"What's wrong?" Lucien asked.

"Nothing." Julian crossed the room to sit on the low couch, sighing as he sank into the cushions. "Lorelei."

"Women," said Lucien.

Julian's mouth tightened. "It's more than that.

It's...complicated." He plucked a cigarette from a box on the desk and lit it. "What did you want?"

Lucien took a computer disk from his shirt pocket and pa.s.sed it to Julian. "The work's not done yet, but this section should interest you."

Taking a long, apparently satisfying drag from the cigarette, Julian went to the computer and put the disk in the drive. Lucien waited until Julian looked up, eyebrows raised.

"That's you," he said quietly.

"'The Eater of Light arises to break the ranks of the Children. Those who choose to walk in darkness will rise up in hatred to end the changing of the blood.' This makes no sense."

Lucien shrugged. "We had dreams, the two of us. We did the best we could. Dreams are a tricky business."

"All that impenetrable symbolism from the collective subconscious."

"You've read some Jung, then."

"h.e.l.l, I talked to Jung once. Never did understand what the h.e.l.l he was getting at." He turned his attention back to the computer. "'If the Eater of Light fails to turn the others to light, those who walk in darkness will prevail, and the earth will suffer. 171 Not only the Children, but the mortals of the world will walk in rivers of blood.' It's like any other prophetic vision. It makes no sense, and you could interpret it eighteen different ways."

"But you are the Eater of Light."

Julian studied him through narrowed eyes. "How do you figure?"

"I showed you, with Nicholas. You feed on life energy, but at the same time you give it back. I feed on life energy, but my feeding diminishes it. Yours increases it. If you fed on a mortal, gave him what you have..."

"I would change him?"

"Yes. You could always give mortals immortality, with the price of the vampire's way of life. But now the gift you could grant is of a much different sort."

"Then what have I done to Lorelei?"

"She's still in flux from feeding on your blood, but something very strong grows in her."

"It's called her anger." He laughed dryly. "Never mind.

That's my personal trial."

"Partly. But before it's over, I think there'll be wider implications."

"Can you say anything straight out, without leaving four thousand questions behind?"

"No."

Julian leaned back in his chair, shoving a hand through his hair. "So, these Children who walk in darkness-who are they?"

"There was another faction, even back then, who rejected the visions. It's the reason the Book was lost in the first place.

No change should come-we're meant to be demons, and to follow whatever path leads us deeper into that part of our nature.

They refuse to accept that we were left with another choice.

Or at least refuse to accept that it's the proper choice."

"And where are they?"

"Everywhere." Lucien shrugged in vague apology for the flip answer. "I'm sure they'll turn up soon, when news starts to travel."

"Great." He snubbed out his cigarette, staring at the remains.

"Why me?" 172 "Because you took the first step. You found a way to become something else."

"I can't be the only one."

"You won't be, in the end."

"And the picture becomes remarkably clear."

"At least you know you have something to look forward to."

Julian shook his head, lighting another cigarette. "I guess a prophecy wouldn't be a prophecy if you could just come out and say it."

"Time is too fluid for that."

Julian gave him an odd look, but Lucien didn't elaborate.

He didn't know how. It was one of those things you just couldn't understand until you'd lived twelve thousand years. He stood.

"I'll talk to you later. Give my regards to Lorelei."

When she went to her office the next evening, Vivian was surprised to see not Lucien but Julian sitting at the desk, looking through the computer files.

"h.e.l.lo, Viv," he said. "How are you?"

"Where's Lucien?"

"He asked me to take over for him today. He seemed to think you'd be happier that way."

Vivian nodded. Understandable how he'd come to that conclusion. She wasn't sure he was right, though. She felt a need to protest, to justify herself to Julian, but all she said was, "I see."

They were silent for a time, Vivian looking through the loose pages where she'd left off yesterday. Then words came out of her mouth. She listened, wondering what exactly she'd decided to say.

"Did he say anything to you?"

Julian looked up, eyebrows compressed. "About what?"

"About why I might be more comfortable."

"Not really. Why?"

Vivian opened her mouth, closed it again. "Nothing. Never mind."

Julian looked back at the computer, still frowning. After a 173 moment he clicked the mouse. The printer moaned to life, coughed out a single page. It sounded very close to death, Vivian thought. They should get a new one. Then she wondered what exactly Julian had printed when he s.n.a.t.c.hed the page off the printer and half-ran out of the room.

She sat down at the computer but could find nothing out of the ordinary either in the e-mail he'd been perusing or the word processing program running in the background. Perplexed, she clicked through a few programs, trying to see if he'd hidden anything. She really didn't know enough about computers to figure that out, though.

Then she found another open window, underneath the Internet navigator and the word processing program. Julian had left the computer logged on, and the window listed all the other computers in the Underground that were also logged on. Julian's was one of them. That computer had been logged in for the past three hours.

It wasn't Julian, then. Vivian chewed her lip, then clicked on the icon that identified that system. Hands poised over the keyboard, she wiggled her fingers a moment, then typed, "Lucien, is that you?"

The wait went on forever. Finally his answer came back.

"Vivian?"

"Yes."

"Are you speaking to me again?"

She smiled. Despite herself, a warmth grew in her chest.

"If this counts as speaking, then I suppose yes."

"Good."

She drummed her fingers on the keyboard, thinking, then erased the stray letters she'd accidentally typed. "I need you to do one thing for me."

"What?"

"Just give me a reason. It doesn't have to be a big reason.

Just any reason, why it took you so long."

The pause dragged out for what seemed like hours. Vivian chewed on a fingernail.

Then his answer appeared. "I guess I just lost track of time." 174 She laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. Bending her head back, she stared at the ceiling until tears no longer threatened.

"You're an a.s.shole," she typed. "Get over here."

He was there almost before her fingers left the keys. He stood at the door and looked at her, a smile on his mouth, his gray eyes more open to her than she'd ever seen them. There was love there, and hope.

"If you ever lose track of time again," she told him slowly, "you might also lose track of a few limbs." She stood, walking toward him, her whole body hot and tingling. "Better yet, remember that story I told you about Osiris?"

He nodded slowly, a grin making his mouth lopsided. "You mean where they cut him up and his wife found everything but the really important part?"

"If you can't keep anything else in your sorry excuse for a memory, remember that. It could save your...neck."

"Point taken," he said, then lifted her in his arms and made it impossible for either of them to say anything at all.

Darkness filled the room like smoke, an unnatural darkness that seemed not to obscure the light, but to eat it. Within it darker forms moved. Mouths opened, the darkness inside them blacker than emptiness. Cold flowed out of their gaping depths.

Lucien woke with a start. The cold still gripped him as Vivian moved closer, wrapping an arm around his waist from behind. Her lips touched his back, between his shoulder blades.

"What is it, love?" she mumbled sleepily.

His hand closed tight over hers. "They're coming." 175 LORELEI.

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

-Proverbs 21:9 His name will not be spoken. He devours men and G.o.ds. He eats their powers and swallows their souls. He devours hearts and incantations. He drinks blood and knowledge. Those who live within these walls are soulless. He has eaten them.

-An inscription in hieroglyphics on the wall of the Lost Pyramid. Sent via e-mail to Julian Cavanaugh by the Egyptian Vampire Enclave When blood moves again within the Transformed One, he will bring forth life out of death. His blood will live again, and he will create his own heir.

-The Book of Changing Blood 176

ONE.

Lorelei Fletcher.

Lorelei Fletcher.

She looked at herself in the mirror and barely recognized her own face. It had been this way for too long. She didn't think she could stand it anymore.

It would be easier if she had some way to know exactly what had changed back in November, or if anything had changed at all, when Julian had taken her blood and given it back. He'd changed, that was certain. But she didn't know if she had, and the question ate at her, refusing to let go.

Over the right shoulder of her reflection, she could see Julian curled up in bed, naked, a sheet tangled uselessly around his knees. It was the first time he'd slept in a long time. He didn't seem to need it anymore, or at least not much of it. But last night he'd slipped into the bed with her, curled up against her and cradled her, demanding nothing more. The gesture had touched her, and her eyes still felt tight and puffy from weeping.

Because it hadn't been enough.

She straightened her hair, took one last look at herself in the mirror, and left him there.

"So what exactly seems to be the problem?" Dr. Greene regarded her, his hazel eyes gentle behind wire-rimmed gla.s.ses.