy him now, Aidan thought. He was mildly surprised to realize that he didn't care; having met Neely, and been reminded of what he was missing, he knew he would rather perish by the most horrible of means than live for all eternity knowing she could never be his.

If he could not be restored to his humanity, if he could not love Neely freely, and without fear, he wanted only destruction.

At long last the circling ceased. One of the elders leaned close to Aidan and rasped in English, "Do you follow Nemesis?" Aidan showed his fangs, in a rather impudent and theatrical way. "I am no angel," he pointed out in the next moment.

The ancient vampire's glacial blue eyes narrowed, and he made an angry gesture with one age-gnarled hand. "Confine this unmannerly whelp where he can do no harm to himself or the rest of us. We will decide his fate later."

Vampires closed in on either side of Aidan, taking his arms, and he struggled, but in vain.

Still, he did not regret the course he'd taken, for he was willing to risk anything, undergo any ordeal, in order to be with Neely.

Aidan was dragged to a barred chamber and flung inside. His fine clothes were torn away without ceremony or apology, and he was given a monk's robe, made of some coa.r.s.e brown cloth. He put the garment on, for the sake of his own dignity, and when his jailers had left him, he tried the bars.

They were immovable.

"I trust you're happy now," a familiar voice said.

He turned to see Tobias standing just behind him, inside the cell, and scowled.

"Overjoyed," he replied.

Tobias shook his head, clearly amazed. "Such infernal audacity."

"There's nothing worse than a smart-a.s.s vampire," Aidan agreed.

Tobias laughed outright at that. "If you say so. You're the first blood-drinker ever to ask for transformation-did you know that? That's why you're not staked out in some desert somewhere, waiting for the sun to cook you by degrees, you understand. Because you're an oddity."

Aidan was careful not to let his trepidation show, although to be forced to endure the cruel ministrations of the sun was among the worst fears of nearly every vampire. "Have they destroyed others that way?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. Over the centuries certain rebellious ones have had to be... dealt with," Tobias answered. "We learned that particular trick from Nemesis."

An involuntary chill pa.s.sed through Aidan at the mention of the Warrior Angel, and Tobias chuckled, recognizing it for what it was. There was no mercy in Nemesis, despite his ties with the Kingdom of Heaven; he had been conducting a personal vendetta against blood-drinkers for thousands of years.

"Is there a way?" Aidan whispered, his voice hoa.r.s.e. "Is it possible to go back to what I was?"

For the first time since their arrival in that pit, there was a glimmer of compa.s.sion in Tobias's deceptively youthful face. "Some of the oldest ones wanted to try, for the sake of learning, but it was always forbidden. After all, those who failed would logically be brought before the Throne of Judgment. If Nemesis is as he is, can you imagine what his Master must be like?"

Aidan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and nodded. "Yes-yes, I can imagine. And I'd rather face even Him than go on as I have been since Lisette changed me!"

"Then you are either a vampire of uncommon courage or a mad one! Which is it?"

He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know," Aidan said. "I honestly don't know." "Why do you want the transformation so much?"

Aidan knew he could not hide Neely's image from this ancient vampire, and he did not try. "I love a human woman."

"You must care a great deal," Tobias marveled, "to take such a risk as the one confronting you now." Having offered this observation, he watched Aidan in troubled silence for a few seconds, then vanished.

Aidan slept, dreamed fitful dreams of Neely, and awakened believing they were together.

His despair at the discovery that he was still alone, and a prisoner in the bargain, was a cruder burden than any he had ever borne.

Twenty-four hours later, when Aidan was half-mad with thirst, he was given three enormous rats, scrabbling inside a picnic basket.

Aidan broke their necks, one by one, and tossed their blood-filled bodies through the bars.

When another twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed, he was in a fever, crouched against a wall of his cell, his mind loose inside his skull, hot with delirium.

A form appeared before him, wavering and slender.

"Go away," he moaned, turning his head.

"So stubborn," a feminine voice scolded, and the sound of it was like cool water pouring gently over his parched spirit.

"Neely," he rasped.

She laughed at him. "No, silly." He felt her cold lips nuzzle the burning flesh of his throat, started when her fangs punctured it. Blood flowed into Aidan, reviving, sustaining blood, and he was helpless to resist. He drank, all his dried and empty veins leaping greedily to life, and when at last it was over and he could focus his gaze, he saw Roxanne Havermail kneeling beside him.

She ran her fingers through his dirty hair, and he felt the sticky pressure of her lips where she kissed him on the forehead, undoubtedly leaving a smudge of blood.

"How did you get in here?" Aidan rasped, resisting the urge to push her away.

Roxanne smiled, then touched his mouth tentatively with her own. "What does that matter? I am well able to escape and I will take you with me." She laid her hand to his face, and he felt its hardness and its chill. "Close your eyes, darling. Think of candlelight, and soft music, and-"

Aidan lost consciousness, mesmerized by her words, her tone, her caress.

When he awakened, he was lying on silk sheets, stripped of the rough robe his captors had provided, and Roxanne was washing him tenderly with warm, perfumed water.

He tried to sit up, found himself too weak. Obviously the one feeding had not been enough to restore his full powers. Instead it had merely drawn him back from the brink of either blessed oblivion or the unbridled wrath of G.o.d.

Roxanne bent and kissed his bloodless chest.

"No," he said.

She drew back, looked at him with wide amber eyes, then narrowed ones. "What did you say?"

Vampire s.e.x, a cataclysmic and usually violent joining of two immortal bodies, was not without a certain appeal at that point, but Aidan wasn't about to indulge. His love for Neely, however hopeless, wouldn't permit it.

"You heard me," he told Roxanne. "Nothing is going to happen between us-Mrs.

Havermail."

Roxanne sighed and continued to bathe him. "Honor among fiends," she said. "Tiresome.

Plain tiresome."

Valerian, Aidan thought. Help me.

Chapter 11.

Melody Ling, the television reporter, agreed to a rendezvous, but only after a little fast talking on Neely's part. Although Neely refused to identify herself directly, she had to do some pretty heavy name-dropping in order to establish credibility-and hint that someone inside the FBI had obstructed justice. The site of the proposed meeting, an isolated, long- unused wooden bridge in the woods of central Maine, was chosen by mutual consent, during half a dozen fragmented calls from as many different telephones.

Neely left Aidan's car parked in the small garage behind Wendy Browning's beach cottage and took the bus to the village, stopping off on the way to purchase a long red wig and big sungla.s.ses. Of course she was taking an enormous chance, trusting a total stranger to meet her alone in an out-of-the-way place, but it seemed like a better bet than heading for New York and strolling into network headquarters with the packet of proof under one arm.

When the bus stopped in snowy Danfield Crossing, Neely remained in her seat, toward the back, watching everyone else get off. Once she was fairly sure no one was lurking outside, waiting for her, she made her way up the aisle, her purse under one elbow, carrying a disreputable old duffel bag she'd found in the shed behind Wendy's cottage.

There was no need to ask directions to the old bridge; Neely and Ben and their father had fished for brook trout there, years ago, and the place shimmered brightly in her memory.

After a quick glance around, she set off for the woods, not following the county road, but keeping to the narrow, hard-packed trails left by cross-country skiers.

Melody Ling was waiting patiently behind the wheel of a rental car, looking intent in the chilly afternoon sunlight. Her dark hair was moussed, her makeup too heavy and artful for the occasion, and she seemed poised to go on camera immediately. None of which mattered to Neely.

Seeing her mysterious contact come trundling out of the woods beside the road must have been disconcerting, but Ling didn't flinch. She opened the car door and stepped out onto the icy road in high heels.

Neely glanced around nervously, but no gun-toting criminals or FBI men burst out of the bushes, and it was still too early in the day for vampires.

She approached Ling and held out the manila packet, which was still wrapped in plastic.

"Here's the evidence we talked about," she said, considering a preamble unnecessary.

Ling took the offering. "You'll grant me an exclusive interview, once everything has gone down?" Neely nodded. "I'll be in touch," she said. She smiled. "Good luck-and thanks."

The reporter nodded back, got into her car, and left.

Neely immediately returned to the village, by way of the woods. She bought a fish sandwich and a diet soda in a convenience store and hitched a ride back to the coast with a trucker who wore a T-shirt with a picture of his three toothless children on the front.

It had all gone so well, she reflected, settling into the pa.s.senger seat of the big rig to watch the night scenery goby.

So amazingly well.

"What happened to him?" Valerian demanded, arriving in the guest wing of Havermail Castle with an unceremonious crash.

Roxanne turned from Aidan's bedside, one hand to her throat in a gesture of gracious alarm. She was a vile strumpet, without a shred of loyalty to adorn her nature, and Valerian despised her.

She simpered. "Mr. Tremayne actually dared to challenge the Brotherhood," she marveled. "Was that your idea?"

Valerian approached the bed and peered down into Aidan's sleeping face. The bas.e.m.e.nt chamber was completely dark, since the windows were sealed, and tallow candles provided an eerie, wavering light. Gently the elder vampire laid a hand to a pale but well-sculpted shoulder.

"Aidan," he said, despairing, ignoring the female.

"He's weak," Roxanne said with a saintly sigh, "but he'll recover with proper care."

Valerian was at last able to lift his eyes from Aidan's still features to Roxanne's chillingly perfect ones. "He was a captive, and you rescued him." The statement was meant as a question, and it held no note of praise.

Roxanne nodded. "In a manner of speaking. The Brotherhood had thought to break Aidan by punishment, and they failed. No one tried to stop me when I went to him."