"What does he smell like?" The question was more than a little facetious, and Lucien tilted an eyebrow at him.

"Like me, but evil."

Agitated as he was, Julian couldn't hold back a smile. "G.o.d, he must reek." He pushed his hands through his hair, sending a cascade of dirt and small rocks toward the ground. Coming out of that last tunnel had been like a birthing. "Vivian seemed to know quite a lot about these tunnels."

Lucien squared his shoulders with a disconcerting pop. Julian grimaced, realizing what had just happened. Lucien hadn't been hunched before-he'd dislocated both his shoulders to make it through the too-narrow tunnel. Now he tilted his head, eyes closed. "She helped map a large section of them for the former Senior shortly after she arrived in New York. That was about a hundred-and-fifty years ago." He looked up. "That way."

He pointed toward what looked like little more than a cleft in the opposite wall. "That's a way?" said Julian.

"I hope so." Lucien headed across the small room and stuck an arm into the cleft, his body following after a disconcerting moment during which Julian was relatively certain Lucien reconfigured half his rib cage.

Well, that was encouraging. Hoping he wouldn't have to follow Lucien's example and rearrange any parts of himself, 199 Julian followed.

"You're certain this is what happened?"

"She has some kind of power. I'm not certain she's aware of it, herself."

"What is your estimate of this power?"

"It's strong. Very strong."

"She was supposed to be human."

"If she was, she's not anymore."

Lorelei shifted on the thin pallet. She'd discovered over the last couple of hours that she could tune in to her captors'

conversation. When it had happened earlier in the day, it had been an accident, brought on most likely by her sheer weariness.

Now, if she closed her eyes and let herself drift into something approximating a meditative state-which wasn't too hard given how exhausted she was-she could listen in at will. The trick was keeping herself in the semi-meditative state without falling asleep.

She'd learned a great deal over the last two hours. First and foremost, Lilith was afraid of her. Ialdaboth was confused by her. He'd expected something different. Something wholly human, for starters. Her pregnancy had surprised him, as well.

At first he'd seen it as an advantage. Lorelei's state would make her more malleable, Julian that much more willing to cooperate. Now it looked more like a liability.

"The pregnancy brings her power." This was Ialdaboth, his "voice" a dark, smoky sound, a black serpent slithering through her brain. "She will do things she wouldn't normally do, to protect the child."

d.a.m.n straight. At least they seemed to have a clue what they were messing with. Where before they'd dismissed her as weak and inferior, now they were taking her seriously. Best of all, they didn't seem to realize her "power" extended to eavesdropping on their conversations through a stone wall.

Lilith's voice sounded again, a paler snake of thought-sound.

"But he will, as well. He will come to save the child, if not to save her."

Another sensation pa.s.sed through Lorelei's inner hearing. 200 Like a long breath or a sigh, but black and reeking. She breathed slowly through her mouth to keep herself from flinching away.

Then Ialdaboth spoke again. "I must evaluate this before we proceed."

Lorelei jumped, immediately breaking the connection. She'd felt Ialdaboth move forward, physically, toward the door to her chamber. Swallowing her fear, she drew herself up on her small pallet, putting as much confidence into her posture as she could muster.

Ialdaboth's exterior wasn't nearly as frightening as the voice she'd been hearing in her head. He reminded her of Lucien, in fact. Tall like Lucien, with similarly rough-etched features, as if he'd been made before G.o.d had quite figured out how to properly configure the human face. He had scars, too, like Lucien, threading all over his face, but his were darker, more recent.

The similarities ended, though, when she looked into his eyes. The eyes were ancient like Lucien's, but those thousands of years were full of hatred, pain-she hesitated at the word "evil," but perhaps it was the only word that fit.

"Lorelei Fletcher," he said. His voice thrummed, and she wondered if he were trying to put the vampire whammy on her.

Nicholas had done it to her once, some time ago, but she'd changed since then. The rhythm of her heartbeat seemed to change a little, and her throat tightened.

"That's my name," she said evenly.

Ialdaboth took another long step into the room, letting Lilith come in behind him. He wore black, head to toe, with a little silver piping at his collar and a big, square, silver buckle on his black belt. No cape, though, so at least he'd stopped a few millimeters from pure melodrama.

"What are you?" he asked.

She shrugged. "How the h.e.l.l should I know?"

He took a step closer, and she craned her neck up at him, still sitting serenely on the pallet, legs crossed, hands cupped one atop the other in her lap as if she were about to embark on a flight of Zen meditation. With effort, she kept her breathing long and slow, kept the ghost of a smile on her mouth. He 201 stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes locked to hers.

She stared back and realized his gaze had no effect on her.

Was that normal?

Finally he squatted in front of her pallet. Silent, he continued to search her eyes, his mouth tightening as the seconds pa.s.sed and Lorelei continued to smile placidly at him. She still wasn't sure what he was doing, but apparently it wasn't working.

Then she felt the little threads, mobile threads that worried their way down into her mind. Black threads, the same color as his shirt. He was, indeed, trying to put the vampire whammy on her.

So she thought about white. White light that filled her mind and ate the black threads as they tried to infringe. The threads dissolved in the onslaught, and she kept her Mona Lisa smile as she focused again on Ialdaboth's face.

And just for a moment she saw fear there.

If she could put fear in this creature's face, what else could she do? What had Julian made her into? She couldn't think about that now. Later.

Ialdaboth, rose, the scars on his face suddenly a shade redder than they had been before, took a step back, then turned and left the small, stinking room.

Julian leaned against the wall, puffing on a cigarette while Lucien stood staring into s.p.a.ce. Per Lucien's earlier request, he blew the smoke back into the cleft from which they'd just emerged. Apparently when you were sniffing for evil, cigarette smoke interfered. But after that last tunnel, Julian had needed one rather desperately. He still hurt where he'd sc.r.a.ped half the skin off his back, though the wound had already healed. His shirt, however, would never recover.

"They're on the other side of this wall," Lucien announced suddenly.

Julian took a last drag on the cigarette and snubbed it out.

He seemed to need fewer lately, to get the same effect. Maybe his body was naturally weaning itself. That would make Lorelei happy.

"So how do we get through the wall?" 202 Lucien looked back over his shoulder at Julian, frowning.

"Well, that's the trick, isn't it?" He put his hands against the wall and closed his eyes.

Julian swallowed frustration. Lucien's methods didn't make much sense to him, and for the most part Lucien didn't bother to explain them, but they seemed to work. So, for the moment, it seemed wise just to let the big demon-sp.a.w.n work.

"I think I can do this," he said finally, straightening.

"Do what?"

"Take us through this wall. There's an open s.p.a.ce on the

other side, part of a small complex of caves. Ialdaboth is in those caves, and another vampire, and someone else that must be Lorelei."

"A human?"

"No. Not human." He shook his head. "I'm pretty sure it's Lorelei, but she feels different than she did even as recently as the last time I saw her." He turned away from the wall. "Had you noticed that? That she was changing?"

Julian shook his head. "I don't have your sensitivity."

"But you Made her."

"I didn't Make her in the sense that I created another

vampire. Whatever I did to her didn't cause the same kind of connection. I can sense things from her, but they're vague."

"Interesting. I wonder what exactly you did to her."

He said it matter-of-factly, but Julian couldn't help an inward cringe. He'd wondered the same thing, many times since the day he'd sent Lorelei off nearly to death and brought her back.

But a number of factors had contributed to her transformation.

He kept reminding himself of that, if only to alleviate his guilt.

"Or what we did to her," Lucien added, and Julian nodded.

That felt more fair. Lucien rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. "So are you ready?"

"Ready for what?"

"To go through this wall."

"Are you sure you can do it?"

"We'll either make it through or end up embedded in granite

for eternity."

Julian made a face. "That'd kill me, wouldn't it?" 203 "Probably. It wouldn't kill me, though, and that'd be a b.i.t.c.h."

He gestured to Julian. "Let's go."

"It's not right."

"You question my judgement?"

"Yes, I do."

"I thought I trained you better than that."

"You trained me to obey without question."

"Then why are you not doing that?"

"Because this makes no sense."

Lorelei opened her eyes, easing the intensity of the thoughts she eavesdropped on. Some of the background emotions were so strong they physically hurt. The power of Ialdaboth's mind frightened her, yet he couldn't hear her intrusion. And Lilith- she lacked the power, but within her boiled conflict so violent Lorelei marveled she could even contain it.

I betray myself. I betray everything I have been taught, everything I have ever been. Instinctively, Lorelei knew these were Lilith's unvoiced thoughts. She seemed to burrow deeper into Lilith's mind with each session of contact.

You betray nothing, Lorelei thought, and wondered if Lilith could hear her. The world is about to change forever. Choose your side. Side with the Eaters of Light.

She wasn't even sure where some of that had come from.

She was starting to sound like Lucien. And her head was starting to hurt from the intensity of what she did. She rubbed her belly in a slow, circular motion, half-convinced she could sense the growing child inside her.

"Hang on," she said aloud, softly. "Just hang on."

"Lorelei."

She sat up straight, shocked at the new voice. She knew it.