"How?"

"I don't know. But I haven't felt this way in a long time."

Suddenly it occurred to her. "Since before the cancer." She bit her lip as a thought rose, a wonderful thought too much to consider in case it might be wrong.

Lorelei spoke it anyway. "They probably cured you."

She closed her eyes, opened them again. "That's not possible." 107 "Of course it is. Every blood cell in your body has died and been replaced by new blood."

"Vampire blood."

"That's right."

"I'm one of them now?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Dr. Greene showed me the slides. Nick's blood is definitely vampiric, but Julian's is something else. When the two were mixed, the result appeared to be normal, healthy cells, but it's possible that appearance is misleading."

"Then what's happened to me?"

"Don't ask anybody that question. They'll just tell you you'll have to wait and see."

Her tone drew Dina's attention. "You, too?"

Lorelei nodded. "Julian took a good deal of my blood and replaced it with some of his. Dr. Greene's taken several samples from me since and still hasn't figured out what happened.

Julian's blood shouldn't have reproduced enough to save me from the blood loss, but it did, or mine reproduced faster-he's not sure. I'm not a vampire, though. I don't get dragged down into the Sleep, and I can still face sunlight. As far as I can tell, nothing's changed."

"You have, though. You've changed."

"A little, I suppose. Being around vampires will do that to you."

"That's not all, though. There has to be a reason why you're still here. You love him, don't you?"

Nodding, Lorelei said, "Yes."

Dina wasn't convinced. It was hard to be convinced of anything in this place. "Are you sure? You can't have known him that long. Are you sure it's not just some mind trick of his?"

Lorelei laughed. "Relatively. Doesn't matter much either way. He's awfully good in bed."

Dina returned the laugh. Maybe Lorelei hadn't changed so much, after all. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself, then looked down involuntarily.

"Did you want these back?"

She looked back at Lorelei, who was holding up her bra 108 and prosthetics. They looked strange in Lorelei's hand, alien.

"No. Not right now."

She laid them on the table next to the bed. "Doesn't seem fair, does it? They can bring you back to life, they can grant you immortality if you want it, but they can't make anything grow back."

"Then what the h.e.l.l good are they?" She said it mildly, but an unreasoning anger rose behind the words. Anger, fear, and the same despairing loss she'd felt after each mastectomy. Tears rose. She swallowed hard to keep them back. She could have broken down here with Lorelei, but she had to ask another question first. She looked away, gathering herself. "Where's Nick? Is he all right?"

Lorelei didn't answer right away. She turned back to find her friend looking studiously away, at a corner of the windowless room.

"Lor, what is it?" Her fear shifted, strengthened. "Is he all right?"

"Julian's with him," Lorelei said slowly, still not looking at her. "Julian and Dr. Greene. And Vivian, I think. They're trying."

Her eyes met Dina's then, and Dina stared as realization flooded her. "He knew, didn't he? He knew this could kill him."

She nodded. "It was more than that, though. He knew it would probably kill him. There was more than a pa.s.sing chance."

"Why didn't he tell me?"

"Because he didn't want you to give up your life for his."

"Why should he give up his life for me?"

"Because he killed you."

There didn't seem to be an answer for that. Dina looked at her hands, where the pink had returned, and she could no longer see the blue-black, dying veins through parchment skin. "I want to see him."

"Then let's go."

Looking at him, it was hard to believe he wasn't dead. His skin as pasty-white as Dina's had been, no breathing stirring his body, he lay on a hospital bed in a specially appointed room deep within the Underground. Dina had followed Lorelei for 109 what seemed at least a mile before they'd reached the locked and barred door that led to a hallway smelling of antiseptic. An IV stand stood next to the bed, feeding blood into a vein in his arm. Dr. Greene stood next to it, marking information down on a chart. He looked up as the women came in.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, smiling only a little. He glanced at Nicholas'

still body and started to say something else, then shrugged and went back to his chart.

"How is he?" Dina ventured.

Julian rose from a chair in the corner. Dina started. She hadn't seen him sitting there. "It's not good." He looked wan.

Blood stained a bandage on his wrist where Dina had drunk.

Dr. Greene looked up from the chart. "He's gone into a deep coma, not unlike the daytime Sleep. It's keeping him from dying, but it's also keeping his body from processing the new infusions. As long as blood moves into his system, he'll stay alive, but the blood keeps dying. In this coma, his body can't dispose of the dead cells. Eventually they'll build up to a point where they'll kill him."

"There's nothing you can do?" It seemed wrong that she, who'd been so close to death, should be alive now, while he, who'd faced immortality, should die this way. For her.

"I'm doing everything I can. I have tests running in the lab, and if something works, we'll put it to work right away. But until I get a clearer idea of how to proceed, I can't do anything more than what I'm doing now. And what I'm doing now will eventually kill him."

A silence fell, like a single teardrop, filling the room. Dina stared at Nicholas' silent face and swallowed hard. "If there's anything I can do..."

Dr. Greene smiled gently. "I could take a blood sample from you. I'm not sure what the process has done, but there's a slight chance we might find something. I already tried Lorelei, and that got us nowhere."

"Anything."

"Sit down, then."

He took the sample, and she watched as the thick, garnet fluid filled the tube, turning it from gla.s.s to a great, ruby jewel. 110 A beautiful color, she thought. A life color. He withdrew the needle and folded her elbow back on a wad of cotton.

"I'll take a look." He lifted the test tube to the light, turning it as he peered through its garnet contents. "I'll head to the lab right now, in fact, if you'd like to stay here for a bit."

"Yes, I'll stay," said Dina. She rubbed her arm. It ached where he'd drawn the blood, up the length of the vein, seemingly all the way to her heart. Or perhaps her heart hurt for another reason.

"Julian, I'll need you," the doctor said.

Julian nodded and rose to follow Dr. Greene out the door.

He paused as if to speak to Dina, then just shook his head and left. Lorelei followed him.

Dina scrunched down, drawing her knees up to rest her heels on the edge of the chair. She leaned her head on her knees and looked at Nicholas.

So still. He couldn't answer any of her questions, not even the ones she most wanted answered. For a time she watched him, until his image blurred in the gathering of tears in her eyes.

She left the chair and slipped into the narrow bed, fitting herself against him under the blanket.

So cold. She pressed tight against him, trying to will her warmth past his skin, into his body where maybe it could awaken his sluggish blood.

Suddenly it all seemed hopeless. He'd saved her life-but for what? Could she go back to her old life now, knowing what she knew? Would they even let her? But could she stay here without Nick? She pressed her face between his shoulder blades, against his cold skin.

"Don't die on me, Nick. It's not right."

"It's also not necessary."

Dina jerked in surprise, shrinking behind the width of Nick's shoulders. Carefully, she craned her neck up, peeking over him.

She hadn't heard anyone enter the room, but there was someone there, standing on the other side of the bed near the door. He was tall and wore a long, dark brown robe. The robe's cowl obscured his face.

"How'd you get in here?" she whispered. She slid out of 111 the bed, as if standing to face him gave her some power.

He smiled. "Through the door."

Smart-a.s.s, she thought, then looked at him. Maybe not.

Maybe he'd meant through the door.

He was tall, monkish within the shadows of the hood. Then he pushed the cowl back and revealed his face. She looked at his eyes, and suddenly couldn't breathe.

He seemed like just a man at first, pushing hard at forty, with a scar across his nose and a haphazard brown beard softening the roughly hewn lines of his face. But his eyes- They were blue and infinite, and if Dina hadn't believed in the immortality of these people before, she did now, seeing those eyes.

She breathed hard a few times, filling lungs seemingly pressed empty. He only watched her, so still she wondered for a moment if he was there at all, even though she could see him clearly.

"It's not necessary?" she repeated, surprised she could remember the words, uttered an eternity ago.

"No. Julian can save him." He took a step toward the bed, a scarred finger brushing Nick's dark hair. "I would, but there's not quite enough left. My way would kill him."

Few of the words made sense. She jumped on the few that did. "Julian can save him?"

"Yes."

"Does Julian know this?"

"No."

Dina blinked. "Were you going to tell him, or should we just let Nick die?"

He smiled at the harshness of her tone. "I'll tell him." He closed his eyes, then looked at her again. "He's on his way."

"Okay, you're freakier than he is."

He grinned, and she decided she liked his smile. Except if she looked at his eyes while he smiled, it was too much. They seemed overfull, as if some of his infinite years had been irrevocably lost to him.

"I should hope so. I've worked hard to achieve that goal."

"How old are you?" 112 He shrugged. "I'm not really sure anymore."

She might have questioned him further, but Julian arrived then, slamming through the door to the small hospital room, Vivian, Lorelei and Dr. Greene right behind him. At the sight of Dina's companion, he came to an abrupt stop. A moment of chaos behind him somehow resolved itself without injury.

"You again," Julian said. "What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

"I've come to help." His gaze locked with Julian's.

"I want answers first," Julian demanded. He seemed unfazed by the eyes, but then he carried centuries in his own.

Not like the other man, though, not so full of years his eyes could barely hold them.

"You'll have answers," the man said. His voice was soft but strong, like a fall of rain that after a thousand years causes a cliff to fall into the sea. Its accent was odd and unfamiliar.

"It's time for the answers to begin."

"You disappeared before, when you healed me. Where did you go?"

"Away. It wasn't time."

"Can you say something that makes sense, please?"

The man smiled. "You can save him. I can show you how."

It made sense, but Dina could tell the statement had caught Julian as much by surprise as it had her. He swallowed, then recovering quickly, said, "How?"

"Come with me. I'll show you."

Julian studied him a moment. Dina's breath quickened, and she wanted to scream at him to just take care of Nick, for G.o.d's sake. But Julian said slowly, "I want a name. You haven't given me a name."

"What good would it do you? I've had thousands of them."